With everything scheduled, he placed the letter down on the side and a few moments later, he witnessed the hasty flight of the owl who once again braved the tempest, although without the load of the letter.
Looking at the outside where the storm wasn’t even close to end, he walked back inside.
At this rate, the storm would last for the entire day.
His previous divination had brought him important information.
However, for the moment, knowing that a teacher would come and get him a few days later, he decided to continue working on his mind defenses.
After all, in the short-term, nothing else was as important as these defenses.
So, for the following three days, Lux did nothing else but meditate to calm and control his emotions while starting the second phase of occlumency, creating his mind shields.
While he had nothing exaggerated as of this moment, as it took a surprisingly large amount of mental energy to create, it would have to do.
At least, compared to his previous empty mind, there were now some wooden walls and a few traps here and there in a random manner.
The traps themselves weren’t very difficult to circumvent or ignore.
Yet, their presence was all that mattered as it proved he had reached a new stage in the development of his mind’s protection.
His occlumency after three days of work had improved from the 1044 exp all the way to 1233.
Perhaps it wasn’t much but it was still progress albeit slow progress.
Yet, Lux knew that the moment he pushed it to the maximum experience, the skill would almost guarantee a perfect defense for his mind so he wasn’t disheartened by the slow progress.
After all, it was all but normal that the easier types of spells would be easier to master as there was a lot less knowledge to master compared to advanced subjects such as mind magics.
As the light of the day rose in the horizon, the young boy knew that the professor would arrive shortly.
Now, all he had to do was prepare some funds and while he might not have any money, he had plenty of materials.
He only needed to figure out which one to bring and sell and he would keep the others for his own potions studies.
Entering the storage room, he looked through the hundreds of small compartments and finally focused straight on a few special ones.
Opening the one which read ‘Norwegian Ridgeback Dragon Blood’, he looked through the thousands of filled vials and took five of them before once more closing the compartment and looking at another one.
Opening one a few shelves away, he opened the compartments with: ‘Acromantula Venom’ and ‘Willingly given Unicorn Blood’.
Looking at the purple greenish venom in one of the vials, Lux nodded his head and kept seven of them all for sale once he arrived in the wizarding market.
According to the few potion recipes he had read, acromantula venom and dragon blood were both extremely important catalysts.
Simply by the fact that the tag in front of the compartment wrote ‘willingly given’ proved that unicorn blood taken forcibly might be extremely useful despite the problems with it.
As such, according to his train of thought, willingly given Unicorn Blood might just be worth an extremely high amount of money.
Looking around and not recognizing the other materials such as the first heart of a demon or the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Lux didn’t take any more as he figured each and every single one of them should be relatively precious and keeping them in storage didn’t matter for the time being.
Leaving the storage area a few minutes before nine, he stored all five dragon blood vials, seven acromantula venom and two vials of willingly given unicorn blood in a small pouch bag before waiting patiently for the professor.
He had no idea how he or she might enter his cave as the storm of the past few days had yet to subside, growing even more intense as the days went by.
According to his experience with such storms, it would last another two days or so before finally calming down and granting him at least a week or two of good weather.
Just as he was thinking, the figure of a woman appeared near the cave’s entrance.
Wearing a black robe and a pointed hat, the stern look of the woman made him shrink back slightly.
Yet as he looked at her, he immediately knew.
‘This is a witch.’
“Are you Mr.
Arden?” She asked as she waved a piece of wood around her, causing the water stuck on her robes to simply head back out of the cave.
“Yes.” He replied, a little more confidently as he got up from the small bed he now used as a chair.
“I am a professor of Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall.
Next time you know a teacher comes to get you, please don’t come in a remote cave and stay at your home.
After all, I need to talk to your parents or guardian before taking you to Diagon Alley and the storm here is really unsafe.” She said with a small scowl on her face as it was the first time she had such difficulty reaching a prospective student, her first impression of him already relatively bad.
She figured that if the castle’s potion master was the one to come, he would have simply turned around and left.
Yet, her last sentence showed a care in her words as the exterior, in the middle of the storm, was truly unsafe for someone who had yet to learn magic.
“I’m afraid you misunderstood, professor.” He started, not backing down while explaining his circumstances.
“I am an orphan and I have no parents or guardians to speak of.
As for this cave, it is my home.” He explained with a straight face while looking at the professor whose face blanched hearing his words.
“You mean that you live here?” She asked once more in confirmation, a frown marring her face as she took in her surroundings including the various supplies properly stored in the side of the cave.
Yet, as she took her surroundings, she suddenly noticed the rune scheme engraved on the wall.
Turning back to look at the young child who seemed a lot more mature than the others his age, she couldn’t help but reevaluate him.
Not many could live on their own in a remote cave, especially through a storm and still be calm about it.
Yet, the rune scheme on the wall, completely different from the others inscribed all around the cave, proved that the young boy might already have some understanding of magic.
“Did you create this ward?” She suddenly asked as she pointed at the obviously beginner’s ward inscribed on the wall, some expectations on her face which Lux noticed.
“Hum?
Yes I did.” He smiled proudly before continuing.
“It took me over a year to understand and solve the other ones and now this cave belongs to me so I added a new ward to help me see during the night.” He explained, hoping to see more of her awe, something he had never seen on someone when looking at him.
Plenty of students in the village of Dale had received this expression from their parents, yet as an orphan he had none of it.
As such, seeing this expression on this Hogwarts professor’s face was all he needed.
He longed to receive such a look, just a single one would be enough.
As he waited expectantly, he finally saw it.
The teacher’s eyes changed when she looked at him.
“You managed to solve this rune scheme?” She asked, surprised as she looked around, not certain if she herself would be able to.
She herself had never studied runes in depth but she still had a basic understanding of them.
Confused for a moment as the professor looked at places where there were no runes at all, he suddenly remembered the letter he had read previously.
“No, the runes I had to decipher are a lot easier than those you currently see.
The ward is based on the age of the one who enters the cave.
As such, it was a lot easier for me than it is for you.” He explained as she nodded her head, looking curiously yet awed at the work on the cave’s wall.
The runes seemed almost alive as they swam through the stone walls.
Yet, should she not directly pay attention to them, they would simply disappear from her sight, something that both shocked and awed her.
It was a true mastery of runes and array-making.
“Alright.
I guess there was some secret behind those runes and if you managed to solve them, it is more than enough and only yours to know.” She stated, her expression easing as a smile graced her aging face, as she hinted to keep this a secret as perhaps many people would be interested in finding treasure of ancient knowledge behind those runes.
“So, where do we go now?” Asked Lux with concern as they still had shopping to do for the day.
“Now?
We’re heading to Diagon Alley, the biggest shopping street of magical Britain.” She said, a smile appearing as she answered his question, offering her arm for him to latch to.