Following the directions on the parchment, Vaughn found his dormitory.
Slytherin dorms were typically quadruple rooms, though adjustments were made depending on the size of the incoming batch.
Vaughn was lucky; his assigned room had only three occupants.
The other two were not worthy of being named, and Vaughn didn’t care about them either.
If they were smart enough, they would probably move out soon.
The moment he pushed open the door, a large orange-and-gold cat pounced on him, placing its front paws on Vaughn’s chest and rubbing its furry head vigorously against his chin.
“Alright, alright, Fruit Tea.
You clingy little thing, you’re too heavy!”
“Meow~”
“You must be starving, right?
Sorry, pets aren’t allowed at the Great Hall feasts…
Alright, stop rubbing.
Here, let me feed you some dried fish.
You can join me for breakfast tomorrow morning.” Vaughn coaxed the affectionate big cat, smiling warmly.
In his past life, he had just been an ordinary corporate drone in a tier-one city, with neither the time nor the energy to keep a pet.
When he bought Fruit Tea, it was because the cat seemed intelligent, and he hoped it could help him keep an eye on Scabbers.
But after spending time together, he had grown increasingly fond of this clingy, adorable creature.
If he felt this way about a cat, how much more so for his family in this life…
Feeding Fruit Tea the dried fish, Vaughn thought of the shocked expressions on Percy, Fred, George, and Ron’s faces when he was sorted into Slytherin.
It gave him a bit of a headache.
He had no idea how his parents would react!
But there was nothing to be done.
As a transmigrator, he had always carried the mind and ambitions of an adult.
Fortunately, his starter gift pack had yielded max-level Occlumency.
Otherwise, leaving aside whether the secret of his transmigration would be exposed, the mere thoughts of an adult would likely have terrified the Sorting Hat.
No matter how cruel a child’s nature could be, limited by their immature worldview and lack of experience, they still retained a degree of innocence and foolishness.
Adults with fully formed values were different.
Behavior could be constrained by the law, but thoughts could not.
The casual malice in an adult’s passing thoughts would probably be more than enough to earn them a trip to Azkaban.
Putting these thoughts aside for the moment, Vaughn stroked Fruit Tea’s fur and whispered in his mind:
“System, claim reward!”
Several lines of information popped up before his eyes:
[Claiming Reward] [Free Talent Point +1] [Magic Capacity +50]
The air rippled slightly; it was a pulse of magic.
Fruit Tea noticed the commotion and looked up at Vaughn.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, the cat relaxed and went back to chewing its dried fish.
Vaughn opened his system panel.
[Host: Vaughn Weasley] [Magic Capacity: 432 (Average adult wizard is 500)] [Talents: Charms 7, Dark Arts 6, Transfiguration 7, Potions 10, Herbology 6, Divination 2 (Max value 10)] [Spells: Occlumency Lv.5 (MAX), Shield Charm Lv.3 (3/8), Disarming Charm Lv.2 (2/4), Levitation Charm Lv.2 (1/4), Body-Bind Curse Lv.2 (1/4), Fire-Making Spell Lv.2 (2/4), Lumos Lv.3 (0/4)…] [Potions: Elixir to Induce Euphoria, Pepperup Potion, Blood-Replenishing Potion, Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, Hair-Raising Potion, Beautifying Potion (Master Class, includes various formula variants)…] [Reputation Points: 17] [Free Talent Points: 1] [New quest updated, pending review]
Vaughn looked at his various stats.
It had been about two months since he received his letter and enrolled.
Compared to back then, his magic capacity had increased by 62 points, of which 50 were from the reward he had just claimed, and the remaining 12 were the natural growth over these two months.
Previously, Vaughn had tried to guess the trend of a wizard’s natural magic growth based on the standards marked in the system’s parentheses.
Since every young wizard awakened their magic and had accidental magic outbursts at different times, there was no universal template.
What was certain, however, was that the natural growth of magic was linked to magical talent.
The higher the talent, the more magic naturally increased each month.
There was no standard template for this either, but Vaughn guessed that the primary talents affecting magic growth were Charms, Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, with other talents having lower weights.
It might also be affected by developmental cycles.
He had observed his older brothers and younger brother quite a bit over the years, yet he still couldn’t calculate an expected value based on his own situation.
Magic was not that simple, but upgrading his talent could never go wrong!
After all, it also affected the learning, mastery, and development of magic.
Vaughn carefully felt his surging magic for a moment.
After confirming he could still control it with ease, he focused his attention on his talents.
He needed to think about where to allocate his newly acquired talent point.
“Based on past comparisons with Percy, Fred, George, and my own progress in learning spells, a talent value of 7 can be considered highly outstanding.”
“Combining that with what I know of the original story, it’s roughly on par with Hermione, maybe slightly higher…
Yes, for now, it’s enough to learn spells.”
“Dark Arts is a bit low, but it’s hard to learn any dark magic in the short term anyway.”
At this thought, Vaughn frowned slightly.
When it came to the Dark Arts, it wasn’t just a matter of difficulty in learning; casting them also required summoning the corresponding emotions.
To use Avada Kedavra, one needed sufficiently intense murderous intent and malicious thoughts.
To use Crucio, one also needed enough cruelty and deep-seated hatred.
Those dark wizards and Death Eaters who were mentally unstable and acted crazy weren’t born that way; it was, to some degree, related to their abuse of the Dark Arts.
Vaughn stroked his chin.
“Before studying the Dark Arts, I need to find a way to bypass this issue.
Dumbledore probably has some tricks up his sleeve; before he became a believer in the ‘power of love,’ he was a powerhouse in the Dark Arts too.
Unfortunately…
given his personality, there’s no way he would teach a student to research dark magic.”
“Another lead, someone who is highly proficient in the Dark Arts and hasn’t gone mad…
Snape!”
The Head of Slytherin was both a Potions master and a master of the Dark Arts.
He had even invented Sectumsempra during his school years.
If he could cling to Snape’s thigh, it would be killing two birds with one stone.
Brilliant!
“So, skip Dark Arts talent, skip Herbology talent…
Divination is my biggest weakness, so even if I upgrade it, it won’t be much use.
Skip!”
“That only leaves Transfiguration!”
Transfiguration was the most complex and vast of all disciplines.
It wasn’t just a matter of a few individual spells; it was a massive body of knowledge that overlapped with Charms, the Dark Arts, and Potions.
From the simplest transfiguration of inanimate objects to animate transfiguration, and then to spell-based transfiguration and human transfiguration—it could be said that every level of improvement in Transfiguration was a comprehensive upgrade!
It was also the only magic that required no spoken incantations right from the introductory stage.
Vaughn no longer hesitated and allocated his free talent point to Transfiguration.
The upgrade in talent was silent and imperceptible, unlike the conspicuous surge of magic.
But when Vaughn drew his wand and lightly tapped one of Fruit Tea’s dried fish—
An entirely different sensation instantly flooded his mind.
Magic flowed like a bubbling stream into the dried fish, saturating and outlining its most minute internal structure before feeding back into Vaughn’s consciousness.
The entire process was no longer as difficult and vague as it had been in the past.
With a shift of Vaughn’s thoughts, he easily manipulated those structures in his mind.
Numerous little tricks suddenly became clear, and he adjusted and altered them with silky-smooth precision, projecting his imagination into reality through magic.
*Poof!*
The dried fish turned into a lively, scampering mouse!
Fruit Tea’s eyes went wide, and the cat pounced immediately.
According to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, transfiguring an object does not change its fundamental nature.
Which meant Fruit Tea was eating a mouse that tasted like dried fish…
“Meow~”
Double the joy!