Aine discovered that most of the modifications referred to books recommended in the library.
For example: “…cut into pieces with a blade (crossed out) squeeze (revised).
For details, please refer to Processing Magical Ingredients: 1324 Edition.”
After quickly flipping through the entire book, Aine discovered no fewer than two thousand modifications, with more than three hundred recommended books.
At least two hundred of them were books he had never seen in his family’s library.
After finishing the book, Aine also searched through the other books and found that they were all ordinary textbooks.
Even those that contained notes had only been modified according to the notes left behind by his ancestor.
By the time Aine finished looking through the textbooks, it was already nine in the evening.
He immediately left the classroom and returned to the Hufflepuff common room.
As he passed the staircase leading from the first floor down to the basement, he crossed paths with Professor Snape.
However, Professor Snape merely glanced toward Aine’s hidden position before walking away.
That allowed Aine’s tense nerves to relax after encountering Professor Snape.
According to what Aine had learned from the older students, Professor Snape was rather biased toward Slytherin.
Whenever he caught students from other houses making mistakes, he would deduct points without mercy.
Aine was still wondering why Professor Snape had not deducted points from him when Snape passed by and casually remarked,
“Nice use of camphor essence.”
Aine finally understood that Professor Snape was not completely heartless.
It was simply that the students who went wandering at night were too incompetent to meet his standards.
After all, only using a simple Disillusionment Charm and a Silencing Charm was something most students above fourth year could manage, but those two spells alone could not fool Filch’s cat.
As long as your methods were clever enough, even Professor Snape could turn a blind eye when you wandered the castle at night.
If you could use potion-related methods, he would even refrain from deducting points.
Using camphor leaves was a Herbology method, while camphor essence was a Potions method.
After being frightened twice, Aine stopped by the kitchens and took some desserts from the house-elves to calm his nerves.
When he returned to the Hufflepuff common room, he witnessed a miraculous sight: the calming grass had bloomed.
The entire common room was covered in flowers that looked like stars.
The older students were carefully picking the calming flowers while instructing the younger students at the same time.
If the scent of calming grass could serve as a substitute for a calming potion, then calming flowers were an indispensable ingredient for antidotes against nightmare-type curses, making them extremely valuable magical herbs.
Harvesting calming flowers was quite complicated.
The calming grass could not be damaged, otherwise it would be unable to bloom again in the future.
The flowers also had to retain their medicinal properties during harvesting, and special scissors had to be used to cut them.
That was why the older students were giving practical demonstrations.
After all, they could not be there every time someone needed to harvest them.
Aine watched with great interest.
He had never tried it himself before, so he shamelessly squeezed his way over and asked to have a go.
Under the guidance of an older student, he successfully harvested more than a dozen calming flowers.
He also asked about how to preserve calming flowers for long periods and learned a new spell: the Preservation Charm.
However, when he cast the Preservation Charm, something strange happened.
The originally delicate calming flower turned into a dried flower under Aine’s spell.
This strange phenomenon greatly surprised the older student, because a dried calming flower was what the herb looked like after special processing.
Moreover, Aine’s dried flower was exceptionally intact, unlike the scattered pieces sold in apothecaries.
This made Aine once again sense that his magic was different.
Based on his experience, only extremely special magical attributes could alter the inherent properties of a spell.
For example, when an ordinary mage cast Fireball, it was simply Fireball.
When a necromancer cast it, it became a Netherflame Orb.
This was determined by the attribute of a mage’s magical power.
Ordinary mages possessed magic with no particular elemental inclination.
Sorcerers possessed the unique molten-lava attribute of demons, while necromancers possessed the Netherworld attribute that could strip away life.
Based on Aine’s experience, the effect of this spell was more similar to the magical attribute possessed by necromancers.
With that, Aine had obtained the first clue regarding his middle name.
Assuming that names truly possessed magical power, then his complete name was similar to a god’s True Name.
The difference in strength between a god with a True Name and one without one was enormous.
Therefore, Aine believed that once he discovered his complete name, his strength would take another step forward.
So when the older student asked about it, Aine directly explained that his unique magical attribute had affected the effect of the spell.
The older student believed him without the slightest hesitation.
Inside, Aine was screaming: You actually believe me?!
You believed me without even questioning it!!!
This was the first time Aine had experienced the thousand-year-old Hufflepuff tradition firsthand: you could trust a student from Hufflepuff without the slightest reservation.
Because of this, Aine completely let down his guard and began interacting with these adorable little Hufflepuffs.
After all, when someone trusted you without any suspicion, deceiving them would make you feel guilty.
So he naturally began helping the other first-year Hufflepuffs learn the basics.
It was a kind of trust he had never experienced either on the magical continent or in modern civilization.
At that moment, Aine completely integrated himself into this special house.
The next morning was Potions class.
The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws attended the lesson together, and, unsurprisingly, Aine and Tucker were assigned to the same group.