Appearing once again in the Room of Requirement, Bellatrix finally became serious once more.
She first took out her previous experimental log and read through it again.
After confirming there were no mistakes or omissions, she took a deep breath.
Then, concentrating her energy, she entered the Super Magic State.
This time, what she wanted to observe was that ‘casual’ Potion.
Similarly, after observing for a while, she began to sense the faint magical trajectory.
Only this time, she discovered that the magical trajectory seemed to To Live; it even changed along with Bellatrix’s magic.
At times gathering together, and at other times scattering apart.
Much like a mischievous elf, and unlike before, its magical trajectory behaved more like a—Charms.
Yes, that’s right.
Although Charms itself consisted of a fixed incantation, within the perception of the Super Magic State, when a Charms was cast, its magical trajectory turned out to be variable; vocal tones, intonations, and even waving gestures would all affect the operation of the magical trajectory.
Yet at this moment, the Potion seemed to possess the variability of Charms.
After exiting the Super Magic State, Bellatrix felt somewhat curious about the effects of this Potion.
Fortunately, the test puppet in this Room could be used for a simple test.
Following that, Bellatrix came over to a test puppet.
She first used a knife to cut a slit on the puppet, and then applied the standard Potion.
In about a minute, the wound healed, which was just as Professor Slughorn had introduced in class.
As for the second Potion, following the exact same operational procedure, it only took about half a minute, increasing the efficiency by half.
Anyone else might have thought they had discovered its true effect.
However, Bellatrix’s brows furrowed into a tight knot.
“It’s just that this…” She was somewhat reluctant to believe it.
Clearly, it had a flexible magical trajectory similar to Charms…
Wait…
The flexible magic in Charms was used to increase various effects, so the magic in the Potion merely strengthened the effects? magic?
Suddenly, it was as if she realized something?
She first poured the standard Potion onto it, and the wound healed very slowly.
“Is it interference from magic? What if it were Dark Arts?”
Right after that, once that special Potion was applied, Bellatrix sensed that the magic at the wound site was decomposed, causing the wound to heal very quickly—healing in almost half a minute as well.
In other words, if the damage was caused by magic, ordinary Potions would have limited effectiveness, and some more specialized Potion would be required.
This realization made Bellatrix suddenly understand why Potion was one of the four foundational subjects.
And why a Potion Master became increasingly important during times of war.
For some reason, she suddenly thought of a story she had read in fairy tales long ago.
In fairy tales, it seemed there was always such a witch, brewing Ran-seven-eight-mess soups, yet able to produce magical effects—this was magic!
Potion was magic too!
As soon as this realization arose, she couldn’t wait to record it in her notebook.
But understanding this point, wanting to replicate this Potion was still quite difficult.
Bellatrix thought of a shortcut: since Potion and Charms were very similar, could she find a Charms with an effect similar to the Potion, first investigate the magical trajectory of the Charms, and then try to change the magical trajectory of the Potion?
Easy to say, but she encountered a setback right at the first step.
So which Charms should correspond to the healing Potion?
In modern magic, there were quite a few Charms with healing effects, and that wasn’t even counting healing spells in ancient magic.
Thus, Bellatrix began frequenting the library even more often than before, searching through bookshelf after bookshelf for the knowledge she needed.
Finally, after a period of research, she found that Charms.
And right while she was busy, Christmas also passed without any ripples, and she didn’t pay it any mind.
What surprised her a bit was that the Charms with a magical trajectory similar to the healing Potion turned out to be—magic Annihilation.
After looking up a series of books on the evolution of Potions and the reasons for their initial birth, she accidentally discovered that this Potion first appeared during the Middle Ages, roughly around the Merlin period.
Back then, a Wizard discovered that wounds caused by Charms were relatively difficult to heal, and so thought of developing a Charms—magic Annihilation—which could counteract the magic at the wound site.
This thrilled him immensely at the time, and it also allowed him to treat many wounded people, until he finally died of magical backlash, and people came to know that if the power of the Charms was less than the residue at the wound, the magic of the two would strike back at the caster.
Afterwards, to reduce the risk of such things happening, people turned to researching Potions, eventually creating the healing Potion.
Yet since this Potion had such a function, why hadn’t the Professor mentioned it during class?
Or was it that to achieve this effect, other conditions were required?
Thinking of this, she still decided to try and brew one.
Thus, she requested a batch of Potion materials from home, packed her things, and once again arrived in front of the Room of Requirement.
Only this time, what she wanted in mind was a Room capable of brewing Potions.
Opening the door once more, inside was a very neat workstation; it was hard to imagine who cleaned this place when no one was around.
However, right now, none of that mattered; what mattered was brewing the Potion.
The first thing she needed to consider was how to sense the magical trajectory while brewing the Potion.
To facilitate the experiment, she had no choice but to slow down her operational steps, and then attentively sense the materials, the technique, the flame?
Wait, the flame?
She remembered that when Professor Slughorn gave a casual demonstration, various operations changed along with the fluctuations of the flame.
Fluctuations?
Could the fluctuations of the flame also be related to the magical trajectory?
Hence, she discarded other distracting thoughts and tried hard to sense the fluctuations of the flame, finally allowing her to discover some unexpected things.
After she placed the cauldron on the flame and added the Potion, as if activating some kind of ritual, the flame began to exhibit subtle fluctuations; but if one didn’t pay attention, these fluctuations were extremely minute.
Then why were the fluctuations so large when the Professor demonstrated it to her?
She suddenly thought of how the Professor’s materials were large and small, not all that regular…
Regular…
Could it be that someone had once unified the fluctuations, and then found the corresponding material proportions, thereby lowering the difficulty?
But this also made the flame’s fluctuations even harder to detect, making it even more difficult to sense?
That was why the two Potions exhibited different results.
Was this deliberately done by the Professor for her to see?
Thinking of this, she hurriedly grabbed a section of the material, without cutting it, and placed the whole piece into the cauldron.
As a result, the flame underneath surged up with a whoosh, almost setting her hair on fire; but in front of the constantly leaping flames, Bellatrix grew excited, her eyes reflecting the firelight while the corners of her mouth curved high upward.
She had finally found the breakthrough point.