Black wasn’t entirely sure how much potential Ancient Runes really had.
Wizards had spent years treating them as an ordinary ancient writing system.
Only a few master alchemists knew even one or two runes that possessed genuine magical power.
Still, judging by the difference between Intermediate Cooking Mastery and an ordinary professional’s skills, an intermediate aptitude ought to put him well ahead of most experts.
And his aptitude for runes was exceptional.
Combined with his Exceptional Aptitude for Learning, it should give him a chance of discovering something other people had missed.
‘I’m going to need quite a few things in Diagon Alley,’ he murmured.
‘Books, certainly.’
Books in the magical world tended to be expensive.
Fortunately, he had prepared for that.
He had already earned a substantial amount of money.
His plan was to buy gold, then exchange it for Galleons at Gringotts.
That ought to give those grasping goblins something they wanted.
With that settled, Black asked the system to open the remaining Gold Chest.
[Opening Gold Chest.]
[Exceptional Spellcasting Technique acquired.]
Fresh knowledge filled his mind.
A skill!
Black sat up eagerly.
He was beginning to draw distinctions between rewards.
Even rewards of the same quality, obtained from the same tier of chest, weren’t equally useful to him.
He preferred skills to aptitudes.
A skill became his immediately.
Cooking Mastery, for instance, had allowed him to skip years of practice and acquire the ability outright.
An aptitude—even an exceptional one—still required him to study before he could benefit fully from it.
That was excellent in its own way.
But surely knowing how to do something at once was better?
Exceptional Spellcasting Technique excited him even more than his aptitude for Ancient Runes.
As the system finished applying it, he felt the difference.
Casting was easier. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Spells he had previously struggled to force into existence now came readily.
In terms he understood, it was like gaining a permanent set of bonuses: much faster casting, far greater power, shorter intervals between spells and considerably less magic expended.
After all, casting a spell involved more than knowing its incantation.
A young wizard learning a new charm had to follow the instructions carefully: the pronunciation, the pauses between syllables, the movement of the wand.
To achieve the best result, everything had to be right.
A mistake in any part could make the spell fail—or produce something entirely unintended.
Black’s natural talent had allowed him to cast plenty of spells, but he had known little about the proper movements or the rhythm of the incantations.
The spells had worked.
They simply hadn’t been very powerful.
That was another reason he had needed to flee the Hidebehind at first.
He had eventually defeated it by overwhelming it with his newly increased magical reserves.
Now that weakness was gone.
Before, his technique had forced his magic through a narrow channel.
Now it could flow freely.
Even an advanced spell would be within his reach on the first attempt, provided he knew the incantation.
If he had received this skill earlier, he could have beaten the Hidebehind without any increase in his magical reserves at all.
Black eagerly tried several difficult spells before finally turning his attention to the last chest.
The Supreme Chest.
‘System.
Open it.’
His voice trembled with anticipation.
The Silver and Gold Chests had already given him extraordinary rewards.
What could the highest tier possibly contain?
[Opening Supreme Chest.]
[Ancient Magic acquired.]
A low hum filled the room.
This time, the reward didn’t settle straight into his mind.
A strange ball of deep violet light appeared before him, hovering in the air like a ghostly flame.
‘Ancient Magic?’
Before his fingers touched the light, it darted into his hand, drawn to him as though by a sudden pull.
A shudder passed through his body.
His blue eyes turned an eerie violet.
Heat spread through him.
It felt as though he had been lowered into a bath of hot water.
The sensation lingered for some time before fading.
Only then did his eyes return to blue.
New knowledge had settled in his mind.
And something else had settled within him: a power quite distinct from his own magic.
Black carefully examined what he had learnt.
Ancient Magic, in essence, was a remarkably simple offensive spell.
It had one defining quality.
Overwhelming destructive power.
Enough to disregard an opponent’s defences altogether.
One phrase in the knowledge he had received described it with particular clarity:
Kill your opponent as brutally as you can imagine.
Three images accompanied the explanation, apparently demonstrations.
In each, the caster was a dark, indistinct figure whose features Black couldn’t make out.
In the first, the figure called down lightning and reduced an enemy to ash.
In the second, an opponent shrank to the size of an ant and was crushed underfoot.
In the third, the figure pointed a wand, and every drop of blood was drawn from the enemy’s body in an instant.
The spell’s possibilities seemed limited only by the caster’s imagination.
Its cost, however, was immense.
Even with Black’s greatly expanded reserves and Exceptional Spellcasting Technique, he could use it only three times a day.
He took a moment to feel the unfamiliar power within him.
‘Right,’ he said softly.
‘That’s my finishing move.’
The Supreme Chest had given him his most powerful hidden weapon yet.