Charles’s excitement at this moment wasn’t only because the Infinite Deduction System, which he had nicknamed Deep Blue, had actually lived up to expectations and converted the Ascension Potion into Deduction Points, saving him from certain death.
It was also because after drinking that single bottle of Ascension Potion, the system notifications inside his mind had already begun ringing nonstop.
“Deduction Points +100. Deduction Points +100…”
Normally, even if Charles ate eight meals a day, the number of Deduction Points he could obtain would only amount to a pitiful few.
Only when he swallowed gold or precious jewelry could he obtain a larger number of Deduction Points, but even then, it would usually be no more than a few dozen.
But now, during the conversion of the Ascension Potion, every single notification was giving him more than a hundred points!
By the time the entire bottle of Ascension Potion had been completely converted, Charles had gained nearly ten thousand Deduction Points.
That was comparable to the total number of Deduction Points he had accumulated over the past ten years!
Only now did Charles suddenly realize something.
He might have misunderstood the system’s rules for converting things into Deduction Points for the past ten years.
He had originally thought that when the system converted the things he ate into Deduction Points, the number of points was determined by how precious the item was.
The older and rarer an item was, the more Deduction Points it would provide.
Previously, he had eaten an antique piece of jewelry he had acquired and received more than a hundred Deduction Points in one go, which seemed to confirm this theory.
But if he thought about it from the perspective that this was the magical world, then perhaps the system actually calculated Deduction Points based on the amount of magic contained within an object!
Ordinary food contained almost no magic, so it could only provide a pitiful number of Deduction Points.
Gold, on the other hand, was a material used in the magical world, so it provided more Deduction Points.
And the older a precious artifact was, the more likely it was to have some connection with the magical world, meaning the greater the possibility that it contained magic.
That was why it provided more Deduction Points.
This time, Charles had consumed an Ascension Potion painstakingly concocted by a bizarre wizard like Dark.
And it had given him more than ten thousand Deduction Points in one go!
Ten thousand Deduction Points!
Even if he spread them across multiple fields, they had already been enough to turn Charles into a genius student recognized throughout Britain, allowing him to sweep up competition awards in all kinds of disciplines.
But what if he concentrated all those points into a single field?
The result could be nothing short of turning the impossible into reality!
Perhaps this was the key to Charles surviving at Dark’s hands.
For that reason, Charles no longer felt quite as disgusted by the horrifying taste of the Ascension Potion.
When he thought about the ten thousand Deduction Points it had given him, he even felt that the potion tasted somewhat delicious.
He was already eager to have another bottle!
However, after Charles shouted that he wanted another bottle, the old wizard Dark unexpectedly gave no response.
He seemed to have fallen into a state of disbelief, joy, and madness.
“He didn’t die?”
“He really didn’t die?”
“He even wants another bottle?”
“What does this mean?”
“It means my improved Ascension Potion formula works!”
“And it works extremely well!”
“I did it!”
“I, Dark Sed, actually did it!”
Dark excitedly began waving his arms around.
But after a while, a doubtful expression appeared in his eyes again as he stared at Charles and muttered to himself.
“He really didn’t die, but the effects of the Ascension Potion haven’t appeared on him either.”
“Where are the signs of ascension?”
“There aren’t any!”
Dark immediately became anxious again and began pacing back and forth irritably around the underground chamber.
“Could it be that I made the Ascension Potion too mild, causing it to lose its effectiveness?”
“It definitely won’t kill him, but perhaps it also can’t achieve the effect of ascension?”
“If that’s the case, then doesn’t that mean I might have failed?”
“Did I succeed or fail?!”
Listening to Dark’s increasingly deranged muttering, Charles felt his scalp go numb.
He could now tell that Dark’s mental state was extremely unstable.
The old wizard desperately wanted his Ascension Potion to succeed, yet repeated failures and rejection had caused him to doubt whether the potion could actually work.
If Dark continued thinking himself into a frenzy, there was no telling what he might do.
Therefore, after carefully considering his words, Charles decisively spoke.
“There’s no need to doubt it.”
“Your Ascension Potion really did work!”
As soon as he said this, Dark froze and turned to look at Charles.
The next moment, a murderous glint appeared in his eyes.
“You’re lying to me!”
“You must be lying to me!”
He pulled out his wand, his expression becoming increasingly vicious.
“I’m going to give you a Cruciatus Curse and let you know what happens when you lie to me.”
“Do you know what the Cruciatus Curse is?”
“Do you know what it feels like to be hit by it?”
“I used it on that fool from the Order of Merlin who called me a madman.”
“Hahaha! I tortured him until he went completely insane!”
“Now let’s see who the real madman is!”
“Want to give it a try?”
Charles immediately shouted.
“I can prove it!”
“I can prove that your Ascension Potion really worked!”
“If you want to torture me, you might accidentally interfere with the effects of the Ascension Potion.”
“I guarantee you’ll regret it!”
A hesitant expression appeared in Dark’s eyes.
“Prove it?”
“You can prove it?”
“How?”
Charles finally calmed down and spoke slowly.
“You developed the Ascension Potion because you want to elevate a person’s soul and allow them to reach the so-called source of magic, right?”
“Then during the ascension of the soul, shouldn’t there be some unusual signs?”
“For example, enhanced learning ability.”
“Or perhaps the ability to turn something ordinary into something extraordinary, where even the simplest spell becomes completely different in the hands of an ascended person?”
“Teach me any simple spell.”
“I’ll prove it to you.”
Charles’s words immediately awakened something in Dark.
He nodded repeatedly.
“That’s right!”
“How could an ascended person’s spells possibly be the same as those of ordinary mortals?”
“There must be something extraordinary enough to make even Dumbledore turn pale with shock!”
“You say you can prove it simply by learning an ordinary spell…”
Dark hesitated again.
“But what if you’re lying to me?”
“You just want to learn magic so you can kill me, don’t you?”
Charles could only give a bitter smile.
“I’m not even eleven years old yet.”
“If you teach me the simplest non-offensive spell you know, do you really think I’ll have the ability to kill you?”
Dark thought about it and realized that Charles had a point.
After another moment of hesitation, he finally nodded.
Dark waved his wand.
His hand moved through the appropriate motions as a short incantation left his lips.
“Lumos.”
A bright light appeared at the tip of Dark’s wand, finally illuminating the gloomy underground chamber.
After a moment, Charles’s eyes gradually adjusted to the light.
He instinctively looked around.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
He already knew that he was tied to a chair.
But it seemed that the underground chamber had been expanded using an Undetectable Extension Charm, making it far larger than Charles had initially imagined.
There were at least a dozen chairs like the one Charles was sitting on scattered throughout the underground chamber!
Only there were no longer any people sitting on them.
Instead, there were pools of foul-smelling liquid left behind.
Bits of clothing, jewelry, and other personal belongings could still be seen floating within the stinking fluid.
One glance was enough to tell Charles what had happened to the people who had once been tied to those chairs.
Charles took a deep breath, trying to suppress his nausea.
But the deeper he inhaled, the stronger the foul stench became.
He immediately turned his head and began dry-heaving toward the side.
Dark, however, didn’t care in the slightest.
His entire attention was focused on proving whether his Ascension Potion had worked.
After explaining the wand movements and incantation for the Lumos Charm, Dark dumped out a bag beside him.
Clatter!
More than a dozen wands rolled across the floor.
Dark casually picked one up and shoved it into Charles’s hand.
He also loosened Charles’s restraints slightly so that he could move his arm freely and wave the wand.
Dark held his own wand and stared intently at Charles.
“Come on.”
“Let me see the effects of your so-called ascension.”
Charles tightened his grip around the wand, which was still covered in filthy residue.
As he recalled Dark’s explanation of the Lumos Charm, the notification from the Infinite Deduction System had already sounded inside his mind.
“Detecting deducible knowledge—Lumos Charm.”
“Would you like to initiate deduction?”
The next moment, a brilliant light flashed through Charles’s eyes.
Inside his mind, he let out a thunderous roar.
“Deep Blue, deduce it for me!”
(End of Chapter)