Early Saturday morning, Zhang Wen and Artoria arrived at Diagon Alley via Floo powder.
Zhang Wen still wasn’t used to Floo powder, even after using it twice.
The sensation of spinning at high speeds between fireplaces reminded him of the moment the Counter Force had kicked him out of the Type-Moon world—a world-spinning nausea that made his insides feel like they were doing somersaults.
When he tumbled out of the fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron, he nearly performed a perfect faceplant.
Artoria, however, simply walked out of the fireplace.
She walked out.
Steady as a rock, without so much as a wrinkle in her clothes.
“How do you do that?” Zhang Wen asked, patting the soot off his clothes.
“Center of gravity control,” Artoria said.
“Basic fundamentals.”
Zhang Wen decided not to press the matter.
Comparing physical coordination with someone who had undergone knight training since childhood was just asking for humiliation.
Diagon Alley was bustling on the weekend.
The September sun shone on the cobblestone streets, and the shops on both sides were open.
There was a long queue in front of Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, likely students coming for last-minute school uniforms.
Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes—wait, no, that wouldn’t open for a few years.
Zhang Wen straightened his thoughts and led Artoria straight to their destination.
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC.
The shop was located on the south side of Diagon Alley.
It was a narrow, shabby-looking place with peeling gold letters over the door.
In the window, a single wand sat on a faded purple cushion.
Compared to the gaudy shops nearby, this place was so low-profile it was almost easy to miss.
But every wizard knew it was the most important shop on the street.
Zhang Wen pushed the door open.
The shop was dim, and the air smelled of old wood and dust.
Thousands of narrow boxes were piled right up to the ceiling on every wall, creating a maze made of wand boxes.
There was no one behind the counter.
“Hello?” Zhang Wen called out.
There was no response.
“Mr.
Ollivander?”
A spindly voice spoke from behind him.
“Good afternoon.”
Zhang Wen spun around.
A pale-eyed old man was standing right behind him, less than half a meter away.
Zhang Wen’s heart skipped a beat.
Artoria’s right hand was already hovering near her waist—right where Invisible Air was positioned.
“I’m sorry, I startled you,” Ollivander said with a slight smile, his eyes shining with a faint, silvery light.
“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, but your face…
I have no memory of it.”
“I haven’t bought a wand here before,” Zhang Wen said, letting his heart rate settle.
“I’m from the East.
I’ve been using someone else’s wand until now, but I need one suited for myself.”
Ollivander’s gaze fell on Lockhart’s wand tucked into Zhang Wen’s belt.
“Cherry wood, unicorn hair, nine inches,” the old man recognized it instantly.
“Gilderoy Lockhart’s wand.
It certainly doesn’t suit you—that core is too docile; it cannot suppress your magic.”
Zhang Wen drew the wand and handed it to him.
Ollivander took a quick look, set it on the counter, and turned toward the shelves.
“Let’s see…
hold out your wand arm.”
Zhang Wen extended his right arm.
A tape measure flew out of Ollivander’s pocket and began measuring automatically—arm length, finger length, palm width, shoulder width.
“Your magic fluctuations are very unique,” Ollivander murmured as he measured.
“Not like a regular wizard’s magic…
it’s denser, more concentrated, as if it has been compressed…”
He was right.
Zhang Wen’s source of magic was the Magic Circuits of the Type-Moon world, which were fundamentally different from the magic of wizards in this world.
Although they were compatible, the characteristics were indeed distinct.
“Try this one,” Ollivander said, pulling a box from a shelf.
“Elm, dragon heartstring, ten and a half inches, quite springy.”
Zhang Wen took the wand and gave it a wave.
The ink bottle on the desk exploded.
“No,” Ollivander snatched the wand back, wiping ink from his face with his sleeve.
“The power rejection is too strong.”
The second one: Redwood, phoenix feather, twelve inches.
He quickly set it down, and the wand bounced three times on the table before going still.
“No, that won’t do either.”
The third one: Cypress, unicorn hair, eleven inches.
He gave it a wave, but nothing happened.
Not even a spark.
“Too weak,” Ollivander shook his head.
The fourth, the fifth, the sixth—
All failures.
Either the power rejection caused things to explode, or the core was too weak to handle Zhang Wen’s magic.
Ollivander’s expression shifted from expectation to confusion, and from confusion to gravity.
Artoria stood to the side, watching the pile of wand boxes grow higher and higher without saying a word.
After the fifteenth wand was rejected, Ollivander stopped.
He stood before the shelves, his silver eyes staring in a certain direction as if he were hesitating.
“Is something wrong?” Zhang Wen asked.
Ollivander didn’t answer.
He turned and walked toward the very back of the shop.
There was a wall there that looked no different from the others, but Ollivander pressed his palm against it.
The wall split open silently, revealing a small room behind it.
Zhang Wen and Artoria exchanged a glance.
Ollivander stepped inside and didn’t emerge for about a minute.
He came out carrying a box.
Unlike the mass-produced standard boxes on the shelves outside, this box was black, with no markings on the surface, and the wood looked very, very old.
Ollivander placed the box on the counter, his fingers resting on the lid, not opening it immediately.
“Mr.
Zhang,” his voice sounded different now.
“Before I tell you the origin of this wand, I need you to understand one thing—I have been making wands for over sixty years, and I have sold countless ones.
But there are a very few wands that I have crafted but never sold.”
He opened the box.
Inside lay a wand.
The shaft was deep black, almost matte, with a strange texture on the surface—not a wood grain, but more like some kind of flowing liquid that had been frozen into the wand itself.
“Yew,” Ollivander’s voice was very low.
“Thirteen inches.
The core—”
He paused.
“Thestral tail hair and phoenix tear.
A dual-core.”
Zhang Wen didn’t know much about wandlore, but he noticed Artoria’s brow furrow slightly.
“Are dual-core wands very rare?” he asked.
Ollivander looked at him with a trace of a bitter smile.
“Rare?
Mr.
Zhang, in my career, I have attempted to craft seventeen dual-core wands.
Fourteen of them exploded during the crafting process.
Two barely held their form but were so unstable that I eventually destroyed them.”
He looked down at the black wand in the box.
“Only this one succeeded.”
“Thestral tail hair symbolizes death and acceptance—only those who have witnessed and understood death can master it.
The phoenix tear symbolizes rebirth and healing.
The essences of these two materials are contradictory—death and rebirth, the end and the continuation.
To force them to merge into a single wand core requires an extremely precise balance.”
Ollivander’s silver eyes looked directly into Zhang Wen’s.
“The owner this wand requires must have experienced both death and rebirth simultaneously—not metaphorically, but truly, personally.
He must have seen death with his own eyes and returned from its threshold.”
Zhang Wen’s breath hitched for a second.
The Holy Grail War.
In that war, he had nearly died more than once.
Pierced through the shoulder by Lancer’s spear, blown away by Caster’s magecraft, three ribs shattered by the shockwaves of Berserker’s strikes.
Every single time, Artoria had pulled him back from the brink of death.
He had seen too much death.
The rain of the Golden King’s Noble Phantasms, the Assassin’s dagger, the Berserker’s roar—the fading of those Heroic Spirits had been a real, heavy death every time.
And he himself had indeed returned from the edge of death.
More than once.
“I made this wand thirty-seven years ago,” Ollivander said softly.
“In thirty-seven years, not a single customer has been a match for it.
Some people are repelled by it upon contact; others feel intense pain.
I once thought I had created a piece that would never be used.”
He pushed the box toward Zhang Wen.
“Try it.”
His fingertips touched the wand.
A warm sensation spread from his fingertips to his palm, traveling up his arm and through his entire body.
It wasn’t the burning sensation of activating Magic Circuits in the Type-Moon world, nor was it the awkward, forced compliance of Lockhart’s wand.
It was a feeling of—
Rightness.
That was the word.
Rightness.
It felt as though this wand had waited thirty-seven years just for him to come and take it.
Zhang Wen gripped the wand tightly.
A gust of wind surged from the tip, making the boxes in the shop clatter.
A faint golden light glowed on the black wand, spreading along those flowing textures before slowly fading away.
Ollivander was stunned.
He had been a wandmaker for over sixty years and had seen the “wand choosing the wizard” countless times.
But this time, his hands were trembling.
“It worked,” the old man’s voice was a bit hoarse.
“It actually worked.”
He stared at Zhang Wen with an expression as complex as if he were looking at a miracle that shouldn’t exist.
“Mr.
Zhang, just what have you been through?”
Zhang Wen glanced at Artoria beside him.
Her expression was as calm as usual, but Zhang Wen noticed her gaze lingering on the black wand longer than usual.
“A lot,” Zhang Wen said.
“And most of it wasn’t very pleasant.”
Ollivander was silent for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“Seven Galleons.”
Zhang Wen blinked.
“Just that much?”
“A wand that has waited thirty-seven years to find its master…
I don’t intend to make a profit on it,” Ollivander said.
“Furthermore—”
He looked at the black wand in Zhang Wen’s hand, a flicker of an unidentifiable emotion in his silver eyes.
“I’m just glad that someone has finally picked it up.”
Walking out of the wand shop, Zhang Wen took a deep breath.
The sunlight of Diagon Alley hit his face, surrounded by wizards coming and going and the sounds of street vendors.
Everything was normal, everyday.
But the weight of the wand in his hand made him feel like something had changed.
“How does it feel?” Artoria asked.
Zhang Wen raised the wand and gave it a light flick in the air.
A beam of light shot from the tip, tracing a perfect arc in the air before dissipating into a small cluster of harmless sparks.
Nothing exploded.
The power didn’t go out of control.
It was precise, smooth, and effortless.
“It’s like—” Zhang Wen thought for a moment on how to describe it.
“Like the feeling of successfully activating Magic Circuits for the first time back in the Type-Moon world.”
Artoria nodded slightly.
“The weapon suited for you has been found,” she said.
“Next comes the practice.”
“Can’t you let me enjoy this for two minutes?”
“You may.
In two minutes, we will buy the teaching supplies, and then return to prepare the lesson plans.”
“…Your time management is too strict.”
“Time management is a basic quality of a knight.”
Zhang Wen sighed and tucked the wand into the holster at his waist.
The touch of the yew wood felt snug against his palm, warm and steady.
Thirty-seven years.
This wand had waited thirty-seven years.
He had traveled across two worlds, fought a Holy Grail War, been kicked by the Counter Force, and impersonated a fraud, all just to finally walk into that unremarkable little shop in Diagon Alley.
Perhaps this was what people called fate.
Of course, Zhang Wen didn’t really believe in things like fate.
But he believed in the weight of the wand in his hand.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Artoria followed his lead.
The two of them walked side by side in the sunlight of Diagon Alley.
A fake professor, a fake assistant.
A wand that had waited thirty-seven years.
And a whole semester of the unknown waiting ahead.