Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 404, Section 403: A Plot That Only Exists in Novels

Ian Prince left the intelligence merchant's tent, feeling slightly more at ease. With a lead on Newt Scamander, the chances of returning home had greatly increased.

Now, he needs to wait patiently for three days, but he can't waste this opportunity—a completely unfamiliar magic market is a treasure trove waiting to be explored for him.

"There are definitely some potion ingredients and alchemical materials that cannot be bought in Great Britain, and many potion ingredients and alchemical materials are not extinct in this era."

Ian was filled with anticipation.

He rejoined the bustling crowd.

This time, instead of rushing to find a specific target, I slowed down and, like a true traveler, observed this exotic magical world with great interest.

What first caught his attention was the local wizards' methods of casting spells. Unlike European wizards who heavily relied on wands, the wizards here employed a more diverse range of spells.

At a stall selling woven goods, an elderly witch was demonstrating a brightly colored shawl to a customer. She wasn't using a wand, but rather her hands, adorned with several heavy bronze bracelets, danced across the shawl with chanting-like incantations. With her movements, the patterns on the shawl seemed to come alive; the bird and animal motifs glowed faintly and even emitted soft chirps. This was a technique that directly wove magic into objects.

"They're focusing more on the use of alchemical items, that's interesting."

Ian continued to wander around.

At another stall, a burly wizard was hammering a piece of red-hot metal. He was drenched in sweat, each strike accompanied by a powerful syllable, as if forging a spell directly into the metal. He was making a dagger, its blade already bearing intricate magical patterns.

Ian also saw some wizards using various magical implements: wooden staffs carved with totems, armbands inlaid with gemstones, and even bells made from animal skulls. Their spells also sounded more primitive and rhythmic, more like singing or chanting, rather than the precise Latin pronunciation of European magic.

“Interesting…” Ian nodded to himself. The African magic system has clearly taken a different path from Europe, placing more emphasis on the resonance with nature, totems, and one’s own spirit. Although it may not be as sophisticated as wand magic in certain aspects, it may have its own unique features in some areas.

While observing, Ian didn't forget his instincts as a potions master and alchemist—to find bargains. His gaze, like the most precise detection spell, swept over each stall.

Most of the goods are indeed ordinary or inferior magical items as they appear, but there are always hidden gems, which is where the discerning eye of the bargain hunter is put to the test.

It's like collecting antiques.

Some unscrupulous wizards may use counterfeit or inferior products, which may be processed and passed off as precious materials to deceive people. If you are not careful, you may suffer a great loss as a result.

of course.

This refers to ordinary wizards.

Ian is naturally not in this category.

His eye for detail is more accurate than that of many professors.

In a corner of a stall piled high with various dried herbs and animal organs, Ian spotted a few unremarkable, muddy black roots. The stall owner had clearly mistaken them for common mandrake roots—though mandrake is prized in England, it didn't seem particularly rare here.

This is why vendors with poor eyesight mistake it for ordinary mandrake and pile it up carelessly. Just as there are vendors who cheat, there are also those who lack the ability to pass off inferior goods as genuine.

Ok.

The idioms used may not be quite appropriate, but the point is to understand their meaning. Ian always likes to give meanings to idioms himself, so he is not very good at using them correctly now.

After all, I've lived in Great Britain for a long time.

"This thing..."

Although the stall owner didn't realize the problem, Ian recognized it at a glance—the tuber of the Dark Poppy! This is an extremely rare magical plant that only grows underground in ancient battlefields or places ravaged by powerful black magic. It is a top-grade material for making high-level tranquilizers and certain memory potions.

Its value far exceeds that of mandrake.

Its surface of mud and unassuming appearance perfectly conceal its value.

"How much is this?" Ian casually pointed to the pile of "Mandela roots".

The stall owner, an elderly woman with a wrinkled face, glanced at the items and quoted a price in heavily accented English. Ian didn't even haggle; he paid immediately, afraid she might change her mind. He carefully put the precious root pieces into his money pouch, which was enchanted with a Seamless Extension Charm, secretly pleased with himself.

Unlike places with formal magic schools and systematic teaching content, there are no wizarding schools in Africa. Most wizards are trained through family lineage or master-apprentice relationships.

This makes it really easy to find bargains in this area—after all, many wizards have limited knowledge over generations, their knowledge is closed, and their overall quality is not even comparable to that of the older students at Hogwarts.

This is why many academic wizards don't think much of wizards from remote areas, mainly because wizards from remote areas do have limited abilities.

certainly..

There are also some formidable individuals.

If it's fierce, it really is fierce.

However, this group is a minority.

soon.

Ian has successfully snagged another bargain.

At another stall selling scrap metal and ore, Ian was drawn to a dark red, seemingly rusty lump of iron.

Others might have thought it was scrap, but Ian sensed a faint yet extremely stable fire magic within it. It was a piece of Sun Iron!

It is very likely a meteorite fragment, a top-grade material for crafting top-tier alchemical tools, capable of perfectly conducting and amplifying magic with fire and light attributes.

It lay there for who knows how long, mixed in with a pile of real scrap metal.

"This thing looks like it's of average quality. Could you lower the price a bit?" Ian easily acquired this treasure again at an extremely low price.

As he wandered around, he acquired several magical materials that were extremely valuable outside but seemed to be underestimated or misunderstood by the stall owners here at almost bargain prices.

Judging from the materials we gathered alone, this trip to Africa was well worth the price of admission. Morning light pierced through the thick rainforest fog, illuminating the muddy ground of the African shaman's market.

Ian pretended to be the sucker.

He found another alleyway and became a little boy.

They thrived like fish in water.

He changed into a rough linen robe more in line with the local style, with a worn-out leather bag hanging from his waist, and a nonchalant yet shrewd expression on his face.

"Those potions over there are interesting."

Ian walked toward a stall filled with bottles and jars. The stall owner was an old woman with a wrinkled face, wearing an extremely expensive silk robe, stirring a pot of bubbling green liquid with a bone. "Ancestral medicine! Strengthens the body! Wards off evil and misfortune!" she called out in a hoarse voice.

Ian crouched down and picked up a bottle of dark purple liquid. The label read "Nightshade Flower Juice," but the color was too dark and the texture too thick.

"Did you pick this 'Nightshade Flower Juice' yourself?" Ian asked casually.

“Of course! I just picked them from the swamp last night!” the old woman said, puffing out her chest.

Ian gently shook the bottle and brought it closer to his nose. A pungent, putrid odor wafted out, mixed with a hint of sweet fragrance—the hallmark of the Death Mushroom.

“You’ve got it wrong,” Ian put down the bottle and smiled. “This is the juice of the ‘Heart Rot Mushroom,’ which looks like the Nightshade Flower but is extremely poisonous. One sip will cause your intestines to burst and you’ll die three days later. Before you die, you’ll see your loved ones turn into maggots.”

The old woman's face turned pale: "No...impossible! I clearly picked Nightshade Flowers!"

“The nightshade flowers by the swamp are pale purple with silver edges on the petals,” Ian explained patiently. “The one you picked has a black stem, right? That’s a heart-rot mushroom, which only glows on the night of a full moon to attract fools to pick it.”

The old woman was stunned, then hurriedly threw the bottle of "medicine" into the far corner of the stall: "That...that bottle is free, you can have it!"

Ian laughed. He knew this "gift" was actually a way to prevent Ian from reporting him for selling poison. He picked up the bottle and tossed it into his leather bag—the Heartrot Mushroom, though poisonous, was a key ingredient in making "Soul Developer" after specific alchemical processing. And so, Ian tasted for the first time the pleasure of unscrupulous cunning.

of course.

He wouldn't choose stall owners who seemed to have poor living conditions.

After all, one still has some conscience, more or less.

He prioritized getting the best stuff from the shady merchants' stalls. Next, he went to a stall selling ores. The stall owner was a burly wizard with a necklace of animal teeth around his neck.

"Look! A 'thunderstone' just dug from the crater! It contains powerful energy!" He held up a gray-black stone with lightning-shaped patterns on it.

Ian picked up the stone and gently traced the patterns with his fingertip. There was no magical fluctuation, and the patterns looked unnatural.

"Your 'Thunderstone' is just ordinary volcanic rock that you burned with electricity, isn't it?" Ian sneered.

The stall owner's eyes darted around: "You... what do you know?"

“Real thunderstone is formed from meteorite iron struck by lightning, and it contains metallic crystals inside,” Ian said, turning the stone over. “Your piece is full of air bubbles, and it doesn’t even contain 5% iron. You might fool a layman, but you can’t fool me.”

The stall owner, sweating profusely, asked, "Then... what do you want?"

“I’ll buy this stone,” Ian said, pulling out a few copper coins, “but you’ll have to include that pile of ‘scrap’ over there.”

He pointed to a pile of inconspicuous gravel in the corner of the stall, dark red in color, like iron slag.

"Those? They're all useless!" the stall owner said reluctantly.

“I know,” Ian smiled, “which is why I want it.”

He knew perfectly well that the pile of "waste" was actually the residue of cooled lava from the Earth's core, rich in rare elements, making it an excellent material for repairing the time machine's energy core. The stall owner, however, clearly only recognized the intimidating "thunderstone" and was blind to the real treasure. Thus, a scenario that only played out in fantasy novels was being performed on Ian himself.

The third stop was a stall selling animal organs. The stall owner was showing off a string of dried bat wings.

"Vampire Bat Wings! Used in flight potions! Extremely effective!"

Ian picked up a wing, pinched it gently—and it instantly turned into powder.

“These wings are at least ten years old,” Ian shook his head. “Vampire bat wings must be used within three months of drying, otherwise they will lose all their magic. Your pile can only be used as fertilizer.”

The stall owner coughed awkwardly twice.

Ian's gaze sharpened—at the very bottom of the stall lay a small, dark green scale, no bigger than a fingernail, utterly inconspicuous.

"And that scale? What's the price?" he asked, pointing to the scale.

"Oh, that one? Nobody wants it, you can have it." The stall owner said indifferently.

Ian picked up the scale, his heart filled with joy—it was a molted scale from an African dragon cub, extremely rare, as adult dragons molt very rarely, and young dragons are extremely difficult to approach. This scale contained powerful regenerative magic, a key material for repairing damage to the time machine's outer shell.

He quietly collected the scales, then strolled around a few more stalls, using similar methods to "pick up" quite a few more.

A bottle of Styx venom, mistaken for "ordinary snake venom," was actually extracted from the mouth of a two-headed snake and can dissolve magical barriers; a packet of stardust ash, treated as "ornaments," was actually a remnant of an ancient wizard's ritual and can enhance prophetic magic; and a piece of ancestral bone, regarded as "ordinary stone."

It is engraved with lost tribal runes.

Ian's leather bag gradually bulged, filled with undervalued treasures. He sat on a rock at the edge of the market, counting his spoils with satisfaction.

While these materials, individually insignificant, were enough to sustain him through numerous alchemical experiments and magical repairs. More importantly, through these transactions, he completely integrated into the environment. The stall owners, recognizing his discerning eye, even actively invited him to look at the "good stuff," treating him no like a suspicious outsider.

of course.

Finding bargains was secondary. As Ian explored further, he gradually discovered a problem: he had walked for so long and seen shops selling magical artifacts, herbs, potions, amulets, and even secondhand Muggle items, but he hadn't seen a single shop that specialized in selling wands.

He specifically asked several stall owners where he could buy "spellcasting tools," and the answers he received all pointed him deeper into the market.

Driven by curiosity, Ian followed the directions to a relatively quiet section of the market. The stalls here were more organized, and the goods sold were noticeably more refined and professional. Then, he saw the answer—there were no "wand shops," but there were several "rune engraving shops."

The largest shop has a prominent wooden sign hanging at its entrance, with the shop name and the services offered engraved with intricate patterns and text.

The walls of the shop were covered with all sorts of items: swords of varying lengths, metal rods, daggers made of animal bones, and even polished gems and animal teeth. But they all had one thing in common—their surfaces were engraved with extremely complex, intricate, and magically powerful runes and patterns.

"welcome."

The shop owner was an old craftsman with sharp eyes and slender fingers. Wearing specially made magnifying glasses, he was intently carving the final stroke on a short ebony stick with a gleaming engraving needle. As the last rune was completed, the entire stick glowed slightly.

Magic flowed smoothly between the runes like water.

The core of European wands lies in the combination of the wand core and the wand wood, while the external runes are more decorative or auxiliary. This is different from the "spellcasting implements" of Africa.

This place seems to place more emphasis on the system of externally inscribed magical runes.

Different combinations of runes will obviously produce different magical effects and tendencies. Some runes focus on fire, some on healing, and some on protection or mental power. Wizards choose "rune tools" that suit them, or have them custom-made by craftsmen, to cast enhanced spells by activating and guiding these runes.

"It seems that what I thought was true is true. People here prefer to use inscribed tools that can precisely locate the direction of magic, rather than wands. However, if it is a regular spell, why can they cast it with their fingers?" With this expectation in mind, Ian decided to talk to the owner of the place.

(End of this chapter)