Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 153 The Complementary Greengrass Sisters

"In a battle between two wizards, if one has a domain and the other does not, the wizard without a domain cannot possibly defeat the other. To escape with one's life is already an exceptional achievement," Rice instructed Daphne.

If she were to encounter a wizard with a domain in the future, and she happened to not have activated her domain yet, his only advice to her would be to run away—or call a wizard with a domain to her.

The amplification of a wizard's strength by a domain is terrifying. A wizard with a domain is invincible against a wizard without a domain unless he loses his mind.

Voldemort, who had previously fought Rice, possessed considerable skill in spellcasting, but because he hadn't mastered the Domain, he was treated like a toy by Rice. If Voldemort had possessed the Domain back then, Rice certainly wouldn't have been able to achieve victory as easily as before, and Voldemort might very well have escaped.

The same thing happened when Reese and Ravenclaw fought. After activating their domains, the difference in their magical power was completely erased, resulting in a fierce and evenly matched battle. If Reese hadn't activated his domain, he would have been hacked to pieces by Ravenclaw long ago.

Domains are extremely important to wizards, but unfortunately, unlocking a domain requires a specific trigger, and no one can guarantee they will be able to do so. Therefore, Rice felt it necessary to give Daphne and Astoria a heads-up, to avoid the disastrous situation where Daphne, without a domain, is forced to fight a wizard with one.

Of course, Rice had a lot of confidence in his two students, since he knew a little about potion-making and could concoct potions to help them comprehend the field once he had enough raw materials.

After giving the Greengrass sisters their instructions, Rice began her lesson.

"Concentrate your magic power at the soles of your feet, and then try to output it steadily..." Rice repeated what he had taught Daphne to Astoria, and added that if there was anything she didn't understand, she could ask Daphne, as she was very good at it.

Rice's words immediately made Daphne blush. She waved her hands repeatedly, indicating that she could not be considered talented.

Daphne was telling the truth, because in her opinion, her sister's talent was far more terrifying than hers. She probably could master magic control in less than three minutes.

But the result was somewhat unexpected. Astoria struggled there for several hours but still couldn't lift herself off the ground. In fact, she would often fall on her butt because of excessive magic output.

Daphne: ?

Rice: ...

He had a vague sense of unease: Could Astoria be the exact opposite of Daphne? One of them was skilled in spells but not in mana control, while the other was very skilled in mana control but less adept at spell comprehension.

If only Astoria and Daphne could be merged, the resulting little witch would probably possess the most outstanding talent in a thousand years.

However, even if Rice had the ability to do it, he wouldn't do it; in his view, such magic crossed his bottom line.

Daphne didn't think too much about Rice. She earnestly shared her experience with her sister: "Take off your shoes and let your feet touch the ground directly. It will be much better. And don't be afraid of falling. Be confident and bold—"

"Ouch!" Astoria's magic surged, and she fell hard, making a dull thud on the ground.

Rice sighed and covered his forehead: if this continued, he would have to start concocting potions to heal his fractures.

He stomped his foot, and the marble floor of the secret room softened, feeling like walking on a beach.

While Rice couldn't help Astoria control the output of her magic, she could at least make sure her fall wasn't too painful.

But even after Astoria took off her shoes and carefully remembered the lessons Daphne taught her, she still couldn't fly like her sister.

During the same amount of study time, Daphne was already able to soar in the secret room, but Astoria couldn't even float.

Daphne felt a sense of helplessness: she couldn't understand why her sister couldn't do it; it was as simple as breathing for her. Meanwhile, Rice, who had been observing from the sidelines, saw something amiss: he sensed that it was the filth within Astoria's soul at work.

Those "dirty things" interfered with her output and perception of magic.

Now Rice was helpless. Before Astoria's soul was purified, she would need to put in more than ten times the effort of an ordinary person to control the output of magic.

Rice tried to explain the reason for Astoria's slow progress to the two sisters in simple words. After listening to his explanation, Astoria's eyes did not look sad, but rather a little cheerful. On the contrary, Daphne looked somewhat sad.

"This is great! I thought I really had no talent, that would have been terrible!" the little girl said optimistically. "Once my illness is cured, there won't be any more worries!"

Rice patted her on the head and told her that her illness would definitely be cured.

After figuring out the reason, Rice left Astoria to practice there alone. Neither he nor Daphne could help her; the only thing he could do was soften the floor. As for Daphne, Rice arranged for her to practice stillness fields on the sidelines.

Rice, on the other hand, found a quiet place to tinker with the Philosopher's Stone. After several months of hard work, he made some progress in his research on the Philosopher's Stone.

He felt that the Philosopher's Stone must involve a very profound magic conversion, and it might even require a specific magic circle to be crafted.

Trying to reverse engineer the magic circle used to create the magic stone is asking too much of a man. At this point, Rice's research on the magic stone had reached a bottleneck; to make further progress, he would have to actually consume some magic stones.

Rice took a few fragments from the Philosopher's Stone and then used them to begin concocting the elixir of immortality.

With the Philosopher's Stone as the main ingredient, the remaining steps are not complicated, and can even be described as simple, no more difficult than making the scabies potion that young wizards learn in their first potions class.

The elixir of immortality was quickly prepared, and Rice marveled at the pot of blood-red potion before him.

He thought for a moment, then instead of drinking it directly, he put a small pebble in it. A large amount of white steam instantly rose from the crucible. After a while, the liquid in the crucible had decreased by nearly half, and the small pebble had turned into a piece of gold.

Rice scooped it out of the crucible, cut it open, and saw that the stone had been completely transformed into pure gold.

After roughly calculating the conversion rate with this small pebble, Rice finally understood why Nicolas Flamel was so rich, even so rich that Beauxbatons became the richest magic school in Europe solely through his donations.

Those unaware of the truth might assume that the magic stone's ability to turn stone into gold is a one-to-one conversion between the magic stone and gold, but that's not actually the case. Looking at the small gold bean in his hand, Rice felt that the conversion ratio was closer to one to one thousand.

However, this is not the core function of the Philosopher's Stone...

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Hehehe, here comes the second update!

Fun illustrations for each chapter—If Harry Potter were a World War II film, Malfoy (World War II version)

Thank you liangkent88 and Jun Yexin for the generous donations! So grateful! *kiss*

(End of this chapter)