Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 355 Rice: A Detailed Explanation of the Doll Service Model

Helga knew his own situation best and didn't want to push Salazar too far.

As for his immortality magic, Helga knew a little about it, but she had almost no interest in it—the main ingredient needed for the immortality potion was extinct, and after taking it, one would be in a slumber for at least a thousand years, so she found it difficult to comment. Therefore, she figured it was best to let Salazar stay and do the hard labor for her for a while.

Helga's attitude made Rice waver slightly: her reaction was a bit strange.

But Hufflepuff was using an open strategy; she was convinced Salazar would never miss this opportunity, and Rice certainly wouldn't give up, even if the chances were slim.

Ultimately, Rice chose to stay and do a few trivial things for Helga in exchange for her secrets to help Cedric awaken his domain.

"Come on, help me correct my homework first!" Helga placed the thick stack of parchment in front of Rice.

Rice looked troubled: "Helga, how long has it been since you graded homework? How come there's so much piling up? If you can't finish grading it all, can't you at least assign less?"

"Don't worry, the paper this time is about the Illusion Confusion Charm that you invented. Who knows this spell better than you?"

Rice sighed, glancing at Helga with considerable wariness. Even from his perspective as the inventor of the spell, this incantation wasn't very suitable for the modern magical world.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Let's get started on making the changes." Helga handed Rice a quill pen and a bottle of ink.

Left with no other choice, Rice was forced to accept his fate. He picked up the top paper and began to read it—this was something he could only do himself; he couldn't let Daphne or Astoria do it for him.

"Zero points!"

"Negative marks, garbage, a waste of paper!"

"Finally, he spoke like a human being. I'll give him five points."

"This is alright, a perfect 10/10."

Helga stopped Rice, who was rapidly reviewing the papers, and his words terrified her.

"What was your perfect score?" Hufflepuff asked.

"twenty."

Helga: ...

She took the papers Rice had graded and felt her blood pressure rise after just a couple of glances: with Rice's grading method, more than 80% of the students would fail this assignment.

"Loosen your standards a bit."

"Okay." Rice shrugged, took the students' papers, quickly wrote "read" on them, and graded them accordingly. He gave passing marks to all the papers he thought should be zero, and only the ones he thought should be penalized were failing.

After outsourcing the work to Salazar, Hufflepuff didn't start tinkering with her dolls. Instead, she slacked off in a corner of the office. She had worked hard before Salazar arrived, and she was still working hard after Salazar arrived. Wasn't Salazar's trip a waste?!

Adhering to this belief, Helga slacked off to an insane degree.

After slacking off for a while, Hufflepuff sneaked over to Rice's side to see his work. Then her expression turned serious, because she saw that the top assignment clearly stated: Daphne - Full Marks.

She picked up the homework Rice had corrected and looked through it, finding that his grading was quite fair, even giving Slytherin a lower score.

Rice didn't even look up, and told Helga directly, "Daphne got a perfect score because she got the materials she used for her paper from me."

Helga sheepishly put the homework back.

After grading the homework, Rice let out a long sigh of relief. After stretching his stiff shoulders and neck, he saw Helga: "Now can you tell me the secret?"

Of course not.

Helga shared the problems she encountered while designing the dolls with Rice.

"Cheap and fast, and with as many functions as possible?" Rice glanced at Helga, somewhat dissatisfied with her "want it all" attitude.

"It's all for Hogwarts..." Helga said with a smile, trying to soothe her old friend.

Hufflepuff's words persuaded Rice, and for the sake of Hogwarts and her teaching methods, Rice decided to seriously consider how to solve the problem.

A few minutes later, Rice slapped his thigh: "It's obviously very difficult to give a doll a lot of spells by its own name, but you can give a doll a lot of alchemical items!"

Rice's idea was that Helga would provide sufficiently sturdy dolls that could move around for extended periods and possess a certain level of consciousness, and then attach many magical items to the dolls, such as rings that could automatically cast Ironclad Charms or necklaces that could automatically cast Stunning Charms.

He was already very familiar with these props, so making them wasn't slow. All things considered, a doll that could use more than a dozen spells and had a near-infinite lifespan could be made in less than a week. Customers could also add their own "configurations," and a doll with five spells would definitely not be priced the same as one with ten spells.

Helga: As expected of Salazar, he possesses wisdom that is beyond our reach!

She showered Rice with compliments, offering them like a machine gun, her aim being to persuade her to stay in her office and create a model for her.

"Okay, do you have the materials here?" Since she wanted to help, Rice decided to make the doll for Helga.

"Fantastic!" Helga pointed her wand at a cabinet, and a doll pushed open the cabinet door and came out.

"This is a doll I made a few days ago. It can move according to the set instructions, such as patrolling a certain limited area. I set several behavior modes for it, including patrol mode, guard mode, protection mode, and service mode."

"Service model?" Rice's intuition told her that this model was probably not that simple.

"Could you elaborate?"

"Um, uh... it's just helping people clean, cook, and relieve stress or something," Helga mumbled.

"Let me see." The more Hufflepuff tried to stop him, the more curious Rice became.

Unable to resist Salazar, Helga finally gave in. She poked the doll with her wand, and the doll transformed into a beautiful blonde maid with an incredibly lifelike appearance, almost indistinguishable from a real person.

"Service model?"

"Yes, I think those pure-blood families will spend a lot of money on this."

Rice: ...

This shouldn't lead to the extinction of a pure-blooded family that has been passed down for thousands of years, right?

"Whatever makes you happy." Rice gestured for Helga to switch the doll back to its normal form; he needed to start seriously considering the functions the doll needed.

As a guardian of Azkaban, the Ironclad Charm, Stunning Charm, and Disarming Charm are essential. You can also add a few offensive and defensive spells as needed. In the Guardian mode, spells like the Disillusionment Charm are also necessary.

Furthermore, regarding the service model that Helga wanted to use to swindle money, Rice felt it should be paired with some everyday magic such as cleaning spells and cutting spells for chopping vegetables. It would be even better if it could make simple potions like swelling potions.

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.

This is the second update. The next update will be at midnight tomorrow night.

(End of this chapter)