Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 385 The World's Strongest Magic Circle: The Magic Tent (Happy Dragon Boat Festival)

"What astonishing power..." Rice clenched his fist. He even had a feeling that he could fight against wizards who possessed domains without activating his own.

Because at this moment, the magic power in his body had reached its limit, it was as if he had contained an entire domain within his body.

Helga also drank his share of the wine, and a flush appeared on his face.

After enduring a brief emotional shock, Helga absorbed the energy from the wine, and the abnormal crimson on her face turned into a healthy rosy glow, even reducing some of the wrinkles on her skin.

"I feel like this sip of wine could give me several more months to live," Helga Cholaes joked after burying his surging emotions deep inside.

"That would be the most luxurious elixir of immortality in the world."

"It's a pity that the gods of the world have disappeared, and the speed of this transformation is far too slow."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

"Let's get going. If we don't get some exercise, I feel like I'm going to burst from all that magic." Rice stood up and walked towards the door first.

"By the way, should we inform Dumbledore?" Helga thought of the school's nominal headmaster.

If they were to modify the school's protective magic, it would surely alarm the headmaster, wouldn't it? It's best to explain first, lest we scare him.

Rice naturally had no objections; he simply instructed Helga not to let Dumbledore know that he was also involved. If Dumbledore wanted to help, Helga should also find a way to prevent him from getting involved.

"Even now, you still don't want him to know you exist?" Helga asked with a smile.

"It's too early." Rice felt it was a pipe dream to expect a headmaster from Gryffindor to trust him. Once his identity was revealed, his situation at the school would likely become much more difficult; Dumbledore also had his domain.

"You have to understand me. You are, after all, a Hufflepuff, while I am a Slytherin, and Dumbledore is a Gryffindor."

"I don't think he's as narrow-minded as you say," Hufflepuff muttered, but Rice just shook his head and didn't respond.

"Alright then." Since Salazar insisted, Helga didn't try to persuade him any further.

She rushed to the headmaster's office and met with Dumbledore again.

Although he was somewhat surprised that this "Professor White" had come to visit him for the second time in such a short period of time, Dumbledore still politely invited her to sit down and have a chat.

At the same time, the aura emanating from her secretly alarmed Dumbledore: it seemed like only a short time had passed, yet the professor had undergone a significant change.

"No need," Helga declined his offer and relayed the purpose of her visit to Dumbledore.

"Do you need help?" After hearing Professor White's idea, Dumbledore did not hesitate and asked directly if he could help.

In his opinion, it was wonderful that Professor White was interested in revamping the school's defensive magic; no one was more suitable for the task than her. Even if she hadn't mentioned it, he planned to hint at it to her in a few days. Of course, even without Professor White, Dumbledore himself would have found a way to reinforce the defensive magic, all in preparation for the future.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you can't," Helga said frankly, uttering a harsh truth.

Indeed, Dumbledore's magical system was incompatible with her and Salazar's. Putting aside the question of how Salazar would cope after Dumbledore's arrival, the clash between their systems alone was enough to cause them trouble.

"Oh, I see." Dumbledore wasn't surprised at all. He sat back down in his chair and wished Professor White all the best.

After Professor White left her office, Dumbledore fell into deep thought: she hadn't been away from her office long before a new idea came to her. It seemed she had discussed it with someone else; quite interesting…

However, Dumbledore had no intention of digging deeper. In his view, everyone has their secrets, and rashly pursuing the whole truth would likely only bring negative consequences.

Professor White was someone he could completely trust, and Dumbledore believed that when the time was right, she would tell him the whole truth.

While Dumbledore was deep in thought, Hogwarts' defensive magic had already been quietly activated, and a transparent mesh covered the school castle, the lawns and greenhouses outside the school, and even extended to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

This is the protective zone that Salazar and the other three designated for the school back then.

Upon arriving at the school gate, which is also the starting point of the protective magic, Helga found Salazar already waiting there.

"Let's begin." Rice didn't say much, but simply drew his wand, and Helga also took out her own wand.

Magic flowed into their eyes, and the world before them changed: a semi-transparent membrane covered Hogwarts, filled with runes.

"The magic system of the Norse gods was really quite useful, but unfortunately, later generations of children were unable to learn their magic. In the end, only the runes were passed down."

"They haven't even fully preserved their own wizarding traditions, so how can we expect them to understand the spell systems of the Norse gods?"

"Don't say that. The knowledge of magic flow was simply eliminated in the process of magic's evolution and innovation. It's just that no one could have imagined that not learning magic flow would lead to the loss of the unique skill of domains. That's really frustrating."

Rice and Helga chatted for a bit, then began updating the defensive magic.

However, it's more accurate to call it adding new features rather than an update.

The two first worked together to add another layer of protection to the existing magical shield, and then began to inscribe magical runes on it.

With their combined efforts, runes began to appear on the protective shield.

"Add the warning system to the list."

"Hide, add".

"Automatic mana absorption, added."

"..."

Soon, Rice and Helga had added some basic functions to the protective shield.

"What do you mean? What kind of image do you intend for the outside world to project?" Rice asked Helga for her opinion.

"Let's make it look like it did when we first came here? The calm lake, the thin mist, and the barren grass, as if Hogwarts never existed."

Memories flooded back, and Rice remembered the day Rowena brought them here.

"Hey, Helga, I had a weird dream last night!"

"Dreams? Wizards don't dream for no reason—Royna, would you like a calming potion? I also have exorcism potions, the newest ones—"

"Salazar, shut up!" Rowena snapped at the Slytherin, dissuading him from feeding her strange potions, before telling her friends about her dream from the previous night.

A warthog led her to a perfectly situated, open area. If such a place truly existed, she would definitely consider it the location for Hogwarts.

"Royna, you must have been obsessed with choosing a location for the school these past few days. What you think about during the day, you dream about at night. That's perfectly normal," Godric laughed, in his opinion.

When he was trying to quit drinking, he often dreamed of strange little animals leading him to dead trees in the forest to find wine made from various animals.

"Indeed." Rowena chose to believe Godric—otherwise, she would have to taste Salazar's strange potion.

The four tidied up their campsite from the previous night and then set off.

Before long, Rowena frowned: the places they passed looked quite familiar, as if they were the places she had walked through with the warthog in her dream.

"Let's go this way." As they passed a familiar fork in the road, Rowena inexplicably chose the path she had walked in her dream the night before.

The further she walked, the more silent Rowena became, and the faster her pace quickened.

The three friends didn't quite understand why, but they followed her without hesitation.

A few minutes later, the four of them walked through a grove of trees and came to a lake. Rowena froze on the spot—it was exactly the same scene she had seen in her dream.

"This place looks pretty good? I think we could consider locating the school here?"

"Shall we go explore other places?"

"Royna, how does this place compare to the place you dreamed of? Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"

Rowena: ...

She told her friends about it.

"Huh?" The three of them exclaimed in unison, and all three of them froze on the spot.

"Salazar, I heard you've developed an exorcism potion?" Rowena asked softly, gazing at the cliffs across the lake.

"Hmm." Slytherin nodded blankly, subconsciously replying, "I'll make it for you and bring it over in a bit."

The location of Hogwarts was decided in this somewhat comical scene.

Thinking of this, Rice recalled a widely circulated rumor in Slytherin: Hogwarts Castle was the property of Salazar Slytherin—the deed to the castle was hidden in the headmaster's office.

He was stunned when he heard the rumor.

Hogwarts Castle was established by the four of them and several students they had previously enrolled, and there was no single, clearly defined owner.

Furthermore, if he truly possessed such a primely located castle, why would he have simply watched his old friends roam all over Britain back then? You see, they almost decided to build a super-sized ship as their magic school. They could have let the ship drift across the world, searching for young wizards with magical talent to board and learn magic.

This rumor was probably spread by the descendants of Slytherin House to glorify themselves. It will only make those who know the history of Hogwarts laugh.

"Salazar, is there a problem?" Helga's voice reached his ears, bringing Rice's attention back to reality.

"It's nothing." Rice shook his head, suppressing those chaotic memories deep in his mind, and then began to carefully sketch the magic runes on the protective shield.

Runes fell one after another onto the surface of the protective shield, and Rice's memories of that morning gradually resurfaced.

As his magic power was depleted, the new protective shield gradually became covered with magical runes. Fine beads of sweat began to appear on Rice's forehead, his hair became matted with sweat, and the back of his robe was soaked with sweat.

Helga stood aside, assisting his old friend, repairing some of the runes he hadn't drawn well, and correcting some obvious errors.

As the sun was about to set, Rice drew the last rune on the door directly opposite him. The next moment, the entire magic circle lit up, plunging Hogwarts into darkness before returning to normal.

The students inside the castle noticed something was wrong and crowded to the windows, but the sunset outside remained unchanged. The young wizards rubbed their eyes, but the sunset still looked the same.

"Did it just flash?"

"Yes, I'm sure..."

The young wizards whispered amongst themselves, but couldn't quite put their finger on it. Not only the students, but even the professors who noticed the strange phenomenon were baffled. Only Dumbledore, sitting by the window of the headmaster's office, understood what was happening.

"Professor White, you succeeded."

Besides Dumbledore, several young wizards, including Daphne, who understood the flow of magic, also sensed that something was amiss.

"There seemed to be a very strong surge of magical energy just now..."

"The coverage is very broad, it seems to include the entire school."

"Was this the teacher's doing?" Cedric looked up at the window. He poured magic into his eyes as his teacher had taught him, and then dense magical runes appeared in his eyes.

The runes flickered a few times and then gradually faded away, but Cedric knew very well that they still hung over the school, only now they were hidden.

"Diggory, did the sun just flash?" came a friend's voice from beside him.

"It seems that's true, but I don't know why. Maybe we can ask Professor Sinister in the next astronomy class what kind of astronomical phenomenon this is." Although he knew more than most people, Cedric still chose to keep it a secret.

"If the students knew that Hogwarts was shrouded in a bunch of strange runes, they'd definitely panic, right? But as long as the teachers and Professor Dumbledore are here, it'll be fine."

"Let's go to the auditorium first, it'll get crowded soon." He said with a gentle smile and a reassuring voice.

"You're right!" His friend's attention was indeed diverted, and he strode towards the auditorium.

Cedric smiled and shook his head, then quickly followed.

That's how students at Hufflepuff are; even if the sky is falling, they still have to eat first, right?

Outside the gates of Hogwarts, Rice looked at the empty lakeside meadow before him, a slight smile playing on his lips: "Helga, our magic circle is complete."

"Whether it's sound, light, or even heat, it's flawless. Neither wizards nor Muggles can see Hogwarts when the magic circle is activated—I believe it's the strongest magic circle in the world today, completely comparable to the entrance concealment magic circle of Asgard back then," Rice said proudly.

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.

Update here! (It's a little late, but) Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

(End of this chapter)