Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 40: If you can just use a formula, nobody's willing to use their brain.

"Hoo... Hah..."

The fog rolled in again, bringing the still-shaken Daphne back into the secret room.

After her feet landed on the solid marble floor, Daphne's legs went weak, and she collapsed onto the ground.

After catching her breath, she touched the hem of her robe and found it to be completely dry, showing no signs of being wet from the seawater. Only then did she gradually regain her composure.

What just happened was a Slytherin memory?! What monster was he fighting back then?!

In that instant, Daphne's respect for Slytherin, the founder of the House, reached its zenith.

According to the last fragment of memory, Slytherin won, which is outrageous!

Daphne felt that if she were in that situation, she could brag about it for the rest of her life if she survived.

What were the other three founders doing? Were they not yet acquainted with Slytherin at that time?

A small question crossed Daphne's mind, but she quickly dismissed it because Rice was asking her what she thought after seeing that memory.

It was absolutely stunning!

Daphne witnessed for the first time what "the ultimate in magic" meant. A wizard who could master magic to its highest level could truly be called a "walking natural disaster."

"He changed my understanding of magic," Daphne said. "Before that, I never knew magic could be so powerful."

Rice nodded in satisfaction: this was precisely his purpose—to broaden Daphne's horizons and let her understand the limits of magic. Before teaching students, shouldn't they at least know the true nature of this profession? Especially students like Daphne who can choose their own "major."

"So what kind of spells do you want to learn?" After laying the groundwork, Rice asked Daphne what kind of spells she wanted to learn.

"You can teach anything?"

"That's right, there are almost no spells I can't teach."

"I want to learn how to make magic stones. If I can make magic stones, maybe my sister's illness can be cured."

Rice: ...

The young girl slapped him in the face, silencing him with a single sentence.

If he knew how to refine magic stones, why would he need to use such a time-consuming and laborious method as long sleep and molting to rejuvenate?

"That's the almost." Rice, with his thick skin, shamelessly admitted that he couldn't make a Philosopher's Stone.

Daphne looked a little disappointed, but she also understood that her request was unreasonable. If Rice hadn't displayed such astonishing abilities, she certainly wouldn't have asked that question.

"The curse on your sister is rather special and needs to be treated slowly. You can give her a curse-removing fruit first and see how it goes. If that doesn't work, I'll prepare some magic potions to suppress the curse." Rice felt that the blood curse on Daphne's sister Astoria was quite troublesome, and even he wasn't confident he could cure it.

To heal her, Rice would need to purify the curse attached to Astoria's soul or cut away the corrupted soul, a very difficult task.

If Helga were here, she would be the one among the four who was better at healing. It's a pity she's not here, Rice couldn't help but think.

Daphne didn't respond; she just pursed her lips and, after a short while, changed the subject.

"I want to learn how to fly. When we fought the serpent, Lord Slytherin was floating in mid-air." Daphne recalled the scene in her memory, and then realized that there were too many things she wanted to learn—the magic circle to defeat the serpent, powerful attack magic, the power to control the sea, and so on. She wanted to learn them all, so she decided to start with the most basic and inconspicuous things.

Rice raised an eyebrow: "Of course you can learn how to fly, but it requires a high level of control over magic."

"No problem. In fact, the way we get here is by flying. The principle is not difficult. Gather magic in your feet to generate upward thrust and you can float. Then change the direction of the magic to fly at will. How about that? Isn't it very simple? You can learn it with just a little practice."

A look of confusion flashed across Daphne's face.

Controlling magic?

This was the first time she had ever heard of this concept.

Hmm? Rice suddenly realized something was wrong. It was like a Muggle teacher on the podium talking at length about the changes in chemical bonds in redox reactions, and then a student asked from below what an oxidation reaction was.

"Haven't you heard of controlling magic?" he asked cautiously.

After receiving an affirmative answer, Rice felt a wave of dizziness: he finally understood the problem with the modern magical world.

In the previous week's classes, the professors had never mentioned this concept. He thought it was basic common sense, so the professors were too lazy to explain it. It turns out that the concept simply didn't exist!

Compared to a thousand years ago, the modern magical world has made great strides in wand making and spells, to the point that some seemingly outdated concepts have been rendered obsolete.

For example, magic control.

Just as the advent of calculators in the non-magical world swept counting rods and abacuses into the dustbin of history, the improvements to wands and spells also made magic control no longer a required course for wizards, to the point that the new generation of young wizards had never even heard of the concept.

Why bother thinking if you can just follow a formula? You can cast a spell simply by following specific gestures, intonations, and phrasing. Over time, no one will think deeply about why a wave of my hand and chanting "Yuga-Dimlevi-O-Sa" can make feathers float.

Knowing what to do but not why is a common problem in the modern magical world, and also the reason why almost no wizards in the vast modern magical world can fly. The one who is most skilled at flying is actually the Dark Lord Voldemort!

Wizards, think more.

After figuring this out, Rice sighed, "I think we should start by practicing controlling magic."

Fearing Daphne might get impatient, he added: "Without understanding magic control and the principles of spells, even if you master ten thousand spells, you can't become a wizard like Slytherin."

Then he began to explain to Daphne how to mobilize the magic within her body and release it.

Because the content was so basic, Rice's delivery was quite awkward—he truly never imagined that one day he would be teaching this kind of thing to a young wizard from a pure-blood family.

Fortunately, he had attended a few of Helga Hufflepuff's introductory lessons, otherwise it would have been quite troublesome.

With Rice's guidance, Daphne succeeded after a few tries.

A tingling, warm current flowed through her left arm, eventually gathering at her palm and fingertips, and then—

puff!

A small cyclone was created in Daphne's palm and then dissipated.

"Congratulations, you've learned to project your magic power," Rice praised her from the side.

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.

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(End of this chapter)