Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 439 Rowena's Smile and Rice's Intuition

When Dumbledore began to explain the rules of the Young Wizarding Championship, the entire Great Hall fell silent. Everyone pricked up their ears, especially the young wizards whose native language was not English, who stared intently at Dumbledore's lips, afraid of missing a single word.

The awe-inspiring appearance of the legendary wizard Godric Gryffindor was also overshadowed.

After all, no matter how good Gryffindor is, he can't participate in the competition, right? The participants are ultimately the seven students provided by that organization called the Secret Order.

Most of the people present had never even heard of the Secret Order, so naturally they didn't take it seriously. The only bit of respect they showed was out of consideration for Gryffindor.

"With the help of various parties in the wizarding world, the competition venue is ready. Starting tomorrow, the competition will officially begin. Contestants from various magic schools, as well as independent contestants from the wizarding world, will be placed in the prepared competition venue to complete the prescribed competition tasks." Dumbledore spoke at a measured pace and with clear enunciation, ensuring that everyone in the Great Hall could understand what he was saying.

The competition venue was actually built by Rowena and Helga together, but the two had told Dumbledore in advance that they wanted to keep a low profile, so Dumbledore deliberately concealed their contributions.

Upon learning that the competition would officially begin tomorrow, the young wizards in the audience buzzed with excitement, surprised that time was so tight.

However, considering that tomorrow is a day off, they all felt relieved. On their day off, they could watch the game together without missing classes next week.

"We will provide each participant with a crystal ball to broadcast their experiences on the field—participants can choose to turn off the crystal ball, but they must report their current status and task completion status through the crystal ball daily. We will publish each participant's specific situation on the school bulletin board according to their score."

Dumbledore also told everyone present that Hogwarts had installed several large screens in the Quidditch pitch to broadcast the players' matches live. Interested young wizards could go to the Quidditch pitch to watch the live stream.

"Because the contestants have different skill levels, their initial throwing locations will also vary. This is something I must remind everyone of before the competition begins."

Upon hearing Dumbledore's words, Reston immediately frowned.

He sensed that he was being targeted.

This contestant's strength... it can't be referring to their actual strength, right? If it is, he doesn't even want to think about what he'll face. If it's just the theoretical strength measured by the Sorting Hat and the Magic Crystal Ball, then it's alright.

Just then, he noticed Rowena smile at him, and Reston immediately understood that he no longer needed to guess what the situation was—he was definitely going to face a very difficult challenge.

Who knows, I might have to clean up Rowena's mess again.

He was all too familiar with that smile.

"Professor Dumbledore, how is the skill level of a contestant determined?" Karkaroff's voice came from behind Dumbledore.

He squinted, as if he were wondering about something.

It's normal for Karkaroff to have doubts. The tournament is organized by Hogwarts and held in England, so it would be very easy to inject some shady dealings into it.

For example, you could define students from a certain school as high-level students and then give them a "hellish start," eliminating them all in the first round of the competition.

Putting himself in Demstrand's shoes, Karkaroff felt that if Demstrand were to organize the competition, he would definitely do so.

Kakarov had managed to get the principals' thoughts out of their heads, and the principals sitting in the faculty section all turned to him with concern.

They take the classification of students' levels quite seriously.

"Don't worry, Professor Karkaroff." Dumbledore, as if he had expected it, took out the Sorting Hat and the magic crystal ball from his pocket and explained the wonderful uses of these two items to the headmasters of other schools.

"Really?"

"Is it really that amazing?"

The school principals have certainly broadened their horizons.

"Of course." Dumbledore even gave the crystal ball to the headmasters of each school so they could demonstrate how to use it.

Looking at the crystal ball in their hands, which shone far less brightly than Dumbledore's, the headmasters fell silent: Was the gap between themselves and Dumbledore really that big?

Previously, although they respected Dumbledore, most of the headmasters did not have a direct understanding of how far they were from Dumbledore on the path of magic. In fact, some even thought that Dumbledore was old and frail, while they were in their prime, and that as long as the battle was prolonged, they would surely win.

That's normal; Dumbledore's most glorious moment was defeating Grindelwald.

As a dark wizard who roamed the world, Grindelwald left a deep impression on the wizarding world at the time, which also brought Dumbledore, who defeated him, to the peak of his reputation.

But now half a century has passed since Grindelwald's time, and most of the wizards who witnessed Grindelwald's power back then have passed away!

Voldemort, who inherited the name of the Dark Lord, didn't have as wide an area of ​​activity, so his reputation wasn't as terrifying as Grindelwald's. Most importantly, Voldemort wasn't defeated by Dumbledore himself. Although Dumbledore was renowned for keeping Voldemort at bay, he ultimately watched Voldemort wreak havoc for decades, leading many to believe that Dumbledore was past his prime.

Only now did they realize how wrong they had been.

However, Dumbledore's brilliance could not be considered overwhelming. The crystal balls held by Ilfamoni's headmistress, Seraphina Picqueri, and the headmistress of the School of Magic, Gendansi, were only slightly less radiant than Dumbledore's.

If Dumbledore is in the top tier with a significant gap, then these two are in the second tier, and the other headmasters of magic schools are in the third tier, with some even inferior to the heads of Hogwarts.

Ekaterina, the principal of Cordosdorez, is an exception. She is so young, yet she has managed to maintain a mid-level position among principals, which is remarkable and has attracted considerable attention.

Unlike Godric, who was forced to sit in the spectator seats, this guy was qualified to participate!

The other principals understood all too well what this meant.

So after passing the crystal ball around, Karkarov launched another attack on Ekaterina.

"Speaking of which, could we headmasters form a referee panel to ensure the fair running of the competition?" He didn't say it directly, but the headmasters present, as well as the two ministers of the Ministry of Magic, all understood that he was actually hinting to Dumbledore to seal Catherine within the referee panel.

The principals all secretly praised Karkarov, saying he was practically their mouth double.

Ekaterina's face darkened instantly.

In recent years, Cordos Dorez has been in a state of transition, with the entire school being mediocre and only producing one student who can be considered talented in recent years.

But when she received the message from Hogwarts, she had already graduated for three years!

If she hadn't been right at the age of 21, Cordosdorez might have even refused to participate in this tournament.

If Hogwarts really bans her, then Cordosdoritz will most likely finish last in this tournament.

All eyes were on Dumbledore, eager to see his reaction.

To be honest, Cordosdoriz's actions were indeed exploiting a loophole. The 21-year-old age limit was originally intended for magical organizations and individual participants. Other magic schools allowed current students to participate, but Cordosdoriz was making an exception.

Furthermore, given Ekaterina's formidable strength, the school principals naturally wanted to ban her.

Dumbledore considered for a moment, then turned to Mr. Henry and left the final decision to him.

"The rules and regulations clearly state that as long as Miss Ekaterina is under twenty-one years old, she can participate in the competition—regardless of her age."

"Then she's no longer a student of Cordosdorez, so can she still represent Cordosdorez in the competition?" Even Mrs. Maxim stepped in this time.

"She is Kodosdorez's teacher and still retains her identity as Kodosdorez," Yuan Danxi suddenly said, silencing everyone for a moment.

"This is unreasonable," said Asmo Nduru, the principal of Vagado, who was the first to object.

"Yes, this is playing word games!" Mrs. Maxim straightened her tall and imposing figure, looking down at the crowd with an overwhelming sense of oppression.

She placed her large hand, adorned with many ornate opals, on Dumbledore's shoulder and earnestly said, "Albus, think this over carefully. If something like this happens at the very first Tournament of Wizarding Arts held at Hogwarts, how can we explain it to the wizarding world?"

She emphasized the word "Hogwarts," making the implication extremely clear.

"Madam Maxim, if we openly violate the established rules, we will have no way of explaining it to others. This is a competition open to all young wizards under the age of twenty-one, and Miss Ekaterina happens to be a member of Cordostadt, so I believe her participation is in accordance with the rules—we can change and improve the rules after the competition, but now that the competition has begun, we must abide by them," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Well, since Albus has said so, I have no objection." After a moment, Seraphina Picqueri expressed her support for Dumbledore.

No matter how strong Ekaterina was, she was still just one person.

With the support of three prominent wizards and high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Magic, the other headmasters had no choice but to reluctantly agree to let Ekaterina participate as a contestant for Cordosdoritz.

Everyone secretly resolved to go back and immediately study the competition rules carefully to see if there were any loopholes.

"It seems we've reached an agreement." Seeing the conflict resolved, Dumbledore's smile returned. "Then let's have our players come up here for the Sorting Hat and the Crystal Ball to test them."

The principals and officials naturally had no objections.

Students from each school and independent contestants lined up in turn and came to the faculty area to prepare for the testing.

"Wait a minute." Before the test began, Serafina Picqueli suddenly stopped it, turning to look at Gryffindor sitting not far away. "Mr. Gryffindor, would you like to touch this crystal ball too?"

Countless gazes once again focused on the face of this legendary wizard.

Gryffindor burst into laughter after hearing Seraphina's words.

"Of course, of course!" he said as he took the crystal ball. "If we had something like this back then, the Hogwarts sorting system might have been different."

Everyone smiled.

However, the crystal ball remained unchanged in Gryffindor's hands.

Upon seeing this, Helga and Rowena's eyes narrowed instantly.

"This exceeds the detection limit of the crystal ball," Dumbledore explained, shaking his head.

The people present: !!

I thought Dumbledore was strong enough, but I never expected that this ancient wizard from a thousand years ago would be even stronger than Dumbledore! I can only say that he is indeed a guy who has lived for thousands of years.

"I see, I see!" Gryffindor laughed too. "Then I'll tone it down a bit."

As he spoke, he actually began to suppress the magic within his body, and soon the crystal ball emitted the same brilliant red light as Dumbledore had at that time.

Now, everyone present was even more convinced of Gryffindor's identity; he was a wizard even stronger than Dumbledore!

Helga narrowed his eyes: judging from the time he took, it was about the same as Rowena's. If everyone's speed in gathering magic power was roughly the same, then one could roughly judge the other's strength level.

Astoria, who had been watching the show from the audience, suddenly remembered something: it seemed that a similar phenomenon had occurred when Professor Arius had taken the crystal ball before.

Hiss—thinking of this, Astoria couldn't help but gasp. The implications of this were far too profound.

After this brief incident, the contestants continued to come forward for the tests.

Several headmasters looked grim: their students were scoring shockingly low marks, with many scoring in the 60s or 70s, which sparked much discussion among the Hogwarts students.

Based on these scores, many of them could qualify for the competition even if they switched schools!

Ekaterina and Karkarov looked particularly grim, as Kodosdorez and Demstrand were both at the bottom of the class, with Kodosdorez even having a player score below 60.

They could only console themselves with the thought that a lower score would give them a better start.

When it was the Hogwarts contestants' turn to come forward for the test, the young wizards in the audience all showed happy expressions.

They knew their school's players all too well. However, the fact that the players were highly skilled and would have a poor start made them somewhat worried, fearing that their classmates might suffer as a result.

"One hundred points!" When Astoria put the Sorting Hat on, the score announced made all the students from other schools widen their eyes.

"This kid is terrifying!" More than one person thought to themselves.

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 delivered, goodnight~

(End of this chapter)