Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 441 Rowena: Help Me, Mr. Salazar

"The Secret Order is really persistent. How many times have they gotten into Hogwarts now?" Rowena said sarcastically. "Sasalazar has sent me materials twice already."

"It should be three times, right?" Rice scratched his head.

It's not that he has a bad memory; it's mainly because the monks of the Secret Order didn't leave a deep impression on him—he still vividly remembers the details of Ragnarok.

Humans can only remember so much. Less important memories will sink to the depths of the sea of ​​memories and only resurface when a key word is triggered.

Of course, the big stunt that the secret meeting pulled off at noon today will probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

Well, it's amazing that Godric Gryffindor has returned to Hogwarts.

"Did you record the grand occasion at noon today?" Rice blinked, a brilliant idea forming in his mind.

"Of course, this is a landmark event at Hogwarts, how could it not be recorded?" Rowena smiled and took out a crystal ball from her pocket.

She gently tapped the crystal ball, and then a series of phantom images began to flicker inside, all of which were images of what had just happened.

Finally, the image inside the crystal ball froze on the scene of the red-haired man making his entrance.

The Secret Order – Godric Gryffindor –

A familiar voice came from inside the crystal ball.

The three people in the office all had their lips curled up in unison, looking like they were trying to suppress a laugh but couldn't quite hold it in.

Looking at Godric's image in the crystal ball, Rice nodded in satisfaction: when Godric comes to his senses and returns to Hogwarts, he will copy this video and play it at his birthday party, or give it to him as a birthday present.

After showing Sarah what she wanted to see, Rowena reached out and took the crystal ball back.

Rice suddenly felt that something was wrong, but then Rowena spoke again, which distracted him.

"I suggest we hold off on taking any action against him for now. I want to see what he's really up to—he can't possibly be here to compete, can he?"

After a moment's consideration, Rice agreed to Rowena's proposal.

Anyway, he should focus his energy on the game; let Rowena worry about this Godric issue.

Seeing that her two old friends had reached an agreement, Helga also expressed her agreement, but still shared her inner concerns with them.

"Isn't it too dangerous to let such a treacherous individual roam freely within the castle?"

"Sometimes you have to take a risk, otherwise how will you know why he came? More importantly, this guy's condition is very special, and I didn't see any flaws."

"Me too," Rice added.

Rice didn't see anything amiss in the man claiming to be Godric. If he hadn't summoned the Gryffindor phantom from the Resurrection Stone earlier, he might have genuinely believed it was Godric.

The explanation that Godric founded the Secret Order after leaving Hogwarts to eliminate the influence of the divine remains seems plausible.

Hearing her two old friends' words, Helga's expression turned serious, because she had also failed to find any flaws in that guy.

He seemed like that old friend who left school a thousand years ago.

"See, this is quite interesting." From Helga's expression, Rice could tell that even this shrewd witch had failed to catch the other party's weakness.

"If even the three of us can't confirm his identity as a fake, then he's no different from the real Gryffindor."

Rice nodded, but then shook his head.

The Muggle saying goes that if something sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, and tastes like a duck, then it is a duck. But that certainly doesn't apply in the current context.

Rice's mind drifted back to his past time with Gryffindor, and he couldn't help but feel sentimental: If Godric were here, he would probably have jumped up and yelled and beaten up the imposter pretending to be his friend before arresting him, right?

He didn't seem to need to search for any so-called evidence to prove that the other party was an imposter, like the people around him.

In his view, if he hit someone, he would just apologize and that would be the end of it, and if he later found out that he had hit the wrong person, he would just have to make amends.

"Why don't we just take action and take him down?" The thought slipped out of his mouth, but Rice immediately regretted it: this decision was really not in his style.

Rowena and Helga both widened their eyes.

Good heavens! How could I possibly hear such a suggestion from Salazar?!

"I object."

"That's not a good idea."

Reina and Helga both rejected Salazar's proposal.

At this juncture, it would be unwise to rashly clash with the mysterious visitors from the Secret Order. Godric's magic is on par with the three of them, and if he truly possesses Godric's fire domain, they will find it difficult to control the scope of the battle. The battle could last for months, stretching for thousands of miles, Hogwarts could be razed to the ground, and capturing him alive would be out of the question.

"I want to figure out what that guy's purpose is first. It's not too late to make a move after he reveals his true colors," Rowena stated.

"The battle is not suitable to take place inside Hogwarts," Helga's attitude was also very clear.

Rice chose to submit to the majority.

"They just want to take the opportunity to destroy Hogwarts or get some benefits from the seal in the dungeon. But I don't understand what this has to do with the main purpose of the Secret Order. My intelligence tells me that the ultimate goal of the Secret Order is to bring back the Age of Gods. I wonder what method they plan to use."

"We'll see when we get there," Rowena said, maintaining her fishing-like attitude.

"Okay," Rice agreed with Rowena's idea.

"Oh, by the way, let me keep the resurrection stone ring." He added as if he had just remembered something.

Rowena narrowed her eyes: "Salazar, don't you trust me? I told you I wouldn't—"

"I can't trust you." Rice's words left Rowena speechless.

He wasn't just making things up, because even Rowena herself felt she had a hard time resisting the urge to summon Godric again and see what would happen.

She really is a woman who is hard to trust!

Rowena returned the resurrection stone ring to Rice.

"According to modern wizards, this ring is a dark magic item," Rowena said with certainty. "Its malice towards the user is extremely obvious; it's inducing people to commit suicide."

"So what do you think about the Gryffindor that was summoned? Is he a reflection of our memories?"

Rowena shook her head.

The Godric summoned from the Resurrection Stone ring was different, and she had even bolder guesses.

She felt that the phantoms she, Salazar, and Helga summoned would be much less affected by the Resurrection Stone, because their souls were more powerful and contained more condensed and detailed memories. Phantoms formed based on these characteristics might not be distorted too much by the Resurrection Stone.

However, this experiment cannot continue due to the appearance of that Gryffindor.

She had several theories about what would happen if she used the Resurrection Stone to summon Godric, but Salazar would obviously never allow her to conduct such a dangerous experiment.

If you really do it, you have to be prepared to fight Salazar—at that time, Hogwarts, beset by internal and external troubles, will truly be doomed.

After carefully putting away the Resurrection Stone ring, Rhys said to Helga and Rowena, "I guess you'll have to figure out how to explain this to Dumbledore later, and tell him the truth, right?"

Helga and Rowena frowned again.

"I feel I can trust Dumbledore. He's a wizard with his own domain, and he's also the current headmaster of Hogwarts," Helga said.

Rowena, however, kept stroking her chin and did not offer any opinion.

This is something that shouldn't be known by too many people, but Dumbledore is clearly the one most qualified to know.

"Whatever you want, I'm just an ordinary contestant now anyway." Rice stretched.

He felt it didn't matter whether Dumbledore knew about it or not, but he also understood that Dumbledore could never gain the complete trust of him and his old friends.

In Muggle terms, Dumbledore has no connection to them, lacking shared memories. They will respect him and trust him in most things, but that's about it.

"You'll have to figure out how to explain this to Dumbledore later," Rowena said, passing the somewhat tricky task to Helga.

Having concluded the most important matter, Rice began inquiring about things that directly affected his interests, namely tomorrow's game.

"Oh? Is our Lord Salazar Slytherin trying to cheat? Of course, I have no objection. I'll share the information with you right away~"

Rowena's words made Rice's face darken: This girl needs something from me, right? Why is she acting like I need something from her?

"No need. I just wanted to ask, what's with that 'starting the game based on strength' thing?"

Upon hearing this, Rowena suddenly fell silent.

Rice didn't notice anything unusual at first, but he soon noticed Rowena's change.

Hmm? Rice raised an eyebrow: Rowena's appearance seems a bit off...

About a minute later, Rowena finally responded to Rice's question, her expression turning serious.

"You need to be careful, Salazar, don't let something unexpected happen."

A question mark slowly appeared on the foreheads of both Rice and Helga: ?

Ah? ? ?

"Royna, you've pulled off another big stunt!" A thought flashed through Rice's mind, and he roared inwardly with a heart-wrenching pain.

No wonder, the case is solved. The reason why Rowena insisted on participating in the competition has been found—she has messed up again, and I need to clean up her mess.

"I really didn't mean to this time."

"So you did it on purpose before?"

Rowena: ...

"This time, the starting lineup will really be based on your actual strength, so Salazar, you'd better be prepared."

Rice scratched his head: he was now genuinely curious about what incredible thing Rowena had come up with.

"It's life alchemy; it's completely out of control. I brought the out-of-control part out of the dungeon and used it as the venue for this competition—actually, at first I didn't think it was 'that' out of control, and I felt things were still under control. But when I went to check it out on-site a couple of days ago, I found that the problem seemed a bit serious..."

"Huh?!" Rice and Helga made the exact same sound.

"You're using this as a venue?!" Rice asked, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Are you crazy?" Helga was even more direct, checking Rowena's mental state.

"I told you, things weren't that out of control when we were building the stadium," Rowena tried to defend herself, but Rice and Helga didn't really believe her.

"Tell me about life alchemy first." After taking two deep breaths, Rice asked Rowena to start from the beginning.

"The alchemy of life is the core concept of this competition. Without the support of the alchemy of life, this competition would be nothing more than children playing house, and there would be no need to remove you from the competition."

Rowena had barely begun when Rice realized something was wrong: the trouble she was causing this time was no less than what she had done years ago...

He probably already guessed what had happened.

"Tell me the truth, what was the situation like with your experiment when you and Helga tricked me into the tournament?"

"Most of the situation is still under my control, but the competition is really difficult, so I need you to come in as a last resort."

Rice's vision blurred: "Most of it is still under control? Doesn't that mean some parts are already out of control?! And why didn't you say something so important earlier?"

Helga, sitting to the side, licked her lips. She was now glad that she was a professor and couldn't participate in the competition, so this matter didn't bother her for the time being—but could Old Viper handle it alone? After all, even the founder, Rowena, felt it was tricky and out of control.

Rice was also aware of this problem.

He took a deep breath and said, "You two, don't just stand there, come with me and fill the hole."

As a result, Rowena looked at Rice with an apologetic expression and told him that the two of them couldn't get in.

"What do you mean I can't get in?!" Rice felt his blood pressure rising little by little.

"I cast a spell on that venue, preventing anyone over twenty-one from entering—and now that spell has gone out of control due to the venue's limitations, it can't be undoed. The same goes for the spell that allocates starting locations based on strength."

"So does that mean I can be considered under twenty-one?" Rice blinked: he felt he couldn't possibly be considered under twenty-one, could he?

"I left a backdoor when I cast the spell, granting you special access. Although I can't change the spell now, the access I left before is still there, so you can still go in."

Rice was completely speechless.

"So please help me, Mr. Salazar!" Rowena pleaded earnestly.

As Rice's blood pressure soared, he suddenly became curious and wanted to know what kind of mess Rowena had gotten into.

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 everyone~

(End of this chapter)