Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 451 The Godric Resurrection Project Team is Established!

After a sharp pain in his navel and a few seconds of dizzying spinning, Rice was back on the grounds of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.

One after another, little wizards descended from the sky and landed on the land of Hogwarts in front of and behind him.

Thunderous applause erupted from all around.

"Congratulations!"

"congratulate!"

Praise for the contestants poured in like snowflakes. The audience included not only Hogwarts students but also visitors from outside the city.

The playing field provided by Hogwarts gave them a slight sense of awe at this ancient school with a history spanning thousands of years.

Is this arena setup really man-made?! Did Hogwarts secretly open a spatial portal to another magical continent?!

The incredibly realistic world setting also makes this competition exceptionally prestigious. The principals present were already planning the participants for the next competition, because it was clear to everyone that this kind of competition greatly benefits students' growth.

And there's no doubt that the next tournament will be held at Hogwarts again. Unless another school can provide a venue comparable to this one.

After a while, the applause gradually faded. The audience also noticed that several contestants did not return to Hogwarts; only their crystal balls or fragments of them returned.

The fate of these people is self-evident.

Many people felt a chill run down their spines, and couldn't help but recall the words that Principal Dumbledore and Mr. Henry had repeatedly emphasized before the match: "The match is a matter of life and death."

This dampened the excitement in the audience somewhat.

However, Mr. Henry's actions quickly made them forget about this unpleasantness.

He took a roll of parchment from Dumbledore, then walked to the Quidditch pitch and began announcing the list of those who had passed the first stage of the Tournament.

Although Rowena thought the conditions for passing the test were extremely simple, two-thirds of the contestants still failed to pass the preliminary round.

Hunting a fully grown fire dragon is still too difficult, and not everyone has strong social skills to get help from the natives of the alchemy world. The crystal ball does help the young wizards group up, but finding teammates isn't easy either.

Some contestants didn't seem to care about the laws of the alchemy world when they entered. In their eyes, this was a game that resembled a reality show.

They paid the price for it; not everyone can be as invincible as Rice. They either spent the full month in prison or had their crystal ball's defensive magic removed and were forcibly sent back to Hogwarts.

Eliminated contestants can choose to go home or stay at Hogwarts to continue watching the games. Hogwarts has plenty of cutlery and accommodations.

As he announced the roster, Mr. Henry waved his wand, causing the players' scores to appear on the big screen in the stadium.

Since completing the main quest does not reward points, a strange phenomenon has occurred: some contestants who passed the first stage of the assessment actually scored lower than those who were eliminated.

Rice is one of the oddballs.

Since he neither earned a title nor reunited with any of his teammates, his score was zero. However, he preserved the hearts of the three dragon kings he hunted down, thus completing the main quest.

Rice wasn't disappointed by his low score. He didn't care about that; he was more concerned about his ranking at Hogwarts.

Fortunately, the Hogwarts participants did not disappoint him, and Hogwarts ranked first in the points leaderboard. Although the gap with the following teams was not too large, that was because the first stage of the competition allowed participants from different schools to complete tasks together, and Rice, who scored zero, was dragging the team down.

After the individual and overall leaderboards were displayed, the entire stadium was immediately filled with a buzzing sound. It was clear that everyone was very interested in these two lists.

Mr. Henry stood quietly in front of the commentary booth for more than ten seconds. Seeing that the stadium was not quieting down, he gently flicked the microphone in front of him. The microphone emitted a sharp pop, and the stadium immediately fell silent.

"Next, the competition will enter a break. The participants are free to arrange their own time. Professor Dumbledore of Hogwarts asked me to pass on a message: he welcomes everyone to stay at Hogwarts to visit and learn; everyone is a distinguished guest of Hogwarts. The second phase of the competition will be held on New Year's Day, January 1st next year. Please remember the start date. Well, that's all I have to say. Now let's save the time for the post-competition celebrations!"

After those words, the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts turned into a sea of ​​joy.

The young wizards from Hogwarts poured from the stands into the stadium, crowding around the students from each school who had passed the first stage of the test as they walked out.

As they walk, they use magic to launch strings of sparks, or take out fireworks and light them.

Next, an even grander celebration awaited them in the lounge.

Students from other schools were no exception. After all, the top few were only slightly different in points, so overtaking their opponents in the second stage of the competition wouldn't be too difficult.

Rice knew that two lonely old men were waiting for him, but he really didn't want to miss the Hogwarts students' party.

He felt that the children of the new era seemed to have come up with a lot of novel gadgets, and he had to go and see them to broaden his horizons.

Of course, he didn't expect the Slytherin students to put on any interesting party. He could even predict with prophetic accuracy what the students would do: the girls would shower the Greengrass sisters with compliments, then take the opportunity to belittle the other contestants. The boys, on the other hand, would try every means to get close to Daphne and Astoria, practically begging to kneel down and lick their feet. After a lot of pointless small talk, there would be the so-called aristocratic ball.

These things held absolutely no appeal for Rice.

So he quietly slipped into an inconspicuous corner, cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and then squeezed into the Gryffindor line.

When it comes to having fun and causing mischief, these energetic little lions are definitely the experts. He had already seen quite a few of them pull out the magical gadgets they would be using soon from their robes.

Gryffindor (community), I'm coming in!

Mixed in with the Gryffindor group, Rice and the cheerful little lions entered the Gryffindor common room together.

Compared to a thousand years ago, not much has changed here, except for some additional decorations and portraits, but the overall style remains the same. This gave Rice a strange sense of familiarity.

The tables and chairs in the lounge were piled high with cakes and pastries, along with jugs of chilled juice and butterbeer. Lee Jordan couldn't resist setting off a huge pyrotechnic display as soon as he entered, filling the lounge with countless sparks and glitter.

"These were all sponsored by Fred and George!" Jordan casually added a "GG" to the Weasley twins' gift, which was a small condition they attached when they donated the fireworks.

"Where did they go?" Harry shouted at the top of his lungs.

He hadn't seen the two brothers since the day he saw them on the Hogwarts Express. Even Ron didn't know where they had gone, only that they had gone to "fulfill their dreams."

"It's a secret, you'll find out soon enough!" Jordan teased.

Dean Thomas, who was skilled in drawing, waved his wand and hung several huge cloth paintings on the walls of the lounge. Most of them depicted the highlights of Gryffindor contestants during the competition, and a small number depicted Cedric controlling earth giants and fire dragons in battle.

It must be said that Cedric is the only heir who chose to livestream his fight scenes. That spectacular fight earned him a lot of fans.

Even the students of Gryffindor had to admit that Cedric was truly powerful.

Then, Jordan started distributing all sorts of prank toys, which opened Rice's eyes to a whole new world: he saw nougat that would make you bleed rainbow-colored blood after eating it, cookies that would turn you into a canary with just one bite, syrup that would make you roar like a lion after drinking it, and chili peppers that would breathe fire when held in your mouth...

Rice discovered that quite a few people like himself had also infiltrated the Gryffindor school, and the students didn't seem to care much.

After thoroughly enjoying the festive atmosphere, Rice left the Gryffindor common room and headed straight for Helga's office.

When Rice opened the office door, she saw the two of them sitting together enjoying afternoon tea.

"I knew he would come looking for us," Rowena said with an air of certainty.

"I just went to a celebration. You two really should go too, instead of sitting in your office all day like old ladies drinking tea." Rice pulled out a chair and plopped down. "Spending more time with young people will make you feel younger too."

Helga rolled her eyes. "But I'm an old woman now!"

Rowena nodded. She was as old as could be.

Rice didn't know how to respond to them, so he simply placed the various prank toys he had casually taken from the Gryffindor common room on the table, gesturing for Rowena and Helga to take a look.

"Interesting little gadgets." Helga showed great interest in these things, while Rowena's expression seemed to say: I didn't expect Salazar to be like this.

Helga swallowed a fiery chili pepper, then suddenly spat out a string of flames.

"Cool!" Helga couldn't help but give it a thumbs up after the candy's effects wore off.

Rowena gave Rice a wink, signaling him to ignore Helga and tell her about his gains in the alchemy world first.

When this is mentioned, Rice gets all excited.

"Royna, what exactly did you do? There are far more powerful beings in your little world than I thought!" Rice told Royna about how he had killed four dragon kings, several human powerhouses, and a god.

"It seems the situation is more out of control than I thought." Rowena's reaction was calm, perhaps because she wasn't the one cleaning up the mess.

"Your periodic 'cleaning' isn't very effective." Rice shared the alchemical beings' definition of "the cataclysmic event" with Rowena.

Rowena frowned slightly.

"As I told you, I've essentially lost control of that world. That's why you have to destroy it; they know too much."

Rice resisted the urge to scold Rowena and handed over the world's essence that he had collected to Rowena.

"This isn't enough."

"I know." Rice waved his hand impatiently. "I'll kill a few more gods during the second phase of the assessment."

After handing over the origin of the world to Rowena, Rice got down to business for the day—if it weren't for this, he wouldn't have bothered coming here.

"I used the resurrection stone in the alchemy world to summon Godric. His attitude softened, and he's willing to be resurrected again."

"That's wonderful!" Helga couldn't help but beam with joy upon hearing the good news from Rice.

She was quite saddened when she heard that Godric didn't want to be resurrected. Fortunately, Salazar was capable enough to successfully persuade Godric.

Rowena's reaction was rather indifferent. In her view, Godric's return was simply inevitable, sooner or later, and not surprising at all.

However, as soon as Rice uttered her next sentence, she immediately raised her long eyebrows.

He will return under his true identity!

"Oh?" Rowena's eyes gleamed with amusement. "You mean Godric will return as [Godric Gryffindor]?"

"Yes!" Rice nodded excitedly.

At this moment, Helga also realized: Gryffindor was actually willing to return to Hogwarts under their real names?!

That's brilliant!

"There's nothing we can do about it. There really is a 'Godric' in Hogwarts now! Godric wants to smash the imposter's head in."

Rowena and Helga exchanged a glance and instantly reached a consensus: they definitely had to lend a hand in this matter!

They couldn't wait to see Gryffindor, the founder, return to Hogwarts.

As the founder of the school, it's reasonable to give him more responsibility, right? We're grateful to that kind person who impersonated him; without their help, Godric might have realized what was happening!

Rowena and Helga had even begun to fantasize about Godric's return, and a smile appeared on their lips simultaneously.

"The most urgent thing now is to find a way to resurrect Godric and, incidentally, figure out the imposter's purpose." Rice's voice shattered their illusions, pulling them back to reality: Godric was still in a spirit state, or rather, not even a spirit state. He needed their help.

The three exchanged a glance and quickly reached a consensus: the Godric Resurrection Project Team is officially established today!

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)