Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 478 The Prophet's Overt Scheme and Salazar's Death

"Very good." Rice reached out and took the map from Boiling Blood, and also took some of the venom from his abscess.

This venom, which has evolved over hundreds of years, is of great research value.

"There's one more thing." Before parting ways with Boiling Blood, Rice had a sudden thought and decided to find something for Boiling Blood to do.

"Could you collect the toxins from the infected people's bodies for me? I'll come find you to pick them up when I have time."

"yes!"

Rice smiled and nodded, then his figure gradually disappeared, heading towards the location marked on the map.

During his journey, he also received the assessment criteria for this competition.

[Main Mission: Survive for 90 days. Failure to complete the mission will result in elimination.]

Side Quest (1): Wealth Acquisition. 1 point is awarded for every 100 gold coins earned.

Side Quest (2): Life Hunt. Killing prey strong enough will reward you with points based on the prey's strength.

[Random Quest: Not yet triggered]

The top sixteen players in the final standings will advance to the tournament finals.

Rice smiled after reading the published standards.

It's clear that Rowena is trying to relieve some of the pressure. But even if these young wizards go all out, how many enemies can they possibly defeat?

Only the Alchemist natives hunted by Hermione and Daphne are of sufficient significance; the achievements of other contestants are meaningless.

After traveling for most of the day, Rice decided to have lunch in a small town he was passing through.

The restaurants in the small town served food quickly, and soon Rice's order was placed on his table: cold cuts of meat jelly with some local sauce; a bowl of stew containing unidentified meat, offal, and root vegetables that resembled potatoes; and a bowl of dessert made with honey cheese.

Just as Rice was about to enjoy his not-so-lavish but fresh and hot lunch, a man pushed open the small door of the restaurant and walked in.

He wore an extremely expensive-looking gold-threaded robe, his hair was completely white, but his face was without a single wrinkle, and he exuded an air of nobility, making him seem out of place in this ordinary small town's hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

The moment he walked in, he drew everyone's attention to himself.

Upon seeing such a distinguished guest, the diners in the restaurant all lowered their voices considerably.

The man ignored the approaching waiter, walked straight to Rice, and without asking whether Rice wanted to sit down, pulled out the chair in front of Rice.

"Does even the legendary prophet have an interest in these coarse foods?" Rice had already recognized the other man's identity from the patterns on his robes and his physical features.

The other party was none other than Vasak, one of the top experts in the human camp and the Star Prophet. He had originally planned to go find him, but unexpectedly, Vasak came to him himself.

"Since you recognize me, you should also know my background," Vasak said in a very gentle tone, as if he were chatting with an old friend.

"I'm just a kid from an ordinary farming family. This kind of meal is something I could only dream of when I was a child." Vasak's tone remained calm. He even took a set of cutlery from the next table, as if he wanted to have lunch with Rice.

Rice paused for two seconds, then gestured to the waiter to add more food—this amount wasn't enough for two people.

The two of them actually enjoyed lunch together in this small restaurant like old friends!

Rice and Vasak both had healthy stomachs, and the two of them quickly finished off the entire table of food in front of them.

"Since you're here, you probably already know the purpose of my visit, right?" Wiping the soup from the corner of his mouth, Rice continued his conversation with Vasak in front of him.

"Yes." Vasak broke the bread in half and soaked it in the remaining broth at the bottom of the bowl.

"The technology here has really improved a lot. I remember the bread here used to be so rough that it was inedible, but the quality is much better now."

Vasak paused in his work, then said, "After all, six hundred years have passed, and the technology for grinding and sifting wheat has indeed developed."

His eyes deepened: "When you sowed the plague back then, you certainly didn't expect that humanity would not only survive this calamity but also continue to thrive, did you?"

"There are many things I didn't expect, but I'm genuinely surprised by the current situation," Rice said honestly.

Whether it was that six hundred years had passed since he left, or that the potion he left behind created a group of infected people and he became their "benevolent father," none of this was something Rice had anticipated.

"I'm no match for you." Vasak remained silent for a while, then resumed his work of eliminating leftovers.

"So you've come here to die? The fortune teller's certainly generous. Would you like something to drink?"

"I guess so. I'd like a glass of ale. The wine quality here is unbelievably bad; ale is much more reliable."

The two chatted casually about topics that would sound terrifying to outsiders. These things, mixed into their everyday conversation, made the atmosphere extremely eerie.

Soon, thanks to Vasak's efforts, the plates on the table were clean.

"In any case, I've been treated to a meal by you, so please let me do a divination for you as a way of repaying you."

Rice narrowed his eyes slightly, wondering what the prophet was up to.

Perhaps, the divination was the beginning of their confrontation.

He was somewhat inclined to refuse.

Given Rice's personality, he tends to choose the safest and least likely to unexpected approach.

He is a cautious person.

"Please don't refuse yet," Vasak said earnestly. "I think you also know that the opportunity for a prophet to make the most accurate divination is rare and requires the interplay of time, space, and fate to make those divinations that are so precise they are awe-inspiring."

But I'm different. I possess the ability to forcibly enter a prophetic state, though it comes at a great cost. Outsiders call it "a divination that can only be done once in a lifetime." Now, are you interested in letting me do a divination?

Rice was tempted.

Knowing full well that the divination before him was likely a scam, he still agreed, because the opportunity to have a prophet's reading was a rare and precious thing.

There are huge benefits involved, and no one can refuse them. Rice believes that if his three old friends were here, they would make the same choice.

Regardless of the prophet's attitude towards himself, once he truly enters a state of divination, what he reveals will be the truth. This stems from the nature of divination, and Vasak could not possibly tamper with it.

Vasak used an open strategy.

"You've convinced me, please." Rice made up his mind that even if he was ambushed and injured by Vasak, he would let the other party perform a divination for him.

Vasak smiled happily.

"That's great, but please clear away those people who are in the way."

"That's natural."

Vasak refers to the waiters and diners in the tavern, as well as the prominent figures in the town who rushed over after hearing the news—the star prophet Vasak had appeared here, so naturally these people had to come and fawn over him.

However, Rice would not allow anyone to interfere with the prophet's divination.

With a flick of his wand, one by one, the people inside the tavern collapsed to the ground, and a barrier was erected outside the tavern. Given that Vasak was right in front of him, he didn't kill them, but simply put them to sleep.

Anyway, these ordinary people weren't his target for this trip, so it wouldn't hurt to spare their lives.

Watching Rice's actions, Vasak didn't say anything, but silently began to draw a magic circle on the ground.

As Vasak drew the magic circle, Rice watched his movements intently, trying to learn something from him.

"Don't bother," Vasak said to Rice while drawing lines on the ground. "A prophet's prediction requires talent; without talent, even the most perfectly drawn magic circle is useless."

Rice understood this principle, but that didn't stop him from memorizing every detail of the magic circle.

If you don't have a talent for divination, then just take it back and give it to someone who does.

This is also a precious asset of this world. If the contestants had any sense, they wouldn't have spent all their energy accumulating points, but rather they should have collected as much knowledge about this world as possible and then taken it out to study and understand it.

This is also a big gift that he, along with Rowena and Helga, presented to the wizarding world.

The children only need to learn about the other world, while Salazar has a lot more work to do.

When Vasak saw that Rice wouldn't listen to his advice, he didn't stop him—if he wanted to watch, let him watch; he didn't care.

The current Vasak is as steady as a veteran German engineer. Let me show you! You can copy the form, but you can't copy the soul!

Vasak's magic circle consists of three parts: the outermost part is an eight-pointed star pattern, the innermost part is a square cross, and the innermost part is a triangle. He himself stands in the center of the triangle, which is also the center of the eight-pointed star and the square cross.

He took out eight candles from his pocket and placed them on the eight points of the eight-pointed star. He then took out four opaque bottles and placed them at the four vertices of the square cross. Finally, he took out a piece of black meteorite, a handful of grayish-white soil, and a device that looked like a convex lens.

Vasak placed the meteorite and grayish-white soil in turn at one corner of the triangle, and finally used a convex lens to focus the sunlight onto the last corner.

At this point, as if he had made all the preparations, he sat down cross-legged and began to place bottles and jars filled with ointments and unknown herbs around himself.

"Sun, moon, stars, water, fire, earth, wind, and the outermost eight directions? And then there are some auxiliary ingredients..." Rice felt that he had figured out some of the tricks.

Vasak wasn't lying to himself; the divination this time was of an unusually high standard. As a diviner, the price Vasak had to pay was also extremely staggering.

With the burning of several ointments and herbs, Vasak quickly got into the zone amidst the swirling smoke.

His eyes rolled back, revealing only the whites of his eyes, and several veins bulged on his forehead. He muttered in a low, hoarse voice:

A snake, a lion, a raven, and a badger embarked on a journey together.

They overcame one difficulty after another, but ultimately parted ways on their journey.

Even though they parted ways, it didn't diminish the fact that their lives were so magnificent and wonderful.

The snake hatched two eggs. One egg hatched into a snake, and strangely enough, the other egg produced a lion!

All four animal friends are sick, and each one is more seriously ill than the last.

Snakes shed their skin repeatedly, but ultimately they cannot escape death.

As he turned his eyes and muttered to himself, wisps of smoke rose from the things he had laid out, and the veins on his forehead bulged more and more.

By the time he finished reading, his face was covered in large beads of sweat, and the whites of his eyes had turned blood red.

Finally, after he made the prophecy that "the snake will not escape death," he could no longer hold on and collapsed to the ground, knocking over the smoking trinkets.

Vasak instantly regained consciousness, and his life force weakened at a visible rate.

"I never expected... I never expected... that you would actually be..." he said weakly.

"Hmm?" Vasak's voice brought Rice back from his thoughts on the prophecy.

"You don't belong to this world... Ha..." The light in Vasak's eyes vanished quickly, and his body began to disintegrate into ash little by little.

At the same time, the roof of the small restaurant inexplicably collapsed, and a ray of sunlight shone down from it, landing right on Rice's face.

In that instant, Rice's hair stood on end, as if he were being watched by something, while Vasak was completely reduced to ashes, leaving only a handful of ash on the ground.

Rice looked up and gazed at the sky.

Ever since Vasak vanished, he could sense something watching him. This gaze came from all directions, omnipresent yet elusive.

Rice understood.

He looked down at the dust in front of him and laughed. Rice's laughter grew louder and louder until he was so weak he couldn't straighten up.

"What a brilliant celestial prophet! What a brilliant Vasak! He actually used this method!"

Rice had thought that Vasak would put some kind of curse on him, but he never expected that Vasak would actually try to make himself discovered by the will of this world.

Curses can be broken, but there's no way to break free from the current situation where the world's consciousness is watching you, unless you leave this world on your own initiative.

This is like putting a shackle on himself, meaning every battle he faces from now on will be a losing one.

Fighting an opponent skilled in lightning will surely result in a sky full of dark clouds; fighting an opponent skilled in wind will surely result in a sudden storm, and one's luck will also turn bad—this is without a doubt.

This is what the legendary "the whole world is against me" means. This is not the kind of minor targeting that you encounter when you first enter the world of alchemy. It really has a great impact on the performance of your strength.

Rice gradually straightened up. He understood that he was about to fight several tough battles with the natives of the alchemy world.

"Come on!" Rice's eyes gleamed. "Let me see just how many talents have been born in the alchemical world six hundred years from now!"

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~

The next update will be at midnight tomorrow night.

(End of this chapter)