"We were just talking about something right up your alley," Rowena said with a smile, looking at Rhys's face floating in the puddle on the table. Her tone was as warm and familiar as if she were greeting an old friend she hadn't seen in years.
As for why said friend was appearing in a small puddle on the table, and only as a face—that had nothing to do with her.
"Got any good ideas?" Rowena repeated Helga's concern, asking Rhys to put his mind to it and see if he could come up with a solution.
Rhys closed his eyes and began to think seriously. Before long, the little puddle he was in started bubbling rapidly with a stream of small bubbles.
"Is Salazar…?"
"He's thinking."
Helga: ?
Watching the dense trail of bubbles rise, Helga had to admit—Salazar did seem to be thinking very hard. The puddle he was in was practically boiling!
After cranking his brain at full power, Rhys didn't take long to find a solution.
The reason the two women had been stuck was because they had tried to visualize magical aptitude—wanting something as convenient as a crystal ball that students could simply place their hands on to reveal a measurable score. But that was just unrealistic.
At the core of it, Helga simply wanted to find students in Hufflepuff House who were naturally talented at controlling magic, and then, from those children, choose her successor based on character.
So all that was needed was a way to identify students with strong magical aptitude. And judging by Helga's attitude, she didn't want to make this process too public. In that case, all they needed was a good cover.
And as it happened—he did have an idea!
"How about this...?" Rhys shared his thoughts with his two old friends.
They could create a marble that only moved when powered by magic, then place it inside a maze box. Students would be tasked with using their magic to guide the marble through the maze. The time it took would serve as the measure.
For the vast majority of students, the marble would remain stuck in place. Only a few, who were naturally gifted in mana control, would subconsciously figure out the knack to moving it. Those were the ones Rhys wanted to identify.
Initially, he, Helga, and Rowena had all fallen into a dead end. But changing their perspective made things much simpler.
Even if they couldn't directly measure how strong someone's aptitude was, they could simply eliminate those who clearly lacked it.
After hearing Rhys's idea, Helga looked enlightened. "As expected of Salazar—right to the point, a reliable solution!"
Rhys didn't respond, but the puddle behind his head gurgled again, sending up another stream of bubbles.
Rowena didn't say much—instead, she immediately got to work building the device Rhys had described.
Very soon, a beautifully crafted little wooden box was complete. At the center of the box was a small hole, and a marble sat in the upper left corner. The marble could only be moved using magic.
"I lowered the difficulty a bit. I didn't include a maze. Students just need to use mana flow to push the marble into the hole—that counts as passing." Rowena handed the box to Helga.
Helga took the box, examined it, and quickly discovered that it was exactly as Rowena had said: only mana manipulation could make the marble move. No other method worked.
Upon seeing this, she was overjoyed—with this box, she could now conduct a "preliminary screening" of her students.
As a reward for his valuable contribution, Rhys was granted the privilege of "transforming," allowing him to move from being part of the table to sitting at the table instead.
"You two didn't come here just to make a box, did you?" Rowena looked at her two old friends, sensing they clearly had another reason for visiting.
Once Helga explained how she had captured a Baku in the Forbidden Forest, Rowena couldn't help but raise an eyebrow: Is that really the kind of person you think I am?
Helga, Rhys: Of course.
Although her old friends' lack of trust left Rowena rather displeased, she still honestly told them that the Baku had nothing to do with her.
"Really? I mean… even if it was you… it wouldn't be a big deal. We just need to fix the seal," Rhys carefully chose his words and voiced his true thoughts.
"Yes, exactly," Helga chimed in to support him.
"Can't there be even a little trust between friends?!" Rowena slammed her fist on the table. "That Baku really has nothing to do with me!"
Seeing her like this, Rhys could only choose to believe her—otherwise, she might find a more "persuasive" way to convince him.
"Then this situation becomes a bit troublesome," Helga said, explaining the implications behind the appearance of the Baku to Rowena.
Rowena fell silent.
After a while, she spoke in a low voice, "A new millennium is approaching."
Rhys and Helga both furrowed their brows at the same time.
Rowena continued, "The shadow of the world becomes active in thousand-year cycles. That might be the reason—maybe that Baku accidentally slipped through a crack from the Shadow Realm into the real world."
"Now that you mention it… the timing is about right. But we left behind a very complete sealing system back then…" Rhys's brow was now tightly knit.
"A thousand years have already passed, Salazar. If I truly trusted those seals that much, I wouldn't have chosen to die here," Rowena said, tapping her foot on the floor beneath them.
Everything casts a shadow, and the real world is no exception. The projection of the real world in spatial dimensions was referred to by wizards in Rhys's era as the Shadow Realm. It was the place where dark creatures originated.
Several thousand years ago, there had been no clear boundary between the Shadow Realm and the real world. Over time, however, a vague dividing line gradually formed. After defeating the Norse gods, Rhys and the others took the opportunity to solidify that boundary, separating the two worlds.
The most immediate benefit of this was that on Halloween, hordes of the undead would no longer invade the world of the living.
But nothing is absolute. Rhys and his companions had been unable to completely sever the connection between shadows and reality, so a few connection points remained—one of them located beneath the dungeons of Hogwarts.
Back then, they had placed numerous seals on those connection points to prevent dark creatures from crossing into the real world. But based on what Rowena was saying, those seals might now be failing.
This kind of problem wasn't supposed to happen. They had anticipated the issue and left behind self-sustaining permanent seals powered by a self-regenerating magical circuit.
Thinking about this made Rhys's mood grow heavier.
"Relax. There haven't been any surges during Halloween in recent years, right? That means the methods we left behind are still working. Once you have time, just go inspect them," Rowena said, lightening the mood with her calm reassurance.
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