"Master..."
"Master..."
"Master..."
"Master!"
Voldemort's new body was slowly awakened by the voice.
Had Kasen been there, he would undoubtedly have cried out in bewilderment.
He had even chanted that incredibly badass incantation at the time:
We are all trying so hard... to stay alive~
But the problem now was that Kasen had already tried so hard, so how was Barty Crouch Jr. still alive?
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. This should not have happened!
"Master, you have returned," Barty Crouch Jr. said humbly.
"Mm. All of you, leave."
Voldemort slowly sat up. After driving everyone else away, he remained alone, wanting nothing more than some peace and quiet.
How many times had this happened now...?
As anyone who died frequently knew, a normal person usually had certain complicated yet pure feelings toward the person who killed them, such as resentment.
Voldemort had only died four times in total, yet Kasen had single-handedly killed him three of those times!
In a sense, his hatred for Kasen had already surpassed his hatred for Harry.
"I'll have to use another one."
Voldemort murmured under his breath. He picked up the wand beside him and waved it casually, slicing open a small crack in the void and retrieving a little box from within.
Inside the box was a small shard of mirror.
"In occultism, it symbolises reflection. However, every reflection damages its essence... Still, if my opponent is Kasen, it will be well worth it!"
Voldemort murmured darkly.
.......
Early the next morning, perhaps because he had gone to bed too late the previous night, Kasen woke unusually early.
He found a mysterious little golem in his office that had already settled down and decided to live a quiet life. Kasen placed it on his desk and had it copy the book on occultism that Dumbledore had lent him.
Meanwhile, he sat on the sofa and brewed himself a cup of hot tea.
Actual hot tea.
He leisurely sipped his tea while playing with the resin in his hand as though it were modelling clay.
As for his classes...
Kasen had worked himself to the bone late at night to save Hogwarts from disaster. Naturally, there was nothing wrong with asking Dumbledore for a week off.
Dumbledore was so capable. Let him piece together the Alchemy module. Let him teach Alchemy.
What? You're saying he really was going to teach Alchemy?
But then again...
"Professor, I don't have any classes this morning, so I came to see whether there was any overtime work I could help with."
Clay's voice suddenly interrupted Kasen's self-satisfied thoughts. Kasen immediately controlled the teapot and poured him a cup as well.
"The only overtime work available right now is compiling books. There aren't any teaching opportunities," Kasen reminded him as he pushed the tea over.
"No problem, Professor... Professor, what is it doing?" Clay asked, looking at the mysterious golem copying the book on the desk.
"Copying a book. Dumbledore lent it to me, and I don't know whether it might harm young wizards, so you'd better not read it."
Seeing that Clay was clearly eager to try, Kasen hurriedly warned him.
"Okay. I can tell that the things you're researching are becoming more and more mysterious, Professor."
Clay nodded, picked up the manuscripts from the drawer again, and began organising them before compiling them into one enormous book.
Meanwhile, Kasen continued playing with the resin, unable to stop thinking about it.
Before this, he had never encountered this field of study. He had not even known it existed.
However, when Dumbledore explained the basic theories of occultism the previous night, Kasen had been completely stunned.
Occultism had no specific attributes. It dealt in concepts.
As everyone knew, conceptual gods were conceptual gods...
.......
[What the fuck am I even talking about?!]
As everyone knew, no conceptual god was weak. Voldemort had used a conceptual substance and still died because he was incompetent. Kasen had killed Voldemort while he was using a conceptual substance because Kasen was strong.
Still, setting concepts aside... fusion, protection, adaptation, and resilience really were rather pathetic concepts in a wizarding world where magic dealt true damage.
Besides, the protection effect had not been particularly powerful.
It claimed to offer protection, yet Voldemort had still been killed by a concentrated blast of Death essentia.
The difference between that and offering no protection whatsoever was approximately nonexistent. Therefore, if Kasen were to rank all these mysterious substances that embodied certain concepts, then until he encountered something even more useless than the resin in his hand, this lump of resin would temporarily hold first place as the most useless occult substance.
Ding-dong...
"Professor, your golem made a sound," Clay reminded him.
Kasen nodded. "Thanks for the reminder."
He placed the copy produced by the golem back inside the drawer, then deliberately locked it to keep Clay away from it.
After that, he picked up the original and teleported directly to the Headmaster's office.
"Dumbledore, your book."
Kasen placed it on Dumbledore's desk.
"You arrived at just the right time," Dumbledore said with some delight when he saw him.
"Honestly, I feel like I've arrived at a rather bad time," Kasen replied helplessly as he looked at Dumbledore's broad face.
"Please. Consider it repayment for lending you the book," Dumbledore said.
"All right, all right."
Kasen sat down in the chair and looked across at Dumbledore.
"What is it?"
"It concerns Tom's Horcruxes," Dumbledore said succinctly.
Kasen sighed. "Is it possible that I'm not as clever as you think I am?"
"Don't underestimate yourself. I simply haven't explained things clearly. You may not know this, and I cannot remember whether I have ever told you, but Slughorn was once Head of Slytherin House," Dumbledore said.
"Mm-hm. I already knew that. The first time I met him at a party, he introduced himself to me," Kasen said with a nod.
"Then do you know that he was once Tom's teacher, and that the two of them were rather close?" Dumbledore continued.
Kasen raised an eyebrow. "I feel like you've told me that before. Have you? Never mind. Let's pretend this is the first time I'm hearing it. Tell me your plan."
___
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