Choosing not to press, the old alchemist turned his attention back to the broken device.
"In any case, we'll need to repair this contraption. If we can get it functioning, we might determine how long it captured time for... and possibly even trace it back to its era of origin."
The thought seemed to invigorate him. He was clearly enthralled by the mystery, the craftsmanship, the sheer magical prowess it would have taken to construct such a thing.
"These Philosopher's Stones you've brought me, they were probably powering this device," Flamel added, half-muttering to himself.
Ian wasn't so sure.
From what he'd seen in the vision that heralded the tower's appearance, the Philosopher's Stones had maintained far more than just the clock. They had kept the entire tower functioning, feeding into its intricate web of protective enchantments and temporal fields.
The clock was but one cog in that vast, alchemical engine.
"Either way, young man," Flamel said, tapping gently on the rim of the large clock, "you've brought me mystery upon mystery tonight. I confess, I'm just as eager as you to uncover the secrets buried in that ancient tomb of yours."
With a flick of his wand, Flamel cracked open the front of the great clock. Inside was a lattice of golden mechanisms, still thrumming faintly with residual magic. His eyes landed on a hollowed compartment, an empty hourglass.
"Well, this is in worse condition than the time-turner Albus once asked me to repair," he said, frowning. "Not a single grain of time sand left."
"Is this... the time sand?" Ian stepped up to the workbench and picked up a smaller damaged pendant that had been set aside. He gave it a gentle shake, observing the few grains left inside.
Something was off. The colour wasn't right.
But the texture and that peculiar "gravity" felt all too familiar...
"Be careful with that, there's likely not much Time Sand left, even in the Department of Mysteries. If you lose these grains, we'll have to get Albus and the others to grovel for funding just to scrounge up more."
"It also contains part of my private stash," Nicolas Flamel added as he began carefully disassembling the copper tubing from the large enchanted clock, shooting a subtle glance Ian's way as he spoke in a low voice.
"Is this little bit really enough?" Ian asked, eyeing the tiny amount of Time Sand, just a few grains, really, easy enough to count by sight, with undisguised curiosity. His alchemical studies under Professor Morgan hadn't yet advanced to this level.
"Of course not. Not even remotely. It wouldn't be enough to run a teacup-sized timepiece, much less Albus's contraptions. And for that massive clock of yours? Utterly insufficient. The quantity of Time Sand directly determines the temporal span we can affect."
After securing the pieces of the device, Nicolas Flamel returned to Ian and gently took the damaged Time Turner from his hands. "But the Time Sand isn't our most immediate concern. What's more pressing are the materials needed to repair this Time Turner. Many of them... have vanished from our era entirely."
"And the same goes for your large clock," he added, his tone growing heavier with a kind of ancient fatigue, as though he'd come face-to-face with the relentless erosion of time yet again.
"I do know of a substitute method to create a similar magical alloy..." Ian said thoughtfully, pointing to the broken segment of the Time Turner. "It can produce an alchemical blend called Uru."
"Hm?" Nicolas Flamel raised a skeptical brow at the young wizard.
Then,
Under that discerning gaze,
Ian pulled out a roll of parchment and began scribbling an alchemical formula. It wasn't overly complicated, just extraordinarily dense. Line after line flowed from his quill, soon filling six sheets of parchment. As he finished each one, he handed it over to Nicolas Flamel.
By the time the final sheet was in his hands, Flamel's expression had transformed completely, from puzzled, to stunned, to outright incredulous.
"This... don't tell me you dug this up as well?"
Given what he now knew of Ian's rapidly advancing alchemical aptitude, Nicolas Flamel had no choice but to conclude this was another treasure unearthed from some ancient resting place.
"More or less," Ian admitted after a pause.
After all, Professor Morgan resided in the Twilight Realm, an otherworldly place populated entirely by the dead. That was, in a manner of speaking, quite like a tomb. So rounding things out... yes, he supposed he had "dug it up."
"Hissss~~~"
Nicolas Flamel sucked in a long, wheezing breath. Had Ian not supported him, the old man might've toppled over in shock. He clutched his chest, wheezing like he might pass out.
"Is it too late for me to take up grave robbing?"
Even with Nicolas Flamel's centuries of wisdom and cultivated detachment, he felt a genuine pang of regret. Ian just kept unveiling one marvel after another, as if entire forgotten magical legacies had been crammed into a school satchel.
"That's a very labour-intensive job..." Ian muttered with a weary sigh, recalling the exhausting ordeal of excavating the entire Riddle family's estate. His voice carried the weight of personal experience, leaving Nicolas Flamel momentarily speechless.
With gains like that?
Forget labour-intensive, he'd be willing to forgo sleep altogether if it meant results like Ian's.
"By the way, while we're on the subject of the Time Turner... can you check how it reacts with this stuff?" Ian seized the opportunity to pull out a small handful of pitch-black grains from his enchanted pouch.
Truly, it was only a handful.
However,
The moment Nicolas Flamel caught sight of the black sand slipping through Ian's fingers and trickling onto the floor, he finally snapped. Clutching his chest again, he dramatically collapsed backward.
The elderly sleep well, they say, they can drop off just like that... Fortunately, Ian was quick and caught him before the renowned alchemist passed out entirely.
"Time Sand is an alchemical marvel," Flamel gasped, once he caught his breath. "And what you're holding, this black sand, is its base essence. Where it comes from is a mystery. My mentor only showed me a few grains once, long ago."
Once stable, Nicolas Flamel immediately knelt and began painstakingly collecting the grains that had spilled from Ian's hand, while Ian, whose fingers still leaked sand like an enchanted hourglass, watched with a twitching brow.
He leaked.
Nick collected.
Seeing the legendary six-hundred-year-old alchemist scrabbling across the floor like a starving man during a food shortage, Ian gave up and simply dumped the entire handful of black sand onto the office floor.
He had more. Plenty more. His pouch was bottomless, after all.
"What are you doing?" Ian asked, watching Flamel now scurry away from the sand entirely and start rummaging through an old wooden chest beside his crafting table.
The master alchemist slowly retrieved a series of strange, half-finished magical tools, some appearing to be rusted iron prongs, others chipped gemstones gleaming faintly with hidden power. With skilled fingers and a focused gaze, Nicolas Flamel began forging.
The room filled with the ringing clang of hammer on metal and the glow of mystical fire, a symphony of alchemical craftsmanship. Within moments, he'd shaped several crude but functional tools.
Some resembled sharp excavation blades, others were shaped like arcane crowbars. He carved runes into each one with practiced hands while still responding to Ian's question.
"You've dug up Merlin's tomb, haven't you?" Flamel asked suddenly, pausing only to give Ian a wide-eyed, conspiratorial look. "It must be Merlin's. No doubt in my mind... If you've got Merlin, then I'll go dig up Arthur Pendragon. I know exactly where he's buried."
"He had a cadre of wizards, didn't he? There's bound to be treasure in that tomb," Nicolas Flamel muttered, his voice tinged with an uncharacteristic gleam of ambition, completely overtaken by the feverish thrill of magical discovery.
"Ah!!?"
Ian finally realised what Nicolas Flamel was forging, tomb-raiding tools!
(To Be Continued…)
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