Chapter 251: Ritual Construction and Clouds of War
With the Wizards' Council's resolution passed, large quantities of magical books were sent to Hogwarts with great ceremony.
Accompanying them came various young wizards from across the land.
To gather the young wizards to Hogwarts, Godric's legs were nearly worn out from running.
"No, we need to establish artefacts that can automatically identify the British Isles as soon as possible," Godric said, sitting on the ground gasping for breath.
"Let's postpone that for now. What about the ritual?" Lady Rowena asked, turning her gaze to Aiden, Salazar, and Lady Helga.
The three were all accomplished alchemists, and during this time everything from researching materials to setting up the ritual had been completed by them.
"My suggestion is still to have the young wizards perform specific actions, thus becoming part of the ritual in a relatively gentle way," Aiden said, holding his forehead.
Although Salazar was usually a gentle person, who would have thought he could be so aggressive when it came to alchemy.
Serpent indeed, Aiden secretly complained.
"But this gentle joining method will really make consciousness lack aggression," Salazar said with obvious worry.
"Sir, what we want to establish is a protective ritual," Aiden said, shaking his head.
"Isn't strangling hostility in the bud also a good defensive method?" Salazar asked, tilting his head.
"So, you four vote on it," the dragon said, collapsing on the lawn and starting to slack off.
"Attack ritual," Salazar voted first with conviction.
"Defence ritual," Lady Helga said, holding opposing views.
"Defence," Lady Rowena said, casting her vote for Helga.
Finally, Salazar turned his gaze to his good friend, Godric.
He pondered for a long time before finally making his decision. "Defence."
"Why?" Salazar asked, not understanding.
"Because we're running a school. Having students face dangers outside is also part of learning. The school can't eliminate all dangers for them, so they must learn how to protect themselves."
Godric's words set the direction for the school's future development.
Salazar thought for a while and finally agreed with Godric's idea.
"See, I told you it should be defence."
A certain shameless dragon came over, wanting to put his arm around Salazar's shoulder, but... wasn't tall enough.
"Hmph, you're no longer suitable for my house!" Salazar said, narrowing his eyes.
The dragon stuck out his tongue and led the group to the castle's core location.
Here, the entire floor was embedded with three sets of alchemical arrays, with the array lines all composed of blood-red lines.
"This is the most luxurious alchemy I've ever done in my life," Aiden said with a deep sigh.
"Oh, tell us more," Godric said, coming over and hooking his arm around Aiden's shoulder.
"The three alchemical rituals are nested within each other and from the array layout already correspond to the great three."
Aiden swatted away Godric's hand and walked over to begin explaining.
"The materials used for carving the arrays, besides phoenix tears and voluntarily given unicorn blood, also include my blood. This allows the entire ritual to sink into the collective unconscious sea and map the real castle within the collective unconscious sea."
Aiden pointed to the first layer of the array with scholarly precision.
"As the surface layer of the ritual, we use Fehu (ᚠ) moving energy, Ansuz (ᚨ) inspiration, and Gebo (ᚷ) exchange... these three runes. See the golden particles on the runes? These are time ripples I collected. The combination of the two allows the ritual's power to break through space-time restrictions and descend anywhere."
Godric reached out, wanting to touch them, but was slapped down by Lady Helga while also receiving Salazar's 'kind' smile.
"The second layer ritual uses the runes Jera (ᛃ) cycle, Eihwaz (ᛇ) death and rebirth, and Sowilo (ᛊ) light. This set of arrays can ensure that even after Hogwarts' energy supply is cut off, the arrays will continue to operate automatically for thousands of years."
Aiden walked to the very centre of the ritual, and the third layer array also emerged with mystical power.
"The innermost core runes we chose are Algiz (ᛉ) protection, Ingwaz (ᛜ) fertility, and Tiwaz (ᛏ) sacrifice."
As Aiden's words fell, the three runes had silver particles floating from them like stardust.
"These runes use my scales inside. Besides being able to transmit the power of the collective unconscious sea, they can also carry wizards' thoughts."
Aiden looked at the flickering runes, a trace of a nostalgic smile spreading across his exquisite face.
"How does it feel like he's a large-sized alchemical material..." Godric said, having just opened his mouth when Salazar cut him off with an elbow strike.
"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's activate it," Salazar said.
"You need the four founders to inject magical power into it, allowing your arrival experiences to connect with the array," Aiden explained.
The four walked to the middle of the array together, while Aiden stepped out.
"Aren't you coming with us?" Godric asked.
"That won't work. If I add my experience of coming to Hogwarts, this ritual would be too harsh," Aiden said mysteriously.
As the four leaders injected their magical power, the entire alchemical ritual began to flicker with growing intensity.
Surrounding objects began rapidly whitening.
"Let's go, hurry and run. If we don't run, do we want to be sunk into the sea?" Aiden reminded the four urgently.
Space flickered, and the next second all five appeared outside the castle.
The castle's core section just disappeared like that, never to be found by anyone again.
And just then, the newly arrived young wizards also reached the Black Lake.
"Can we start their enrolment ceremony right now?" Lady Rowena asked.
"Of course, let's test the effectiveness," Aiden said, raising an eyebrow.
Godric grabbed a large handful of leaves from a tree and scattered them on the lake water, and small boats appeared just like that.
Then Lady Helga led them toward Hogwarts with motherly care.
"So what about the Sorting?" Godric asked, looking at Aiden.
"Bring me your hat," Aiden said, hooking his finger.
Godric complied. After Aiden took the hat, he fixed the ritual's anchor point from himself to the hat.
"Split off part of your consciousness and put it in," Aiden said to the four.
The four took out their wands and pressed them against their hearts. The tips of their wands emitted fluorescent light that was absorbed by the hat.
The next moment, the hat suddenly took a deep breath.
"Oh, damn!" The hat's first words upon speaking were profanity.
Aiden looked at the four with dead fish eyes, and they all embarrassedly lowered their heads.
"!!??" Question marks appeared on Aiden's forehead.
The Sorting ceremony was completed, and they followed their respective mentors to begin learning.
Aiden spotted many familiar faces in the crowd.
Barrow, Nick, the Fat Friar...
"Didn't your daughter enrol?" Aiden asked, curiously turning back to ask Lady Rowena.
"I temporarily hid her in my homeland. I'm somewhat afraid to bring her to Hogwarts," Rowena said with a worried frown.
"Why?"
"Because I feel war might be coming soon, and this place will probably become the front line," Lady Rowena explained with growing concern.
"War, with whom?" Aiden asked with obvious surprise.
"With those magical creatures," Salazar also came over to answer.
"The reason we were in such a hurry to establish the school was hoping to provide wizards with a... trench," Lady Helga supplemented grimly.
After hearing their explanation, Aiden suddenly remembered what was written in Hogwarts' school history.