"Thank you, this has been a great help." Nicolaos's gratitude was absolutely sincere.
In the wizarding world, one needed to be sufficiently excellent to enter politics, but mere 'excellence' was enough; there was no situation where one needed sufficient strength to rise to power.
Since it was a political position, administrative ability was naturally valued more.
Dumbledore, who rose to power through great achievements and power, was just an extremely rare exception.
Although he was a department head, Nicolaos could only say he knew a little about Ancient Magic. It was truly difficult for him to sort through the massive amount of time-related data from scratch.
"It's nothing, just a small matter," Roger said, waving his hand.
Besides storage, the Second Brain was also an excellent processor. While it might be difficult for it to provide inspiration, it was very good at consolidating data.
"...Aren't you staying any longer?" Nicolaos knew that Roger would be leaving Greece after their important business was concluded.
Roger had told him this a few days prior.
During their time together, Nicolaos's impression of Roger had already been good, and coupled with the help Roger had brought to the Greek wizarding world, he wanted Roger to stay a little longer.
If one received help from others and offered no reciprocation, it would be quite impolite.
"No, time waits for no one," Roger refused.
Even though he had achieved Eternal Life, Roger still cherished his time.
He wasn't as obsessed as when he first enrolled, but his long-standing habits still made him prefer to do things according to a predetermined rhythm.
It was already late July, and factoring in the lead time for his trip to Britain, he only had about 10 days left to explore outer space.
Even in the 21st century, an 8-day round trip to the moon was considered theoretical, an almost impossible task. Roger should be more flexible and convenient with the assistance of magic, but the round trip would likely not be less than 4 days.
...Of course, this was assuming Roger would explore the moon. If he were just breaking free from near-Earth orbit to touch space, it wouldn't be as troublesome.
After bidding farewell to Nicolaos, Roger returned to his residence and watched Harry practicing magic.
Currently, Harry was not practicing Time Magic, nor the Ancient Magic he had only recently begun to touch upon.
Instead, he was practicing a spell that most Hogwarts upper-year students would begin to learn.
The Shield Charm! "How's the learning going?" Roger asked.
"It's a bit difficult; I tend to overdo it if I'm not careful," Harry replied with a hint of bitterness in his expression.
For a normal Shield Charm, Harry would have mastered it long ago; Snape's combat magic special training had focused on this spell.
What he was actually learning was a variation based on the Shield Charm.
The name "Shield Charm" might create a misunderstanding, making people think it was a spell that used magic power to form an iron armor around the wizard.
But in reality, it was not like that. Its essence was to establish a conceptual 'wall' to isolate the influences between two sides.
Some wizards who had studied the Shield Charm extremely deeply could even erect a wall between the minds of two people.
And at this moment, Roger had Harry practice this spell in preparation for the upcoming trip to space. He wanted to use the Shield Charm as a substitute for a spacesuit to block harmful elements like extreme temperatures and radiation.
Roger could, of course, protect Harry himself.
But he believed that if he intervened in everything, it would inevitably lack a certain flavor.
For example, Roger could cast the Time Phantom Shuttle Spell himself, but under normal circumstances, Roger would let Harry cast it.
In the Eastern Daoist tradition, why was there the saying, "Dharma is not easily passed on, the Way is not sold cheaply"? In Journey to the West, although it was the Buddha who wanted to transmit scriptures to the Tang Dynasty, why did he have to take such a long detour, setting up a situation for the emperor and sending the pilgrim through eighty-one tribulations? There were many reasons, but "things obtained easily are not cherished" was definitely one of the most crucial reasons.
Roger hoped that Harry would participate more, so his memories would become richer, like a happy childhood, becoming the strength and support for him to continue moving forward in the future.
Instead of being like someone who was taken by an adult to go shopping and then forgot about it in a blink of an eye.
"Don't be too afraid of space." Of course, he couldn't just let Harry run into a dead end; Roger would still provide the necessary guidance.
"Come on, relax, and let your magic become more unrestrained and elegant."
Previously, Roger had used Transfiguration and other spells to simulate what would happen to a human entering space without any protection, in order to make Harry aware of the dangers in space.
At the same time, he had let Harry feel the microscopic world from his own perspective, so that he could cast spells correctly.
But that scene seemed to have scared Harry a bit. After that, when he cast his variant of the Shield Charm, he always made the conceptual wall block things it shouldn't have.
...It even blocked out light. The once-fine Shield Charm had almost turned into a self-enclosed dark room.
Besides Harry's matters, Roger also had things to attend to himself.
Roger learned knowledge very quickly, but no matter how fast he was, it was still a drop in the ocean compared to the total amount of knowledge in human civilization.
And in this era, where there wasn't even a shadow of a search engine and information was not digitized, obtaining information was far more difficult than in later times.
So, when Roger officially started searching for information, he realized that becoming the kind of astronaut he envisioned was not that easy.
The Cold War had ended, and the space race was long gone.
Breaking free from Earth's gravity using technology was basically impossible... Countries didn't seem to have any related launch plans recently. At most, Roger could catch up to launching a satellite into near-Earth orbit.
The plan to hitch a ride was a bust, but this small problem wouldn't stump Roger.
When it came to technological matters, Roger's knowledge base was far inferior to magic, and it was highly unlikely he could hand-craft a steel rocket.
But he could cheat with magic and Alchemy.
"Modern technology's biggest constraints are two: one is energy, and the other is materials science."
Humans can now achieve material reorganization, but the excessive energy consumption makes it impossible for them to afford the high-end technologies they've developed.
Many similar situations exist across various fields. For some fighter jets and computers, the same issue arises: they can't find sufficiently durable and lightweight aerospace materials, nor materials that can prevent quantum tunneling in chips, forcing them to make do with silicon carbide.
However, within Alchemy and Transfiguration, many of these problems cease to be problems.
...
...
...
"Did you give it a name?" Harry asked, a hint of excitement in his smile.
Before him stood a towering giant object, shimmering with magical brilliance. Harry had watched it being constructed bit by bit over the past few days.
And now, he was finally going to ride it.
"Magical Cosmic Rocket?" Roger said casually.
"I'm not talking about its scientific name," Harry replied, slightly frustrated by Roger's uninspired naming.
Seeing Harry's eager anticipation, Roger thought for a moment and decided to give this, possibly the wizarding world's first manned alchemical space vehicle, a formal name.
When it comes to naming important things, both East and West have a touch of chuunibyou spirit, with names like Apollo, Aegis, Tiangong, Shenzhou, and Lan Yue...
But Roger felt his nascent creation couldn't quite bear such grand names.
"Let's call it... 'Dream Weaver'," he said.
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