Whoosh!
With a casual flick of his hand, arcs of lightning crackled through the air—BOOM! Several stone dummies were blown apart, reduced to rubble in an instant.
This new talent… was simply overwhelming.
Wayne opened his eyes.
"System, is the reward after a double-crit really this generous?"
[Base reward: 97% chance of Purple-tier, 3% chance of Gold-tier.]
[Host's luck is off the charts. Original reward was Gold-tier Talent: Thunderbird Bloodline. Enhanced to Legendary-tier: Decree of the Thunder Lord.]
Seeing the system's explanation, Wayne couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
I really am chosen by fate.
He opened his current stat panel to take a look:
[Host: Wayne Lawrence]
Magic Power: SS+
Charms: SS−
Defense Against the Dark Arts (White Magic): SSS
Dark Arts: S
Transfiguration: S+
Potions: A+
Alchemy: A−
Special Talents:
Memory Palace
Born Holy Spirit (Greatly enhances Patronus and White Magic defense spells)
Wandless Casting (Improves success rate and power of wandless spells)
Decree of the Thunder Lord (Control over lightning; lightning-based spells greatly empowered; can imbue other spells with lightning)
Dynamic Perception
[Overall Rating: SS+ – Legendary Tier, one step away from Mythic]
Compared to before, his magic power had increased by a small tier, while his Defense Against the Dark Arts had leaped to SSS.
Even his Dark Arts rating had risen to S.
Unfortunately, the overall rating still remained at SS+, though Wayne wasn't too disappointed.
The higher you climb, the steeper the slope. The differences between top-tier talents were enormous.
As they say—the gap between some people is bigger than the gap between a person and a dog.
"System, you show talent ratings—but do you not have a power-level rating?"
After a moment, the system responded with a mechanical chime:
[Power Rating Panel Generating… Please Note: Power levels in the Wizarding World are inherently vague. This system's assessment is for reference only.]
[In real wizard duels, anything can happen.]
As the voice faded, a new panel appeared before Wayne:
[Host: Wayne Lawrence]
Magical Output: 0.8 "Snapes" (Snape Unit)
Mastered Spells:
Blasting Curse
Aegis Shield
Disarming Charm (Expelliarmus)
Patronus Charm
Unforgivable Curses...
Power Evaluation:
Professor-Level (At full potential)
Elite Auror-Level (In normal condition)
[System Power Scale]:
Student → Adult Wizard → Skilled Wizard → Auror → Elite Auror → Professor → Grand Sorcerer → Legendary → Mythic → ...
Wayne didn't question much else—the evaluation seemed fair.
After all, talents like Dynamic Perception and Decree of the Thunder Lord drastically impacted real battle effectiveness. Combined with his enhanced physical strength, even a few Hogwarts professors might not be able to land a hit on him.
Because... their spells simply wouldn't connect.
The only thing that made Wayne roll his eyes was the magic output stat:
0.8 "Snapes"?
What kind of bizarre unit of measurement was that?
Give Snape some dignity!
Meanwhile, in the Hogwarts dungeons...
Snape, who was currently researching the Tears of Ho-Oh, suddenly sneezed.
The next morning.
The young witches and wizards of Hogwarts were abuzz, still discussing last night's bizarre thunderstorm.
"It was definitely a thunderbird passing over Hufflepuff!" one Hufflepuff student declared with confidence.
"I visited Arizona in the U.S. with my grandfather before—the lightning in their canyons looks exactly like what we saw last night!"
"I heard it was Dumbledore practicing magic," another student offered.
A Ravenclaw promptly disagreed. "No way. What kind of weather spell could do that?"
"Maybe... it wasn't a weather spell. Maybe it was some powerful magic we've never heard of..."
Wayne sat quietly, sipping his oatmeal porridge, not bothering to chime in.
The moment he heard the news this morning, he already knew—
That storm was most likely his doing.
He hadn't expected that simply absorbing a talent inside the Room of Requirement could trigger such a massive reaction outside.
From now on, he'd have to be much more careful when drawing talents.
Guess that Room was now his official summoning chamber.
Thinking back to his reckless card draw in the dorm earlier, Wayne still felt a bit lucky—thankfully, he hadn't drawn the talent Decree of the Thunder Lord.
Otherwise, he'd have had to hit Toby and Norman each with a Obliviate.
His two roommates, however, looked completely confused.
"What are you guys talking about?"
"Was there thunder last night?"
Justin Finley looked at Toby in confusion. "You didn't hear it?"
"Nope," Toby said blankly. "I slept through the night and woke up when it was light out. Thunder and lightning? I had no idea."
Norman also chimed in, "Same here, didn't feel a thing. What about you, Wayne?"
"I did see something, but it disappeared quickly, so I just went back to sleep."
Wayne lowered his head even more. In order to help his roommates sleep soundly, he had added two drops of Draught of Living Death—into each of their bedtime drinks.
It was a powerful sleeping draught, making one sleep like the dead.
Of course, Wayne had carefully controlled the dosage. Two drops was just enough to give Norman and Toby a sweet eight-hour sleep.
As class time neared, they dropped the topic.
The little badgers made their way to the third floor Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Interestingly, before being reported, Quirrell's last lesson had also been with their class.
Now that he'd returned from sick leave, his first class back was, again, with them.
Many students were watching Wayne.
If Wayne still wasn't satisfied, would he file another complaint?
Sitting by the window, Wayne sighed helplessly. "Stop looking at me. It's not like I go around picking fights with professors."
"Hehe," Hannah giggled happily. "Wayne, if you do complain again, you have to bring the rest of us with you."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Apparently, they'd gotten a taste for it.
The bell rang, and Quirrell entered right on time. He looked no different than usual—still wore his oversized turban, still reeked of garlic.
The little wizards were visibly disappointed.
The classroom grew a bit noisy.
"Since class has begun, let's not talk about unrelated topics."
To everyone's shock, Quirrell wasn't stuttering anymore. His head was up, and he wasn't glued to his books.
"I apologize for the month-long delay due to my health issues," he said clearly.
"But thanks to Dumbledore's help, I'm feeling much better now."
"Let's begin."
The classroom fell completely silent.
Everyone realized—Quirrell really was different.
Wayne also straightened up slightly, eyes narrowing in scrutiny.
In a rare move, Quirrell drew back the curtains, letting sunlight flood into the room. He spoke calmly:
"To learn Defense Against the Dark Arts, we must first understand why we study this kind of magic."
"Is it just for defense?"
"Yes—and no."
"Learning this subject allows us to use magic to protect ourselves from Dark wizards and Dark spells."
"But at its core, this is an offensive discipline."
Tap, tap, tap!
His wand lightly tapped the blackboard, and three words appeared:
Defend. Counter. Defeat.
In just a few words, all the young wizards were captivated by Quirrell's speech—there was a certain charisma in it that couldn't be denied.
Wayne understood—Quirrell didn't have that kind of power, nor that kind of presence.
So the one giving the lesson could only be...
Tom!
~~----------------------
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