Anna didn't run far; she fell in the hallway.
But everything around her was shaking.
Picture frames, lamps, curtains, statues—everything was swaying.
"Ah~~"
Anna cried out in pain, and everything seemed to float.
"Magic riot," Anton pursed his lips and stopped.
As young wizards age, their magical powers gradually emerge. When their emotions fluctuate violently, magical riots ensue.
This scene is magical, but it also means that the magic within the young wizard is beginning to spiral out of control.
This loss of control automatically performs spells corresponding to the young wizard's emotions, closely resembling the old wizard's theory that wizards are gods.
Failure to learn spells to regulate the magic within, deliberately suppressing it, or unbridled indulgence can lead a young wizard to become a dangerous Obscurus.
The Obscurus is powerful, but like Nagini, it is simply energy that has lost its true self.
Of course, there are more possibilities, but none of them are good.
The effects of the Wizard's Eye potion continued. The air around Anton gradually lit up, a myriad of lines and blocks of color interweaving.
He was sketching a magical image of the turbulent magic.
The Wizard's Eye potion was incredibly difficult to prepare and prohibitively expensive. After consuming it, every second felt precious.
Slowly, Anna began to float. Under Anton's Wizard's Eye, the chaotic flow of magic stabilized,
forming a deeply mysterious and beautiful pattern.
Levitation spells, flight spells, control spells...
Anton discovered the prototypes for countless spells almost instantly as the magic erupted.
Undoubtedly, this magical effect was extremely powerful.
And the resulting image was even more complex than the one created by the Fairy's Eye.
At that moment, everything fell, even Anna, falling heavily to the ground.
Anton was about to reach for her when he saw Anna's body twisting and shifting on the ground, eventually transforming into a gigantic snake.
It was still a viper, but its markings were darker, its dark brown color almost blending seamlessly into the castle's stone walls.
Only a pair of deep, vertical pupils shone in the dim corridor.
The snake's eyes darted around in confusion, then swam over, its head held high, and gazed at Anton with questioning eyes.
She saw a reflection in Anton's eyes—a snake.
The snake transformed rapidly, transforming once again into Anna. Its eyes rolled back, and it passed out.
Anton quickly grabbed her, looking helplessly at Pedro and the old wizard behind him. "It seems I must quickly research the secrets of your 'Fairy Eyes' and find a way to break the blood curse from your memory."
"We don't have much time,"
Pedro said, his expression complex, and he sighed deeply.
...
...
Time slipped by, and in a blink of an eye, a month had passed.
The flowers in the castle garden had withered, then bloomed again under Rosier's spell, and Nagini was clearly delighted.
That month, Rosier searched the world for Pedro.
She felt a little sorry for her husband's travel fatigue. Rosier smiled brightly, holding his daughter in one arm and his wife's waist with the other, his gums showing. "For you, this is all worth it. I'm almost finding Pedro."
Anna curled up against the castle's large window, watching the scene with a sorrowful expression.
She wanted to rush down and tell this man, no, don't leave your wife and daughter, because this might be a farewell forever.
But she knew she couldn't.
Pedro, with his vast experience, told her that history couldn't be changed, and her recklessness would only hasten her mother's transformation into a snake.
She didn't know what to do, but could only gaze at her mother with longing and greed.
Just one more glance.
This was the reason she stayed here.
"Fuck!" Anton let out a stifled cry of pain at the table in the middle of the laboratory. He rushed to the bathroom in the corner, retching with a piercing sound, as if he was vomiting out his entire body.
Soon, Anton, having washed his face, emerged, beaming at Pedro. "Old demon, your secret technique is truly powerful!"
He sat down again, staring at the demon before him. Ripples spread before him, the eyeballs within them blinking before finally breaking.
"Mistake, haha. Try again. Wait a moment."
Anton twisted his neck, and the ripples spread again.
Pedro looked at him with admiration. He couldn't imagine the fortitude this child possessed to persevere like this.
Then, he felt a piercing, burning gaze pierce his soul, rifling through his memories.
"Hiss!"
Half an hour later, Anton gasped and fell from his chair.
Anna quickly jumped out of the window to help him, but Anton waved her off, scrambling to his feet and dashing into the bathroom.
"Take a break!" She looked at Anton, who had returned again, with some distress. "I know I can't stop you, but you have to take care of yourself. Take it slow, okay?"
Anton remained cheerful. "It's okay,"
he said, laughing so heartily that his gums showed.
"I think something's wrong." Pedro frowned and looked at Anton. "Young wizard, you're almost at your limit. If you keep torturing yourself like this, you'll break."
Anton exhaled deeply. "Okay, let's continue tomorrow."
He walked to the table, pulled out parchment and a quill, and stared at a magical image hanging on the wall. He wrote and drew, and began his research again.
"Is he always like this?" Pedro looked at the old wizard in admiration.
The old wizard shrugged, "When I was alive, he would sometimes take advantage of the moment of wiping the table or tidying things to write down the contents of my notes and recite them over and over again."
"Tsk tsk tsk." Pedro shook his head, "Your apprentice is better than mine."
"???"
The old wizard widened his eyes and sneered, "That's because his teacher is better than mine!"
Pedro sneered, and the old wizard snorted coldly, and then the two started a new round of verbal battle.
As their skills matured, the two men's cursing skills improved significantly, moving beyond the simple, "silly" language.
Anton, immersed in his magical world, had long since grown accustomed to their noises, automatically filtering them out.
Anna didn't feel like trying to stop them. She crouched in front of a massive iron cage in the corner. A large snake, spitting its venom as it swam, leaned its head toward her, its pupils reflecting her tiny body.
She held out her tender, white hand, and the snake licked the palm of her hand with its venom. It tickled, and she wanted to laugh, but tears welled up instead.
Pedro approached, sighed, and stroked her head. "Sometimes she wants to attack you, and sometimes she wants to be close to you. Apparently, there are brief moments when she still remembers something."
Anna's eyes lit up. "Can I go in and hug her?"
Pedro shook his head firmly. "I don't know when she'll revert to being a simple snake. If you were next to her, I wouldn't even be able to save you."
"She's so fast, so fast sometimes I can't even react."
Anna's eyes dimmed again.
Deep emerald eyes looked pitifully at the snake, who stared back at her.
"I think we've stumbled upon a misunderstanding!" Anton had come over at some point, looking at the two of them sternly.
"First of all, history can't be changed, right?"
Pedro nodded solemnly. "As a collector and explorer of time and memory, I can tell you clearly that it can't be. Otherwise, I would have long since returned to the crucial moment of humanity's massacre of the goblins and altered history."
Anton nodded. "Then, in this past, we couldn't possibly have found a way to break the blood curse!"
Anna looked at him in surprise.
Pedro pondered. "You mean..."
Anton sighed. "If your memories truly contained a way to break the blood curse, then Nagini wouldn't have been a snake, and she wouldn't have attacked Anna. Rosier wouldn't have had to freeze Anna. By the time Anna met me, she would have been almost fifty, not a little girl. Everything would have been changed."
This cascading effect could even alter history; no one knew how many things were connected and affected.
"That is, we can't change Nagini's fate in history. We can only find this memory after we go back, but by then, Nagini will have completely transformed into a snake."
"..."
Anna clutched the back of her left hand in front of her, forcing a smile, tears nearly falling. "I should have expected this."
Pedro sighed and gently patted her shoulder.
The atmosphere froze.
"But..."
Anton shook the magic diagram in his hand.
"I've developed something interesting."