"Creak—"
With a soft sound, the wooden door to Willy's faculty quarters was pushed open.
Willy walked in, carrying his suitcase which was still shaking restlessly. The room was not large, and the air was thick with the smell of dust from being uninhabited for a long time.
He was in no hurry to put down the box, but instead pulled out his wand:
"Tergeo."
An invisible current of air instantly swept through every corner of the room. The accumulated dust gathered into a ball as if pulled by a vacuum cleaner, and then vanished.
Next, Willy tapped lightly on the four walls. Under the effect of the Undetectable Extension Charm, the originally narrow single dormitory instantly expanded outwards. The ceiling rose, the walls receded, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into a spacious and luxurious suite.
After rubbing the silver ring on his finger, several sets of exquisite mahogany furniture, a soft Persian carpet, and a huge four-poster bed appeared out of thin air, automatically landing in their appropriate positions.
Looking at the brand-new room, Willy nodded with satisfaction. Only then did he notice that the box at his feet was shaking more and more violently, as if the occupant inside had reached the limit of its patience.
"Alright, alright, come on out."
Willy unlocked the suitcase, and a colorful figure immediately darted out.
This was the only suitcase he had brought. Although the Alchemy ring on his left hand had plenty of space, his current level was not yet sufficient to put living creatures inside it.
Otto's three heads began to get busy as soon as they came out. The left head rubbed excitedly against the carpet, the middle head held itself high to inspect the unfamiliar room, and the right head hissed irritably at the fireplace, seemingly complaining about the cramped conditions in the box just now.
Leaving Otto to explore the new environment, Willy turned and left the dormitory, heading straight for the nearby Professor of Alchemy's office.
He pushed open the door to find it filled with various alchemy equipment left by the previous Professor. Some looked to be centuries old, with thick grime accumulated at the bottom of cauldrons, and glass jars on shelves containing herbs and animal organs that had long since shriveled and lost their magic.
"Looks like a major cleanup is needed."
Willy decided to transform this office into his private Alchemy laboratory. As for daily office work and receiving students, he would just use that vacant Defense Against the Dark Arts office.
After a period of busy work, Willy unceremoniously threw the overly worn-out, even rusted, stills and scales into the trash, along with those ancient materials that had long since lost their activity.
Then, he took out a set of brand-new high-precision alchemy equipment from his ring, along with a full cabinet of various materials.
Looking at the laboratory shining under the magical lights, Willy clapped his hands and prepared to head to the next office to set it up.
Just as he stepped out, he almost collided with someone at the corner of the corridor.
"Puff... puff... Professor Shafik." Filch was leaning against the wall, panting, his wrinkled face flushed with excitement. "All the stone statues... puff... I've finished setting them all up."
"All of them?"
Willy was a bit surprised. The corridors of Hogwarts were not short by any means. Even an energetic little witch or Wizard would be exhausted from running through them all, let alone having to climb up and hang them one by one.
In his impression, although Filch was a dedicated caretaker, he didn't seem to be good at magic and shouldn't have been this efficient.
"Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick... they weren't busy just now, so they helped me hang the stone statues up." Filch wiped his sweat and stared at Willy eagerly. "That... monitoring book, when can it be used?"
So he had help from Professors. No wonder. With the magical attainments of those two Professors, hanging stone statues along a corridor was just a wave of the hand.
"Don't worry, Filch. I still need to go back and calibrate it. I can give it to you before bed tonight."
Willy nodded, then as if remembering something, he pulled out a bulging green cloth bag from his robes and handed it to Filch.
"Since you're so efficient, if you don't mind, there's another small favor I need you to help with."
Filch took the bag suspiciously and opened it to find a pile of lifelike Bowtruckle models and another monitoring book with a bark-textured cover.
"What's this?"
"The purpose is the same as those stone statues, except that stone statues are too conspicuous in the Forbidden Forest. Bowtruckles fit the style there better and are less likely to be discovered."
As Willy spoke, he handed over a parchment map with several red dots clearly marked on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
"The marks on this map are several paths where it's easy to sneak into the Forbidden Forest. Please take these to the gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, and have him hang these Bowtruckles on the branches at these locations."
"Our Monitoring Network needs to cover the perimeter of the Forbidden Forest in addition to the interior of the Castle, to prevent any reckless brats from running in to feed the Werewolves."
Despite having been away for over a decade, Willy was confident. Back then, they and their predecessors had already explored almost all the paths to sneak into the Forbidden Forest. He didn't believe the current Young Witches and Wizards could be more creative than they were.
Facing Willy's request, Filch was stunned for a moment.
His relationship with Hagrid had always been poor, and they rarely spoke.
Filch looked hesitantly at the bag in his hand, seemingly considering whether to refuse this errand. But at the thought of that monitoring book he was about to get, which would allow him to see the movements of every student in the school, he gritted his few sparse yellow teeth.
"No problem, Professor." Filch tucked the bag under his arm. "I'll have him hang them up, as long as you can give me that book as soon as possible."
After saying that, he carried the items and trudged towards the Castle's main gates, his back actually appearing full of energy.
Willy stroked his chin, lost in thought.
It seemed the appeal of this monitoring system to Filch was even greater than expected. Normally, given his history of constantly being at odds with Filch during his student days, even though he was now a Professor, the man shouldn't have agreed to run an errand for him so readily.
"There are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests. That Muggle Prime Minister was really right..."
After a sigh of emotion, Willy found a deserted corner and summoned the system panel.
[Ding! Detected that the host has improved the security and defense system of Hogwarts. Hogwarts construction progress increased. Reward: 200 points.]
Seeing the points credited, Willy was happy for a while, but he soon calmed down.
He still had one thing to verify.
The current coverage density is one every 20 meters. What if I increase the density?
The more monitors there are, the higher the safety index. This is quite logical, right?
As a Wizard with extremely strong initiative, Willy immediately took out another batch of spare stone statues from his ring. He didn't wait for Filch to return, but waved his wand himself and began an experiment in this corridor.
He first increased the density from one every 20 meters to one every 15 meters.
[Ding! Detected an increase in the precision of the security and defense system. Reward: 20 points.]
Willy's eyes lit up, as if he had discovered a massive gold mine.
If he could farm points infinitely, he wouldn't mind turning the corridors of Hogwarts into galleries full of stone statues, with a camera every two steps, so that not even a fly could escape.
He immediately waved his wand again, increasing the density to one every 10 meters.
[Ding! Detected an increase in the precision of the security and defense system. Reward: 30 points.]
There's more! Keep going!
Willy rubbed his hands excitedly and increased the density again, this time directly to one every 5 meters. The entire corridor wall was densely packed with stone statues, looking almost like a trigger for trypophobia.
However, this time, the system did not respond at all.
Willy didn't give up and tried 3 meters, 1 meter, and even placed two stone statues right next to each other, but the system remained silent throughout.
"It seems 10 meters is the limit for the system's judgment... Any denser and it's judged as invalid redundancy?"
Willy put away his wand with some regret. Looking at the several hundred points he had just acquired, although he hadn't managed to find an infinite points bug, this round of fleecing the wool was still quite good.
"One shouldn't be too greedy."
Willy comforted himself, then waved his wand to return the extra stone statues to his ring, ultimately keeping the configuration of one every 10 meters.