On Christmas morning, Lewis was awakened in his tower room by his beloved little dragon.
Early that morning, Aiwu had wriggled out of Lewis's bed and dived headfirst into the mountain of Christmas presents, wagging her tail as she enthusiastically tore open the wrapping paper with her claws.
As the self-proclaimed most popular little dragon in all of Hogwarts, Aiwu had received dozens of Christmas gifts.
Most of them were snacks.
The rest were all sorts of strange little trinkets.
For example...
A dragon chew toy.
Lewis glanced at the sender and immediately saw Hagrid's name.
The half-giant had never gotten over the fact that Norbert had been sent away two years ago.
Now that Lewis owned a dragon that would never grow up, it was almost like fulfilling Hagrid's old dream.
As a result, Hagrid doted on Aiwu constantly.
Every time they met, he would bring her piles of snacks—including his famously sticky fudge and rock-hard rock cakes.
So receiving a chew toy from Hagrid wasn't surprising in the slightest.
Besides the gifts from witches and wizards, Aiwu had also received presents from her magical friends.
Fawkes.
And Lari.
As two of the wisest magical creatures at Hogwarts, Aiwu and Fawkes got along remarkably well.
At the very least...
Far better than their respective owners did.
Fawkes' gift was one of his tail feathers, enclosed together with Dumbledore's Christmas present for Lewis.
As for Lari...
She had picked a basket of fresh mulberries herself and flown all the way to the tower early that morning to deliver them.
Naturally...
Lewis confiscated the phoenix feather and quietly added it to his own collection of Christmas presents.
As for the mulberries...
By the time Lewis noticed them, only a few mulberry leaves remained.
If the little dragon's mouth hadn't been stained dark purple...
He might never have known they had existed.
Lewis's Christmas gift for Aiwu was a blue tassel woven from unicorn hair.
It was meant to decorate the end of her tail.
The tassel had been enchanted with several illusion spells.
Whenever Aiwu wagged her tail, it would produce pleasant chimes while leaving behind shimmering blue afterimages.
It looked dazzling.
Perfect for a playful little dragon like her.
"This is amazing, Lewis! I've always wanted one of these!"
Aiwu squealed with delight.
She immediately fastened the tassel to her tail before bouncing excitedly out of the room to show it off to Lari.
Naturally, Lewis received even more presents than Aiwu.
Especially this year.
Since he had founded the Society of Erudition, many of its members had prepared Christmas gifts for him.
There were mountains of chocolates and greeting cards from the young witches.
After opening them, Lewis placed every single piece of chocolate into a separate box.
Food was food.
If someone secretly mixed in a Love Potion or another potion...
That would become a serious problem.
He wasn't being paranoid.
Incidents of poisoned or tampered food had occurred numerous times throughout Hogwarts' history.
Every Christmas, the professors repeatedly reminded students to be careful.
Lewis's close friends all knew his preferences.
Most of them gave him books, alchemical materials, or potion ingredients.
Those were gifts Lewis could never have too many of.
Fred and George Weasley sent him a jar of their experimental Skiving Snackboxes.
Specifically, a new batch of diarrhea-inducing sweets.
The twins had invented them as prank items.
Unfortunately, they still hadn't found a way to hide the overwhelming medicinal smell.
As a result...
No one was willing to eat candy that smelled like potion ingredients.
It was simply too suspicious.
Lewis immediately understood.
Calling it a Christmas gift was just an excuse.
In reality...
They wanted him to help improve the recipe.
Those two really know how to take advantage of people...
Luna's present was an invitation.
She invited Lewis to spend part of the holiday at the Lovegood residence and attend a family gathering.
Cho Chang gave him a red scarf.
She had knitted it herself.
For an entire month leading up to Christmas, she had spent almost every day in the library researching magical knitting techniques.
She had barely managed to finish it before Christmas arrived.
Although Lewis hardly needed extra warmth...
The scarf was exquisitely made.
It would make an excellent accessory.
Hermione's gift, however, was rather amusing.
She had sent him a copy of The Wizengamot Charter of Authority.
The problem was...
The cover still bore Hogwarts Library's magical ownership stamp.
According to the letter she enclosed, the gift she had intended to send was actually Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland.
After hearing Onyxia's earlier report, Lewis already knew what had happened.
Hermione had probably become so busy with club work that she accidentally mailed the wrong book.
He could already imagine Madam Pince's expression when Hermione eventually returned Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland to the library instead.
Among all the presents, Lewis disliked Dumbledore's gift the most.
It was a book titled Hairy Heart: Required Reading for Wizards Afraid of Doing Evil.
The book had once topped the bestseller list.
Its central message encouraged witches and wizards to avoid developing a "hairy heart" and becoming cold, emotionless people.
It seemed the old Headmaster was still dwelling on the matter of the Restricted Section.
If not for the phoenix feather Fawkes had given Aiwu...
Lewis would have seriously considered refusing Dumbledore's gift altogether.
As for Sherry, Tonks, Gianna, and his other close friends...
None of them had sent him Christmas presents.
Because this year's Christmas...
They had already decided to celebrate it together.
After checking through all the presents, Lewis casually finished off last night's leftovers before heading straight down into his underground alchemy workshop.
Waiting for him there...
Were his and Sherry's two Arcane Swords.
Beside them lay a pile of goblin silver.
And several feathers from Aiwu.
In truth...
Lewis had wanted to further improve Arcane Sword 2.0 for quite some time.
His goal was to create a weapon that functioned not only as an enchanted sword...
But also as a wand.
On top of that...
He wanted to enchant it with Transfiguration magic so it could freely switch between sword form and wand form.
The problem had always been the materials.
Arcane Swords were forged from metal.
Wands were traditionally crafted from wood.
The two were fundamentally incompatible.
Everything changed this semester.
After reading one of the books from the Restricted Section, Lewis finally learned about the properties of goblin silver.
Goblin silver was a magical metal forged through goblin craftsmanship and enchantment.
In many other worlds...
It was essentially the same material known as mithril.
Although it was metal, it possessed exceptional magical affinity.
By incorporating goblin silver into the Arcane Sword...
Its enchantment capacity would increase dramatically.
At the same time...
It would gain compatibility with wand magic.
From the beginning of the school year, Lewis had been searching for goblin silver.
Unfortunately...
The goblins guarded their signature metal extremely closely.
He had never been able to acquire much of it.
At one point...
He had even considered melting down the Sword of Gryffindor stored in the Headmaster's Office.
Thankfully...
Onyxia had recently managed to purchase ten kilograms of goblin silver from a pure-blood family.
Now...
He finally had everything needed to forge Arcane Sword 3.0.
With a wave of his wand, the furnace inside the workshop roared to life.
The massive block of goblin silver floated into the blazing forge.
Under the intense heat...
The magical metal slowly melted into a shimmering liquid.
Next, Lewis suspended both Arcane Swords above the furnace.
Using alchemy...
He gradually replaced their original metal composition with refined goblin silver.
During the process, he carefully opened the hilts and carved long, narrow channels inside them.
Into each cavity...
He inserted one of Aiwu's feathers.
These would serve as the wand cores.
As a Carnival Dragon, Aiwu was a born Arcane spellcaster.
Her magical affinity surpassed that of almost every ordinary magical creature.
Using her feathers as wand cores would naturally produce results superior to traditional materials like phoenix feathers, unicorn hair, or dragon heartstrings.
Even more importantly...
As a creature originating from Elysium, Carnival Dragons could draw upon the power of nature itself.
They also possessed an innate ability to influence the emotions of others and spread happiness.
As wand cores...
Their feathers not only enhanced Arcane spellcasting...
But also strengthened Lewis's druidic magic and psionic abilities.
One material.
Three benefits.
After completing the goblin silver replacement...
Lewis cast Polymorph Any Object on both Arcane Swords.
Guided by his magic...
The swords slowly transformed into elegant wands roughly the length from his wrist to his elbow.
Then...
He began engraving intricate runic arrays across their surfaces.
These runes would increase the wielder's effective caster level, enhancing the power of every spell cast through them.
Unlike ordinary wooden wands in this world...
Which couldn't undergo extensive enchantment because doing so might disrupt their magical structure...
Goblin silver suffered from no such limitation.
Since the entire weapon had been forged and refined through alchemy, magical power could flow through it perfectly without risking structural instability.
Finally...
Lewis took out the Philosopher's Stone.
Drawing upon the Artifact's immense power, he permanently fixed the transformation enchantment onto both weapons.
Technically...
Polymorph Any Object itself could have made the transformation permanent.
But doing so risked allowing the spell's lingering magic to interfere with the Arcane Sword's other functions.
Using the Philosopher's Stone instead permanently anchored the transformation from the outside, avoiding that problem entirely.
And with that...
Arcane Sword 3.0 was complete.
Under normal circumstances...
It would appear as a beautiful mithril wand.
Far superior to Lewis's original wand.
Better yet...
Because it wasn't registered with the Ministry, it carried no Trace, meaning the Ministry couldn't monitor its use.
Whenever necessary...
The slender wand could instantly transform into a razor-sharp longsword.
Lewis could wield it with both hands without sacrificing his ability to cast spells.
The perfect weapon.
Capable of casting magic...
And cutting down enemies...
Without compromising either.
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