Leon looked down at the wand in his hand.
"What an interesting combination," Ollivander said with evident interest. "Welsh Green dragon heartstring, English oak. Do you know what those two things usually mean when put together?"
Leon shook his head.
"It means a born warrior," Ollivander said. "Oak chooses its master carefully. It favors those who are brave, loyal, and strong. The Welsh Green chooses those who will not retreat at a critical moment. Put the two together..."
He didn't continue.
Then say it, you damn riddler.
Leon waited a few seconds, then couldn't help asking, "What happens?"
"Put together, it means that in the future you are certain to run into a few little troubles—and you are certain to face them head-on."
Ollivander's expression turned meaningful.
There was nothing particularly special about Leon buying a wand at Ollivanders.
Fanfiction loved to have Ollivander pass down outrageously overpowered wands from his ancestors, with absurdly rare woods and cores—like precious timber from some mysterious eastern land or the heartstring of a one-of-a-kind divine beast.
But in reality, below the Elder Wand, all wands made by the three great wandmakers were equal. Harry Potter's holly wand with a phoenix feather wasn't inherently nobler than Hagrid's. Their traits simply leaned in different directions.
After buying the wand, the second step was buying books. Books were the heaviest, so once he bought them, he could leave them somewhere first instead of carrying them around all day.
After arriving at Flourish and Blotts, Leon went straight to the used book section.
Whether in the Muggle world or the magical world, knowledge was always expensive. Any random textbook could cost nine Galleons or more, and buying the full set could practically drain his entire budget.
Of course, expensive here meant textbooks—books containing genuine magical knowledge and real teaching material.
Extracurricular reading like Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, Notable Magical Names of Our Time, A Modern History of Magic, Studies in Recent Developments in Wizardry, and Hogwarts: A History only cost a few silver Sickles at most.
Wizards knew what was valuable, so finding a hidden bargain was basically impossible.
Why were Gilderoy Lockhart's books sold at such high prices when Harry Potter was in second year? Because they really did contain useful material.
Lockhart had obtained that knowledge far too easily—stolen from the minds of elite wizards whose memories he'd plundered—so he never valued it. He wrote all of it into his books like a complete idiot, and the readers benefited with a grin.
Did people really think all those housewives were won over just by Lockhart's charming smile? They truly started with his looks and stayed for his talent.
Still, there was a way to exploit the system here.
Anyone who had gone to university knew that when it came time to buy textbooks, you didn't have to buy brand-new ones through the school. If you searched the bookstores around a university town, it was easy to find used copies sold off cheaply by older students.
The only problem was picking out the valuable textbooks from piles and piles of books. For an ordinary young wizard, that wasn't easy.
But Leon wasn't an ordinary young wizard.
He pulled out his new wand.
"Revelio."
A wave only Leon could perceive spread out silently and invisibly.
The next moment, dozens of objects lit up brightly in his vision.
After obtaining his wand, Leon activated the features of the game template.
[Wand obtained. Game traits updated.]
[Obtained: Protego Mastery, Stupefy Mastery, Revelio Mastery, Lumos Mastery.]
Protego. Stupefy. Revelio. Lumos.
In Hogwarts Legacy, the protagonist mastered all four of those spells perfectly during the prologue without even needing lessons.
That was because they corresponded to the basic functions of the game character: attack with Stupefy, defense and counter with Protego, treasure-hunting with Revelio, and lighting with Lumos.
These all belonged to the game character's basic kit, but together they turned the protagonist into a freak who had only just enrolled yet could crush ordinary new students in combat and rival an Auror.
So once Leon's game traits updated, he instantly gained mastery over four spells, and his combat ability surged straight to Auror level.
After all, everyone knew that in Harry Potter's era, most full-time Ministry wizards couldn't use Protego properly. It wouldn't be until next year, after the Weasley twins opened their joke shop, that people would start relying on Shield Hats enchanted with the Shield Charm to feel safe.
Only after taking the wand did Leon truly obtain the game character template from the prologue in a meaningful sense.
After picking out all the highlighted books and buying them, Leon realized he had gathered every textbook needed for the entire year.
The Standard Book of Spells, Grades 1 through 7. Intermediate and Advanced Guides to Transfiguration. Advanced Potion-Making. Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghouls, Wanderings with Werewolves, Voyages with Vampires, Travels with Trolls, Holidays with Hags, Year with the Yeti. Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts. A Beginner's Guide to Ancient Runes. Numerology and Grammatica. Theories of Defensive Magic...
Among them was even Lockhart's full series. The most valuable without question were Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghouls, Holidays with Hags, Travels with Trolls, Voyages with Vampires, Wanderings with Werewolves, and Year with the Yeti.
As long as you ignored the story sections and focused on the methods for dealing with dark creatures, those books were highly reliable and highly professional.
Magical Me was just a bragging autobiography, and Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests was about domestic magic, which Leon had absolutely no interest in.
These used books cost less than a third of their original prices. Lockhart's series in particular cost less than a tenth, because Lockhart himself had been thoroughly disgraced, which caused his books to be scorned as well.
The rest of the shopping process had nothing worth mentioning. In this world, there weren't many people like Draco Malfoy who loved showing off and picking fights so stiffly, so the whole trip passed in complete peace.
Leon didn't enter a single pet shop, mainly because even in the magical world he still couldn't find a cat that didn't shed and didn't need a litter box. As for owls and toads, he had no intention of buying them.
Carrying a huge pile of things back to the Leaky Cauldron, Leon rented a temporary room.
For the time being, he had no plans to read those books. Learning magic wasn't something he had to rush. If he wasn't mistaken, his game character template still wasn't complete.
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