[Bonus for Powerstones!♥]
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Ever since bringing Nagini to stay by his side, more than a week had passed in the blink of an eye.
During that time, Wade had asked Nagini if she wanted to see Aurelius.
But for some reason, her answer was always no…
Nagini seemed unwilling to meet with Aurelius again, though the reason remained unclear.
Wade hadn't been idle during this period either.
In addition to refining various spells and Transfiguration techniques, he had been paying special attention to his Ancient Magic.
Just as Dumbledore had predicted, frequent use of Ancient Magic did help it grow.
Each time Wade extended the duration of the Transfiguration spell on Nagini, he could clearly feel his own improvement.
It wasn't as fast as directly absorbing Ancient Magic, but overall, his progress wasn't stagnant.
All in all, aside from being completely unable to reach his senior and the system shop still refusing to refresh with anything good, everything else had been going rather smoothly.
Yes, ever since she learned that her name had disappeared, his senior had vanished for over a week…
Of course, even though he hadn't been able to contact his senior in his dreams at night, Wade's use of Nightmare Magic every evening still led to steady progress.
He wasn't sure whether it was due to the awakening of his Ancient Magic, but his improvement in Nightmare Magic had been noticeably faster.
Without realizing it, the dream version of the London street block he had been simulating had expanded with another alleyway.
Wade suspected that Nightmare Magic might be fundamentally based on Ancient Magic.
Which would explain why members of the Somnolen family had such difficulty even getting started with it.
…
That night, Wade once again used Nightmare Magic to enter his dream.
As usual, he transformed his dream into the familiar garden setting, and then habitually called out for his senior a few times.
After waiting for quite a while and thinking she wouldn't show again, Wade was about to alter the dream to continue his Nightmare Magic training—"!!!"
When suddenly, a dark figure, shrouded in black mist, appeared sitting in the pavilion.
"Senior? You're finally here!" Wade looked at the dark, mist-covered figure with surprise and relief.
"Sorry... I've been using Nightmare Magic to search for my name this whole time. When I finally woke up from the dream, more than a week had already passed..." Her tone was somewhat subdued.
It was clear she hadn't found the answer she was looking for.
"I asked Professor Dumbledore about your name..." Wade paused suddenly. "You don't seem curious at all about what he said?"
"Mm... that's because I already know. While using Nightmare Magic to observe, I accidentally saw that Professor Dumbledore was discussing me with the current headmaster of Hogwarts... and the result didn't surprise me. My name has disappeared."
Wade asked, "If that's the case, do you have any suspects? I mean, whoever cast this spell on you..."
"No," the senior shook her head. "However, while sorting through all my past experiences over this past week, I did notice a clue."
"What was it?" Wade asked, curious.
"Maybe it's related to my Nightmare Magic... You know how bored I've been all these years, so after creating Nightmare Magic, I used it to let my consciousness drift across the world through dreams..."
"Sometimes, I would communicate with wizards through their dreams. I learned a lot from them. Of course, for them, it was just a strange dream."
"Other times, I'd just wander within the scope of what I could observe, sightseeing and such..."
As she spoke, her voice carried a trace of nostalgia.
"Then, one night, as my consciousness was drifting through the skies over London and I was thinking about where to go next, I suddenly woke up. And the strange thing was, when I woke up, it was already daytime!"
Wade said in surprise, "You lost an entire night of memory?"
"More precisely... a portion of the Nightmare Magic carrying part of my consciousness vanished completely—along with that portion of consciousness. It disappeared so abruptly that it didn't even have time to send any information back," her voice was filled with confusion.
"And I could feel it—the power of that portion of Nightmare Magic was entirely gone! What's more, I don't even know why I didn't feel suspicious at the time, as if everything was perfectly normal... just like how I felt it was perfectly normal that I didn't have a name..."
"Thinking about it now, it must have been then that someone did something to me..."
"But... I have no way of knowing what method they used."
"Over the past week, I've been back to the area where my memory was lost to investigate, but... I found nothing."
"In any case... the fact that someone could do something like this so effortlessly proves just how terrifying they are. That's why I think you—and that Professor Dumbledore—should not get involved in this any further. It's for your own safety."
Wade didn't respond to that. Instead, he asked, "Senior, how far can your Nightmare Magic reach?"
"Not very far. I can only observe within the UK, more or less. And the farther away something is, the weaker my consciousness becomes, which means I can affect even less... It can't be helped. My body is immobilized, the magic I can use is very limited, and I can't tap into any Ancient Magic at all," she replied.
Wade was stunned by that answer.
Even with only a limited amount of magic at her disposal, she could still expand her dreamscape to cover all of Britain... It was hard to imagine how terrifying her Nightmare Magic could become if she were ever freed.
"Why are you asking this?" the senior asked again.
Wade replied, "What I'm thinking is... since you have that ability, could it be that your consciousness saw something it shouldn't have... and so—"
"I know what you mean... I've thought of that too. But like I said, this is my own problem. For your safety, it's better if you don't get involved..."
Suddenly, she glanced around the dreamscape. "Your Nightmare Magic has improved a lot in such a short time... Did you awaken your Ancient Magic?"
Wade nodded, then told her about how he had accidentally absorbed the magic sample from the bottle.
"So that means you've already experienced the pleasure that comes with using Ancient Magic... Well? Want to change your mind now?" she asked with a laugh.
"...Ancient Magic is definitely very tempting for me," Wade said, "but I still don't want to become a slave to power..."
"Yes, that's the right mindset. After all, I've already given you a bad example..." she sighed.
Wade continued, "But now that I've awakened Ancient Magic, I can't just ignore it—I have to study it. Even Professor Dumbledore supports that."
Before awakening his Ancient Magic, Wade could easily say he wouldn't use it. But now that it had awakened—why wouldn't he?
"Hmm... having a professor by your side to assist you can definitely help prevent you from going astray like I did. If my teacher hadn't met with an accident back then, maybe I wouldn't have..." the senior said, her voice filled with regret.
"Professor Fig?" Wade asked tentatively.
"Yes." She nodded. She didn't seem surprised that Wade knew who her teacher was.
After all, aside from her name, much of her story was still remembered by many—including information about her mentor.
"Alright. Since you have someone to guide you and you're interested in delving deeper into Ancient Magic... I can give you a gift," the senior said, her gaze turning distant and thoughtful. "During the time when my ambition grew out of control, I left a small item behind at Hogwarts... It should be just right for someone like you..."
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P^treon: Captain69
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