The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 310: Black Lake Trip

When the whistle sounded, Ryan grabbed Harry who was about to take off his clothes and shook his head gently, then looked at the others. The contestants from other schools seemed to have been prepared long ago, and each of them wore a swimsuit under their wizard robes. Now they all took off their coats in the cold wind and stretched their hands and feet, ready to go into the water.

In a few minutes, everyone else in the school had already gone into the water, leaving Ryan and Harry standing by the lake in their coats.

"Why don't Harry and the others take off their clothes now?" "Maybe they can appear at the bottom of the lake in an instant--" "By the way, I heard that Harry has a great figure. Has anyone of you seen it?" Ryan suddenly felt embarrassed when he heard the last sentence, because he could tell that the person who asked the question was a man.

"Okay, it's our turn now." Ryan waved his wand a few times, and soon, a small blue boat made of ice floated out of the water.

"The contestants from Hogwarts have chosen an unprecedented method to try to pass this competition. I wonder what their results will be. Let us wait and see." Bagman's excited voice came from the referee's table.

After climbing onto the boat, Ryan tapped the side of the boat with his magic wand, and the boat rushed to the center of the lake like an arrow.

"Take this and listen carefully to the movement in the water. Tell me if you hear any abnormal sound." After Ryan got on the bed, he took out a long flesh-colored string from the bag on his waist, stuffed one end into Harry's ear, and then put the other end into the water.

"What is this?" Harry asked as he listened to the movement in the water as Ryan instructed.

"Retractable ears, a new product invented by the Weasley brothers and I, will soon be added to their mail-order sales list," Ryan explained.

"Cool, wait, I think I hear some singing." They were already some distance away from the shore at this time, and Harry suddenly heard singing coming from underwater.

"It should be a mermaid. I think we have found the place. Point me in which direction?" Ryan asked Harry while pointing his wand at the stern. Harry quickly pointed out that the sound was coming from the north near the center of the lake.

Ryan waved his wand to adjust the direction of the boat. Harry then asked, "How do you know that the mermaid is singing in the right place?"

"The Black Lake is so big, so they must have put our things in a conspicuous place. As far as I know, the most conspicuous thing under the Black Lake is the mermaid village, and their singing can also help everyone navigate. You know, the bottom of the Black Lake is all mud and water plants, and the road signs placed there are not easy to be seen. And for wizards, the guidance of mermaids' singing is more magical."

Soon, the ice boat was getting closer and closer to the approximate location where the song was coming from, and the lyrics began to become clear.

"To find the objects we took away, you need to keep moving forward - yes, this is the place." Harry said to Ryan happily, because the mermaid's song has clearly pointed out the destination. At this time, it was only about ten minutes since they left the starting point.

Soon the ice boat came above the singing. At this time, Ryan and the other two took off their coats and pulled out a potion filled with sky blue liquid from their belts and drank it all.

As soon as the potion entered his stomach, Ryan felt that his mouth and nose began to have difficulty breathing, and gills grew under his ears. He endured the discomfort and said to Harry opposite him: "I have adjusted this underwater breathing potion. It is only effective for 20 minutes. Go down and get the things and come up immediately." Harry made an OK gesture after hearing it, and then the two of them dived directly into the water. Maybe because of the potion, they didn't feel that the water was as cold as they had just touched it. The lake was dark and the visibility was very low. Ryan could only see things around him three or four meters away.

"Follow me closely." Ryan used his magic wand to draw a few dots of light in the water, and then swam hard towards the place where the singing came from. Five or six minutes later, they saw many rough stone dwellings on the bottom of the lake below their bodies, with spots of algae on them. There were some faces in those dark windows... some faces that were completely different from the legends...

According to legend, the human half of a mermaid looks very much in line with human aesthetics. Unfortunately, this legend is only half correct. Only mermaids in the Mediterranean region are relatively beautiful. And because ancient European civilization originated along the Mediterranean coast, the legend of mermaids spread everywhere.

The guys at the bottom of the lake belong to a branch of Atlantic mermaids. Their skin is iron-gray, and their dark green hair is long and unkempt. Their eyes are yellow, their incomplete teeth are also yellow, and they wear pebbles strung together with thick ropes around their necks. They look more like fishmen.

The place where the singing sound came from was right below Ryan and the others. It looked like a small square. The square was surrounded by the houses of mermaids, and there was a huge, rough mermaid statue in the square. A group of mermaids gathered under the statue and sang the song that Ryan and the others had just heard.

Well, they were different from the fishmen, at least the song was as beautiful as the legend said. However, the fishmen had never expected that someone would rush down from the water above their heads. After seeing Ryan and the others, the singing of the fishmen even paused for a moment: the singing fishmen looked up curiously.

When he swam to the square, Ryan found that there were six bags made of water grass on the stone platform below the statue, tied to the stone platform by water grass ropes. In each cage was a palm-sized rectangular gold medal, and when he got closer, he could see that each gold medal had their signatures on the golden eggs.

It was indeed faster to walk on the water by boat than to swim. After counting the bags on the stone platform, Ryan came to a conclusion. Then Ryan and Harry quickly found their gold medals, and then pulled out the dagger on their thighs to cut the bag and take out the gold medals. There was a groove on the top of the gold medal. When Ryan inserted the crystal column into the groove, the surface of the gold medal immediately emitted white light, and then the crystal and the gold medal merged into one. Seeing this, Harry also followed the same method to complete his gold medal.

After getting the gold medal, Ryan gestured upward to Harry, and they returned to the surface of the water a few minutes later. It was only then that they realized that there were still five or six minutes before the effect of the drug would end, and the two of them needed to stay in the water for the time being.

In order not to waste time, Ryan made a few handles on the bottom of the ice boat. Then the two of them grabbed the handles and let the ice boat take them towards the forbidden forest near the Black Lake.

When the boat was halfway through, the time for the breathing potion was about to expire. Ryan and Harry quickly pushed the boat up with both hands and jumped onto the boat. Then, under Ryan's command, the two of them immediately drank the orange potion on their waists. Within a few minutes, a trace of steam came out of their bodies, and the chill in their bones was swept away.

"Great, this way I don't have to change clothes in a small boat." Harry gave Ryan a thumbs up after feeling the warmth on his body. "How did you think of preparing this potion?"

Ryan looked at Harry as if he was an idiot. "Since the competition is held in the lake, getting into the water is a high probability event. The water temperature is so cold in mid-February that it is necessary to find something to warm up after coming out of the water. I think among all the contestants, you are probably the only one who doesn't think of this."

"Uh..." Harry rubbed his head with a silly smile. "You know I was just brought into the competition by accident, and I'm definitely not as well prepared as you."

After hearing this, Ryan could only shake his head helplessly.

(End of this chapter)