The Return to Hogwarts

Looking at Professor Blaine's stern face, the young wizards felt a chill. It seemed that the severe punishment Professor Blaine mentioned would not only be solitary confinement or deduction of points, but might be expulsion from the class, or even expulsion from Hogwarts!

“But we need real combat experience, don’t we, Professor Blaine?” Theodore Nott of Slytherin said sullenly. “We can’t become duelists without real combat experience.”

“I will give you opportunities for real-world practice, but before that—” Professor Blaine gave Theodore Nott an appreciative look, “you need to build a solid foundation first.”

Draco glanced at Harry from afar, his lips twitching, looking quite regretful.

"Where shall we begin, Professor Blaine—"

Hermione's cheeks flushed slightly, her breathing quickened, and her eyes showed urgency. She raised her hand and asked...

"I mean, we don't have textbooks!"

“This course doesn’t need a textbook, Miss Granger. I will be using a magical teaching method that you’ve never seen before—”

Professor Blaine said, standing directly in front of the young wizards with a smile on his face, his pale purple eyes reflecting each bewildered face.

“Now—” Professor Blaine’s voice deepened, a deep and authoritative tone that seemed to dim even the bright torches in the classroom.

"Everyone, keep your eyes on me—"

Stare into their eyes?

The students were stunned. Professor Blaine's request was really strange. Why would he ask everyone to look into his eyes?

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances again; they knew some of the inside information.

In their second year, Professor Blaine told them about the secret of his eyes. According to Professor Blaine, his eyes contained a special magic, like a reservoir, capable of accumulating a huge amount of magic power for use in duels. He also told the three of them that if one day they found his eyes had returned to their original brown color, it would mean that he would be fully committed to a battle.

Unfortunately, Harry has yet to see Professor Blaine's eyes return to their brown color. Perhaps Professor Blaine used all his strength on the night of the Quidditch final, but they were too far away for Harry to see such a subtle change.

Despite their doubts, the young wizards obediently did as instructed, staring wide-eyed at Professor Blaine's strangely colored eyes, not daring to even blink.

Once the classroom quieted down, the howling wind and crackling torches outside the castle became more pronounced, adding a touch of mystery to the still air. The young wizards realized that something extraordinary was about to happen, and their eyes widened in surprise.

Seeing this, Professor Blaine smiled slightly. The next second, his pale purple eyes suddenly shone brightly, and a strange wave swept out from his eyes, instantly encompassing all the young wizards.

The world suddenly went dark!

Hermione felt as if she were falling into the deep sea, the darkness enveloping her seemingly endless and timeless. Hermione instinctively wanted to struggle, to scream in terror, but to her despair, she discovered she couldn't control her body at all. Her body seemed to have vanished, leaving only a wisp of thought continuing its descent.

In the boundless darkness, a ray of pure white light suddenly appeared, tearing through the eternal darkness. Hermione, terrified, rushed toward the light and through the door.

hum!

After a loud buzzing sound, Hermione found herself kneeling on a seemingly perfectly smooth, pure white ground. Everything around her was pure white, as if it had no end.

Professor Blaine

Fear brought tears to Hermione's eyes. She called out tremblingly, but no one answered, and the world remained absolutely silent.

"Harry, where are you?"

Hermione called out again, and this time, her call had an effect.

A strikingly dark gray beam of light, stark against the pure white world, descended from the sky and landed beside her with a whoosh. Upon hitting the ground, the beam rapidly transformed, gradually coalescing into a bewildered Harry. This seemed to be the beginning; beam after beam descended, and one by one, the Hogwarts students materialized within them.

No one knows what they went through, only that it must be related to Professor Blaine.

"Where is this?"

Harry stood up and looked around at the empty world in confusion. They had just been in Professor Blaine's class, but in the blink of an eye, they found themselves in a strange place.

"Professor Blaine led us out of Hogwarts?"

Ginny said in a low voice.

"impossible!"

Although her mind was filled with doubt, Hermione still instinctively retorted,

"If you've read 'A History of Hogwarts,' you should know that there is powerful magic within the school grounds that prevents all teleportation magic."

"But that's Professor Blaine, isn't it?"

Neville said, his voice trembling.

"He can do anything."

At this point, Hermione didn't want to waste her breath refuting Neville's ignorant views. Like all young wizards, she tried her best to figure out where she was.

"welcome--"

Suddenly, a familiar, steady voice rang in the young wizards' ears. They quickly looked in the direction of the voice and found that right beside them, Professor Blaine, with his deep eyes and a strange smile, had emerged from a distorted, hazy mass of air, his arms outstretched towards them.

Welcome to my spiritual world--

Chapter 514 A Strange Way

2023-10-03

Professor Blaine's Inner World

Harry murmured to himself, looking at Hermione with a bewildered expression, only to find that Hermione, who was usually all-knowing, wore the same confusion as him. He assumed that the 'mental world' was magic that only older students would encounter, so he turned his gaze to Cedric Diggory. But after seeing Cedric's eyes, Harry knew that he didn't know any more than he did.

Professor Blaine smiled slightly as he looked at the group of anxious young wizards.

"Perhaps you are still confused. Well, I can take a little more time to explain—"

Professor Blaine stood with his hands behind his back, gazing admiringly at this pristine white world.

"This world is not real; it's a false world I created. It's a world that only thought can enter. I've stripped you of your thoughts, materialized them, and placed them into this world, while your real bodies remain in the gym classroom—"

The young wizards still had their mouths slightly agape. They couldn't fully comprehend what Professor Blaine was telling them, but they understood some things—

First of all, the place they were in was created by Professor Blaine using magic.

"To create a world with magic--"

Hermione murmured, suddenly feeling an urge to cry, because at this moment, her magical knowledge was almost collapsing, and she couldn't think of any magic that could do all this.

"False ideas"

Harry lowered his head, looking at his hands. His palms clenched and unclenched repeatedly, his face filled with disbelief. The incredibly vivid sensation made it impossible for him to believe that he was actually faking it!

"But why did you bring us into this world? You created this world, weren't we supposed to be learning magic, Blaine Cult?"

Astoria, a second-year Slytherin witch from the Greengrass family, one of the twenty-eight holy pure-blood families, was the only first-year wizard invited to Amostall's physical education class. She asked in a delicate voice,

"Could it be that learning magic in this world will bring us advantages?"

"You guessed correctly, Miss Greengrass—"

Professor Blaine glanced at Astoria with a look of disbelief, then addressed everyone.

"You are all students who have studied spells for some time, so I think you understand the difficulties of learning a spell you've never encountered before. Time—first and foremost, precious time—you need a lot of time to practice repeatedly to master a new spell. Outside, with only two classes a week, it would be difficult for you to reach the pace I require. But here, in the mental world, theoretically, time can be accelerated significantly. That is to say, a few hours here might only be a few minutes outside—"

Theodore Nott clenched his fist in his sleeve, looking at Professor Blaine with deep respect.

The Nott family possesses ancient magical skills; they know how to manipulate time. They are the only family in the magical world that knows how to make time-twisters. However, to avoid trouble, they handed over all their time-twisters to the Ministry of Magic and claimed that the skill had been lost.

It was because of this skill that Theodore knew just how terrifying and difficult time magic was, but Professor Blaine had actually developed a magic that could steal time, which was simply unimaginable!

"Of course, I must remind you—"

Seeing Hermione's eyes light up, Professor Blaine said seriously,

"The fundamental reason why time seems to speed up is because thoughts are processed faster, but this has strong side effects and puts a great burden on your body. So, don't indulge in the temptation of having more time."

Hermione muttered a few disappointed words, but also felt it was only natural. She had used the Time-Turner before, returning to the beginning of time multiple times to buy herself more time to study. However, if this method went wrong, the consequences would be extremely terrible, and, just as Professor Blaine had said, it would indeed put a huge burden on the body.

"There's one more advantage to learning magic in the spiritual world—"

Having dispelled all unrealistic fantasies, Professor Blaine began to speak again.

"I believe that most people in Professor Flitwick's Charms class have had this experience: they know the spell and the hand gestures for a spell, but they still can't master it—"

Nawi nodded frantically, feeling a deep sense of sympathy.

"That's because the success of a spell doesn't just depend on the incantation and gestures; there are other subtle factors involved, such as the stability of the magical power within the body drawn by the spell, or the fluctuations in mental power behind concentration. These are difficult to teach in the classroom and can only be gradually adjusted through repeated practice. But in the mental world, these issues are much more intuitive."

Professor Blaine glanced at the engrossed young wizards, then turned around and pulled out a spell.

As the incantation was continuously waved, wondrous three-dimensional structures shimmering with iridescent light were released from the tip of the staff. These structures ranged from a few simple lines to dozens of complex ones. Each mysterious entity floated in mid-air and rotated on its own, emitting inexplicable fluctuations.

Harry stared wide-eyed at the various shapes and structures. He couldn't understand them, but he could still feel a kind of beauty in them. It was hard to describe, but if he had to describe it, Harry felt that it was the beauty of magic!

"Magic Configuration!"

Hermione covered her mouth and exclaimed in surprise.

"Heh, you know this, Miss Granger—"

Professor Blaine chuckled.

“That’s right. In the first lesson of Professor Flitwick’s Charms class, he will tell you about the core of a charm—the magical configuration. But beyond that, he won’t tell you anything more, because it’s quite obscure knowledge, and for most people, this kind of knowledge is obscure and useless. But if you’re aiming to improve a charm or invent a new one, you have to have some understanding of this.”

“I don’t understand, Professor Blaine—”

"It's Astoria again," she said earnestly.

"Our goal is to learn offensive magic, not to invent and improve spells, isn't it?"

"No need to rush, Miss Greengrass—"

Summoning dozens of young wizards into the constructed mental world, and carefully ensuring that their bodies wouldn't collapse due to their rapid thought processes, was a test for Amosta. He wearily rubbed his temples and continued explaining.