From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

Range: 30 feet (increases with caster level)

Duration: 1 minute (increases with caster level)

A ghostly, floating hand (composed of a magical field) appears at a point you choose within range. You can control this hand freely, just like your own. It can perform all the actions your own hand can do, such as: turning a page in a book; emptying a container; opening a door or closing a window…

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Ivy swore that the page with the words "Hand of the Mage" on it was a recent addition, because he had long regarded the Grimoire of Destruction as his latest cheat code, so he would always flip through it from time to time, but it was not long ago that the Grimoire of Destruction added this new page to his collection.

Ivy recognized the spell; "Mage Hand" is a fairly classic spell from the D&D universe, which has different forms in different video games and tabletop games.

For example, in Baldur's Gate 3, which was very popular before Ivy's time travel, the Mage Hand was a summon that could deal damage. Although its unarmed attacks usually couldn't break through defenses, that wasn't its true purpose.

The "Hand of the Mage," a body formed from force fields, can freely pass through fences and levitate to traverse traps and spikes. Imagine this scenario: in a maze of unknown direction, filled with dangers and obstacles, and your teammates used for scouting have all been exhausted—a simple "Hand of the Mage" can help eliminate most of the dangers!

You can use it to glide across pits without stepping on your teammates' corpses; you can use it to shut off fire-breathing mechanisms without forcing your teammates to complete a doomed charge with a death wish; you can use it to open suspicious-looking iron doors without making your teammates play the role of the unfortunate ones…

In short, it can prevent your teammates from making unnecessary sacrifices, thus making their deaths more meaningful! For a mage, what consumable is more worthwhile than a useful teammate?

Therefore, the spell "Hand of the Mage" is far more effective than what is shown on this simple page.

Ivy stared at the page that recorded the Wizard's Hand again; it was basically exactly as described in the D&D spellbooks.

"Ring" can be understood as spell level, including ten levels from 0 to 9. 0-ring spells are tricks, and spells of this ring are among the few spells that D&D spellcasters can cast without cost and with unlimited uses.

The "Conjuration" school represents its origin. Besides Conjuration, there are other schools such as Evocation, Transmutation, Prophecy, and Protection. Ivy remembers that after reaching a certain level, mages can choose the opposing school, giving up some spells in exchange for enhancements to other spells.

However, in later rules, this setting seems to have been abandoned, and it was changed so that mages have to choose an arcane lineage, directly choosing from several known schools, and then gain certain benefits for the spells of that school.

While the latter is obviously less fun than the former from a role-playing perspective, in the real world, if you were a mage, you certainly wouldn't want to give up some of your spells, right?

After all, the more spells a mage knows, the stronger their abilities and the wider their application range. Giving up some spells is too costly.

Besides "Hand of the Mage," Ivy found several other spells in the Grimoire of Destruction.

They are "Emerald Flame Sword", "Communication Technique", and "Secondary Illusion", all of which are level 0 magic tricks.

The Emerald Flame Sword is a trick of the Evocation school that allows the weapon to be enveloped in emerald flames, used to deal fire damage to two targets within melee range.

The communication technique allows you to send a message to a nearby target, and the recipient can respond. Both messages will sound like whispers, making it very difficult to detect.

Lesser illusions are tricks of the illusion school, capable of creating an illusion of an object or a sound that lasts for at least a minute, and can be used to mislead or attract attention. If the Weasley twins were to learn this trick, Hogwarts would likely be in complete chaos.

Perhaps these level 0 spells are the key to becoming a spellcaster in D&D!

Ivy immediately made this deduction.

There is no hatred without a cause, nor is there love without a cause. New spells don't appear in the Grimoire of Destruction without reason; this book must be conveying magical secrets to its master (Ivy)!

According to the hints on the pages, these zero-ring tricks didn't seem too difficult, and Ivy, who considered himself a magical genius, naturally wanted to give them a try first.

Ivy drew her wand and began constructing the spell model of the Wizard's Hand according to the instructions on the page, filling its framework with magic. For Ivy, a genius mage and master of dark magic, this was not difficult.

Although wizards and mages have two different spellcasting systems, they both rely on magic to cast spells. Therefore, even though it was his first time trying it, Ivy was confident that this level 0 trick would be no challenge for him.

But something unexpected happened to Ivy.

The spell model, which had been fully constructed, failed at the last second before casting. The dissipated magic had no effect on Ivy, except that it made him furrow his brow.

Chapter 24 The Scribes

If one spell doesn't work, try another.

Ivy spent some more time familiarizing himself with the spell models of the other three tricks. In his opinion, they were not complicated things, but like the Mage's Hand, the completed spell models failed at the last second before casting.

Ivy didn't continue trying, but instead looked at her wand. In the D&D world, in addition to spell knowledge and the corresponding spell slot, a mage also needs an arcane artifact as a medium for casting spells.

I had thought my wand could serve its purpose as an arcane artifact, but now it seems that might not be the case.

Besides the wand, what else could serve as an arcane artifact? Ivy shifted her gaze to the Grimoire of Destruction.

"Success!" Ivy exclaimed joyfully as he looked at the pale blue, semi-transparent hand floating in front of him. The last time he was this happy was when he successfully released "Avada Kedavra" for the first time!

Now that he had successfully cast the spell, Ivy immediately checked his attribute panel on the title page of the Grimoire of Destruction again.

He clearly noticed that in the "Occupation/Level" column, after the level 15 wizard and the level 10 ancient magic wizard, there was now a level 0 scribe mage.

“The Scriveners?” To be honest, Ivy didn’t remember ever seeing this entry before, because the rules of the D&D series changed a lot in each version, so there were countless strange spellcasting classes and their variants and subclasses, and Ivy’s knowledge of D&D was limited to various video games.

Aside from a few professions whose names sounded too cool, Ivy didn't remember many profession entries; the Scrivener Mage was clearly not in his memory.

Ivy focused her mind on the entry for the Scrivener's Mage, and the Grimoire of Destruction immediately displayed a wealth of information about the class.

It turns out that the Scrivener is a subclass of the Sorcerer class under the D&D 5 rules, and its core characteristic is its magical spellbook.

"So, using books to cast spells is a prerequisite for taking up this sub-profession?" Ivy rubbed his chin, but because he was too young and hadn't grown any stubble yet, he felt very uncomfortable and eventually put his hand down.

However, a new problem arose: the feat that Ivy had already selected on the character panel, namely spellcasting cost exemption, was not a universal feat under the D&D5 rules.

Occupations and specializations belong to two different versions of the rules. If this were a tabletop role-playing game, it would definitely drive the DM (game master) crazy!

But magic is so amazing, and Ivy did it in a way that was both unscientific and magical! Although it was entirely due to the power of her cheat code, who can deny that her cheating wasn't also due to her own hard work?

Ivy continued reading the Scrivener's class abilities in the Grimoire of Destruction.

"When a Scribe's Mage reaches level 2, they will gain the Mage's Pen and the Awakening Grimoire." Ivy read these words aloud; this was the Scribe's Mage's first class ability.

The Mage's Pen is a magical quill pen created with magic. It has the characteristics of not needing to dip in ink, automatically changing the color of the writing, writing automatically, erasing ink marks, and halving the time required to copy spells.

“A painting style and a professional ability.” Ivy nodded, fully understanding the function of the Mage’s Brush.

The so-called "class-specific abilities" refer to the unique class-specific abilities that distinguish each class in a TRPG (Train to Role-Playing Game). This is because a TRPG is essentially an adventure story co-written by the players and the DM (Dungeon Master), where everyone must fully embody their role.

To make the characters in the story more vivid and interesting, the game designers created many unique professional abilities for players.

For example, in a TRPG tabletop role-playing game played shortly before Ivy's time travel, he played the role of a Mechanist, possessing a set of magical armor he crafted himself. Whenever in battle, Ivy would have his Mechanist open his palms towards the enemy, use magic to activate the sapphire inside the gauntlets, and then fire a bolt of lightning in a cosplay of Iron Man.

Although it only deals a pitiful 1-6 points of damage, that doesn't stop it from being cool! Just imagine how cool it would be to cosplay Iron Man in a magical world!

Therefore, this type of ability is called "art style professional ability" by players, and it is generally used to highlight personal characteristics and show off in a cool way.

However, in this real world, the Wizard's Pen is obviously not just cool. At least Ivy can use it to handle the homework assigned by the professors. A quill pen that can synchronize with its owner's thoughts and automatically record them is so cool!

Let's take a look at the Awakening Codex.

First, it strengthens the connection between the mage and the spellbook, allowing the spellbook to become an arcane artifact capable of casting spells. Ivy's Grimoire of Destruction clearly possesses this characteristic.

Secondly, the Awakening Grimoire can change the damage type of a spell, replacing the spell being cast with a spell of the same ring level as the one being cast.

This almost means that Ivy can change the damage type of spells at will, because for mages, the one thing they have no shortage of is spells with various damage types!

Just imagine how amazing a fireball that can inflict eclipse damage or mind damage would be!

Moreover, Ivy remembered that a similar ability seemed to have appeared in the rules before D&D, as an advanced class ability of the Archmage, which was "Higher Arcane Ability" obtained by permanently consuming a spell slot.

Consuming an 8th-level spell slot grants an ability similar to the "Awakening Grimoire"—Elemental Control. The Archmage can replace the spell's elemental type with an elemental type of his own designation when casting a spell.

Note that elemental control replaces the elemental type of the spell, which is the transformation of elements such as fire to water, water to lightning, etc., and the transformation between the types of acid, ice, fire, electricity, and thunder.

The Awakening Codex offers the ability to change damage types, including force fields, fire, light, acid, poison, lightning, thunder, erosion, freezing, and mind—a total of ten different damage types, posing a significant challenge to enemy resistance.

This one skill alone completely surpasses the archmage's elemental control.

Furthermore, the Awakened Grimoire has a third benefit: it allows one to replace ritualistic spellcasting with normal casting time. In other words, one can replace cumbersome magical rituals with a single incantation. Although it can only be used once a day, it is still a very practical ability.

"It seems that awakening the grimoire is the core professional ability of the Scribes' Guild mages." Ivy nodded, secretly resolving to first strive to become a "Level 2 Scribes' Guild Mage"!

Chapter 25 Solitary Confinement in the Potions Classroom

"What are you doing, Mr. Doom?" Professor Snape asked involuntarily as he walked into his Potions classroom, which was shrouded in darkness.

Standing before him, Ivy was perusing the Book of Destruction in his hands, while behind Ivy were countless magical potion ingredients fluttering in the air.

These include dead rats and various parts of their bodies. As frequent subjects of potion-making, rats are clearly quite selfless; their tails can be used to make hair-standing potions, which make the drinker's hair stand on end; their spleens can be used to make shrinking potions, which are essentially extended versions of shrinking spells...

There's also the Flobber caterpillar, grabbed by one end by an invisible force and then flung out its slime by spinning at high speed; and the leech, brutally flattened...

Besides biological potion ingredients, there were also plant-based ones. Snape saw daisy roots being torn to pieces, neatly peeled ginger roots, dried nettles cut into sections for later use, and many other plant ingredients whose origins were no longer recognizable.

Snape's voice wasn't loud; he was so surprised that he forgot to be angry.

However, Ivy, whose senses were very sharp, noticed him, so he closed the book and made a face as if he were listening carefully to instructions.

“I remember I made it very clear… use your own ‘hands’ to handle these materials! Do you want to extend your confinement?” Snape hissed, emphasizing the word ‘hands’.

“Oh!” Ivy held up a finger. “Actually, it is my hand that controls these potions.”

Ivy snapped her fingers, and all the potion ingredients flying in the air stopped moving.

Then, a ghostly blue magical light began to appear, and many ghostly arms emerged from the void. It was these arms that had previously displayed their "skills" in this potions classroom.

That's right, it was the 0-ring trick of the Wizard's Hand that helped Ivy a lot.

Previously, Ivy successfully released the Mage's Hand through the Grimoire of Destruction, thus obtaining a new class called "Scribe Mage". However, on the character panel, the Scribe Mage's class level is still 0.

So in order to improve his professional level, Ivy began to try any action that might give him experience.

The first thing that came to his mind was, naturally, fighting monsters.

But the teachers and students at Hogwarts are his brothers, sisters, and dear friends. How could he just make a move on them?

So after dinner he lingered in the Slytherin common room for quite a while, hoping that someone would be so foolish as to come and cause trouble, so that he would have an excuse, just like on the night of the opening banquet, to send everyone standing in the Slytherin common room to the school hospital.

To his disappointment, although all the students still in the common room couldn't help but pay attention to him, no one came up to talk to him, and not a single one had the courage to look him in the eye.