From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

Some simple words are fine, but complex sentences cannot be mastered in just a few hours of study.

However, Ivy had already managed to store the Parsley teaching materials using memory magic, so all she needed was a Pensieve to carefully review the language.

Eight hours wasn't a long time for Ivy, but for Tom's broken soul, it felt like an eternity.

After several breakdowns, he even began to kneel and beg for mercy, weeping bitterly. Until the 8-hour spell's duration completely ended.

“The good times are coming to an end, Tom,” Ivy said regretfully. “I’m going to utterly destroy your soul.”

"No! No, no, no! I'm still useful to you! Even if you treat me as a plaything! Spare my life, please spare my life!" Tom refused to accept his fate, kneeling in the corner of the silver cage and begging Ivy for mercy.

However, Ivy would never leave his enemies any chance. He used the Energy Drain spell to seize the last bit of magic from Tom, but was surprised to find that although Tom's soul was extremely weak, it showed no sign of disappearing.

In that short time, the Soul Cage spell ended. The small silver cage could no longer bind Tom's fragile soul.

But he did not gain freedom as Ivy had imagined; instead, he remained in the cage.

Logically speaking, once a soul bound in a soul prison gains freedom, it will quickly leave the material world under the influence of the spiritual plane. If the soul has faith in certain gods, it will go to a higher plane of goodness and order—Mount Heaven or Elysium—or a breeding ground of evil and chaos—Bathos or the Abyss.

Now that Ivy is at Hogwarts, those outer planes in the heavens of the kingdom will certainly not exert any gravitational pull on Tom's soul, but death does indeed exist in this world, and the souls of the dead have their final destination.

But Tom's soul was an exception. He neither became a mutilated ghost nor went to the realm of the dead, but remained in place in an awkward position. The Horcrux's magic had been broken by Ivy, so Voldemort could not be resurrected using this soul, nor could he be considered truly dead. He would eventually be devoured by the endless emptiness, leaving him tragically trapped in the cracks.

"Hahaha, you've really given me a huge surprise." Tom's helpless soul hasn't lost consciousness yet, only because the diary that once served as the vessel for a Horcrux still exists. However, it has lost its magical protection and will soon no longer be able to serve as Tom's vessel.

"I'm going to use your soul as ink and your Horcruxes as pages to record your Parseltongue magic in its entirety!" Ivy suddenly had a brilliant idea, deciding to squeeze every last bit of use out of Tom using her expertise in creating artifacts.

The Soul Cage had failed, and Tom's pale silver, misty body began to disintegrate, signifying that his self-awareness was about to disappear completely. Ivy poured out the memories of Parseltongue that she had previously saved, mixed them with Tom's shattered soul, and then took out her mage's pen and mercilessly stirred them in.

With the ink prepared, the next step was to record the magic onto Tom's former Horcrux.

Ivy's magic quill pen left a trail of thin, misty silver characters on the black notebook, representing the last bit of essence from Tom's soul.

Ivy kept writing and writing until late at night, finally completing the creation of the artifact before Tom's soul ink completely wore off.

The Grimoire of Destruction describes this wondrous artifact as follows:

Title: Domination of Monsters Scroll (Domination of Influence Scroll Variant)

Type: Variant Wonder

Rarity: Extremely rare

This book contains the secrets of the Slytherin lineage, and its text is imbued with magic. If you spend a total of 48 hours studying its contents over a period of 6 days or less and practice its instructions, your Charisma and maximum Charisma will increase by 2 points, and you will fully learn Parseltongue. You will then be able to manipulate snakes through this Slytherin magic. All snakes with an Intelligence of 12 or lower will obey you, and snakes with an Intelligence of 12 or higher will consider you a friendly creature and seriously consider your suggestions.

Once you have acquired these abilities, this manual will lose its magic and will be restored a century later.

After gaining physical attributes by consuming a corner of the Philosopher's Stone, Ivy once again acquired an attribute value that directly affects her spellcasting ability. Charisma is not only the spellcasting attribute of a Sorcerer of the Highest Rank, but also Ivy's spellcasting attribute as a Wizard and an Ancient Wizard. By spending 48 hours studying this wondrous artifact, Ivy can gain a two-point bonus to her Charisma value. In addition, she will also directly gain two points to her maximum Charisma value.

This will bring Ivy's Charisma stat to 19, just shy of the human limit. Normally, the highest stat gain through feats and attribute upgrades is 20, because 20 is a magical number in the D&D world, and breaking through 20 means entering the realm of monsters and gods.

Regarding methods to break through attribute limits, besides the Scroll of Domination of Monsters in his possession, Ivy only knows one: the 9th-circle spell Prayer. By consuming 5000 experience points and a 9th-circle spell slot, it can grant a specific attribute an intrinsic bonus of 1 point, and can be applied to a single attribute a total of 5 times.

From this perspective, the increase in attribute caps by just these two points is equivalent to 10000 experience points and two 9th-ring spell slots. Not to mention that it also grants Ivy the supernatural ability to control snakes, and besides, there's a basilisk waiting for Ivy to take over in the Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin.

Chapter 97 My First Day Standing on the Podium

On Monday morning at eight o'clock, Ivy, having hastily eaten some bacon and eggs, arrived at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

He admitted that when the professor for this course was Quirinas Quilleau, he never worried about the classroom smelling of garlic.

But if he were to become the professor of that course, he would have to say that he hated everything about 8 a.m., even teaching in the prestigious castle of Hogwarts. Especially since he was a first-year Slytherin before becoming a professor, and first-year Slytherins didn't have to attend the first class on Monday mornings.

Before the school bell rang, the fifth-year students from Gryffindor and Slytherin sat in the classroom. Although the animosity between the two houses had created two distinct factions in their seating arrangements, that was not a reason for Ivy not to announce the start of class.

So in the silence where no one spoke, Percy Weasley, as the prefect, spoke up and asked, "Professor Victor, I have a question for you."

Unlike his mischievous twin brothers, Percy, who always considered himself a top student, maintained the necessary respect for all professors. Ivy was pleased with his deference when he raised his hand, so she nodded in agreement to let him ask the question.

What are your plans for our courses?

Good question, that's exactly what Ivy is going to talk about next.

"Pop quiz." Ivy uttered the four words with a cold smile, then watched the expressions on the young wizards' faces.

Before the disappointment on their faces could grow, Ivy used the term "OWLs" to give them another glimpse into their fate.

Everyone sensibly put away their textbooks and waited for Ivy to hand out the test papers.

However, Ivy would never do as they wished; he made everyone stand up.

"Make sure every Gryffindor has a Slytherin by their side, and make sure every Slytherin has a Gryffindor by their side. Now, prefects, it's your turn to rearrange everyone's positions." These were Ivy's exact words.

What could be more suffocating than having an exam during the first class on Monday morning?

The answer is to sit next to your arch-nemesis during the exam.

All young wizards who crave help from their companions must feel despair in this classroom—a rule Ivy established before they even entered.

This is definitely not an attempt to vent my frustrations about 8 a.m.

Ivy enjoyed the mixture of wariness, tension, bewilderment, and panic on the students' faces, just as he enjoyed Quirrell's dying ramblings as a dark wizard.

When Ivy first arrived in this world, he felt disgusted by the way he used spells to take people's lives, but he soon discovered he had a knack for it. Then he began to feel numb, like completing a daily routine. Do you remember how many slices of bread you ate?

Ivy. He remembers the faces of everyone he has killed, the expressions on their faces, and their dying words.

He accepted it all and began to enjoy it. He enjoyed the feeling of dominating everything with magic; taking someone's life was just the smallest part of it. The most important thing was that he could use magic to transform anyone or anything he encountered into what he wanted them to be.

Ivy knew very well that magic was the reason for and the power to change everything, so he decided to run wildly down the path of pursuing magic and never look back.

This is why he took the magic from the Hogwarts underground vault for himself. He believed he deserved it. Although it took him more than a hundred years to be able to use this power, it at least proved that his initial choice was not wrong.

After a period of peace at Hogwarts, he gradually began to miss the days when he could freely unleash the chain of "Avada Kedavra" spells in the Forbidden Forest more than a hundred years ago, but now he could only get a tiny bit of nostalgia from these young wizards buried in their exam papers.

So, halfway through the double-session class, Ivy announced the end of the exam and stopped the two prefects from collecting the papers on their own initiative.

“Slytherin and Gryffindor will exchange papers and explain to your deskmate why he lost points.” Ivy was certain this was the last thing they wanted to hear.

After realizing their professor wasn't joking, the two colleges, which had never gotten along, began to compete with each other.

Everyone was nitpicking their own test papers, trying to deduct as many points as possible from each other. At this moment, their relaxed expressions, which had just ended with the quiz, turned sinister again.

Ivy told himself that this was a rare moment of enjoyment for him, and he was going to make that enjoyment even better.

When he noticed the young wizards starting to ask each other about their grades and complain about their deskmates, he knew the moment he had been waiting for had arrived.

“A collection of incorrect answers.” Ivy smiled with that mature face, like any elder passing on unpleasant experiences to children. “Please allow me to introduce you to this method that can most effectively improve your scores. Simply put, I hope that each of you can remember your failures and review them continuously.”

“I won’t be checking your error logs myself,” Ivy said, as if he were an enlightened and kind Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. “I’m sure you’ve all guessed it. I’ll have your deskmates help you, and if anyone can’t finish…”

Ivy didn't continue, because the young wizards present all understood his subtext: those who failed to complete the task would be verbally attacked by their old rival, including but not limited to mocking glances and rude gestures.

For these young people, whose self-esteem is flourishing, peer contempt is the last thing they want to accept, let alone the possibility of it coming from their rival academy.

“There’s one last thing.” Before they left the classroom, Ivy handed each of them a pre-prepared syllabus. “I believe it will be useful to you, especially since your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor isn’t as reliable as I am.”

Finally, each young wizard who had flipped through the booklet bowed their head to thank Ivy, and he accepted it readily. It was a victory for magic, a victory for the scholar's touch and the wizard's pen.

The first class this morning went very well. Ivy not only enjoyed the despair on the young wizards' faces, but also effortlessly slacked off for two hours. In the end, the students even had to sincerely thank him.

€€€€€€€€

“I can’t say for sure.” Percy’s expression was hesitant. “Professor Victor obviously values ​​our OWLs grades. I think he at least believes that everyone should get an A (pass).

"Come on, Weasley Prefect, you know that's not what we want to hear!" Fred and George called out Percy's favorite nickname. They knew their brother well enough that this was a productive negotiation.

“Well,” Percy finally decided to sip some personal information on his two brothers, even though they would be seeing Ivy in the classroom that afternoon, “he’s very good at exploiting the conflicts between houses, and we ended up having to work with Slytherin to finish it…”

"Cooperation?" "Or with Slytherin?"

George and Fred asked their questions in the same order, but Percy knew how to answer: "Professor Victor is a much better professor than Professor Quirrell, but I don't think he's the kind of professor you like."

“Don’t say that, Percy.” “It’s like you know what kind of professors we like.”

“Of course,” Percy said, knowing his two brothers as well as they knew him. “You like professors who aren’t so conventional, like Professor Celticburn in the Conservation of Magical Creatures class, but you prefer professors who can get you wild. Trust me, don’t do anything out of line in Professor Victor’s class; he’s not an easy person to get along with.”

€€€€€€€€

“He may not be an easy professor to get along with, but he’s definitely the kind of professor we like!” This is what Fred and George said as they walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

By using the Unseen Extension Charm, Ivy easily expanded the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom several times over, and George and Fred only exclaimed in amazement after seeing the long, rectangular table in the center of the classroom.

For the third-year course, Ivy actually had a very good reference: Remus Lupin, from the original books, has always been considered the best Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Harry encountered in his seven years of schooling, and Rowling described the class situation in great detail.

However, Ivy was unwilling to spend any more time searching for dark magic creatures as teaching materials, so instead of teaching practical offensive spells to the first to fourth graders who didn't have much exam pressure, he chose to teach them some practical offensive spells.

Fighting against their rival academy is the fastest way to help these young wizards master spells.

As for whether doing so would deepen the already deep rift between Gryffindor and Slytherin, Ivy didn't care. He wasn't the headmaster of Hogwarts.

The third-year students stood on either side of the long platform, surrounding Professor Ivy in the middle, all waiting for him to speak.

"The spells in 'Black Magic: A Guide to Self-Defense' are all very useful. It should at least teach you how to use the Spark Charm to send signals and the Smoke Charm to conceal your whereabouts before your third year." Ivy strolled across the platform, the hard heels of her deerskin boots making a "clattering" sound on the ground. "But as you can see, I'm going to teach you some basics of dueling."

A small cheer erupted from the crowd, but the classroom quickly fell silent again as Ivy shifted her gaze.

“Okay, who can tell us the rules we should follow in a duel?” Ivy asked the first question of the day.

Angelina Johnson bravely raised her arm: "First, bow? Then use magic to defeat the opponent?"

"That's basically right," Ivy commented. Actually, he couldn't remember all of this himself, because the dark wizards in the Forbidden Forest never gave him a fair chance to duel. Almost all the battles he experienced were one against many. "There may be some other formalities, but using magic is indeed the most important point."

Ivy didn't give Angelina any points; in fact, he didn't intend to give anyone any. Gaining the approval of the most powerful dark wizard in all of Britain, and even the world, was no easy feat.

"Another thing to note is the conditions for determining victory or defeat. You need to disarm your opponent, stun, injure, defeat, or even kill your opponent, forcing them to be unable to use magic to threaten you again, thereby confirming that you have won the duel."