Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 346 Passive and Active

Carrying breakfast, she followed the directions given by Vaughn, navigating from the intricate main tower to the even more complex secondary tower. When she finally found the abandoned classroom, Vaughn was indeed inside, just as she had predicted.

Because Guoguo Tea was waiting outside.

"Hi, cutie, good morning." Waving her wand, she made the plate float beside her, then squatted down and patted Fruit Tea's fluffy head.

Fruit Tea gave her a cool, aloof swipe with its tail as a response.

"You haven't had breakfast yet?"

Meow~

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"Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. I brought you a serving of lamb chops."

Heaven knows why there are lamb chops for breakfast, but Hermione had already noticed that at some point, there was a low-oil, low-salt meat dish for breakfast every day.

She guessed that it was probably prepared specifically for fruit tea by the Hogwarts kitchen.

This cat, like its owner, enjoys "privileges" in the castle.

Looking at the lamb chops placed in front of her, Guoguocha's aloof demeanor relaxed a bit, and her massive body moved aside.

"Vaughn hasn't started yet, has he? He said yesterday that the experiment was a bit dangerous and told me to ask you first, just in case he gets hurt."

"Meow~"

Hermione couldn't understand, of course, but seeing Fruit Tea licking its paws and washing its face, ignoring her, she knew that the experiment inside probably hadn't started yet.

She gently pushed open the door and went inside.

Upon entering, the abandoned classroom, which had been occupied, was surprisingly warm. Passing through the small cubicle, the bright flames of the fireplace greeted you.

At the same time, a large number of bright lights shone on them—each one a burning magical fire basin. The cool blue hue mixed with the warmth of the firelight, creating a fusion of colors that gave one the illusion of being outdoors.

After her eyes adjusted to the dense light, she finally saw the room filled with equipment. In the center, Vaughn was writing and drawing on a blackboard between two experimental tables, seemingly calculating something.

Vaughn didn't turn around: "I smell pumpkin soup. Haven't they finished eating the pumpkins in the castle yet?"

Hermione smiled and said, "I think we might have to wait until next spring."

As she spoke, she directed the tray to be placed on the lab table, then paused in surprise.

On the lab table was a glass bottle, inside which was a listless spider.

Hermione, of course, recognized what was in the bottle.

Aracle, the eight-eyed giant spider.

She had seen it before with Vaughn, but back then, the eight-eyed giant spider was still very energetic. Although it seemed very afraid of Vaughn and stayed motionless in the bottle, its eight eyes were still very bright.

Now, he was as limp as a puddle of liquid, slumped against the bottom of a bottle, his eyes dull and lifeless. If it weren't for the occasional twitching of his limbs, Hermione would have almost thought he was dead.

Hermione knew that Vaughn had been conducting live experiments recently, but she couldn't imagine what kind of experiments could have tormented a ferocious eight-eyed spider to this extent.

Seemingly sensing Hermione's gaze, Aracleef in the bottle slowly turned over, its eight eyes staring straight at the girl.

A moment later, Hermione heard a humble, timid voice come from the other side: "Good morning, Miss Granger."

Hermione instinctively replied, "Uh, good morning—"

After saying the words, she looked at Vaughn helplessly, unsure if there would be any consequences for her talking to the "experiment".

Beside him, Vaughn, who had finished tidying up the blackboard and was already enjoying his breakfast, nodded upon seeing this: "It's alright. He volunteered to participate in my research, swore to cooperate, and will definitely not have any complaints, right, Alacryd?"

"Yes, yes, esteemed Mr. Weasley."

7

Aracle quickly propped himself up and bowed to Vaughn in a humble, even obsequious manner. His voice trembled, and Hermione could clearly sense the fear and—reverence—behind it.

"In fact, I am personally honored to participate in Mr. Weasley's great experiments and to contribute a small part to the future of the wizarding world—please forgive my use of the word 'person' to refer to myself. The once beastly, arrogant, and despicable Aracle is dead. The current me is a completely new self born after being bathed in Mr. Weasley's great power and authority—"

Hearing the eight-eyed spider's obsequious words, which were chilling to the bone, and seeing his fanatical demeanor, Hermione's expression was strange.

As far as she knew, the reason Vaughn had captured the eight-eyed spider was because he had attacked Harry and even tried to kill him.

But now, this once terrifying beast longs to wag its tail like a dog—if it could—

The previous question resurfaced in my mind: what kind of torment had this guy gone through that he didn't dare to show even a trace of resentment or hatred in front of Vaughn?

Hermione couldn't imagine it.

Her emotional side made her feel sorry for the other person.

""

But the truth told her that the other person's pitiful state was their own fault.

After thinking for a moment, she shook her head, ignored the spider, and sat down next to Vaughn.

More than being concerned about the fate of the eight-eyed giant spider, the girl was more concerned about whether she could perform well today, which could directly determine whether she could participate more deeply in Vaughn's cause.

So she quickly drank a bowl of pumpkin soup, then hugged her notebook and stared longingly at Vaughn.

Vaughn felt a little uncomfortable under her bright eyes and advised, "You don't need to be in such a hurry. Experiments can't be rushed."

"I know, I just want to get to work as soon as possible. I've never worked on this project before, and there's a lot I don't understand, especially your approach. I thought about it for a long time last night but still couldn't figure out how the sap grass could work on your universal group concept —"

Once she gets down to business, Miss Know-It-All can't help but reveal her true nature. She is always extremely thirsty for knowledge, and if there are new unknowns in front of her but she can't get the answers, it's worse than killing her.

Vaughn was quite pleased with this.

As he ate his breakfast, he said, "I understand your confusion. Neither Transfiguration nor potions can make a certain type of substance universal. Water cannot turn into oil, and fat-soluble substances cannot become water-soluble. From a macroscopic perspective, universality is a false proposition."

Hermione grew increasingly confused, her large, bright eyes, fixed on Vaughn, seemed to speak volumes, conveying her inner bewilderment.

Vaughn chuckled and ruffled her hair. "Silly girl, we can't change the nature of matter, we can't make it versatile and all-powerful in terms of properties and forms, and we can't create a passive, highly adaptable mechanism. So why not try to be proactive?"

"initiative?"

"Yes."

As Vaughn spoke, he beckoned, and a thick notebook floated up from another experimental table, flying over and landing in front of Hermione: "Don't limit your thinking. I never said that the universal group I'm creating is a completely new substance that breaks through inherent properties. That's unrealistic. Rather than such an unattainable goal, let's consider how to achieve the same function using 'tools'."

tool?

Hermione felt a bit dazed and instinctively took the notebook.

The notebook was thick. When opened, the pages were filled with large amounts of data and observation records, a dense collection of text that could even trigger trypophobia in a healthy person.

At least Hermione felt a sense of unease and frustration when she saw layers upon layers of words on the page.

But she managed to suppress her instinctive aversion. She knew she didn't have trypophobia; this phenomenon was simply because the information recorded in the notebook was beyond her comprehension for a moment.

She took a deep breath to calm herself down, and then watched intently.

The laboratory, converted from an abandoned classroom, quickly fell silent, with only the sounds of Vaughn chewing food and Hermione turning pages.

Miss Know-It-All is undoubtedly a genius. She is not a bookworm who only knows how to read books by rote, nor did she rely on rote memorization to complete the brewing of advanced potions in her second year of the "original story"—if advanced potions were so easy to learn, they wouldn't have stumped so many alchemists.

At first, she flipped through the notebook slowly, but after only a few minutes, she seemed to have mastered the massive amount of data and the methods of recording it. Countless abstract numbers and formulas were quickly absorbed by her.

She gradually started flipping through the pages faster.

It wasn't until Vaughn finished his breakfast at a leisurely pace and got up that she looked up as if suddenly awakened, her gaze towards Vaughn first filled with confusion, then becoming complicated.

Surprise, admiration, and respect.

Of course, there are still unavoidable questions: "Does your so-called 'active' approach mean creating nanorobots that can act as magical receptors, binding with the properties of magical potions to actively interact with cells?"

Hermione knew what "nanobots" were.

Although this is a rather science fiction idea that has not yet been realized in Muggle society, it has actually been proposed for more than 30 years.

For more than 30 years, countless science fiction works have imagined it. Its basic design logic, the features and functions it should have, are not some difficult-to-understand secrets.

Even so, Hermione was still amazed by the wildly imaginative ideas and concepts Vaughn jotted down between the vast amounts of data in his notebook.

Because Vaughn's "nanorobot" design was unlike any nanorobot concept she knew.

She felt that rather than calling it a robot, it should perhaps be called —

A microscopic life form?

Still in a daze, Vaughn, having finished breakfast, did not immediately answer her almost murmured, puzzled question. Instead, he left his seat and walked to the center of the room.

A soft voice sounded: "I'm glad you can understand my thoughts, darling, but I can also hear the confusion in your heart. It's okay. Like I said, we still have time. Experiments can't be rushed. I can demonstrate my ideas to you."

As he spoke, he drew his wand and pointed it at the ground and above his head.

Magical light shone from beneath my feet and above my head.

It was then that Hermione noticed that the floor and ceiling in the center of the room had been set up with some kind of complicated, incomprehensible magical ritual.

Come to me.

Vaughn, who had initiated the ritual, called out to Hermione.

Remembering Vaughn's instructions, the girl quickly went to his side, and then saw him raise his wand and tap it on his forehead.

Suddenly, Hermione's vision was filled with a dazzling array of colors.

In an instant, she was thrown into a bizarre and strange world where the colors and shapes of objects began to disappear, replaced by countless undulating ripples.

"This is the Multispectral Vision Spell that I developed. You've tried it before, but if you want to participate in the experiment, you must become more familiar with the perspective it provides, and even completely master this magic."

Vaughn's voice was filled with expectation.

And Hermione did not disappoint him.

The sudden loss of her usual vision did startle the girl, but since it wasn't her first time experiencing it, and with Vaughn's instructions in her ears, she quickly adapted.

And begin to learn to "read" the ripples, combining brain memory to reconstruct the "world" from this special perspective.

Of course, this is still a long way from being fully mastered, but that can be practiced later.

After an unknown amount of time, Hermione was finally able to use her memory to clearly distinguish the outlines of objects represented by the fluctuations of light.

She saw Vaughn wave again.

The bottle containing the eight-eyed giant spider Alacride flew over.

The cork was pulled out, and Alacride was poured out, returning to her original form, and slowly floating in mid-air.

Even with countless ripples interfering with her vision, Hermione could still sense that the eight-eyed giant spider was trembling all over.

Its chelicerae trembled and made a clicking sound.

He was afraid, terrified.

Soon, Hermione understood why he was afraid—a strange feeling had arisen.

Hermione did not see it in her field of vision; the countless waves of light surging and merging between each other, provided by the fireplace flames and the enchanted brazier, did not cause any disturbance throughout the room.

But quite abruptly, Hermione felt—it seemed like a section of space was missing?

It was an indescribable intuition, much like the feeling evoked by Vaughn's "Dimensional Gate" magic, but—it was far more advanced!

However, before she could fully perceive it, Vaughn chanted the incantation in the next instant:

"No. M.im!"

Extremely powerful light-extinguishing spell!

The moment Hermione heard the incantation, her brain immediately made a judgment: in her memory, Vaughn rarely recited basic spells.

Reciting a spell signifies that the spell will be incredibly powerful, especially one with the addition of "Mim" for enhanced effectiveness.

Almost instantly, it resembled a demonstration of a point mass that I had once seen on a science channel on television.

The light waves filling the room "collapsed" towards a single point.

Then, darkness!

Utter darkness. All matter lost its light, and even the heat radiation that objects should emit seemed to have been swallowed up by an invisible giant mouth.

The intense darkness forced Hermione's other senses to heighten, and she clearly heard Araclew's short, agonizing scream from not far away.

Interspersed among these sounds were things that were hard to understand, such as the silky friction of turning over slices of meat, the sound of liquid flowing through pipes, and a rapid, violent heartbeat (a spider's heart is a large blood vessel; given the size of the giant spider, its heart structure is not equated with that of a spider)!