Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 348 Why should a struggling student make things difficult for another struggling student?

Hermione stared blankly at the enlarged, strangely shaped, yet simple and even rudimentary amino acid units in her mind.

Such a huge number was born in this simple structure.

It's not just Muggles who are having headaches.

Hearing this, Hermione had a better understanding of Vaughn's plan. He seemed to be preparing to use the natural limitless potential of proteins to forcibly "create" magical channel proteins, or rather, "magical proteins" that could capture magical factors and carry the properties of potions!

However, 10 to the power of 30—so many possibilities that even if we made trillions of attempts per second, it would probably take hundreds of billions of years to exhaustively explore them all.

That's impossible, unless there's magic—

A sudden flash of inspiration startled the girl. She opened her eyes abruptly, first punching herself in frustration, then looking at Vaughn with bright, sparkling eyes: "Yes, this is terrible for Muggles, but we are wizards!"

"Hahaha!"

Vaughn laughed. Having been monitoring Hermione's thoughts, he knew that the girl had come to her senses.

"That's right, darling. I'm glad you've come to this conclusion. True science isn't rigid dogmatism. When the path of Muggle science doesn't work, why not try magic? Similarly, when magic doesn't work, why not try science? This idea is my attempt to combine science and magic."

"The infinite possibilities of proteins are a disaster for Muggles, but magic has a solution, like Felix Felicis!"

Hermione's eyes grew brighter.

She had heard Vaughn analyze the effects of Felix Felicis. The magical world generally believed that Felix Felicis could grant wishes, while some apothecaries believed that it could only amplify emotions, and that the idea of ​​granting wishes was just an illusion.

Vaughn's analysis combines the two perspectives and offers a fresh take: he argues that Felix Felicis does amplify emotions, but not in a "misconception" rather than by using one of the energy sources of magic, emotion, to interfere with "probability."

Nothing in the world is permanent; any possibility, no matter how small the probability, objectively exists.

Felix Felicidide works by regulating these probabilities to achieve an effect similar to "wish fulfillment"!

So, can FLORG affect the probability of protein?

of course can!

Even without Vaughn's explanation, Hermione could make this judgment with certainty, because the folding of proteins itself has countless possibilities.

Just like the second law of thermodynamics, a system always tends toward disorder and chaos, and at the same time, it will spontaneously slide toward lower energies—sliding toward lower energies may lead to order in a single system, but overall it tends toward disorder, because the energy does not disappear, but is transferred.

This descent is not a straight drop like a slide, but a spiral-like detour, with low-energy traps along the way.

The low-energy trap is a concrete manifestation of the concept of "probability".

This is completely in line with the physical laws of the real world!

Even proteins naturally exhibit this phenomenon.

"Like everything in the macroscopic world, nothing is permanent or always correct. Although protein folding is facilitated by coding translation and molecular chaperones, it still falls into energy traps during the process of sliding from disorder to order. This state is called misfolding," and diseases such as viral infections and Alzheimer's disease arise from this.

Vaughn's voice echoed throughout the large classroom.

The fleshy polyhedron in the center of the room had been dismantled. The eight-eyed giant spider, Araclewd, who had served as a "teaching tool" for several tens of minutes, huddled weakly in the corner, looking at the eloquent Vaughn Weasley with fearful eyes.

He couldn't understand a word the other person was saying. All he knew was that it was a devil, and now this devil was teaching a little witch named Hermione, inducing her to turn into a female devil. The girl had clearly shown him sympathy before, but look at her now, her eyes almost shining, her writing furiously, all of which showed that she had fallen into Vaughn Weasley's fallacies and heresies!

Vaughn was naturally unaware of the inner thoughts of his experimental subject, or rather, he had never cared about this tool spider.

At this moment, he was immersed in the pleasure of teaching Hermione.

To be honest, Vaughn has been very lonely since he traveled to the magical world, although he has never shown any related emotions.

But the truth is that many of his ideas are out of step with the magical world. His education and knowledge system from his previous life make it difficult for other wizards to accept his understanding and interpretation of magic.

Even relatively open-minded people like Dumbledore and Professor Kettleburn, with whom he could barely have a conversation, were like this.

Their underlying ideology is no different from other wizards; the only difference is that they are not as opposed to scientific views.

until today.

Hermione followed his train of thought, understood the concepts and ideas he was trying to express, and even saw in Hermione's mind the spark of thought that blended magic and science.

Having always pursued the truth of magic alone, I finally have a companion.

Although in a practical sense, she is just getting started and is still a long way from working together with him.

Moreover, it is not replicable. Vaughn is well aware that the emotional connection between himself and Hermione is the driving force behind Hermione's efforts to align herself with his path.

However, this is still a very good sign for Vaughn.

Looking further ahead, he could use Hermione's learning, thinking, and understanding methods to develop a training method for beginners, thus reducing the trial-and-error costs for his future team.

On a more immediate level, Hermione, having grasped her own thinking, was also able to extricate herself from the predicament of manpower shortage.

Previously, only Professor Kettleburn could offer him some assistance, but the professor has not yet resigned and still has a teaching position, so he cannot always accommodate his schedule.

With the negotiations for the international potion exchange going as smoothly as he had anticipated, the event's progress was greatly accelerated.

Developing a "universal radical" before the event begins is a tight schedule.

Therefore, after realizing that Hermione could understand, Vaughn taught with great joy, revealing his entire design concept, hoping the girl would grow up quickly: "—Felix Felicis is only one part of my design. From an overall perspective, its role is to regulate probability, inducing proteins to 'misfold' or 'mutate' in the direction I need for their function. But before that, we must first understand the spatial orientation and distribution of the amino acid units and side chains of the magical channel proteins in the Octopod's body, so that they have the function of capturing magical factors?"

"As I said before, since we can't directly observe the magic channel protein, I don't yet know its true structure, and Muggle science can't help with that either. But we still have magical options—for example, we can copy it and transform an object that doesn't have protein properties to replicate its structure and layout!"

"This is the function of *Ligusticum striatum*, or rather, in my design, I plan to use *Ligusticum striatum* as the main ingredient to first develop a microscopic version of a compound decoction. This will help me skip over the complex and temporarily unclear principles and directly extract the underlying rules that can be generally applied from the 'black box'."

"Of course, its role goes far beyond that. Sapwort can also participate in the protein production process. Remember what I said earlier? Proteins are assembled by ribosomes, and their basic building blocks are the five elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. Theoretically, as long as we have these five elements, we can use sapwort to build many protein assembly plants, solving the problem of substrate culture in one fell swoop."

"This design conforms to both the objective laws summarized by Muggle science and the Gump principle of the magical world—it does not attempt to create something out of thin air, nor does it delve into the stage of mass-energy conversion, but rather utilizes natural mechanisms."

By applying probability and transformation techniques, we can recombine them in a direction that benefits us, much like stacking building blocks.

Vaughn explained.

Hermione wrote with lightning speed.

To accommodate her, Vaughn explained things in relatively simple terms, and the girl cherished the opportunity, eagerly taking notes on Vaughn's designs, occasionally interspersing her own confusion and thoughts.

The flickering demonic flames in the surrounding braziers cast long shadows of the two people.

"I think Hermione's gone mad!"

On the ninth day of the Christmas holiday, Ron, who had been sullen for a few days after being hurt by his pride, reverted to his usual self.

At breakfast, he crept up to Harry, peered over, and said, "Look, who puts books at least three feet thick on the breakfast table?"

Harry followed his gaze.

A few feet away, Hermione occupied two seats all by herself. Her petite body was almost submerged in books, and the pot of pumpkin soup bounced around outside the "mountain of books," trying to jump in and refill her empty bowl.

But Hermione was indifferent to its "anxiety," her mind, which had become a mess again these past few days, seemed to be burying itself in the thick tome she was holding.

Harry shrugged. "Isn't that what she always does? Seize every opportunity to learn."

"She used to carry at most two or three books, and I just peeked over and saw that she wasn't reading magic books at all, but Muggle books, while muttering words like Crboyl group and mino—what do those mean?"

Ron looked at Harry expectantly, hoping that his friend, who grew up in Muggle society, could give him a little background education.

But what he got in return was Harry's flushed face.

"—I don't understand either."

Harry said honestly.

Ron was astonished: "Didn't you grow up in Muggle society? You even went to Muggle school!"

"What are you saying? You grew up in the magical world, and you didn't know any spells when we first met, did you?"

Harry's rant.

"That's different. I didn't go to school back then."

"I only went to primary school, and primary school doesn't teach those profound things."

"Then why does Hermione know?"

"...

'

How annoying! Why do underachievers have to make things difficult for other underachievers?

Harry didn't want to talk to Ron anymore, lest he get a heart attack from anger. Just then, Neville, who had been sitting on the other side of the two of them and quietly eating his breakfast, suddenly spoke up: "Hermione—Hermione has recently been studying Muggle molecular biology on her own."

The two of them turned around at the same time: "How did you know?"

"I saw it in Extraordinary Potions. The magazine just released its New Year issue yesterday, and the cover title is Vaughn's latest paper. Hermione is Vaughn's paper assistant, the kind that's listed by name. There's a section in it describing her self-study experience and reading list—"

As Neville spoke, he tugged at his robe, revealing a brand-new satchel hanging on his side. He had a bad memory and was always forgetful, which caused him a lot of laughs and troubles.

A while ago, during Christmas, Vaughn gave him a handbag with a seamless stretching spell as a Christmas gift, which solved his problem.

Neville loved it and packed all his belongings inside. To make sure he didn't forget his satchel, he even sewed it onto his robe!

Looking at Neville's satchel, Ron said enviously, his voice tinged with sourness, "You sewed it onto your robe, are you planning not to change your clothes for the next six months?"

"Of course, I'm practicing the Cleansing Charm." Honest Neville didn't catch the sarcasm in Ron's words as he answered, pulling out a magazine and handing it to the two of them.

"Extraordinary Potions" is published by the Extraordinary Potions Society and is an academic journal on potions in the field, so it is only natural that neither Harry nor Ron had subscribed to it before.

All I know about it is its name. Occasionally, the Daily Prophet mentions it, mainly because of Vaughn. Vaughn's achievements are the biggest news in Potions, which has been stagnant for decades.

Taking the magazine, Harry casually asked, "How did you end up subscribing to this? I remember it was expensive. Last year, Malfoy subscribed to more than ten copies for Slytherin, and he bragged about it for two whole months."

Neville swallowed a mouthful of pumpkin soup: "I only recently started ordering. I'm planning to study hard and participate in Vaughn's potion exchange event."

.

Upon hearing this, Harry and Ron, who were flipping through a magazine, immediately stopped. They turned their heads, their two faces like two owls stacked together, eyes wide, and exclaimed in unison, "You? Studying? Potions?"

"That's a good joke, buddy!" Ron chuckled. "It's quite a contrast. If it weren't for the fact that you always fail to answer the questions in Potions class, never finish your homework, and get sprayed by the old bat until you wish you could bury your head under the table, I almost would have believed it."

Harry thought Ron's words were a bit harsh.

But deep down, he also felt that Neville was joking, or rather, that the idea itself was a joke.

Neville has a good sense of humor.

he thinks.

Then he saw Neville's round face gradually turn red, like the rear end of an angry monkey with its tail raised in the zoo: "I...I didn't...I was joking!"

Even when angry, Neville still had that weak, easy-to-bully look.

It makes people feel no threat or offense at all.

Ron shrugged: "Okay, okay, you're serious. So, could you tell me why you've come to this conclusion—"

Unrealistic ideas? Sorry, I'm being blunt, but this isn't directed at you. I'm a terrible potions user myself, so I don't even have any ideas about it—hmm, you're so interested in Vaughn, it's not because of him, is it? Hahaha.