At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

Chapter 84 The First of the Eighty-One Tribulations

As the rumbling from the depths of the Forbidden Forest resonated beneath Hogwarts, a young man entered the stone chamber beneath the trapdoor.

Harry Potter is trapped in nightmares on his sickbed in the school hospital. Beside his broken glasses, a pair of burned hands are still unconsciously clenching.

Hermione Granger sat alone in the common room where the fire was dying down, pressing the peppermint, a symbol of "awakening," onto her tongue;

Severus Snape watched the battle silently, his eyes sinister, as he re-examined the weight of his soul;

Ron and Neville, one drowsy beside the dark chessboard ruins, the other trembling in the secret passage back to the tower, serve as footnotes to the "miracle," unaware of how they had been manipulated.

Albus Dumbledore stood in the mud of the Forbidden Forest, his aged figure silhouetted against the relentless purple corrosion that was devouring life, deeper than the night and colder than fate.

Even the remnant soul of Voldemort, who had fled deep into the forest like a stray dog, let out a trembling howl.

In the center of this ruin ravaged by fire and curse, the magic mirror called "Eris" still stands silently.

Its ornate gold-rimmed frame gleamed in the dim firelight, "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi"

It seemed to be silently mocking every mortal who stood before it.

Lucian Ashford emerged from the city walls.

His gaze remained fixed on the surface of the magic mirror from beginning to end.

"What a brilliant sermon, Albus," Lucien muttered to himself. "You've turned the Magic Mirror into a judgment seat, where only those who want to find the stone but don't want to use it can obtain it."

What a brilliant moral paradox.

He stopped in front of the magic mirror.

He saw himself in the mirror.

In the mirror, Lucien sits behind a desk covered with parchment, toying with a red crystal in his hand.

Behind the self reflected in the mirror, the towers of Hogwarts are silently collapsing, while countless stars are falling from the void, converging to form a stairway to the other side of truth.

"Desire is the source of all magic, and the shackle of all wisdom." Lucien reached out and lightly touched the mirror. "You used the absence of desire as your bargaining chip, Albus."

But this in itself is a brilliant scam.

Those who want stones do so to satisfy their selfish desires, while those who don't want stones but insist on finding them do so to satisfy a vanity called "purity."

You teach others not to possess the magic stone, yet you allow them to possess the halo of justice.

This self-proclaimed "lack of desire" is actually the most arrogant form of taking.

He closed his eyes, not trying to find the stone in the mirror like Harry did.

"If I ask you where the stone is, I'm acknowledging your rules," Lucian's voice echoed in the stone chamber. "But I'm not here to play games, Albus. I'm here to dismantle your chessboard."

He released his grip, took a half-step back, and slowly raised his wand.

As Starry Eyes gazed upon it, the stone chamber began to become transparent, and the original stone walls transformed into interwoven magical threads in Lucian's perception.

He saw traces left by Dumbledore.

It was a chain filled with warmth, tightly fastened to the magic mirror.

The source of this chain is not magic, but something more ethereal and elusive.

It is Dumbledore's definition of "love" and his obsession with the "right world" in his eyes.

The Philosopher's Stone is neither inside nor outside the mirror—or rather, it is now everywhere.

It was hidden in a space made up of "wishes".

This space will only overlap with reality when a qualified observer appears.

Lucian sighed softly. If we were to examine this puzzle from Albus Dumbledore's perspective, this mirror would be a test of the "purity of the soul."

In Dumbledore's mind, the Magic Mirror is a moral sieve.

He firmly believed that the danger of the Philosopher's Stone lay not in the material itself, but in its ability to amplify the insatiable greed of humankind.

"Only those who seek the stone but do not intend to use it will obtain it."

This creates a logical vicious cycle:

If you seek it because you "want to become better," then that "becoming better" itself is a utilitarian desire.

Harry Potter, with his arrogant mercy, drew a narrow gate called "Righteousness," allowing only souls that conformed to his moral standards to touch miracles.

Lucian saw through the shackles called "justice".

"Albus, you hid the Philosopher's Stone behind the meaning," Lucien whispered to himself.

"You consider desire to be impure, so you reward those who are without desire."

But you overlooked the fact that the act of "searching" itself is a manifestation of will.

Harry Potter was able to get it because he wasn't grown up yet, and his wish was simply to protect it.

Lucian, on the other hand, said, "I do not seek immortality, for time is merely a measure for me."

I do not seek wealth, because the transformation of matter is merely a trick of atomic arrangement.

I don't need to use it to achieve any purpose, because when I understand its essence, I am it.

Lucian did not try to imitate Harry's innocence; instead, he began to channel the magic within him. "To exist is to observe," Lucian murmured.

He wasn't "taking," he was "aligning."

The mechanism by which the Philosopher's Stone is hidden relies on the Magic Mirror reading the "psychological characteristics" of the visitor.

At this moment, Lucian, through powerful brain-closing techniques and alchemical self-transformation, directly simulated his own psychological characteristics as a "mirror".

When one mirror faces another, "nothingness" is created in between.

In this space of "nothingness," all the moral judgments Dumbledore set about "wanting" or "not wanting" lost their anchor.

"You taught Harry that death is another great adventure," Lucian said, watching the chains begin to crumble. "But you never told him that death is also the most complete nothingness."

"When you are no longer alone, all the rules will become invalid."

"Buzz"

A long, drawn-out bell suddenly rang out from inside the stone chamber.

The surface of the magic mirror began to ripple violently, like boiling water.

At the center of the originally empty mirror, a bright red light gradually magnified.

That's a magic stone.

It felt a pure calling.

It doesn't care whether the summoner is upright; it only cares whether the summoning conforms to the rules of the Magic Mirror, and seeks the right person.

Lucian opened his eyes, reached out, and grabbed directly at the mirror.

In that instant, he touched a warm, hard object.

He pulled hard.

A radiant stone landed in Lucien's palm.

Lucian gripped the Philosopher's Stone tightly.

He could feel an unimaginable surge of magic flowing from his fingertips into his veins.

That is the accumulation of six hundred years, a material miracle that transcends the cycle of life and death.

If he wanted, he could heal all his hidden injuries right now, and even stop his body from aging.

Most importantly, he can perform miracles again.

"Da, da, da————"

That was the sound of a cane striking a stone slab, sounding particularly desolate in the empty, enclosed room.

Nicolas Flamel entered the stone chamber alone.

Due to his advanced age and the mental strain caused by the previous upheaval, the old alchemist walked extremely slowly.

He pushed open the half-closed wooden door, his gaze sweeping over the ashes and remnants of the fight on the ground before finally settling on the Mirror of Eris.

He walked to the mirror, reached out, and touched the gold frame.

His face, as dry and withered as tree bark, was reflected in the mirror.

"Albus decorated this place like a temple," Nico coughed softly. "He always liked to imbue material things with moral significance."

He believed that as long as people's hearts were pure enough, stones would appear.

His cloudy eyes stared at the mirror.

The "overlapping space" that should have contained the magic stone was now completely empty.

The chains of "justice" that Dumbledore himself set up broke so naturally, as if they had been untied by the person who set them up.

"Gone—"

Nicole gave a relieved smile.

"There are actually people who disdain even the vanity of 'purity'."

Just then, hurried footsteps came from behind.

Dumbledore pushed open the door and entered.

The greatest white wizard of this century still had the hem of his robes stained with soil from the Forbidden Forest and purple grass clippings.

But when he saw Nico's empty hands, his pupils suddenly contracted.

"Nicole?" Dumbledore strode forward, his voice tinged with a rare hint of urgency. "Where's the stone?"

Nicolas Flamel slowly turned his head, looked at his old friend, and gently shook his head.

"Albus, your script has missed a crucial variable."

Dumbledore raised his wand, trying to reconstruct what had just happened, trying to find even the slightest trace of the greedy one.

However, as the white light swept past, the mirror remained unchanged.

"No—that's impossible." Dumbledore's voice turned deep. "Even Tom would have to pass my trial to take it. Unless—unless someone's Transfiguration is superior to mine."

“He didn’t bypass it.” Nico walked over to Dumbledore. “He just turned himself into a mirror that is even more thorough than this mirror.”

""

"Albus, the rule you set is: seek it, but do not use it."

"9

"But what if the person who comes is nothingness itself?"

He didn't need to search, because in his eyes, a stone was just a stone, and it wasn't imbued with any so-called "hope," "immortality," or "ambition."

He simply put the item in his pocket, as naturally as picking up a pebble from the roadside.

Dumbledore fell into a long silence.

Everything that had happened that night flashed through his mind.

The prank props in the Forbidden Forest, Neville's unnatural courage, Harry's precisely guided sacrifice, and the grey-cloaked figure in the Headmaster's office who used his soul as fuel—

This elaborate scheme was originally designed to completely drive Voldemort out and destroy the Philosopher's Stone.

But now, he finds himself the target of a diversionary tactic.

He thought he was hunting the Dark Lord, but he didn't realize that someone was in his hunting grounds, quietly taking away his prey and dismantling his traps.

"Albus." Nicolas Flamel patted Dumbledore on the shoulder, his touch light but carrying a calm composure born of a profound understanding of life and death. "Stop scheming. You're used to defining who's a hero and who's a villain."

But the person who took the stone refuses to be included in your evaluation system.

"He is neither a savior nor the Dark Lord."

He was just an outsider.

Dumbledore looked into the Magic Mirror and suddenly felt tired.

"If the Philosopher's Stone falls into the hands of someone who is not on the chessboard, Nico, that would make me more uneasy than if it fell into Tom's hands."

Tom's desires are traceable, but—I can't see his desires.

"Perhaps he had no desires at all." Nico walked to the exit of the secret room, then turned back. "Or perhaps his desires were too great, too great for this mirror to contain."

"I'm leaving, Albus."

Now that the stone is gone, it's time for that great adventure to begin.

Nicolas Flamel waved his hand, and Dumbledore stood alone in the stone chamber.

He looked at the empty mirror, which contained nothing but an old, anxious, and scheming white wizard.

His meticulously constructed "First Lesson of the Savior" concluded in the most absurd way.

He defeated Voldemort, but lost to someone he hadn't even met.

"Hogwarts needs no second definer."

He slowly walked out of the stone chamber, and the wooden door behind him closed heavily.

At this moment, in the Ravenclaw Tower.

Lucian sat in a chair by the window, toying with the stone in his hand.

"Immortality? Turning lead into gold?"

"Nico Flamel spent six hundred years learning only how to prolong decay."

Dumbledore spent fifty years strategizing, only to learn how to manipulate human nature.

He looked up at the starry sky outside the window, his eyes reflecting the trajectory of the stars.

"And all I need is a miracle from this world."

He extended his fingertip and touched the magic stone.

A ray of arcane light, different from the current magic system, pierced through the fingertip and entered the core of the stone.

"The first set of materials has been collected."

Lucian closed the book, and the candlelight in the dormitory went out instantly.

Goodnight, Albus. May your savior have sweet dreams tonight.

In the pre-dawn hours, as the moonlight fades and the stars fold their wings, Hogwarts falls into its deepest stillness of the year.

On the pristine white hospital bed in the school hospital, Harry Potter curled up, his breathing rapid and disordered.

And there's Ron Weasley next to him.

One of his legs extended beyond the edge of the blanket, lying casually across the edge of the bed, with a dirty red sock still hooked on the toe.

Even in his sleep, he seemed to be directing that brutal game of Wizard's Chess, muttering indistinctly, "Knight to E5 — leave me alone —" The dust on his face had been washed off, but a trace of dried ash remained at the corner of his eye.

For him, this night's adventure was a deep sleep after exhaustion, the most natural rest for a knight amidst the ruins of the battlefield.

On the next bed, Neville Longbottom was sleeping in an unusually upright position.

Neville's lips curled into a smile he himself didn't even realize, because on this night, he was no longer the clumsy boy who always hid in his grandmother's shadow, but a true Gryffindor who dared to raise his wand against his friends.

Finally, Hermione Granger leaned against the fireplace in the common room, which was still not completely extinguished.

Her tousled brown curly hair shimmered with color in the firelight.

She was sleeping restlessly, her brows tightly furrowed.

The mint, symbolizing "awakening," had completely melted, and its coolness would remind her on countless mornings to come:

This world is far crazier than books describe, and far more complex than Dumbledore defines it.

Ripples spread across the black lake outside the castle as a giant squid flipped over in the deep water.

On this night, heroes receive their rewards in their sleep, chess pieces await the restart in tranquility, and the "outsider" who has taken all the chips stands at the window of the tower, gazing at this land still immersed in old dreams.

The first year at Hogwarts thus came to an end amidst the children's dreams and the elders' calculations.