The mastermind behind Hogwarts

Chapter 118 The Flight Principle of Flying Broomsticks

"After riding so many brooms, aren't you interested in the workings of a broom?" Moriarty smiled at Lilith.

Lilith seemed mesmerized by the smile. She rested her chin on her right hand, tilted her head to look at Moriarty, and said casually, "So?"

As Moriarty unpacked the bag, he explained, "So I bought flying brooms from various brands over the last three years."

One by one, the bags were opened, revealing various brooms inside—fifteen in total.

"Oh, Merlin!" Jericho clutched his head in disbelief. A Quidditch enthusiast, he was familiar with every flying broomstick.

Looking at the fifteen brooms, Jericho blurted out, "These are the Nimbus 1700 you used, sir, and also the 1500 and 1000."

These three are from the Comet series: 260, 180, and 140. My father said that Comet is developing a 290.

This is the sweeping series—seven stars, five stars, and three stars.

And the Silver Arrow! Wow, I love it to death, and the Lunar Strike!

"Oh, there's a Meteor?" Jericho frowned slightly, his expression shifting from excitement to seriousness.

“Mr. Moriarty,” Jericho said, pointing to the Meteor, “there are a lot of flight accidents in the American wizarding world every year. The Department of Sport has analyzed these accidents and found that the Meteor has problems with stalling and not being able to fly high.”

"Great, you've reduced my workload."

Moriarty tossed the Meteor aside. Since the problem with this broom had been discovered, it meant that it was losing its market competitiveness, and Moriarty saw no need to take it apart to examine it further.

Jericho, acting like a helpful assistant, sorted the flying brooms, but Lilith's expression changed: "Workload? You're not going to take the brooms apart, are you?"

"Oh!" The little snakes gasped. Fifteen brooms, all taken apart?

All eyes were on Moriarty, and everyone gasped when they heard him nod slowly and give an affirmative answer.

The news spread like wildfire, and before dessert was even served, students from the other three colleges had already learned about it.

The eaglets said, "By Merlin, Mr. Moriarty is going to dismantle fifteen brooms just to see how a flying broom works!"

"Seriously, aren't you curious about the workings of a flying broomstick? Why does it fly? How can it bear weight? Why is it so fast? Mr. Moriarty is conducting a great exploration, a great experiment!"

This is a conversation between two fifth-grade class leaders, two top students.

"I have a bold idea... the broom handle is quite long, thick and large..."

"All I can say about your audacious idea is, could you include me?"

This is a conversation between two seventh-level witches.

The lion cubs looked on with envy at the brand-new broom, wondering just how many Galleons Moriarty had.

"A Nimbus 1700 costs 300 Galleons, while the Seven Stars Sweep and Comet 260 are both 285 Galleons..." Charlie calculated, adding up the prices of the fifteen brooms to arrive at a shocking figure: "5207 Galleons! Merlin's pitiful salary is equivalent to ten years' income for an average wizarding family!"

The lion cubs were in despair; they seemed to have had enough of the comets and sweeping attacks in their hands.

"I don't think Mr. Moriarty would actually take these priceless brooms apart. Why? Mr. Moriarty is already that powerful."

Some people have also offered different opinions.

The Hufflepuff badgers didn't react at all, just watched quietly. Cedric ran enviously to Soldaya's side to observe the broom up close.

But an astonishing scene soon unfolded.

Moriarty took out the Slytherin staff from the system space, aimed it at the first broom, and activated Nimbus 1700.

"The sword's edge is sharp!"

The family's magic was perfectly unleashed through the staff, splitting the broom handle and head in two to reveal the magic circle inside.

Moriarty could tell that these were very complex magic circles, all of different kinds, with one ring inside another influencing each other.

This reminded Moriarty of the precision instruments and gear shafts commonly used by Muggles.

Moriarty chanted the incantation again, cutting the broom handle into pieces. He picked up one piece and carefully examined the severed magic circle inside.

The little snakes gathered around to look at the dismembered flying broomstick. Leon exclaimed in surprise, "This is the first time I've ever seen anything inside a broomstick!"

Students from other houses also came over, gathering in circles to watch and whisper among themselves, but the Weasley twins' voices were completely undisguised.

"Guys, do you get it?!"

"Obviously, everyone finds it unbelievable."

"To be honest, Fred, I have seen a similar magic circle in Dad's car."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, what car! And I'm Fred!" The real Fred pulled George back, and George realized that the Weasley family's car was a contraband item in the Ministry of Magic and could not be known by others.

The young wizards had recently gotten used to the twins' identity-swapping pranks and weren't amused. The twins went back to think of even funnier pranks, while Moriarty glanced at their retreating figures thoughtfully.

Arthur Weasley's car is a fine magical item, possessing both the magical effects of alchemy and the wisdom of the Muggle world's Industrial Revolution; it is a fusion of magic and science.

"Marcus, Jericho, take the brooms back to my dorm. Tonight we'll take them apart and record all the magic circles."

At Moriarty's command, Marcus and his companion, chests puffed out and heads held high, shouldered their brooms and headed toward the Slytherin dungeon. The young wizards were even more envious; they too longed to be entrusted with important tasks by Moriarty.

However, Moriarty did not mobilize the masses this time. Lucius replied to Moriarty, saying that he agreed to Moriarty's visit, which meant that Moriarty had to find a development idea for the new broom by 3 p.m. the next day.

Back in his dormitory, Moriarty personally dismantled fourteen brooms, the pieces covering the floor.

Moriarty took out the magic circles inside, then pieced them back together and placed them on his desk. Of course, there wasn't enough room for them all; there were more than six thousand in total!

"On average, each broom has more than 500 magic circles."

Moriarty discovered that these magic circles were mostly similar, like gasoline in a car, a magical effect that enabled the broom to function.

Marcus and Jericho then recorded the magic circles that had appeared and showed them to Moriarty.

"With the overall skill level of modern wizards, condensing small magic circles is not a problem, but the order in which different magic circles are arranged makes up the differences between flying brooms!"

Moriarty wrote this sentence in his notebook; it was his speculation.

"Alchemy Matrix!" To verify this, Moriarty channeled the magic circle into the matrix. The matrix emptied Moriarty's mind and produced a series of peculiar arrangement rules.

Two hours later, Moriarty, having regained his senses, wrote down the arrangement rules; he had figured out the principle behind the flying broomstick.

It's like Moriarty now has three spells.

The first one is "Swift as the Wind," which is clearly a small magic spell that increases movement speed.

The second is a shock-absorbing spell, and the third is a stabilizing spell.

The three spells, "Swift as the Wind," "Shock Absorption," and "Stabilization," are stored in the form of a magic circle. Modern wizards use this magic circle to achieve the magical effects of the spells when making flying brooms.

So the order of the three magic circles became a problem. Should we put the "Swift as the Wind" spell before the "Shock Absorption" spell? Or should we put the "Shock Absorption" spell before the "Stabilization" spell? Or should we put the "Stabilization" spell before the "Swift as the Wind" spell? After all, to speed up a broom, you first have to make it fly steadily into the sky.

No matter how you sort them, it all seems to make sense.

This doesn't even include a whole host of spells that need to be added, such as flight spells, slowing spells, solidification spells, waterproof spells, and so on.

Alchemy items only require the magic effect to take effect, so the order doesn't matter. Flying brooms, however, require more than just magic effects.

Having fully understood the principles behind the flying broomstick, Moriarty felt confident.

He took a piece of yellow parchment, about thirty inches long, from the table, picked up a quill, and wrote on it: "The time has come to honor the bet, my esteemed Professor of Alchemy. Let's put the wand set aside for now. Fudge won't become Minister for Magic until 1990, and making the wand set before then will only leave us with empty warehouses."

Right now, at this very moment! I have a new invention.

I've discovered the principle behind flying broomsticks, and the principle is as follows...

You've probably figured it out by now. Since making a flying broom only requires arranging a few hundred small magic circles in a certain order, why can't we make a flying broom?

To create the world's best flying broomstick!

Moriarty placed the letter in a dark green envelope and sealed it with the Slytherin house insignia.

"Marcus, give this to Nicolas Flamel in the secret room first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir."

In the letter, Moriarty deliberately omitted the permutation rules he had obtained, wanting to see if the permutation rules derived by Nicolas Flamel were the same as those he had.

(End of this chapter)