Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts.

Chapter 41 Who changed my password?!

Learning to project magic is only the first step; next, Daphne needs to learn to control it. Rice's goal for her is to maintain the small vortex formed by the projected magic for a long time before dinner today.

After explaining the key points, he left Daphne aside to practice on her own.

Practice makes perfect, and diligence can make up for lack of talent—this principle applies even in the magical world.

Daphne's talent is impressive; her progress is much faster than Rice had anticipated. Even before lunchtime, she was able to control her magical output, maintaining a stable vortex in her palm.

"Very good. Next, try changing the location of your magic release to the soles of your feet. It's very simple, and there's no difference between releasing it in your palms and releasing it in your hands." Rice recalled Helga's teaching method and instructed her step by step.

Daphne nodded and began further attempts.

To better control her magic output, she simply took off her cumbersome boots and socks and stood barefoot on the marble floor.

The cool ground made her involuntarily curl her toes, but the chill also cleared her mind. Under her control, magic gathered in the soles of her feet, forming two stable clusters of magic.

Under the influence of magic, Daphne floated up, hovering an inch above the ground.

"Is this even possible?" Rice was stunned, looking at Daphne's rapid progress.

After a moment of silence, he continued with the next step of his instructions.

He broke down the flight magic into more than a dozen independent steps. As long as Daphne mastered these steps and then released them in one go, she would be able to fly successfully.

For the rest of the time, Daphne was completely immersed in her own world. Even her lunch was packed by Rice from the auditorium and brought back for her to eat in the secret room.

During her studies, she demonstrated remarkable talent, mastering the basics of flight magic in just one day.

"When you fly for the first time, be careful to control your magic output. Don't fly too fast or too high—" Rice said, watching Daphne float around in mid-air, to prevent her from wasting her efforts by being too eager to succeed.

At this moment, Daphne ignored Rice's words, because she was experiencing something she had never done before.

Humans have never concealed their desire to control the skies, including wizards. To fly, Muggles invented airplanes, while wizards opted for flying broomsticks. These methods all rely on external forces; only by using flight magic to take flight on one's own can one achieve true flight.

Unlike being floated along like a balloon, Daphne was truly flying at her own will this time. Excitement made her heart pound, blood rushing through her veins, deafening her ears. The air whistled through her silver hair, her robes billowing behind her. The feeling of flying was wonderful; joy filled her mind. Without any instruction, she soared freely through the air like a bird.

It wasn't until evening that she reluctantly descended from the sky above the secret chamber back to the ground.

The flight was incredibly taxing; the girl's face was completely drained of color.

Looking at Daphne's tired face, Rice thought to himself: I need to go to the Hogwarts potion pantry and get some potion ingredients to make her some potions to replenish her strength and energy. If they're not in the pantry, I'll send a letter to Rupert and ask her to buy some for me.

The public potion lockers at Hogwarts weren't strictly guarded. Rhys only needed to take more ingredients during Potions class and pack them in his bag before get out of class ended. However, the ingredients that were easily accessible were mostly common ones; the rarer ones required either purchasing them himself or "finding" them in Professor Snape's private storage room.

"Excellent, I've never seen such a good start." Potions are for the future; right now, he needs to give the girl a proper compliment.

In just one day, he went from never having heard of "magic control" to mastering "flight magic." This talent for magic control was truly unique among the wizards he had ever seen.

Fortunately, I encountered a traditional teacher like myself; otherwise, this talent would have been wasted in the modern magic education system.

"Really?" The girl, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, looked up, her eyes sparkling. "Can I fly one more circle to solidify my senses?"

"Let's call it a day," Rice firmly refused her request. "Too much of a good thing is bad. You've already practiced enough today, look—"

He pulled a box of chocolate frogs from his pocket and handed it to her.

"Let's eat some chocolate to replenish our energy first, and then we'll go back to the auditorium for dinner."

"What about tomorrow?" Daphne looked at Rice with longing eyes, afraid that Rice might not want to teach tomorrow.

"Don't they rest on Sundays?"

"Only Muggles rest on Sundays, we wizards don't talk about that!" Daphne gave a very clever answer, which made Rice laugh.

Since the student was so eager to learn, the teacher couldn't refuse, so Rice agreed to her request.

"No, let's go out another way." Rice stopped Daphne, who wanted to leave the secret room. After flying up the pipe at noon, Rice vowed that she would rather starve to death in the secret room than fly up through that sewer pipe.

He'd sealed that pipe off—how could Slytherin and their chosen successor possibly enter the Chamber of Secrets through the sewers? It was filthy! So unseemly!

"Are there any other ways out?"

"Of course." Rice led Daphne to his statue and stomped hard on a marble tile on the ground.

Two square tiles rose from the ground, slowly lifting the two figures up to the level of the statue's face.

Rice looked at the statue and said in a Parsleyan voice, "Open."

One second passed, two seconds passed, three seconds...

Nothing happened.

Rice: ?

"Open!" He repeated the operation again, but nothing happened.

Rice was a little confused: Why was the password he set invalid?

However, it's not a big problem. As the true owner of the secret room, Rice has the highest authority here, and he won't be stopped by a password code.

"Password revealed." Rice gave the command to the statue.

One of the statue's eyes lit up, and a beam of light shot out from the pupil, landing on the marble slab beneath its feet, displaying the statue's current command.

Speak to me, Slytherin—the greatest of the four great masters of Hogwarts.

Reston fell silent for a moment, then felt his blood rush to his head, his head spin and his chest tighten: Who? Who changed my password to this awful thing?!

To make matters worse, Daphne saw the password...

Rice felt her face burning: This was a case of flattery to kill!

Luckily, the other three old men couldn't see the command, otherwise he would have been laughed at for the rest of his life.

Rice even began to hallucinate, as if Godric's voice was ringing in his ears, and he kept shouting with glee, "The greatest boss of Hogwarts! The greatest boss of Hogwarts!"

Rice's vision went black.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

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(End of this chapter)