Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts.

Chapter 9 is about wizards choosing their wands.

"This wand is not for sale." An old man walked out of the shop and came to them. His steps were very light and almost silent, but his large, light-colored eyes were very bright, like two moons.

Rice glanced at the old man; his aged face bore a striking resemblance to the staff-maker from a thousand years ago, almost as if he had stepped out of Rice's memory.

"You must be Mr. Ollivander."

Without needing to give his name, Rice was certain that the man before him was a descendant of the Ollivander family. This suggested that their family had at least a thousand-year history of making canes, and the claim on their signboard might not be an exaggeration.

"Of course." Garrick Ollivander wasn't surprised, after all, this was in front of Ollivander's Wand Shop, so it wasn't hard to guess his identity.

He reiterated to Rice that the wands in the window were not for sale. If he wanted to buy a wand, he had thousands of finished wands in his shop for him to choose from, but this one was not an option.

Rice pointed to the wand in the shop window and asked, "Applewood, dragon brain nerves?"

"Yes, twelve and a quarter inches, applewood with dragon brain nerves, a rare choice." Ollivander's tone was filled with surprise and admiration.

Mr. Ollivander was genuinely surprised. This young man could actually tell the material and core of a wand just by looking through the shop window. This was truly an enviable talent. Who was the successor of some wand maker?

Recognizing Rice's exceptional talent in wand design, Mr. Ollivander explained the wand's history to him: A customer had commissioned it a thousand years ago from Mr. Ollivander's ancestor's shop, but on the day of delivery, the girl never came to collect it. The ancestor waited for her, but she never appeared until his death. Before passing away, the ancestor established a rule: the wand could only be sold to someone who voluntarily stated the remaining balance and paid with the correct currency.

In Mr. Ollivander's view, this was an impossible condition to meet. It was already extremely difficult to ask for payment in currency from a thousand years ago, not to mention that no one except members of the Ollivander family knew the final amount of the wand.

This wand will remain in the window of Ollivanders wand shop as a symbol of their family's rich history.

"The final payment is 37 Ethelstein silver pennies. Please keep this safe. I'm taking this wand." Rhys took out a small pouch full of silver coins from his waist pouch and placed it in Ollivander's hand.

Contrary to popular belief, an Ethiopian silver penny weighs less than two grams, and the thirty-seven silver pennies, along with the bag containing them, weigh less than three ounces. Mr. Ollivander could easily lift them, and his arm didn't even tremble when the bag was placed in his palm.

Ollivander froze on the spot. He racked his brains trying to understand why this boy knew the price of the wand and had even prepared silver pennies that had only circulated a thousand years ago. Could he be a descendant of that girl from before? But if his family knew about this, why did they wait a full thousand years to come and collect the wand?

Garrick Ollivander was puzzled.

"Why?" he asked instinctively.

"Because I have a special connection with this wand." A faint smile appeared on Rice's face.

Who would have thought that he witnessed the whole thing and even happened to preserve a batch of coins from that era?

Garrick Ollivander's thin cheeks twitched twice, but he ultimately put the bag of silver coins into his pocket.

"The core of this wand is made from the brain nerves of a fire dragon. Although this material is excellent for wand cores, it is not as stable as the heart nerves. It requires a higher level of magical control from the user. More importantly, it was made a thousand years ago, and I cannot guarantee its quality." Out of professional ethics, Ollivander still reminded Rice.

"Well, so I'm thinking of buying myself a wand—the one I just picked up for my friend." Rice bought the wand just as a keepsake, but he still wants to buy a wand that suits him better.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Mr. Ollivander was immediately delighted and quickly invited Rice and Lupert into the shop.

Ollivanders Wand Shop was a small shop, with only a bench and thousands of narrow cardboard boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. Stepping inside, Rice felt a jolt of excitement, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

He knew this was a magical resonance created by the convergence of numerous powerful magical substances. Inside the small house, the flow of magic became chaotic under the influence of thousands of wands, and even the smallest specks of dust were imbued with magical rhythms.

He glanced at Lupert and found that she was completely unfazed, as if she hadn't noticed anything.

Sometimes being a little slow on the uptake isn't such a bad thing, a thought flashed through Rice's mind.

Putting these distracting thoughts aside, Rice looked at Mr. Ollivander, ready to buy a wand she liked from him.

"Do you have any wands here with snake king horn cores?"

If given a choice, Rice would certainly still choose a wand made with the snake king's horn as the core and snakewood as the shaft, just like he did back then. But the old man in front of him said something that shocked him.

"The Serpent King? This evil magical creature hasn't appeared in the world for hundreds of years. The so-called 'basilisk horns' on the market are all made from the horns of other animals. Due to their scarcity, no one uses such cores to make wands."

evil?

Rice's brows furrowed immediately.

"Your misunderstanding of the Snake King is profound. The history of wizards cultivating the Snake King can be traced back to ancient Greece. This creature has nothing to do with evil; it is like a weapon, without any distinction between good and evil."

Ollivander ignored Rais's explanation; he was an extremely stubborn craftsman, and the words of a child could not sway his mind.

He took out a measuring tape and measured Rice's body parts, including her shoulders, fingertips, wrists, elbows, and even her head circumference.

While taking measurements, he explained his philosophy to Rice: "I only use powerful magical materials like unicorn hair, phoenix tail feathers, and dragon nerves to make wands. Every Ollivander wand is unique, and my job is to help you find the wand that has chosen you."

"Oh?" Rice raised an eyebrow. "The wand chooses the wizard?"

"Of course!" Ollivander replied without hesitation.

Unable to suppress the urge to curl his lips into a smile, Rice turned around to face the wall of wands and said, "In my opinion, it is the wizard who chooses the wand. You can take a look if you don't believe me—"

A sense of foreboding suddenly rose in Mr. Ollivander's heart, and he quickly asked, "What are you going to do?"

"No wand would refuse a great wizard; I choose the wand, not the other way around."

Rice spread his hands.

As he moved, the "wall" of wands trembled, each wand seeming to come alive as it vibrated inside the box.

During this process, Rice could clearly perceive the wands' emotions: fear, submission, defiance, anger... and joy.

He could choose any one of these thousands of wands, and as he said, no wand would refuse him.

He sensed the slight movement and immediately reached out his hand. A wooden box flew out from the wand wall and landed steadily in his hand.

"Thirteen inches, elderberry, dragon's heart nerve." After seeing the box clearly, Ollivander subconsciously recited the wand's attributes.

"A pretty good wand, how much?"

Rice took a liking to this magic wand.

"Seven Galleons."

"One more, please." Rice waved his hand again, summoning a twelve-inch-long wand with a laurel wood shaft and a unicorn tail hair core into his hand.

This one is for Lupert.

As Rice paid and prepared to leave, Mr. Ollivander spoke, his voice even trembling.

"Who exactly are you?"

Without looking back, the boy led the stunned and speechless Lupert away from Ollivander's wand shop, leaving only his voice echoing in the small store.

"I am the greatest wizard of this era."

"The greatest wizard"—this statement was so arrogant, but for a moment Mr. Ollivander felt that the boy, who was not even as tall as his chest, was not bragging or lying, because the scene just now was still deeply imprinted in his mind and could not be forgotten for a long time.

Does the wand choose the wizard, or does the wizard choose the wand?

Ollivander didn't notice that his unwavering conviction had developed a slight crack, all because a boy walked into his wand shop and picked out a wand for himself.

(End of this chapter)