Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 40 The Oath Through Thorns

Alex paused, then glanced at Murphy.

Lucius Malfoy?

Murphy: "Just write it like that."

Alright, Alex had no choice but to comply.

Immediately, the ink was absorbed, and then a line of text appeared: "Hello, Lucius, I am Tom Riddle."

Alex stared in shock at the notebook in front of him.

Sure enough, this thing is a dark magic item!

Murphy was pleasantly surprised.

This diary seems so easy to fool.

Murphy suddenly became curious about the diary's form of existence. "Can this thing sense what's happening outside?"

However, let's get down to business first. He instructed Alex, "Continue writing: 'Tom, I am a student at Hogwarts. My grades are not good. Can you answer a few of my questions?'"

The diary entry reads: "Of course, Lucius, I will do my best to help you."

This reply was exactly what Murphy expected.

The young Tom Riddle was not as straightforward and brutal as the later Voldemort; he was adept at using deception to achieve his goals.

In the original story, he pretended to be a friendly and caring friend, enticing Ginny to talk about his little secrets, thereby draining Ginny's life force and almost making her the nourishment for his resurrection.

"Excuse me, what is the recipe for the Water of Life and Death?"

"Sleepy beans, distilled water, African sea salt, mugwort infusion, valerian root, narcissus root powder—I can list the detailed steps if you need them."

"What about the formula for Felix Felicis?"

"Fire-ash snake eggs, mantis shrimp light bulbs, Morat rat tentacles, thyme, bird snake eggshells..."

"In what year did the fairy rebellion occur?"

"1612."

It seems Voldemort was indeed an excellent student in school, as he answered these academic questions without the slightest hesitation.

This quick and accurate response gave Murphy the feeling of chatting with those great language models from his past life.

With that preamble, it's time to get down to business. "Tom, my spells teacher wants us to write a paper about the Secrecy Spell. Do you have any ideas?"

"I know quite a few spells for keeping secrets. An unbreakable oath can be used to keep secrets, as can a spell of unwavering loyalty. If you mean preventing someone from speaking, then spells like 'sealing the throat and tongue' and 'silencing' can all render a person speechless. What specific type of spell for keeping secrets do you want to know?"

"Is there a spell that can render a person immobile or cause them to lose consciousness from intense pain when they are about to reveal a secret, thus preventing them from doing so? Or is there a spell that can instill in a person a deep-seated aversion to revealing a secret?"

Tom Riddle, true to his reputation as a master of dark magic, quickly replied: "I know quite a few spells for the first type. I have two that I highly recommend."

"The first is Natasha's tongue-tying technique, which can make someone's tongue get tied when they are about to reveal your secret, preventing them from speaking. Its advantage is that it can prevent others from saying anything about you, but its disadvantage is that it can only stop the other person from speaking; it is useless if you use methods such as writing."

"This won't work."

In his future magical research institute, once the Muggle scientists make research results, they will definitely be eager to publish papers, and simply restricting their speech will not be enough.

"The second is the Witch Queen's 'Bracken Oath.' Long ago, in Brittany, there was a small kingdom ruled by a witch who used a terrible dark magic to control the Muggle people. That spell was the Bramble Oath."

"First, the Muggle subjects make an oath to the Witch Queen that whenever they try to break their oath, their bodies will feel the stinging pain of thorns, and the more they try to betray her, the stronger the stinging will be, until it kills them."

"But this spell is difficult to use on wizards with magical powers. It is essentially a curse, and wizards have many ways to remove curses."

Murphy's eyes lit up; this was exactly what he needed!

He originally wanted to use this spell on Muggles!

"What is this spell?"

"This is dark magic. Are you sure you want to learn it?" the diary asked.

Although it was a question, it was clearly an encouragement, but Murphy was happy to play along.

"Just write: 'I don't think there's anything scary about dark magic. If we're afraid to learn it just because a spell is dangerous, then we'd better not even ride flying brooms anymore. Living like Muggles is the safest way.'"

"But the professor said that dark magic can corrupt a person's mind," Alex countered this time, not following Murphy's advice. "I think learning dark magic is bad. Besides, this spell looks extremely evil, forcing someone to remain loyal is far too dangerous."

Murphy rolled her eyes at him. "Have you studied dark magic?"

"……No."

"Then what do you know! Stop talking nonsense and start writing."

"...I think this diary is affecting your mind," Alex advised again.

"Heh, Galon doesn't want it anymore?"

"..."

Alex wrote it.

The diary replied: "You're absolutely right, we think the same thing. The spell is 'Spinas votum' (Oath of Thorns)."

After finishing his notes, he directly showed a hand-drawn diagram describing the pronunciation and gestures of the incantation.

The text annotated on the hand-drawn map is completely different from Tom Riddle's handwriting.

Murphy immediately realized that the diary showed him the original text of a book that Tom Riddle had once seen.

He was somewhat surprised.

You can actually do that!

Doesn't this mean that he could actually read all the books Tom Riddle had read through his diary?

Murphy had a fairly clear understanding of his magical abilities. With the logical advantage and perseverance of a transmigrator, he was much stronger than ordinary Hogwarts students, but about the same as Hermione in the original story.

He has some talent in combat and spellcasting, but at most he's only at the level of an ordinary Auror.

In terms of magical power and talent, he couldn't even come close to Voldemort, who was considered a genius by Dumbledore.

After all, he's a master who created a top-tier dark magic item in the wizarding world—a diary—at the age of 16.

Even since the founding of Hogwarts, there have been few students more talented than Voldemort.

Based on his basic self-awareness, Murphy had always been relatively well-behaved at school, rarely daring to touch things like dark magic. He knew that without a teacher's guidance, trying to study dark magic on his own might lead to dire consequences.

But right now, there's a master of dark magic right in front of me. Wouldn't it be a waste not to take advantage of him?

With this thought running through his mind, Murphy copied down the spell and practiced it several times according to the key points indicated in the hand-drawn diagram, until he felt a surge of magical power, which confirmed the authenticity of the spell.

"Thank you so much, Diary. This spell should be able to complete the thesis."

"You're welcome. It's a very special spell, but it has many flaws. In fact, the fact that it only works on Muggles makes it less useful."

"You mean you have an even better spell?"

(End of this chapter)