From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Normally, the board of directors has overwhelming power over the school administration. While the principal can't be replaced at will, it's not too difficult to find an excuse to change the principal.

But Hogwarts is different. After all, it is the only magic school, so the school administration naturally has a lot more say. In addition, the headmaster himself is very powerful—although he doesn't say anything harsh, his titles would take up half the screen if they were in a game.

They're all dazzling and full of special effects; each one is an exclusive title, incredibly valuable.

In this situation, the school board can only become an organization for pure-blooded families who are unwilling to fade into obscurity and spend money to buy status.

In matters like recruiting new professors, convening a meeting of the Board of Governors is absolutely necessary—not to make them take the blame, but to let them know that Hogwarts has no intention of ignoring the Board of Governors.

To put it bluntly, even if it's about taking the blame, the board of directors is eager to take it, and they're happy to do so. Otherwise, who would even remember that there is such a board of directors?

-

Azkaban.

William held the paper and pen, looking at these things that were worthless in the past, but he couldn't suppress his joy.

Finding this in Azkaban is incredibly difficult—in the past, when it was worthless, he had even used only one side as a draft, but now it's not much cheaper than silver.

To be honest, paper and pen alone don't take up less space than book pages, and the Dementors inside the prison don't provide these things to the prisoners. If it weren't for the warden's influence, who had someone bring in extra this time, he would be writing and drawing on the floor with a stick in his cell right now.

Of course, the main reason the jailer was willing to bring paper and pen was because William said he had been lacking inspiration lately and needed paper and pen to create and revise some new stories.

In short, this excuse for gathering material successfully helped William obtain paper and pen for writing and drawing, and also allowed him to accelerate his magical research in his mind to a new level—without paper and pen, those overly long contents such as the principles of potions would be too difficult to review, and if he were to write them down with a small stick, he probably wouldn't be able to fit them in half a cell.

As for research on systems—there has been almost no progress during this period.

The other prisoners had too little contact with him to meet the acceptance criteria that were based on unknown factors, and the new inmates in William's own cell only accepted Galleons.

Although he, like other wizards, was afraid of the Dementors who visited him every day, unfortunately, he had no interest in William's story whatsoever.

Just like Sun Wukong went to pick peaches after freezing the seven fairies, William's complete lack of interest in gold coins dashed his hopes of getting another treasure chest.

After today's routine story time, the big guy sneakily asked the person at the foot of the wall:

"Hey Gold Coin, why do you want to be an adventurer?"

"You can earn a huge amount of Galleons."

"Tsk, what an ideal! But what happens after you've made a fortune in gold?"

"Earn more Galleons."

"There's never enough money in the world. What do you want to do when you have a decent amount of Galleons?"

"Hire more people, embark on better adventures, go to Egypt, go to the Arctic, go to Africa, and dig up treasures buried deep underground!"

"Tsk, with so much money, didn't you think of doing anything else?"

"What else? What else could it be?"

Gold Coin widened its eyes, which were bigger than tennis balls, and pointed at William. "Like in William's story?"

He shrugged dismissively. "Ha, women will only hinder my adventures."

The people in the cell were stunned for a moment—they had actually been looked down upon by a house-elf.

It wasn't until Sunday evening, during their turn to bathe, that William and his friends were able to recover from the fact that they had been looked down upon by the house-elves.

After a quick shower and a beating of the prisoner who had discriminated against him, William pulled out his precious paper and pen and began to wonder again if his brain had gotten waterlogged from the shower.

After much deliberation, he put pen to paper.

"journal"

"I don't know the exact number of days I was imprisoned, but I got paper and pen on the third day."

On my very first day here (William was thinking to himself about time travel), I was still keeping track of the time, but I quickly forgot about it.

There was no way around it; prison life was truly miserable. Even when people chatted and joked, there weren't many fresh topics to discuss. They spent their days in prison, day after day, without saying a word (William was secretly thinking about his research into magic). The long days were maddening, and the routine dinner with the black man at night was something no matter how many times it happened, he could never get used to.

I lived my life in a daze, and I didn't even know when I would be released from prison. I even got used to bullying new prisoners.

Gold coins are silly, but they're really enviable. While I'm still just getting by, he has a clear goal and is working hard for it. Even when he learned that all the Galleons in the entire cell had been taken by two guys who had just been released, he only felt depressed for half an hour.

Starting today, I will become a better version of myself. (Silently allocating an extra hour to my daily magic research in my mind, and drawing a small clock to represent it.)

"The fourth day after receiving the paper and pen"

"A new story was created and received unanimous praise. Apart from the gold coins, it seems there's no way to get that guy's approval and abandon the goal."

My body has become somewhat weak due to a lack of exercise for a long time, so I will start exercising for half an hour every day from today.

Besides, Big Guy asked me to buy his manuscripts, two for one Gallon. Where did he get the money?

"Day Five"

"A new prisoner has arrived in the cell next door. He's supposedly sent by the Department of Magical Creatures Protection—I'm not sure if that's the right name, that's what they said—that kid is looking for a settlement of giants. He supposedly wants to study the ecology of hybrid giants, but the Ministry of Magic suspects him of trying to hunt giants to make dark magic products, and he almost ended up in the serious offenders' section."

Nothing else was new; things just weren't going well (William silently noted this in his mind).

Also, the big one has gone up in price, now it's one Gallon a note. How did he get so much money?

"Day Six"

"I got 30 Galleons, and Gold Coins seemed willing to accept the price for hiring me, but after considering how difficult it is to obtain the chest, I gave up on spending real money."

"Seven"

"I wasn't very diligent today, only managing to get ten Galleons, but I unexpectedly made considerable progress in other areas."

"That big guy's gone mad; he actually wants to buy the diary too. Do you think I care about a few Galleons?"

"Eight"

"A boring day, nothing happened, no progress."

"Nine"

"Fifteen Galleons have been received."

...

"eighteen"

"Azkaban is unusually lively today. The strikers have arrived on the island ahead of schedule, and all the cells have been thoroughly cleaned. As Big Guy put it, they are so clean that they don't look like places for people to live."

The prisoners, nearing their release, were meticulously cleaning every corner of the island, almost like they were doing a spring cleaning—was this a custom in the magical world too?

Chapter Eleven: I'm a complete waste!

By the morning of the second day, almost everyone knew that a very important person would be coming that day.

This morning's breakfast was no longer the usual roasted potatoes and bland vegetable soup, but instead consisted of tomato-braised soybeans, fried eggs, grilled sausages, and oatmeal porridge. The dark bread was replaced with slightly browned toast. More importantly, everyone received a whole chocolate frog, a treat that was unthinkable in the past.

The Dementors didn't come for dinner last night. The strikers arrived early to check the cleanliness of each cell. This time, they didn't bring any entertainment products like cigarettes or alcohol to any cell, and even bribes couldn't get them a single piece of information.

"Hey, why are you guys so strict with the checks this time? What big shot is coming?"

"Making such a big fuss, could it be the Auror's office director?"

"What does it have to do with the Auror's office director coming here? He's not their direct superior, why is he making such a fuss?"

"Could it be the Minister of Magic?"

"If the Minister of Magic were coming, the Daily Prophet would have been here taking pictures long ago. Why would you be sitting here waiting for dinner?"

"That makes sense. Could it be that England has a new king and is preparing to grant amnesty to a group of prisoners?"

"What does it have to do with us Muggles? Don't overthink it."

Various speculations circulated among the prisoners, but no one knew the truth.

Around 10 a.m., things finally took a further turn. Starting from a cell far away from William and his group, the prisoners were led out of their cells one by one, questioned, and then returned. Upon their return, they claimed to have no idea what they were supposed to do. But when asked who had asked them and what they had been asked, the returning prisoners shook their heads vigorously, indicating that they had been warned not to reveal the answer.

The message spread quickly, but even as the prisoners sped up the process of bringing people over, they still couldn't figure out what was going on today. They only knew that the other party seemed to want to select a group of people through these questions.

William and his comrades even started arguing in their cell about what the other was trying to do.

Those with longer sentences are more likely to take the selected prisoners away directly or significantly reduce their sentences for future employment. Therefore, this investigation is a good opportunity to boast about one's abilities to make it easier to escape this damned cage.

Those with shorter sentences believe that the reason for using prisoners is precisely because prisoners are willing to sacrifice too much for freedom, so it's best to deliberately conceal their shortcomings in this investigation, lest they be selected as cannon fodder without even the right to refuse.

The two sides were arguing fiercely, but it didn't slow down the speed at which the thugs helped carry the people out. When William and his group were brought to their cell, William clearly noticed a mixture of awe and joy on the faces of the thugs—which made William instantly realize that this investigation was unlikely to end well.

The probability of finding cannon fodder is extremely high, given that someone who can command the respect of even the most formidable fighters is someone who can command the respect of even the most formidable opponents. William figured his sentence was less than a year away, so being a slacker was much better.

After deciding to deliberately proclaim "I'm a piece of trash" during the investigation, William felt a great sense of relief.

Although Azkaban is hardly a good place to become a sword saint, it's not so hard to accept that one would rather be safe and sound under the strict protection of the Ministry of Magic than run away to become cannon fodder.

Soon, William, led by the batter, met his investigator, or rather, his interviewer.

The woman was a lady with a head of fluffy hair that inexplicably reminded William of a Chow Chow, thick glasses, and outdated and bizarre clothes. If she weren't so old, William could easily have labeled her a homebody.

Workaholic, ruthless, cold-blooded, desperate to get married—countless derogatory terms flashed through William's mind, but he forcibly suppressed them.

He was well aware that his preconceived negative emotions were affecting his judgment of the other person, and if he allowed these negative emotions to continue, he would most likely be unable to continue pretending to be a loser.

The other man glanced at William, looked up at the roof, and after about a minute of silence, asked the two batters, "Is he William?"

"no problem."

"Okay, thank you. Take him back now, and bring the next person over. Thank you."

Is that all?

William was stunned, but obediently did not express any desire to resist—in case he disagreed, the person behind the table would shout loudly—very good, very spirited, you're the one!

In this situation, wouldn't he suffer a huge loss?

A bewildered William was taken back to prison, and the others followed suit, returning to their cells one after another.

The four of them, who just returned from their cell, encountered four different investigators, and the methods of investigation were all kinds of strange. Some talked to them, some did math problems, and some even simply handed them a magic wand to cast a spell. It was impossible to figure out what the other party wanted.

When the fifth guy returned, he hadn't even settled in his seat before he started yelling:

"My God, that scared me to death! Professor McGonagall is still so terrifying!"

Then he transformed into a hopping little rabbit, amusing everyone in the cell.

The enforcer in charge of escorting the people laughed along, but still showed no mercy by conjuring a whip with his wand and lashing them out.

The petite rabbit frantically tried to escape under the whip, but it was still struck more than a dozen times, writhing on the ground in pain until the whippers stopped and it returned to its original form.

"You were already being talkative when you were in jail, and this time I explicitly warned you not to reveal the details of the investigation to anyone who doesn't know the situation, and you still dared to talk back. If you're caught again, it won't just be a beating!"