"To make such a leap without paying any price..." Helena Ravenclaw's eyes flickered, and there was obvious suspicion and uncertainty in the way she looked at Ian Prince.
This was completely different from what she knew about the Divine Favored. After all, Ritual Magic, Sacrificial Magic—these were certainly not invented by ordinary groups of wizards.
"This is the price, my lady!" Ian showed off the big puddle of sweat on his hands. Fortunately, he'd brought his money bag along and could fish out a packet of table salt and a bottle of lemonade, pouring them into his mouth without hesitation. After layers of Enlargement Charm, Ian's money bag was now practically bottomless.
His goal for this semester was to fit the entirety of Hogwarts inside it.
"You can't replenish your body's salt like that..." Helena Ravenclaw couldn't watch any longer. She took Ian's salt and lemonade, then mixed up a bottle of diluted saline for him.
"The ratio should be correct."
She handed Ian the bottle of saline.
Ian immediately chugged the whole thing, master of the one-gulp chug.
"Injecting sterile saline directly into my body would be more effective, but I'm not quite dehydrated enough to be in real danger yet." Truthfully, Ian was just too lazy to do the mixing himself.
"Of course, if we stay in this blasted place much longer, I'm not far from collapsing from heat stroke." Ian tried cooling himself off with a Freezing Spell, channeling through both hands.
But after holding it in for a long while, he still couldn't cast a full spell with his hands—wandless spellcasting was, for any wizard used to a magic wand, the pinnacle of difficulty.
"What are you doing?"
Helena Ravenclaw watched as Ian raised his two hands—sometimes a bubble appeared, sometimes a lump of ice fragments—while the little wizard's face was full of frustration.
"I'm thinking that when I get back, maybe I should chop off all ten of my fingers, craft them into magic wands, and then put them back on." In the end, Ian just had to give up in resignation.
"..."
Helena Ravenclaw really didn't know how to respond to Ian. She only felt that the little wizard was seriously overqualified for her house.
This little guy belonged in Knockturn Alley for some advanced studies.
Tom Riddle made his soul into a Soul Artifact, and Ian Prince wants to transform all his fingers into wands—the handsomer the wizard, the harder they are on themselves. Having once been a lovesick girl, Helena Ravenclaw was now starting to feel just a hint of fear toward attractive male wizards.
"We need to get out of this place, which not even a dog would want to stay in. If we can find a black sea, maybe I can get us back to the island where I first met your mother." Ian took out his compass—useless, absolutely useless. The needle just spun like a crazed top.
Forget finding south; he couldn't even get the needle to stop spinning.
"So it is—you agreed with my mother to do this. No wonder you've been working so hard to persuade me these past days." Helena Ravenclaw didn't seem hurried at all.
She seemed to have figured out a lot of things.
Even the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw in Hogwarts—Helena now understood it all, which explained why she wasn't worried in the least.
"Too many mouths in Hogwarts, so I could only hint as much as possible. Luckily, you didn't make your mother wait too long." Ian started walking toward a direction away from the volcano.
Beneath their feet wasn't solid earth or soft grass, but an endless road paved with obsidian. Every step fell with a low, faint echo—almost a buried, pained voice.
The stones' surfaces were etched with strange patterns, sometimes flickering dim blue or dark red, as if the fire of Hell itself pulsed just below the ground.
Very, very hot on the feet.
"You want to walk out of here?"
Helena Ravenclaw followed after, her steps hesitant and nostalgic—it was clear she hadn't used her own legs like this for a very long time.
"I have to bring you to your mother." It wasn't just that Ian wanted to get away from the stifling volcano—he also worried that, once his own time was up, Helena Ravenclaw might be left alone here.
Good intentions turning bad would be really damn annoying.
"Thank you, but I think we should just wait here," Helena Ravenclaw hadn't broken a sweat—cold ladies never understand the suffering of hot guys.
"Maybe your Ravenclaw ancestor will come for you. But that's not something anyone can guarantee. My understanding of this place really isn't better than any other wizard's."
Ian quickened his pace.
The surrounding mountains and earth were terrifyingly empty. Only dim rocks, no plants, no animals. This place was so dead, even the souls of the dead avoided it—not a trace of insect or plant life anywhere. No noise of people, no whisper of spirits.
Just the oppressive backdrop of ever-erupting lava echoing over all.
To break up the suffocating silence, Ian sighed lightly to Helena Ravenclaw. "Truthfully, I don't even know why we ended up here. According to my teacher, my heart's desire would lead me to the land corresponding to Misty Illusion Realm."
"That theory's obviously not very reliable—why would I ever desire to come to a place like this..." In the middle of speaking, Ian suddenly remembered something.