A dazzling beam of red light struck the head of the thunder-water dragon with precision. After crushing the construct, the attack didn't lose any momentum and headed straight for Kyle.
To Catherine's surprise, Kyle merely tilted his head slightly, causing her Disarming Charm to miss its mark completely.
Although Kyle could judge where her attacks would land before, he had never been this precise.
Was this the effect of the Eight Gates?
The corners of Catherine's mouth lifted slightly as she increased the speed and frequency of her spellcasting.
On the other side, having temporarily abandoned offense, Kyle focused entirely on Catherine's hand movements, his mind ceaselessly calculating the impact points of her spells.
With only minimal twists of his body, he effortlessly dodged Catherine's barrage.
"Muda! Muda! Muda! Muda! Muda!"
Hearing Kyle's strange cry, Catherine, feeling a bit annoyed, employed an advanced spellcasting technique.
The moment the spell left her wand, she flicked her wrist with extreme speed, giving the spell horizontal acceleration to achieve a curving effect.
That's right, this was the legendary Wand Kata.
And then, tragedy struck Kyle.
It was true that the First Gate of the Eight Gates released his brain's calculation restrictions, but with such weird spell trajectories, he wouldn't be able to calculate them even if his processing power were increased several times over.
Because Catherine's casting had no pattern at all.
How do you counter a casting style with no pattern?
You can't!
"I yield!" Kyle shouted, collapsing to the ground and achieving the "mouth-open, eyes-closed" look of total defeat.
Alfred reached out and pulled Kyle up from the ground. After checking Kyle's injuries, the old man glared at Catherine standing nearby.
Catherine stuck out her tongue. Getting hurt in combat practice was normal, wasn't it? Her grandfather was being a bit too biased.
After deactivating the First Gate of the Eight Gates, an unprecedented wave of exhaustion surged up. Kyle, who was receiving treatment, let out a huge yawn.
As a veteran Healer, Alfred recognized at a glance that this was the aftereffect of excessive mental exertion.
The old man fished a vial of potion from his breast pocket and handed it to Kyle. "Young Master, this potion will help restore your condition, though I suggest you return to your room and sleep after drinking it."
"Thanks, Alfred."
By the time Kyle emerged from his corpse-like state, three hours had passed.
Having missed lunch, a steaming hot meal appeared on his nightstand the moment he woke up.
Obviously, a house-elf had been waiting invisibly by his side, waiting for him to get up.
Sitting on the soft velvet bed, Kyle didn't immediately get up to eat lunch. Instead, he turned his attention to his own body.
To be precise, the location of the Second Gate of the Eight Gates within his brain.
With the experience from the first time, Kyle easily forced open the First Gate again. He tentatively pressed against the Second Gate with his magic power, but it didn't budge.
Forget it, he thought. Without the old man watching over him, he'd better not mess around on his own.
Otherwise, if something went wrong, he probably wouldn't be found dead in his room until the next day.
Besides, he estimated that with his current physical constitution, the First Gate was about his limit. The subsequent gates could wait for later.
Anyway, he didn't plan to master the Eight Gates completely. Kyle's goal was, at most, the Third Gate—the Gate of Life.
The Gate of Life was the Eight Gates' last safety zone. Starting from the Fourth Gate, every opening would inflict a certain degree of damage to the body.
After all, the Eight Gates was ultimately a forbidden technique that explosively drew out the body's limit-breaking abilities. The more power it unleashed, the more damage the body would inevitably suffer.
Kyle certainly wasn't "Hogwarts' Sublime Green Beast," and he had absolutely no desire to "burn his youth."
However, he did envy the power of "Night Guy," which had nearly kicked the series to its finale in one go. If only he had a physique as thick-skinned and durable as Hagrid's.
Eh! That's it! Hagrid!
Just because Kyle didn't plan to cultivate this forbidden Eight Gates technique himself didn't mean he couldn't pass it on to someone else.
As a half-giant, Hagrid's physical durability was frighteningly astonishing, even without much training.
Kyle still remembered the violent scene in the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid smashed a werewolf into the ground with a single punch.
If it were Hagrid, Kyle estimated that even in his current state, he could probably open up to the Fourth Gate in one go—maybe even the Fifth Gate if he was optimistic.
As long as Hagrid strengthened his physical conditioning a bit, Kyle believed Hagrid would soon be able to open the Seventh Gate.
Given wizards' physical constitutions, even someone as strong as Voldemort probably couldn't withstand a "Hirudora" from a Seven-Gates Hagrid...
If Hagrid were given a few more years to gain the ability to open the Eighth Gate, Kyle felt that even the legendary Death himself might get kicked into the finale by Hagrid.
Sorted!
He knew what Christmas gift to get Hagrid this year.
The journey from France to Britain was long. If he wanted to send gifts to his friends, even though Christmas was still two days away, Kyle pretty much had to send the owls out now.
After finishing his lunch, which was already over an hour late, Kyle hauled out the pile of Christmas gift boxes Alfred had prepared for him and began mailing them out.
He sent Hannah a huge pile of Chocolate Frogs; that little goofball Hannah only really cared about that.
For the academic little beaver, he didn't even have to think—sending a few magic books would suffice.
As for the gifts for the various House professors, Kyle had the old butler prepare appropriate presents tailored to each of their hobbies.
Then there was Hagrid's gift. Originally, Kyle planned to send him a suit of armor and a large axe, letting him cosplay as a certain fat Thor.
After all, patrolling the Forbidden Forest was quite dangerous; Hagrid got injured every other day.
Although they were minor injuries, and Hagrid's giant bloodline gave him super recovery capabilities—meaning he'd be fine after a sleep—it still proved the danger of the Forbidden Forest to some extent.
But now, compared to armor and a battleaxe, Kyle had a better choice—a green jumpsuit.
That's right, the green jumpsuit was the soul; the Eight Gates Formation was just an add-on.
Finally, there was the gift for his Alchemy mentor whom he had never met, Nicolas Flamel.
Kyle heard from Dumbledore that Nicolas Flamel was very interested in Muggle items. Didn't he have as many Muggle gadgets as he wanted in his "Bag End"?
However, Kyle ultimately didn't take second-hand items from his own Bag End. How could he possibly gift used goods?
Aside from a few of his collectibles, he had asked old Alfred to purchase everything else from the Muggle world.
After attaching a greeting card to each gift box, Kyle did a headcount. Once he confirmed nothing was missing, he dumped the job of mailing the gifts onto the castle's house-elves.
All that remained were the Christmas gifts for Catherine and the other three old men. Those could wait until Christmas Eve tomorrow.
————
Supporting me on Pa-treon to gain early access to advanced chapters and enjoy expedited updates. Your support is greatly appreciated.
pat-reon .c-om/Dragonhair
(Just remove the hyphen - and space, to access Pa-treon normally.)