Chapter 171: The Jailbreak Alarm, the Haze of Azkaban
"What happened?!"
The heavy alchemy door of the basement was slammed open, and Lucius Malfoy rushed in with a look of panic on his face.
Draco followed behind him, his face equally pale.
The manor's highest alarm had not sounded for decades; the last time it rang was during that chaotic era when the Dark Lord fell and the Ministry of Magic was frantically purging Death Eaters.
Cassius slowly moved his hand away from the loading device, and the violent magic power that was about to complete its compression was steadily withdrawn into his body. He frowned, displeased by the feeling of being interrupted.
"Is it the Ministry's Aurors? Does that idiot Fudge want to cause trouble again?" Draco immediately thought of the last conflict and instinctively gripped his wand. After a year of tempering, he was no longer the boy who only hid behind his father.
"No, it's not Aurors." Cassius's voice was calm, but his Dual-Soul Furnace had already sensed the source of the alarm. "The trigger logic of the alarm is based on the erosion of large-scale panic and despair, rather than physical or magical attacks."
"Panic and despair?" Lucius was stunned, not understanding what this meant for a moment.
Just then, a House-elf appeared in the living room with a "pop," holding a copy of the newly delivered The Daily Prophet, shaking like a leaf.
"Master... the paper... today's paper!"
Lucius snatched the newspaper.
In the next second, his pupils suddenly contracted, and the snake-head cane in his hand fell to the ground with a "clang."
On the front page of the newspaper, a dynamic, Black-and-white photo occupied the entire page. The man in the photo had long, tangled Black hair, and in his deep-set eye sockets were eyes burning with a frenzied fire. He grinned, laughing silently, revealing a row of wax-yellow teeth.
Below the photo, in blood-red print, was a huge and eye-catching headline:
Azkaban's Nightmare Comes True! Murderous Maniac Sirius Black—Escapes!!!
"Black... he... he actually escaped..." Lucius's voice was trembling, the color draining from his face. As a former Death Eater, no one knew better than he what the name Sirius Black meant in that era.
A traitor who betrayed his best friend, a madman who blew up thirteen Muggles and the Wizard Peter Pettigrewon the street with a single curse, a most loyal and fanatical follower of the Dark Lord.
"Father, who is he?" Draco felt the seriousness of the situation as he watched Lucius's unprecedented loss of composure.
"A madman! An out-and-out madman!" Lucius picked up his cane and paced back and forth nervously. "He is Potter's godfather, but he's also the culprit who sold out the Potter family to the Dark Lord! Now that he's escaped, he'll definitely come looking for us! He's the Dark Lord's loyal dog; he'll clean house for his master, he'll kill us!"
Lucius's logic became muddled under extreme fear. He knew the House of Black was one of the noblest pure-bloods, and he knew Sirius was an outcast disowned by his family. But what he feared more was that this madman would treat all former Death Eaters as targets for revenge.
Cassius picked up the newspaper and scanned it quickly. He had no interest in Sirius's story; the little intrigues in the original work seemed childishly laughable to him.
His gaze was drawn to the description of Azkaban in the report.
"...Azkaban is guarded by hundreds of 'Dementors,' terrifying creatures that can drain the happiness and hope of those around them, leaving prisoners immersed in their most painful memories until they suffer a mental breakdown..."
"They feed on human positive emotions; being near them, you will feel as if you can never be happy again..."
"Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge admitted today that this is the first successful jailbreak in the three hundred years since Azkaban was established..."
"Dementors..." Cassius whispered the name, a flicker of extremely dangerous, scientist-like fervor flashing in his deep blue eyes, as if he had discovered a brand-new species.
Feeding on emotions? Feeding on soul energy?
This was a predatory creature based on the soul level that he had never encountered before.
What was their method of attack? Did they act directly on the soul, or did they influence the secretion of brain chemicals through some kind of force field? Was their physical form real, or was it a projection composed of negative energy? What was their core? Was it possible to capture them? To dissect them?
Could the Dual-Soul Furnace resist that feeling of being drained of happiness? Or even... could it inversely absorb their energy?
In an instant, countless crazy and bold research topics flashed through his mind one by one.
"Cassius! What are you still dazed for!" Lucius saw him like this and was so anxious he almost jumped. "We must strengthen the manor's defenses! Notify the Ministry! No, we can't notify that useless Fudge; he'll only make things worse! We must..."
"Father," Cassius interrupted him.
"What?"
"You're noisy."
Lucius was instantly choked up. He looked at his son's eyes, which were calm and devoid of any human emotion. A chill rushed from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head, instantly overwhelming his fear of Black. Only then did he realize that in his own home lived an existence countless times more terrifying than any escaped murderous maniac.
"Yes... yes, I... I lost my composure." Lucius forced himself to calm down.
Cassius tossed the newspaper aside, walked to the workbench, and picked up a piece of blank parchment and a quill.
"Father."
"Yes."
"Use all of the Malfoy Family's channels, at any cost, to find all information related to 'Dementors' and 'Soul Magic' for me. Whether it's the Ministry's confidential files or Dark Arts forbidden books classified as the highest level, I want them all." Cassius ordered without looking back while writing a list.
"Soul... magic?" Lucius asked in confusion. "What do you want these for?"
Cassius stopped writing, turned his head, looked at him, and answered very seriously:
"I want to keep one as a pet and see."
Lucius: "..."
He suddenly felt that if Sirius Black really came to the door, it might not be certain who would be the unlucky one.
Looking at his son seriously listing "experimental equipment" list, he felt, for the first time, a sincere sense of pity for the future enemies of Malfoy Family.
Chapter 172: The Dementors' Visit and the Tyrant's Cold Shoulder
"Mr. Minister, I reiterate, deploying Dementors near Hogwarts and residential areas is an extremely dangerous and irresponsible decision!"
In the Minister for Magic's office, Dumbledore's aged but powerful voice came through the fireplace's Floo Network, carrying undisguised fury.
In the green flames of the fireplace, Cornelius Fudge's anxious face was reflected. The bowler hat on his head was tilted to one side, and cold sweat soaked his green bowtie.
"Albus, you have to understand me! Black has escaped! The public needs to see the Ministry of Magic taking action! I need to reassure them!" Fudge's tone was sharp and panicked. "Dementors are the only force capable of tracking and capturing him! I'm just... just deploying them in some 'high-risk' areas, like near the Potter's house, and..."
Fudge's words faltered; he didn't dare speak that name.
"And Malfoy Manor, right?" Dumbledore finished for him, his voice turning cold. "You sent Dementors to monitor Cassius Malfoy?"
"It's protection! Protection!" Fudge corrected him quickly. "Lucius used to be... you know. Black is very likely to go looking for trouble with them!"
"Are you really protecting them, or are you trying to use the Dementors to test that boy's bottom line, Cornelius?" Dumbledore cut straight to the point.
Fudge's face turned pale instantly, and he stammered, unable to speak.
Dumbledore shook his head in disappointment. "I warned you not to provoke him. You will regret it."
The green flames died out.
Meanwhile, at Malfoy Manor, an invisible, icy chill was silently seeping in like a tide.
It wasn't a physical low temperature, but a coldness that reached deep into the soul. The roses in the garden withered and wilted at a visible rate; the last trace of summer warmth in the air was sucked dry, replaced by a deathly silence and despair like that of a tomb.
In the living room, Draco, who was practicing spells, suddenly shuddered. Uncontrollable images of being chased by a Troll in his first year and nearly being bludgeoned to death by a wooden club surfaced in his mind. A sense of helpless despair seized his heart, making even the hand holding his wand begin to tremble.
Lucius's situation was even worse. He remembered the time after the Dark Lord's fall, kneeling in the Ministry of Magic's courtroom, facing the contemptuous and fearful gazes of his former colleagues and subordinates. The shame and fear of being stripped of everything and becoming a prisoner made him cold all over, barely able to stand.
"Wha... What is this..." Draco's voice was trembling.
Just then, the tightly closed basement door slowly opened.
Cassius walked out from the darkness.
He looked no different than usual, still wearing that same indifferent expression, but Draco and Lucius felt that with his appearance, the suffocating chill around them seemed to be pushed aside by an invisible force.
Ignoring them, Cassius walked straight to the large French window.
The sky outside had turned a murky gray at some point. Two spectral figures draped in tattered Black cloaks were silently hovering outside the manor's ancient Defensive Boundary.
They had no faces, only a deep, bottomless void beneath their hoods. With every "breath" they took, the surrounding light and air seemed to distort.
Dementors.
They were drawn to the two powerful souls filled with complex emotions within the manor, greedily feasting on the "delicacy" radiating through the boundary.
The Dual-Soul Furnace within Cassius clearly perceived this energy-level predation. It was a negative energy flow aimed at increasing entropy, attempting to drive all order and heat death toward chaos and cold.
"Interesting," Cassius said softly.
He didn't pull out his wand and chant "Expecto Patronum" as Draco had imagined.
The essence of the Patronus Charm is to use a powerful, happy thought as an energy source to form a positive energy guardian spirit to drive away the negative energy Dementors. It was a means of defense and expulsion.
But in Cassius's dictionary, the word "defense" did not exist.
He chose a more direct, more domineering, and more unreasonable method.
He slowly raised his right hand, pointing toward the window.
He didn't cast any spell, nor did he even mobilize any specific magical model. He simply and crudely increased the output power of the [Dual-Soul Furnace] within his body by five percent.
Imagine a miniature sun suddenly appearing out of thin air in an ice cellar at absolute zero.
An invisible, scalding energy radiation, filled with the most primitive rhythm of life, exploded outward with Cassius as the center!
This wasn't magic; this was a pure, brutal physical crushing of low-dimensional creatures by a high-dimensional life form!
Outside the manor's Defensive Boundary, the two Dementors simultaneously let out a silent, soul-tearing shriek!
To them, that scorching energy radiation was ten thousand times more terrifying than holy water to a Vampire or sunlight to the undead! It was a fundamental collision and annihilation on an existential level!
They felt their "bodies," composed of cold and despair, being forcibly "heated up," turning from solid despair into nothingness!
Like insects seared by a branding iron, the two Dementors twisted and rolled frantically, turning to flee. They moved so fast they left two Black afterimages in the air, as if some world-ending disaster were chasing them.
They fled so precipitously that the edge of one Dementor's tattered cloak, the moment it was brushed by the energy radiation, shattered and decomposed like a piece of ignited paper. A palm-sized piece of pitch-Black fabric drifted slowly down from the sky.
The chill in the living room vanished instantly without a trace.
Draco and Lucius watched this scene dumbfounded, their minds a complete blank.
Was it... over?
No earth-shattering duel of spells, no dazzling Patronus, not even a single incantation. The Azkaban guards, who struck fear into the entire wizarding world, had been "scalded" away just like that?
Cassius pushed open the French window and stepped calmly onto the lawn.
That pitch-Black piece of fabric lay quietly on the ground. It had no physical form, like a mass of solidified shadow, radiating an unsettling chill.
Cassius took a pair of Dragonhide gloves from his pocket, put them on, then bent down and picked up the "fabric" with two fingers.
It felt strange to the touch—cold, ethereal, yet possessing a peculiar resilience. The perception of the Dual-Soul Furnace seeped into it, discovering a unique structure composed of countless tiny, constantly annihilating negative energy particles.
"I see, a Semi-stable structure based on Soul entropy reduction..." Cassius murmured to himself, the desire for research in his eyes growing more intense.
He turned and looked at the dazed Lucius and Draco.
"Father, notify Fudge," Cassius's voice was calm and cold. "Tell him that if he lets his pets come within a hundred meters of Malfoy Manor again, I cannot guarantee they will return in one piece."
With that, he held the Dementor's "remains" and turned to return to the basement.
He needed to begin the analysis of this new material immediately.
Perhaps the warhead of the "Blizzard" could use a bit of more interesting "Soul seasoning"?
Chapter 173: Confrontation at the Leaky Cauldron, Prey and Hunter
"Children, stay close! Don't get separated!"
The greasy wooden door of the Leaky Cauldron was pushed open, and Arthur Weasley practically shoved his large family inside.
His face was full of tension, his forehead drenched in sweat, as if he weren't entering the passage to Diagon Alley, but a battlefield fraught with danger.
The pub was much quieter than in previous years—or rather, it was deathly silent. Every Wizard instinctively lowered their voice, their eyes carrying a shared, unspeakable fear.
Ever since Cassius Malfoy caused that "Silence" incident in Diagon Alley last year, and the terrifying news of him taking down six Aurors single-handedly this summer break spread, the entire British wizarding world had been shrouded in an invisible low-pressure zone.
"Dad, let's hurry, I hate the atmosphere here," Ginnycomplained in a low voice, clutching tightly to her mother Molly's hem.
Molly Weasley hugged her daughter protectively, her eyes scanning the surroundings warily. When she spotted the familiar platinum-blonde hair in the corner, her body instantly stiffened.
The Malfoys.
Lucius Malfoy was leisurely sipping a glass of Goblin-brewed red wine, while Narcissa elegantly leafed through a fashion magazine.
Draco stood behind them, his posture upright. The arrogance of the past was gone from his face, replaced by a tempered coldness.
And Cassius just sat there quietly, wiping a pair of ordinary-looking dragon-hide gloves. Within a three-meter radius around him, there was no one, as if an invisible wall isolated him from the rest of the world.
"We... we'll go through the other side," Arthur swallowed hard, attempting to bypass this bringer of calamity.
But Harry Potter didn't move.
His gaze, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, was locked firmly onto Cassius.
During the summer break, he had spent almost every night in blood-colored rituals within the Forbidden Forest. He could clearly feel the remnant soul in his forehead merging with him at an unprecedented speed. He was no longer the boy who relied on courage to fight; he had mastered a more direct, purer power.
A power of slaughter.
'Kill him...'
A cold, hissing thought slithered out from the deepest reaches of his soul like a venomous snake.
'Potter, look at him. A perfect vessel, a powerful soul... his magic is even purer than that old man Dumbledore's... Devour him! If we just devour him, we can reach our goal in one step, even surpassing my peak from back then!'
Riddle's remnant soul screamed frantically in his mind, a complex emotion mixing extreme greed and instinctive fear.
In the remnant soul's perception, Cassius wasn't human at all—he was a star made of pure energy, draped in human skin!
To approach him was to either be burned to ashes or... to devour him and become the new sun!
This frantic killing intent was projected undisguised through Harry's eyes.
Ron noticed Harry's abnormality and tugged at his sleeve in terror: "Harry, you're crazy! Don't look at him!"
Harry's hand had already reached uncontrollably for his wand.
He felt the blood throughout his body boiling as the power of the remnant soul surged within him, giving him an unprecedented illusion of total control.
He could even see the image of himself releasing that pitch-black curse, devouring Cassius in an instant.
At the very moment his fingertips were about to touch his wand.
Cassius, who had been wiping his gloves with his head down, slowly looked up.
No magic was released, no verbal warning given, and not even a trace of change appeared in his expression.
He simply glanced at Harry.
In that moment, Harry felt as if he had been struck head-on by an invisible mountain falling from the sky.
His proud Dark Arts power, fused with the remnant soul, melted away without a trace like ice under the sun beneath that calm gaze.
An indescribable, physical terror-inducing pressure bore down relentlessly on every cell of his body.
His bones groaned and wailed, as if they would be crushed into powder by this pure pressure in the next second.
The Riddle remnant soul within him let out a dying, desperate scream, instantly recoiling to the deepest part of his scar, shivering and not daring to make another sound.
"Harry!"
Ron and Arthur cried out simultaneously. They watched helplessly as Harry's legs gave way and he collapsed to his knees with a thud, his face as pale as paper, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
The entire Leaky Cauldron was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard.
Cassius withdrew his gaze and went back to wiping his gloves, as if he had just crushed an insignificant bug.
Draco glanced coldly at the kneeling Harry, a sneer of undisguised mockery curling his lips. Idiot, you still haven't realized that you and my brother are already two different species.
Lucius raised his glass and took a satisfied sip.
This kind of dominance—forcing an arch-enemy to their knees with just a look, without a single word—gave him an unprecedented sense of glory belonging to the House of Malfoy.
"We... let's go, quickly!" Molly practically dragged Ginnyand Ron, supporting the completely drained Harry as they scrambled toward the entrance of Diagon Alley.
Harry was hauled along, his feet dragging two pathetic trails on the ground.
His mind was a blank, leaving only that calm yet abyss-like gaze and the excruciating pain of his bones being crushed.
In that moment just now, he truly understood that his summer of hard cultivation and so-called Dark Arts were nothing but a ridiculous joke in the face of absolute power.
Cassius finished wiping his gloves, tucked them into his pocket, and stood up.
"Father, Draco, you two go to Gringotts first. I have some business to attend to."
"Do you need me to come with you?" Draco asked.
"No," Cassius's voice was as flat as ever. "You're too slow."
With that, he didn't head toward Diagon Alley but walked straight toward the back door of the Leaky Cauldron. That was the exit to Muggle London, and also... a shortcut to Knockturn Alley.
His Dual-Soul Furnace clearly sensed a familiar magical fluctuation belonging to his "business partner," which was becoming increasingly unstable in a corner of Knockturn Alley.
It seemed someone wanted to make a move on his property.
Chapter 174: Hermione's Black Market Deal, A Thrilling Encounter in Knockturn Alley
Knockturn Alley.
This was the dark, damp underbelly of London's wizarding world, where sunlight could never fully penetrate the heavy haze woven from Dark Arts and evil thoughts.
The air was thick with a stench—a mixture of rotting meat, spoiled Potions, and despair.
Hermione Granger, wrapped in a large, hooded black robe, walked briskly along the slippery cobblestone path.
She deliberately avoided the greedy and malicious gazes cast from the dark corners.
She hated this place; every detail caused her visceral discomfort. But she had no choice.
The "Blizzard" plan required an extremely unstable alchemical material—'Putrid Ambergris Crystals.' This substance could trigger a violent surge in magical entropy in an instant, making it the key fuse for achieving saturated firepower coverage.
And such a thing could only be purchased on the black market of Knockturn Alley.
She stopped in front of a shop hanging a tattered sign that read "Borgin and Burkes" and pushed open the creaking door.
The interior was even dimmer than the outside, with shelves filled with all sorts of gruesome items: shrunken heads, bloody daggers, cursed jewelry...
A hunched man with a greasy smile stepped out from behind the counter. One of his hands was encased in a black glove, his fingers long and thin like those of some arthropod.
"Oh, look who's here. A lost little girl?" His voice sounded like oiled sandpaper. "This is no place for you, little Mudblood."
Hermione ignored his insult. Suppressing her disgust, she pulled a coin pouch from her pocket and tossed it onto the counter. The clinking of Galleons was crisp and pleasant.
"Three ounces of Putrid Ambergris Crystals. Highest purity." Hermione's voice was cold; she was imitating Cassius's tone, trying to make herself seem formidable.
The man's eyes lit up. He greedily weighed the pouch, his smile becoming even more hypocritical. "Of course, of course I have it. However, such a dangerous item isn't something a little girl like you should be playing with."
As he spoke, he pulled a lead box from under the counter. The moment he opened it, a thick, sickly-sweet scent of decay wafted out.
Hermione confirmed the quality of the goods and reached out to take them.
The man's hand pressed down on the box. "Don't be in such a hurry, little beauty. Besides Galleons, perhaps... you could pay with something else."
His gaze wandered shamelessly beneath Hermione's robe. Two other Dark Wizards hidden in the shadows stepped out, blocking the shop's exit with malicious smiles on their faces.
Hermione's heart sank. She had anticipated this, but when the danger truly arrived, fear flooded her like a cold tide. She instinctively gripped the wand hidden in her sleeve.
"I advise you not to try anything," Hermione said, forcing herself to remain calm. "My... my companion is right outside."
"Companion?" The hunched man burst into a sharp, piercing laugh. "Little girl, I've heard that lie for decades in Knockturn Alley! Today, even if Dumbledore himself came, he wouldn't be able to take you away!"
He suddenly lunged at Hermione, his gloved hand reaching straight for her neck.
Hermione screamed and backed away, hastily firing an Expelliarmus, but it was easily swatted aside by the man with a black barrier.
Despair instantly enveloped her.
Just then.
BOOM!
With a deafening roar, the shop's already dilapidated wooden door—along with half the wall—was blasted into flying splinters and masonry by an irresistible force!
The three Dark Wizards were stunned into place by this sudden turn of events.
A slender figure, silhouetted against the light, slowly walked in through the drifting dust.
It was Cassius Malfoy.
He didn't even look at the two Dark Wizards blocking the door, walking straight toward the counter.
"Get lost," he said to the hunched man lunging at Hermione. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unquestionable command.
"Who... who are you? How dare you cause trouble on Borgin and Burkes' turf!" The hunched man was startled into taking a step back by the terrifying pressure radiating from Cassius, but his long-bred ferocity in Knockturn Alleymade him bark out with false bravado.
His two accomplices behind him also reacted, raising their wands simultaneously. Two vicious red beams of the Crucio curse shot toward Cassius from the left and right.
Cassius didn't even look.
Half a meter away from his body, the two red beams hit an invisible wall composed of pure, high-temperature heat. Without causing even a ripple, they were instantly evaporated and annihilated.
The two Dark Wizards' faces twisted as if they had seen a ghost.
In the next second, Cassius moved.
His figure left an afterimage as he appeared instantly before the Dark Wizard on the left. Under the man's terrified gaze, Cassius raised his hand—not with a wand, but with his palm—and pressed it against the man's head as casually as swatting a fly.
Splat—
There was no explosion, no loud noise.
That head, like a ripe watermelon crushed by a heavy weight, instantly sprayed red and white everywhere.
The headless corpse wobbled for a moment before slumping down.
The other Dark Wizard was scared out of his wits and turned to flee via Apparition.
But Cassius was faster.
With a backhand grab, he accurately seized the man's nape.
Terrifying physical strength erupted instantly. With a crisp 'crack,' the man's neck was crushed to powder.
The corpse collapsed to the floor like a pile of wet mud.
The entire process took less than two seconds.
Blood and brain matter splattered onto Hermione's face, warm and viscous.
She didn't scream; she didn't even close her eyes. She stared blankly at the boy who had dispatched two adult Dark Wizards as if taking a stroll, watching him walk toward the last hunched man, who was now paralyzed with fear on the floor.
The hunched man's crotch was wet and warm. He let out unintelligible wails, desperately scrambling backward.
Cassius walked up to him, bent down to pick up the lead box, and then raised his foot.
"No... please..."
CRACK!
The sound of bone snapping rang out clearly. Cassius's foot accurately crushed the man's right wrist.
"AAAAAAHHH!" The man let out a pig-like shriek.
"This hand touched my things," Cassius's voice was as calm as if he were stating a fact.
He raised his foot again and stomped toward the man's other hand.
"No! I beg you! Spare me!"
CRACK!
"This hand wanted to touch my person."
Finally, Cassius's foot hovered over the man's head.
He didn't stomp down immediately, but looked down at the face twisted in extreme terror beneath his foot.
"As for your head," he paused, "it's too filthy; it would dirty my shoes."
With that, he moved his foot away and turned toward Hermione.
Hermione stood there dazed, watching Cassius approach her.
He still carried a faint scent of blood, but his deep blue eyes were purer and calmer than the deepest darkness of Knockturn Alley.
In this moment, Hermione felt no fear; instead, a morbid sense of security, unprecedented in her life, welled up from her heart.
So, this was absolute power.
A power that could ignore rules and morality, solving all problems directly with the most primitive violence.
"What are you dazing about?" Cassius walked up to her and, with a hand unstained by blood, wiped a streak of blood from her face. His movements were somewhat rough. "Let's go. Has your brain been rotted by the stench here?"
"I..." Hermione opened her mouth but didn't know what to say.
"My business partner cannot be this stupid," Cassiusfrowned, stuffing the lead box into her arms. "If you come to a place like this alone again, I'll clean you up along with the rest of this trash."
Having said that, he grabbed Hermione's wrist and pulled her along, stepping over the blood and corpses as they walked out of the shop that had just witnessed a massacre.
Hermione followed stumbling behind him, pulled along by his grip. She looked down at their joined wrists, feeling the cold yet incredibly steady strength emanating from his palm.
She suddenly realized that perhaps... she could no longer live without this power.
Chapter 175: The Truth Workshop's First Delivery, Ambiguous Testing
"This will be our workshop from now on."
Cassius pushed open a dusty basement wooden door and led Hermione inside.
This was the basement of a long-defunct old bookstore on a London street corner, which Cassius had purchased in the name of House Malfoy.
He didn't like the Room of Requirement; it was too easy for Dumbledore to detect.
He needed a "Truth Workshop" that belonged entirely to him, free from any prying eyes.
The basement was large, cleaned to a spotless state by Cassius using Wandless Magic and divided into several areas: material processing, rune etching, energy infusion... various high-precision Alchemy instruments shimmered with a cold metallic luster under the magical lights.
Hermione looked at everything before her, her eyes sparkling with excitement. This was practically an alchemist's dream paradise.
"These are the first batch of samples." Hermione placed the lead box on the workbench and carefully opened it, revealing twelve walnut-sized, dark gold metal spheres inside.
These were the unit cores for "Blizzard." Each one was crafted from expensive goblin steel, with hundreds of micro-runes thinner than a hair etched onto the surface.
Cassius picked one up and held it before his eyes to examine it.
His Dual-Soul Furnace operated at an extremely high frequency, instantly analyzing the metal sphere's internal structure, rune logic, and energy circuits with perfect clarity.
"The structural strength is insufficient, the rune nesting logic has a 0.3% energy redundancy, and the cooling circuit design is simply foolish—it can only withstand standard magic infusion. Once overloaded, it will self-disintegrate before detonating."
Cassius pointed out the flaws without mercy, each one hitting the mark precisely.
Hermione's cheeks flushed slightly, half in shame and half in defiance. "That's the limit of what can be achieved with existing tools! The hardness of goblin steel is too high; ordinary etching tools simply can't complete more precise micro-carving!"
"Tools?" Cassius sneered. "Only the weak need tools."
As he spoke, he placed the metal sphere in his palm.
"Watch closely. I'll only teach you once."
In the next second, he spread the fingers of his empty hand, and from his fingertips erupted over a dozen strands of magic thread, thinner than spider silk and shimmering with a ghostly blue light.
These magic threads moved like sentient, precision scalpels, darting, cutting, and sculpting across that hard goblin steel sphere at speeds difficult for the naked eye to track.
There was no sound, no sparks.
The originally incredibly complex rune array was easily erased, restructured, and optimized under his control. He even used the magic threads to forcibly carve out a brand-new, more complex and efficient spiral cooling circuit inside the sphere.
Hermione watched, dumbfounded; this had completely transcended her understanding of magic.
This wasn't spellcasting at all; this was a god using his fingertips to create a world!
Three minutes later, Cassius withdrew the magic threads.
The exterior of the metal sphere looked unchanged, but Hermione could feel that the energy structure contained within had undergone a world-shaking transformation. It had become more restrained, more stable, and more... dangerous.
"Now, it's your turn." Cassius tossed the modified sample to Hermione and picked up another blank goblin steelsphere.
"I... I can't do it." Hermione's voice trembled slightly. This kind of miraculous micro-manipulation simply wasn't something a human could learn.
"Then terminate the partnership," Cassius's voice was bone-chillingly cold. "I have no need for a useless person who only knows how to complain."
These words were like a needle, sharply stinging Hermione's pride.
She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and mimicked Cassius's posture, attempting to force magic threads from her fingertips. But the magic she released was either as thick as rope or collapsed upon contact, unable to form stable threads at all.
"magic control isn't about brute force; it's about perception and guidance." Cassius frowned, seemingly losing patience with her clumsiness.
He suddenly stepped forward and stood behind Hermione.
Hermione's body froze instantly.
She could feel Cassius's warm breath puffing against the back of her ear, sending waves of shivers through her.
An aggressive masculine scent, mixed with a faint hint of blood and some unknown metallic aroma, enveloped her entirely.
Cassius didn't care about her reaction. He reached out and, from behind, grasped Hermione's hand that was trying to condense magic.
His palm was broad and powerful, carrying a temperature that surpassed normal humans, scalding like a furnace.
"Relax," his voice seemed to resonate directly in Hermione's mind. "Don't 'push' your magic; 'feel' it. Extend your consciousness to every magic particle, like this..."
An unimaginably vast and incredibly pure surge of magicflooded into Hermione's body through their joined hands with brute force!
Hermione let out a muffled groan, feeling as if her magiccircuits were being forcibly flushed and widened by a rushing river of lava.
Amidst the sharp pain, she clearly'saw' how Cassius's magic operated—the absolute control over every energy particle, the ease with which he constructed complex magic models as simply as breathing.
This was the most direct and overbearing form of knowledge indoctrination.
Just as Hermione's consciousness was about to be crushed by the massive flow of information, Cassius suddenly let go.
Hermione's legs went weak, and she nearly fell, only managing to steady herself by grabbing the workbench. Her face was flushed, she panted heavily, and fine beads of sweat covered her forehead, her heart racing as if it were about to jump out of her throat.
"The theory has been given to you. As for the rest, practice it yourself." Cassius stepped back two paces, returning to his cold and indifferent demeanor as if that intimate, near-embrace teaching moment had never happened.
He walked to the side, picked up a soft velvet cloth, and began to unhurriedly wipe an alchemy dagger.
Hermione looked at his cold, hard profile, and the flirtatious yet dangerous thoughts from a moment ago were instantly extinguished like a bucket of cold water. She bit her lip, a strong sense of unwillingness and competitiveness surging within her.
She picked up another goblin steel sphere, closed her eyes, and tried hard to recall the feeling of being forcibly indoctrinated, trembling as she attempted once more to condense that thread-thin magic from her fingertips.
This time, a magic thread—though crooked and flickering—finally appeared at her fingertip, truly formed.
Cassius, wiping the dagger, caught the scene out of the corner of his eye, and the corner of his mouth curled into an almost imperceptible arc of appreciation.
He picked up another sample from the table, preparing to conduct a destructive test. He didn't use a wand, but instead directly and savagely infused it with a surge of magic far exceeding the safety threshold.
"Boom—!"
With a dull roar, the metal sphere instantly exploded! A violent shockwave of energy, mixed with countless tiny metal fragments, swept out in all directions!
Hermione cried out and instinctively closed her eyes.
But the expected pain did not come.
She opened her eyes to find that Cassius had somehow stepped in front of her. All the shockwaves and metal fragments, the moment they hit his back, seemed to strike a red-hot iron plate, silently melting and being annihilated.
Cassius's body was the most indestructible shield.
He turned around, looking down at Hermione who had been forced into a corner, a hint of playful mockery on his face.
"Your safety calculations missed another item." His breath puffed against Hermione's face again, warm and ambiguous. "And that is... what should you do when the operator themselves is the greatest instability factor?"
Hermione's mind went blank; she could only stare blankly at those eyes that were close at hand, like ghostly blue abysses.
"Next time, I will need five hundred finished products." After Cassius finished speaking, he straightened up and calmly adjusted his collar. "Also, stop going to Knockturn Alley alone. You are my asset now; until your value is exhausted, I do not allow any damage to occur to it."
Leaving behind these words that were indistinguishable between concern and warning, Cassius turned and left the basement.
Leaving Hermione alone, leaning against the cold wall, her cheeks hot enough to fry an egg.