Realising that his not-yet-complete Patronus was, in all likelihood, Pangu, made Theodore's heartbeat slam wildly against his ribs.
In the original books, the most powerful Patronus ever mentioned was Dumbledore's phoenix, which could casually drive off hundreds of Dementors.
But if Theodore's Patronus really was Pangu—even if it couldn't possibly possess the full, heaven-splitting might of the true Pangu from the Great Desolation—its upper limit would still be far beyond a phoenix.
The sheer status of it was off the charts.
He even had a faint sense that once his Patronus fully manifested, it would come with a very pleasant surprise attached.
Just then, he paused and turned his head toward the depths of the Restricted Section, brows knitting.
"…Hm?"
Previously, even after he'd scrubbed over a hundred volumes, the remaining books had still been an endless sea, vanishing into the gloom.
Deeper in, strange currents of magic still pulsed and twisted.
But the moment his lotus Patronus appeared, the entire Restricted Section had calmed.
All those powerful, temperamental grimoires buried in the depths felt his Patronus and… submitted.
The magic in them folded in on itself like scolded dogs, settling into a wary, obedient silence.
Now, in that hush, Theodore sensed something else:
A faint call from the very back of the stacks.
Come…
The magic in that call felt old—ancient—and for a moment it dragged his mind back to the giant squid in the Black Lake. There was a similar flavour, a related echo in the power.
But before he could fully fix on it, the call cut off, as brief as a lightning flash.
If not for the System, he might have written it off as an illusion.
[Deep within the Demon Grotto, you sense a fleeting opportunity flash by and vanish.
Your cultivation is insufficient; the timing for Origin Law has not yet arrived.]
Theodore's eyes narrowed.
"Ancient magic?" he murmured.
"That would make sense. The Four Founders definitely came into contact with it."
"If Godric Gryffindor really did become the giant squid and lingered here at Hogwarts, and ancient magic surfaced briefly a century ago… then it's never truly left. It's just sealed—waiting for the right trigger."
"Today, I used the ancient staff to cast the Patronus Charm. That, plus the… special nature of my Patronus, might have brushed against that seal."
He turned the idea over a few more times in his head.
Then he deliberately let it go.
Anyone else, having confirmed the existence of ancient magic, might have gone completely mad—ready to spend a lifetime chasing scraps of it.
To Theodore, though, ancient magic was… a luxury.
Nice to have, sure.
But his life and death did not depend on it.
His true power came from the Great Desolation System; in a real fight, that was what he'd be relying on.
For everyday Hogwarts problems, the normal spells were already more than enough.
Since the System itself had said his cultivation was too low and the timing wasn't right, there was no point in groping blindly around the Restricted Section like a headless chicken.
Besides, he thought, a glint of excitement lighting his eyes, there was another spell he was a lot more interested in testing right now.
"Fiendfyre, Transfiguration, and my Control Fire talent—using those, I already managed a knock-off version of Fire God, Open the Way," he mused.
"But compared to the true version that Dumbledore uses, it was missing a crucial element: the Patronus."
"It only had the shape, not the soul."
"Now, though… I know the Patronus Charm. Even if mine is incomplete, it should be enough to meet the basic requirements of the real Fire God Opens the Way."
He'd been itching to get this spell right for a long time.
He couldn't help it.
Sure, it probably wasn't as lethal as him going all out with Adamantine Body, Unclouded Mind and Staffwork Reaches the Divine.
But the style was unmatched.
It had been impressive enough in the films; in a real magical world, a fully realised Fire God Opens the Way would be downright awe-inspiring.
And someday, when he finally managed to refine something on the level of Samadhi True Fire, this spell would scale with it.
Learning it early could only help.
His gaze slid to the new talent floating on his System panel.
Reversed Demonic Source.
If this talent could flip demonic spells into righteous ones…
What would happen if he used it on Fiendfyre instead of ordinary flames?
The thought made him smile.
He left the Restricted Section and headed straight for the Room of Requirement.
"First things first," he said quietly once he was inside. "Accept Reversed Demonic Source."
At his word, the four characters on the rewards list blazed clear and bright.
The moment the talent settled, he felt it—an instinctive comprehension of baleful energy, of twisted, vicious techniques.
Not only the ability to wield them, but to strip away their malice, reverse their nature, and reforge them into upright, righteous arts.
Using evil to enter the Dao.
Using evil to crush evil.
His curiosity stirred.
"Sectumsempra," he said.
The slicing curse burst from his wand.
Under the influence of Reversed Demonic Source, it no longer felt like a black curse at all.
Something invisible tore through the air, a razor-edged blade of will that split the room's silence in two—open, righteous, unstoppable.
It was less a curse now, and more like the flying sword of a cultivator—a pure, lethal arc of sword-qi.
This was no twisted soul-rending hex; it was more akin to a cutting charm taken to its absolute peak.
Theodore's eyes lit up.
"So it does work on magic."
"Then what about the Unforgivables?"
His expression darkened, thoughtful. He lifted his wand again.
"Spirit Unmoored."
The mind-controlling curse, stripped of its insidious, worming influence, became something else entirely—a concentrated blast of mental force.
Next came the Cruciatus.
"Cruciatus."
Under Reversed Demonic Source, it fractured into countless hair-fine threads of energy, slipping through a body's meridians and acupoints.
Cast with killing intent, it could rupture those points and shatter the channels, leaving a foe destroyed from the inside out.
Cast with benevolence, though, the same threads could open those points, clear blockages, invigorate the blood and qi, even hasten cultivation.
It had become a double-edged needle—a torture curse turned into something perilously close to a healing art.
As for the Killing Curse…
The sickly green light darkened, collapsing into a streak of deep black radiance, its core saturated with the concept of annihilation.
Where that black brilliance passed, anything it touched crumbled instantly into dust.
Theodore watched the last motes fade, then lowered his wand, satisfied.
Like this, he'd picked up a handful of terrifying trump cards.
And as long as he didn't shout the original incantations at the top of his lungs, no one would ever recognise them as Unforgivables.
That alone would spare him a world of trouble.
He wasn't done yet.
With a thought, he summoned the Fiendfyre he'd practiced before.
The black, writhing inferno burst forth—
—then shifted.
Under the gentle, unstoppable pressure of Reversed Demonic Source, it shed its malice like a snake shedding its skin.
The flames burned gold-red, pure and steady, each flicker infused with a sense of sacred permanence.
They no longer devoured whatever they touched indiscriminately.
They judged.
Any trace of evil, of corruption or hateful residue, would be seized and burned away to nothing.
Theodore knew this fire.
Gubraithian Fire.
The Everlasting Flame.
The exact opposite of Fiendfyre—one of the rarest, most revered magical fires in existence.
In canon, there were only a tiny handful of witches and wizards who could even work with it.
Only one had ever been shown to truly wield it in battle: Albus Dumbledore.
And back in the original story, when Dumbledore had unleashed Fire God, Open the Way in the cave… the flames he'd called up had clearly not been a simple Incendio.
They must have been Gubraithian Fire.
Theodore took a slow breath.
"The last piece," he whispered, "is finally in place."
"So what happens… if I use that for Fire God Opens the Way?"
He closed his eyes.
Inside, Control Fire at Will stirred.
The Gubraithian Fire gathered at the tip of his wand, compressing into a dense, roaring sphere—holy and unstoppable.
Above it, his thirty-six-tier lotus turned lazily in silver light, Pangu's incomplete shadow crouched there like a promise.
The two lights—sacred flame and silver lotus—reflected and fed into one another.
Then Theodore stepped forward and swept his wand.
A path of golden fire unfurled before him—
And in that instant, the true Fire God Opens the Way blazed into being, stretching forward in a blazing, sovereign road of light.
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