Chapter 1026
Secrets in Ancient Books
Chapter 1026 Secrets in Ancient Books
Those who touch the fragments of time glimpse the forks and countercurrents of the river;
Fragments of thought and memory have the power to distort cognition;
Fragments of love can ignite the flame of life, or sow the seeds of madness and destruction.
The fragments of the sky hold the secrets of connection and isolation, opening up kingdoms and passageways;
Fragments of vision, merging into the eyes, allow glimpses of the blurred outline of fate, yet also plunge one into deeper constraints and struggles…
This power is not docile; it is both a blessing and a curse. Those who over-absorb it will be devoured, ultimately turning into even more unstable fragments, drifting in the crevices, waiting...
Wade looked at the next page, but the contents had all become blurry.
He touched the rough, uneven paper. Several pages in the middle seemed to have been soaked in water, and the ink had smudged. Occasionally, he could make out one or two words, but he couldn't understand their meaning at all.
It wasn't until he had turned four or five pages that he could finally make out the barely legible characters:
...Pain and blindness—this was the price he paid, but it was far from enough...As dusk fell, they all left this land...
Losing protection also means losing constraints, which may be a blessing for humans and other creatures in the world.
However, the cracks always exist, just as there are a few passages in the vast ocean that are even narrower than ant holes—though narrow, they are not entirely non-existent.
One day, the wandering souls will find the passage and return. At that time… if humanity can find a way to seal the passage, perhaps that day can be delayed for a very long time…
The shredded paper had jagged, jagged edges—someone had torn off the rest of the paper.
Wade closed the book, a slight tremor running through his heart.
He recalled Dumbledore's mention of the "cosmic wound," the "world rift" that Rick and Amanda had been searching for for years, and the "Fragments of Origin" mentioned in this book...
They all seem to be the same thing.
But the subtle differences in those extremely similar yet distinct names made Wade realize a more crucial point:
Their sources of information are separate.
Different people, through completely different paths, come into contact with almost the same thing.
This means that "thing" may not be a mere myth, nor a figment of the imagination born from the ancients' limited understanding of the world...
It is very likely true.
A real, extremely dangerous fact that has been recorded in fragments and distorted ways by many different people throughout history—driven by fear, ambition, or curiosity—in their own ways.
Wade silently pondered those words in his mind—
"Wound".
"Gap".
"Fragments".
This doesn't sound like a normal description.
Generally speaking, descriptions like "divine blessing" are more reasonable, as they add a layer of mystique to the power recipient.
The words representing incompleteness collided repeatedly in Wade's mind, making a sound like ice shattering, causing him to shudder involuntarily.
The metaphors are not like poetic embellishments made by scholars to show off their literary talent, but rather descriptions that are as close as possible to what they saw and heard, barely grasped from their limited language by a group of eyewitnesses who actually faced a certain scene and were extremely shocked and impacted.
—The irregular, unsettling state of incompleteness left behind after something complete and incredibly powerful has been brutally destroyed.
The scene was so horrifying that, in later generations, no matter how many times it was recounted and distorted, its core imprint remained stubbornly like a scar.
It felt as if an electric current exploded from his scalp and quickly ran down his spine. Countless tiny goosebumps instantly rose on Wade's skin, and his body hair stood on end.
He touched his arm and took several deep breaths to suppress the chill that surged up in his heart.
When he looked up, it was as if a dazzling galaxy had appeared before his eyes—the fireflies had returned.
They hovered in front of Vader, trying to point out the locations of the books they had found.
Wade stood up and wrote down the names of all the banned books. Each one looked ancient and profound; some even had titles that sparked the imagination—
"The Realm of Non-Existence," "Deciphering the Power of the Gods," "The Forgotten Covenant," "The Fairy's Lies and Truth"...
Wade thanked the fireflies softly, put them all back in his pencil case, picked up a book called "The Lies and Truths of Fairies," sat down cross-legged against the wall, and began to read.
For a long time, the wizarding world's general understanding of fairy magic has been limited to its unparalleled metalworking skills and financial acumen. This is certainly true, but it is far from the whole truth.
As is well known, fairies have a strong possessive desire for what they create. No matter how high the reward offered by humans, fairies always believe that the owner of an item is always its creator.
For example, that famous sword.
Godric Gryffindor hired King Legnac I of the goblins to forge a sword for him, but after the sword was completed, Legnac I refused to hand it over to his employer, Gryffindor.
After Gryffindor took the sword, Legnac I sent men to retrieve it several times, but they were all repelled by Gryffindor. As a result, the great wizard is still called a "thief" by the goblins to this day.
Even now, though the goblin king who forged the sword and Gryffindor are long gone, the goblins still insist that the sword belongs to them.
There is another well-known fact—some people claim that fairies are extremely greedy, which is a slander against the race.
They guarded the vast Gringotts, safeguarding the wealth of countless wizards, yet never stole from them. The wizards' trust in the goblins far exceeded their expectations.
Based on this fact, I have an idea:
The fairies' obsession with the things they create may not just be a difference in the concepts of the two races, but rather because they do indeed infuse the items with a unique and unreplicable quality during the forging process.
That quality endowed their creations with extraordinary power, and made them regard their works as "offspring" in a certain sense.
What wizards consider "purchase" is actually "lease" or "employment" to fairies, so they cannot tolerate a permanent change of ownership...
The plain language, carrying a hint of "I am the only one who is sober in a world of drunks," is like a notebook casually scribbled down by a wizard out of sheer boredom.
—How did a book that is completely harmless and contains no dark magic end up in the restricted section?
Halfway through reading, this thought involuntarily came to Vader's mind. Then he turned the page, and a delicate hand-drawn black and white illustration caught his eye.
The scenes are not bloody or dangerous; they simply document the development and growth of fairies, humans, and hybrids from the embryonic stage.
With an academic research mindset, Wade stared at the three similar pictures for a while, feeling as if he were seeing a diagram of human development from his junior high school biology textbook. Only, the fairy's pointed ears were already becoming more pronounced during the embryonic stage, and apart from that, the level of detail in the black and white illustrations was far inferior to the textbooks he had seen before.
As a wizard, this author has quite a research spirit...
Suddenly, a fact struck Wade, causing his hand holding the book to tremble slightly involuntarily.
—In ancient times, there was no ultrasound, and this is not a computer-generated 3D rendering. How did the author know the state of embryos of different races in the mother's body?
Could it be a magical artifact similar to Moody's Eye?
However, the Magic Eye was a prosthetic eye that Moody commissioned after losing one of his eyes. It was an excellent alchemical artifact created by a modern alchemist, rather than a magical artifact like the Pensieve that had been passed down from ancient times.
Ancient alchemists were certainly very skilled, but...
With mixed feelings, Wade turned to the next page and saw the author had written:
To verify this hypothesis, I have decided to conduct the most rigorous experiment ever—observing from the embryonic stage to verify whether fairies possess a "trait" completely different from that of humans, and then imbuing the objects created with this "trait"...
He read two pages, then slammed the book shut, closed his eyes, and his face showed a mixture of disgust and revulsion.
—That madman, the "hybrid" he used as a control group in his experiments, even his own bloodline with a fairy…
Just then, a deliberately lowered voice faintly drifted over:
"Ron, be gentle! Are you trying to lure Mrs. Pince over here?"
“It wasn’t me!” Ron said, feeling wronged.
“It wasn’t me either!” Harry quickly added.
"Whoever it is, keep your voice down!" Hermione said impatiently, her voice low and serious, "We're not here for a tea party!"
Vader looked up and saw through the window between the bookshelves that it was already bright outside, and the snow on the windowsill was gilded with a soft, pale gold by the morning light.
He had spent the entire night in the restricted book section and had hardly noticed the passage of time.
Without the slightest hesitation, Vader immediately picked up his wand and silently tapped himself on the body.
A chill instantly spread throughout his body, making him appear transparent as if he were blending into the surrounding books and shadows.
Wade stood up, shoved the book back onto the shelf, and silently walked back down the narrow aisle to the regular book section.
Immediately afterward, Mrs. Pince, like a swift gust of wind, quietly appeared before the Gryffindor trio.
Seeing that the three of them were quietly engrossed in reading their newspapers, she gave them a stern look, then turned and headed back to inspect the restricted book section.
Feeling that stern gaze finally disappear into the distance, Harry and his two friends couldn't help but quietly breathe a sigh of relief.
"...I was almost kicked out by Mrs. Pince."
Ron muttered under his breath, scratching his head in frustration: "But Harry, we don't even have any specific keywords, all we know is time magic and someone is injured, how are we supposed to find out?"
Harry's eyes darted around as he said, "It shouldn't be too long, just recently... Didn't Parvati say that she also remembered seeing similar news a while ago?"
“Yeah, just like you—I forgot when it was and which newspaper it was!” Ron sighed helplessly.
Hermione, without looking up, said, "An event involving time magic and causing serious consequences would have been widely discussed in Britain by now; it's impossible for everyone to forget it!"
"So this must have happened overseas. We focused our investigation on the international news section, but there wasn't much content there!"
Upon hearing the words "time magic," Vader, who had originally intended to leave quietly, paused. He moved to a spot between two rows of bookshelves nearby, and after confirming that no one else was watching, he dispelled the Disillusionment Charm.
He straightened his slightly disheveled school robe, waved his wand, and the wrinkles at the hem from sitting on the ground became smooth and even. The weariness from staying up all night on his face was also swept away, and he looked radiant.
Wade turned the corner and took a few steps, and saw Harry, Harry, and his two companions sitting around a long table by the window, on which was a thick stack of the Daily Prophet.
Each of them had a dozen or so newspapers in front of them, and they were busy reading the international news.
Vader stepped forward naturally, casting a silencing spell around them, before asking, "What are you looking for?"
Harry was startled when he suddenly heard the familiar voice and abruptly looked up.
Upon seeing that the person who came was indeed Vader, a hint of nervousness flashed across his face, and his hand instinctively covered a newspaper spread out in front of him—even though he knew that there wasn't a single word related to time magic on it.
Hermione looked up and said frankly, "Harry recently heard that someone was shrunk by time magic, and he's been a bit concerned. We've asked quite a few people, and some said they also have a vague recollection of it, but they've forgotten where they saw it, so we came to the library to look for it."
“Oh, yes, that’s it.” Harry quickly chimed in, trying to make his tone sound natural, and added, “Because of what we’ve been through, I’m worried it might be related to… Voldemort.”
“Alright, no need for so much explanation, we all know what’s going on!” Ron patted Harry on the shoulder and asked directly in a deep voice, “Have you heard about this, Wade?”
Wade: "..."
He choked for a moment, and Harry and Hermione's expressions immediately became somewhat strange.
Although Ron had been with SSC for a few days, they still couldn't get used to the sudden change in Ron's tone when he spoke to Wade—
When he speaks, it always feels like they shouldn't be in school, but rather sitting at the bar of some country tavern, pipes in hand, Colt pistols on their hips, and galloping across the western wilderness.
—Well, let's be understanding of the child. They'll probably be able to adjust and return to normal after a while.
Weary, Wade pulled out a chair, sat down, reached into the pile of newspapers, rummaged through them, and then pulled out a newspaper.
After glancing at the time on the newspaper, Wade placed it in the center of the table and looked at Harry, saying, "If I remember correctly, it should be in this one."
Harry's heart skipped a beat; he had a feeling that Wade already knew what he was investigating.
Ron and Hermione immediately leaned over, and Hermione whispered, "A change of power or a conspiracy to overthrow the regime? The president of the Magical Congress of America has become a wanted criminal..."
Upon hearing this, Harry immediately forgot what he had been thinking and moved aside as well. He quickly noticed, amidst the lengthy tirade against Hawthorne, the line of text that seemed to have been inserted incidentally:
[...Ezra Hughes, the Auror Office Director, was attacked by time magic and shrunk to the size of an infant; Reginald Perez, the Director of the Floo Network Management Bureau, died as a result, his death gruesome...]
One update tonight
(End of this chapter)