After reading just a few lines, Rowena's face fell. No matter how she looked at it, this thing felt like a pile of nonsense, akin to "people won't be hungry as long as they eat," or "tomorrow's temperature will either be above zero or below zero."
Salazar had been right. For Helga's student to reach this point, Helga's efforts accounted for at most half of it.
What was even more infuriating was that, in her current state, unless she dragged Granger down into the dungeons, she couldn't even put in that much effort herself.
"Salazar, what about your metho—"
"I cut off a portion of my domain and let the two kids carry it with them," Rhys said generously, directly telling Rowena his solution.
After all, to reach his level, Rowena would still need to work quite a bit harder.
After hearing Salazar's solution, Rowena fell silent. The requirements of that method seemed a bit too high for her. Moreover, her domain leaned more toward offense, and compressing it would be far more difficult than it was for Salazar.
Neither of their solutions seemed particularly suitable for her.
It was like asking friends how to get a child into Oxford—one answered that they'd bought the child a few guidebooks, while the other said he'd donated thirty million pounds to the school. For her, neither option was very realistic.
Rowena found it hard to believe that her own student would also possess extraordinary talent; the odds were simply too low.
Helga stood to the side, listening to everything, her heart secretly stirring with excitement. Salazar's method seemed like something she might be able to reference as well. She had already tried compressing her domain before, but now that her student had taken that step, would doing so again even have much effect?
"You two really do manage to surprise me," Rowena said after thinking it over seriously, praising her two old friends. "To come up with such creative methods."
Rowena spoke lightly on the surface, but inwardly she was anxious.
Setting aside the missing Gryffindor, among the three of them, only her student had yet to explore the threshold of a domain, putting her firmly at the bottom. How could that not make her restless?
Since when had Ravenclaw students been at the bottom? That was simply unacceptable.
So she decided to give Granger a bit of a push and apply some pressure. Lately, she'd been completely absorbed in her sandbox world and had truly neglected that child—this was her own fault. But better late than never. Starting now, guiding her toward knowledge of domains still wasn't too late. And if she remembered correctly, Granger had that…
One of Helga's actions had unintentionally stimulated the other two founders, causing them to significantly advance the timing of teaching their students about domains. It was hard to say whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
Watching the ever-changing expression on Rowena's face, Rhys felt a vague sense of unease. This woman, when she grew anxious, was extremely troublesome. There was a real chance she might cause a major disaster.
"Rowena, there's no need to be anxious. Domains aren't something you can rush. I'm troubled over Astoria's domain too…" Rhys tried to calm her.
"Yes, yes," Helga chimed in from the side, worried that Ravenclaw might do something extreme.
Ravenclaw gave a soft "mm," indicating that she had listened.
"I plan to invite Granger down to the dungeons and try your method on her, Helga." Although she had agreed to her friends that she wouldn't be overly hasty, Rowena still wanted to bring Hermione into the dungeons and have her attempt to awaken a domain here.
To be honest, both Rhys and Helga very much wanted to refuse.
This place really wasn't a good environment for awakening a domain. But based on their experience dealing with Ravenclaw, they both knew that if they didn't go along with this proposal, she would simply act on her own and come up with another way around them.
That would be even more troublesome in the end.
"Let us stay here with you. We have experience," Helga said, trying to add a condition while agreeing, but Rowena rejected it without mercy.
"No. The two of you are too proficient with domains—especially Salazar, who has just undergone a second awakening. I'm worried the fluctuations you emit unconsciously will interfere with Granger."
Rowena's reasoning was a bit far-fetched, but her meaning was clear: she didn't want her two old friends interfering in Hermione's guidance.
"Can't it be done in your private classroom? This place is beneath a seal, after all," Rhys made one last attempt.
"The power I can project there right now is far too weak. Unless the two of you find a way to get me out of here, I can't help Granger awaken in my private classroom."
That was essentially Rowena's "tear the roof off" demand. With their more moderate temperaments, Helga and Rhys immediately agreed to let Hermione enter the sealed area to attempt awakening her domain.
Compared to tearing off the roof, opening a skylight was much easier to accept.
"You need to keep things under control," Rhys said seriously. "If something goes wrong with the seal… it'll be very troublesome. Those unresolvable contaminations would only be the minor part…"
"I know, I know. I've got it," Rowena waved her hand, indicating she understood the gravity of the situation.
The atmosphere among the three seemed to ease. Rowena then had Rhys prepare a few more Memory Bubbles for her, each containing different food flavors.
After chatting for a while and also discussing the competition to be held next year, Rhys and Helga left the seal.
On the way back to the common room, thinking about how the two of them had treated Rowena, a trace of guilt rose in Helga's heart. She couldn't help asking, "Salazar, is it really okay for us to treat Rowena like this? After all, she is—"
"Think carefully about the experiments she conducted back then and the messes she caused," Rhys interrupted her directly, lifting his head to look at Helga.
"Anyway, Dumbledore is the Headmaster now, and you're a professor at the school. If something goes wrong, it'll be you lot cleaning up after her. Just a reminder—my current identity is a student. Whatever Rowena gets up to has nothing to do with me, not even a Knut."
Helga clicked her tongue, and that bit of guilt in her heart vanished without a trace.
Rowena Ravenclaw, you'd better stay obediently inside that dungeon seal. It's for everyone's good…
By the time they returned to the common room, it was already past curfew. The students still staying at the school had all fallen asleep, but Rhys didn't head to the dormitory like the others.
After a quick wash, he sat down by the fireplace in the common room and began reading the book Hermione had given him. It had been two and a half years since he awakened, yet he still hadn't let go of his thirst for knowledge.
Over the course of nearly a thousand years, both the magical and non-magical worlds had produced an immense amount of knowledge. Rhys's attitude toward it was singular—an insatiable hunger.
At this moment, a concept proposed by Muggles firmly caught his attention.
_____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI