Knock! Knock! Knock!
Victor flew up to Professor McGonagall's office and knocked on the window.
Inside, Professor McGonagall heard the noise and assumed it was another one of the school's confused owls flying into the window, so she ignored it. But when she heard the sound again, she looked up and vaguely saw a figure outside the window. She quickly put on the spectacles hanging around her neck.
"Professor McGonagall, may I come in?" Victor knocked on the window again.
"Oh! Goodness me!" Professor McGonagall quickly stood up, ran to the window, opened it, and said, "Get in here!"
Victor flew into the office, where there was a roaring fireplace. From the window, he could see the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.
"Mr. Dreyar, do you have any idea that you have severely violated school rules?" Professor McGonagall said angrily. "Students are not allowed to use magic in the corridors!"
"I didn't use it in the corridors; I only used it after I got to the lawn," Victor said with a wide, innocent smile.
This statement left Professor McGonagall speechless, but she still said, "Given that your dangerous behavior has affected other students, ten points from Ravenclaw!"
"What?! That's not fair!" Victor protested. "I don't remember affecting anyone!"
"The Weasley twins are currently in the hospital wing. Peeves said he heard you teaching them how to fly with the Levitation Charm!"
"..."
This time, it was Victor's turn to be speechless. It was true that he was partially to blame. But he hadn't expected Fred and George to be so bold as to use the Levitation Charm to chase Peeves without even practicing it properly.
Professor McGonagall saw the look on Victor's face and sighed. His impression on her was already quite deep. The first time they met, Victor had shown an ability that was far beyond the norm. She had assumed that such a student would be proud or arrogant, but Victor had shown a maturity and politeness far beyond his age.
During the Sorting Ceremony, he had accomplished a feat she herself had done in her youth, and today, his flying had caused a significant stir throughout the school.
Professor McGonagall slowly sat back down in her chair, her face returning to its usual stern expression. She asked Victor, "Mr. Dreyar, the reason I asked you to come here is to find out how advanced you are in your magical studies."
He knew this was coming, but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. In reality, Victor wasn't afraid to show his abilities. Lying low wasn't his style, and pretending to be weak was out of the question, as it would be too easy to actually become weak.
His principle was simple: if no one bothers him, he won't bother them. As long as everyone was happy and no one actively caused trouble, he couldn't be bothered with other trivial matters.
Too much scheming would only give him gray hair.
Of course, Victor also couldn't reveal everything, not because of anything else, but because it would cause a lot of trouble. So, in response to Professor McGonagall's question, Victor gave a vague answer: "I know everything I should."
This wasn't the answer Professor McGonagall wanted, but it was what she had expected. From his response, she could infer that Victor's magical skills had already reached a very high level.
"Alright, I understand," Professor McGonagall said, nodding and not pressing him further. "You can go now, but I must warn you again: do not use magic indiscriminately inside the school. Try to keep a low profile and don't disturb your fellow students!"
"Okay…" Victor pretended to agree, but in his heart, he thought differently. Tell a mage from Fairy Tail to keep a low profile? Impossible! If the old geezers on the Magic Council heard that, they would probably say Professor McGonagall was mad.
After leaving Professor McGonagall's office, Victor continued on to the library as planned. The Hogwarts library had at least ten thousand books, thousands of bookshelves, and hundreds of narrow aisles. It was the most valuable collection and treasure of Hogwarts since its founding.
The librarian was Madam Irma Pince. She was a thin, old woman who looked like a underfed vulture. She had a special ability to immediately find and punish students who damaged books. She was also an irritable witch, especially when she found someone trying to harm her cherished books.
Victor had to admit that he was overwhelmed by Madam Pince's powerful presence. The raw, unrestrained madness she exuded for her books was something else. Victor knew that he shouldn't mess with her.
After looking around the library, Victor found that most of the books on the shelves were history books, storybooks, and biographies. There were very few books on magical knowledge, and the ones that were there only contained simple information about the spell's inventor, its creation process, its use, etc. The knowledge in them wasn't even as detailed as that in The Standard Book of Spells.
"What's going on?"
"Hogwarts has been around for so long, and this is all it has collected?"
Victor complained indignantly after his tour of the library. So, he decided to turn his attention to the Restricted Section on the fifth floor, certain that he would find what he was looking for there. But he couldn't go there openly, so he would have to find another way.
Without any luck in the library, Victor returned to the Ravenclaw common room, which also had over a thousand books. He pushed open the window of the common room and jumped onto the carpet. As he stood up and dusted himself off, he saw a beautiful blonde-haired girl standing not far away, holding a book and staring at him.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your reading," Victor said, scratching his head awkwardly. "Don't mind me. Just continue!" With that, he walked toward the bookshelf in the alcove.
"You're Victor Dreyar, aren't you?"
"Uh… that's me!"
When the girl behind him called his name, Victor stiffly turned around and nodded.
"I'm Penelope Clearwater, a fourth-year!" Penelope introduced herself and then quickly walked up to Victor. "I heard you know a flying spell. Can you teach me?"
"I've been flipping through books here for a long time, but I can't find a spell that allows you to fly stably like you did this morning!"
"..."
Victor was speechless at the girl's sudden request. It wasn't because of Penelope's forwardness, but because he couldn't believe that in all the years of the European wizarding world's development, there was no spell that allowed a wizard to fly without a broomstick.
"Miss Clearwater…"
"Just call me Penelope!"
Victor was interrupted as soon as he spoke. He looked at Penelope's eyes, which were filled with a thirst for knowledge that was somehow both clear and a little foolish.
"Penelope, the spell I used was the Levitation Charm…"
"No! That's impossible!" He was interrupted again before he could finish. Penelope immediately refuted him. "You definitely didn't use the Levitation Charm, at least not the one in the books! Did you modify the spell?"
"Hmm?!"
When he heard that, Victor immediately stopped being dismissive. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Why do you think that?"
"The Levitation Charm can't control objects that are outside of your line of sight. At first, I thought you cast the charm on your clothes or shoes, but I noticed that your attention was always distracted, both this morning and at noon. That means you weren't using the Levitation Charm in the traditional sense."
"And it's the same with the Scourgify spell you used at the Sorting Ceremony. No one has ever been able to remove the grime from the Sorting Hat with that charm, but you did. Both of these events indicate that you are very likely able to modify spells!"
My goodness!
He had heard before that Ravenclaws were incredibly smart, but he hadn't expected it to be so true! Or was this just a rare occurrence? Victor had truly not expected someone to be able to conclude that he had modified the spells just based on two simple events. That required an immense amount of knowledge to distinguish the fundamental difference between the spells he used and traditional ones.
"You're right, the spell I used wasn't the traditional Levitation Charm," Victor sighed, a hint of helplessness in his smile. "But I'm sorry, Penelope, I can't teach you."
"I can't tell you the specific reason, but I can tell you that you can achieve the same kind of flight without my modified Levitation Charm."
"But you can't keep your eyes on yourself, just like a person can't lift themselves up," Penelope said.
"You're wrong. You can use another pair of eyes to watch yourself; you just ignored it." With that, Victor gently raised his wand, and a chair next to him suddenly turned into a mirror. "I'm sure you, a clever girl, will find the answer!"
With that, Victor turned around and continued toward the bookshelves.
In reality, all of the spells Victor used had been modified into magic circles with Origin. However, because he wasn't using their full power, the magic circles just flashed by during the casting process, so no one could notice them.
The reason Victor refused Penelope wasn't because he was afraid of the magic circles being exposed, but because learning them wasn't something that could be done in a day. There was a systematic learning process, and teaching it to someone would be a long and arduous process with little reward.
In Earth Land, all mages, when they began to learn magic, had to first learn how to cast basic magic circles. They had to learn how to inscribe the runes, how to make them stable, how to pour mana into the formed magic circle without it exploding out of control, and finally, how to cast the spell stably.
These were all fundamental things that needed to be learned from a young age, even for Victor, who had the incredibly powerful Origin.
After learning the basics of magic circles, a person would have the ability to become a mage. They could then start practicing their awakened magic or learn traditional magic.
But there was one thing to note: whether a person learned magic on their own or through traditional means, they could only practice one or two types of magic at most.
The reason for this was that different types of magic had unique and incompatible magic circles. If a person made a slight mistake in the details when forming the magic circle, it could easily cause the spell to fail or the magic circle to explode out of control, severely injuring the caster.
Victor was only able to bypass these restrictions because of his powerful Origin.
So, with such a complex system of practice and no teaching materials to help, Victor was not willing to spend so much time teaching someone, especially since he didn't even know what Penelope's character was like.
If he were to recklessly teach her about magic circles, who knows what a "plunderer of knowledge" like her would do with it. It was better to be cautious. However, the incident with Penelope did give Victor a little something to think about.
As time went on, the power of his magic circles was bound to be exposed, so he needed to find a suitable way to eliminate unnecessary trouble as early as possible.