"You're back now, aren't you? And believe me, I've never made a single mistake in all these times." Kayson, for once, showed respect to his elder, dutifully inviting Dumbledore to sit on the sofa, then continued to study the silver skeleton shimmering with purple light in the corner.
"Is this your Alchemy work?" Dumbledore asked.
"More or less. This is my integrated version of a magic field amplification skeleton. Of course, it also has some physical attack tools built in," Kayson said, continuing to add various intricate small blocks to the skeleton's spine.
"Is this an exoskeleton?" Dumbledore asked.
Kayson shook his head, "That thing needs to be put on and taken off, how troublesome."
"Could it be a simple puppet? Like an Iron Golem?"
Kayson still shook his head.
"Then what is it?"
"An endoskeleton."
"???" Dumbledore stood up. "Is it the endoskeleton I'm thinking of?"
"More or less. Do you know what the world looks like in the eyes of someone with OCD? If a pure white space has a small black dot, it will make someone with OCD very uncomfortable. But if it's an extremely chaotic space, there won't be that feeling. It's like a praying mantis blade; instead of adding two attachments to an entire human skeleton, it's better to replace the entire skeleton," Kayson explained.
"I don't quite agree with your method," Dumbledore shook his head.
"Emmm… I empathize, but if I ask you to lend me a hand, would you refuse?" Kayson said, taking off his coat.
"What else can I do?" Dumbledore sighed, pulling out his wand.
"Thanks. In fact, you don't need to use your wand; you just need to send me to St. Mungo's at the right time." Kayson said, pulling out a diamond sword and about to strike himself.
"Let me do it." Dumbledore stopped Kayson's action. With a flick of his wand, all the lines and marks drawn on Kayson's body with a marker pen were precisely cut open by magic.
"Oh, thank you very much." Kayson said, turning his back and rubbing the magically opened cuts onto the Alchemy skeleton with a hissing sound.
Swish swish swish swish swish swish… Click!
"...…And then?" Dumbledore, who witnessed everything but understood nothing, asked with a bewildered expression.
"What then? It's done." Kayson took a bottle of healing potion, given by Snape, from a nearby table, put ice cubes in it, shook it, and drank it all.
"Do you know what you just looked like?" Dumbledore said.
"Like what?"
"Like someone forcibly stuffing a second skeleton into their own body."
Kayson shrugged, "At least with this skeleton, I won't need those tiny blocks to help me cosplay the Levitation Charm."
"I want you to promise me, Kayson, that if you ever perform such dangerous human Alchemy again in the future, you must tell me, or Severus." Dumbledore, like many parents facing an adolescent child who is starting to develop their own will, earnestly advised him.
And Kayson still had that same look, "Mhm, mhm, mhm, okay, no problem, won't happen next time."
Dumbledore also knew that Kayson hadn't taken a single word he'd just said to heart, and he just sat helplessly on the sofa. "Lucius Malfoy wrote to me. Someone calling himself Vickes, using Tom's name, has gathered some Wizards and plans to cause a ruckus at this year's Quidditch World Cup."
Kayson put his clothes back on. "But what good does that do them?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "On the surface, there's no benefit. Perhaps it's just a prank, but I don't believe it. I'm more inclined to think Tom plans to fish in troubled waters. The Quidditch World Cup, what could he be interested in there?"
"Harry?" Kayson said.
"Perhaps. A diversion? You'd best not leave Harry alone that day."
Kayson put an old ice cube in his cup. "That's difficult. You can't expect me to stand by and watch innocent people get into danger, can you?"
Dumbledore naturally placed the cup in front of him and poured some wine into it. "You can take him with you. Consider it an early exposure to the dark side of the magic world."
Kayson took the glass back to himself and took a sip. "Don't tell me the Ministry of Magic plans to play dead."
"Oh, I must be responsible for our ally, Mr. Lucius. The more people who know, the more danger he's in. I've only told you this news," Dumbledore explained.
"I didn't know you were so particular before," Kayson grumbled.
"I've always been this way… Do you have confidence?"
Kayson nodded. "...I do."
"...You're not going to show me something?"
"Uh…" Kayson extended his arm, and with a click, a praying mantis blade extended from his sleeve. "I've used the Ender Cut before, but that thing isn't very effective against magical creatures with high magic resistance or powerful Wizards, so I specifically upgraded this."
Dumbledore looked at him in confusion, but he quickly reacted, cooperatively picking up a glass wine cup from the coffee table and casting a Protego Totalum on it.
"I thought you'd use yourself as a target for me," Kayson pouted and retracted the praying mantis blade, pouting.
"Although I'm old, I'm not that foolish," Dumbledore explained, picking up the wine glass that had been enchanted with Protego Totalum and tossing it casually in one direction.
The next moment, a precise piston mechanical arm suddenly appeared behind Kayson, with a sharp blade instantly piercing through the wine glass enchanted with Protego Totalum.
"....That Protego Totalum originally could remain unshaken even under the scorching of Fiendfyre....And where did you get this thing?" Dumbledore asked, looking at the mechanical arm behind Kayson.
"It's always been in my built-in skeleton," Dumbledore walked around behind Kayson to look, and sure enough... his clothes were torn with a large hole.
"Hoh, this thing certainly looks cool, but it's just too dependent on Alchemy… You should only have one, right?"
"Actually, no. I have… nine more powerful and simple mechanical arms like this!"
"..."
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