— — — — — —
Over in Jeanne's villa, the French girl had wrapped herself tightly in her blankets, muttering to herself.
'Useless. Useless.'
'You're completely useless. You can't even hold onto him. Did you forget what you promised me?'
"I didn't want this either…" Jeanne whispered. "Ariana grabbed him and ran off. I didn't even get a chance to speak."
'Excuses. All excuses. That useless brain of yours was only thinking about going back to study, getting a high score, and earning his praise…'
'Idiot. You don't even know how to keep him.'
"Is that really wrong? He is already so tired. The first thing he did after his break was ask about my progress. I can't disappoint him."
'And then what? You get a few meaningless compliments, and he realizes you don't need him anymore. He'll feel free to let you grow on your own. Perfect. From now on, you'll see him less and less. You're not as good at acting cute as Ariana, far weaker than Ravenclaw, you don't have Andros's reliability, and Grindelwald is already helping him plan the world.'
'So tell me, other than hiding here to study, what can you actually do?'
"No... That can't be right!"
Jeanne burst out from under the covers. The cramped, stifling space had left her cheeks flushed and her breathing ragged, fear filling her wide eyes.
Even stranger, her hair kept flickering between gold and silver, her pupils shifting with it.
'Heh. Stupid. You can't even handle hearing the truth?'
'Girl, you ruined everything. This could have been a wonderful night. If you'd just let me come out, I could have taken him right out of that woman's arms.'
The girl's expression wavered again and again before she finally made up her mind. "Fine… after the exam, I'll hand everything over to you. If you mess it up, you disappear for good."
'Deal.'
---
Tom slept badly that night.
By the next morning, his head felt like mush. Hermione practically had to help him finish breakfast.
"What's wrong with you?" the little witch asked anxiously. She reached out to touch his forehead, then her own. "You don't have a fever…"
"I'm fine," Tom said stiffly, shaking his head. "I just need to lie down for a bit."
Hermione hurried to help him back to bed. Even after he closed his eyes, she stayed by his side, unwilling to leave.
This was really Tom's own fault. He hadn't just absorbed a full month's worth of research in one go, he'd also used his thinking talent and turbo mode to analyze it all.
That wasn't simple addition. It was brute-force multiplication.
He had to sort through every result and every unanswered question, and they came from completely different fields.
Luckily, his soul was robust, and his mental strength had been hammered through countless trials. His crash-and-reboot cycle was fast. By the afternoon, before Hermione headed to class, he was basically back to normal.
After watching him bounce around, Hermione finally believed he was fine. But she didn't make it to class—her professor, furious and wand in hand, came storming out to hunt down Tom.
"Brat! You're dragging my new student behind. Out!"
Tom: "..."
Kicked out of the estate by Nicolas, Tom sighed his way back to his own place on the mountaintop. Several spells shot into the sky, scattering the clouds. He lounged in a deck chair under the sun and took stock of his month of AFK grinding.
The resurrection magic was essentially complete. He'd even made the necessary modifications. Preparation could begin.
He'd also digested part of Medivh's communication technology. With localized tweaks, his own system could be upgraded across the board.
As for surviving in space, that was more than halfway solved.
One of his clones had also created a reliable spell: Little World.
The name said it all. It used magic to isolate a small pocket of space, keeping the internal environment identical to Earth's. A miniature atmosphere. Temperature, pressure, oxygen levels, all perfectly stable.
The framework was done. The last real hurdle was oxygen conversion.
Tom thought it over, shoved everything else aside, and decided to burn credits and finish this spell as fast as possible so he could clear the trial.
First, he went out and had the Granger family's fireplace connected to the Floo Network at the Ministry of Magic. Then he paid another visit to the Astra Abyssum Guild to restock Catherines for the new branches and give instructions for the next phase of work.
If the wizarding world were a massive online game, then Astra Abyssum had just released a server-wide event quest: preparing for the World Cup.
This wasn't limited to British wizards. Anywhere a guild branch existed, the quest sat at the very top of the job board.
From construction, to ward placement, to component manufacturing, dozens of specialized tasks were available. The pay was generous, and any wizard could find something suited to them.
The original plan was for a venue to hold 100,000 spectators. That had now been upgraded to 300,000, complete with global broadcasts and dedicated commentators.
It was set to be the largest World Cup in history. Fudge had been riding high lately.
Never mind what the truth was. To the outside world, this spectacle was the result of his brilliant leadership.
The Ministry had also set up some kind of Preparatory Committee. Fudge even stuffed Umbridge into it as his own pair of eyes. Not to seize power, just to make sure his share of the credit didn't get diluted. Crouch couldn't be bothered to stop him.
Finally, after a full day spent tying up loose ends, Jeanne's exam was naturally postponed. Ever considerate, the girl said it was fine.
Then the same night, she went straight back under the covers to continue arguing with herself.
---
Meanwhile, Tom, together with his seven mental clones, continued refining Little World.
He now had over twenty thousand credits. Turbo Mode ran normally, and the learning space was under full time acceleration.
Under this kind of insane grinding, it took only two and a half days in the real world to finish the spell completely.
With everything ready, Tom prepared to ride the Moon's perigee and shoot for the sky.
The Moon doesn't orbit the Earth in a perfect circle—it's elliptical, so its distance from Earth changes.
The distance between perigee (closest) and apogee (farthest) in the Moon's orbit is approximately 42,000 to 43,000 kilometers.
Even with Apparition, that was no small gap. Tom didn't want to waste magic unnecessarily.
...
July 13th. Perigee arrived.
Tom gazed up at the sky when the system suddenly chimed.
[Ding!]
[You have a new mission available.]
Another mission, now?
Puzzled, Tom opened the system panel. Sure enough, a new quest had popped up.
[Detected that the host is about to head to the Moon to complete a trial. Hidden achievement mission triggered: Alone Beneath the Stars.]
[Mission requirements: Once the trial begins, the study space will be temporarily closed. The host must complete the trial alone and may not communicate or converse with any other living being.]
[Mission reward: Antonidas's Lifelong Insights.]
{The sky is full of stars, yet the moon draws all eyes.}
"..."
Tom stared at the night sky. The moon hung overhead like a silver plate.
Counting travel time both ways, this trip would take about ten days. Ten days without the study space was nothing, but judging by the fine print, he also couldn't chat with Usaki to kill time. To be safe, even his clones were off-limits.
In other words, he was being asked to lock himself in solitary confinement for ten days, just with a better view. The cell just happened to be the Moon.
Tom weighed the pros and cons.
The reward was something he desperately needed.
Solitary confinement stripped a person of mental, psychological, and sensory input. No interaction, distorted sense of time, mounting pressure.
But his situation would be better than a real black room. On the Moon, he could move freely, research magic, turn the surface into a training ground, blast out a few massive craters, and explore the far side. It wasn't like sitting in a box doing nothing.
Ok. He was in.
Tom made his decision, accepted the mission, and shot into the sky as a streak of light.
He didn't fly at full speed. Magic consumption still mattered.
Two hours passed before he fully left the atmosphere.
A hazy white glow enveloped him. Tom tested it. Good, it felt no different from being on Earth, and his magic was regenerating faster than it was being used. He could now relax.
As Earth's gravity weakened, his speed steadily increased, thrust turning into acceleration.
He'd estimated it would take a day and a half to reach the Moon.
In the end, it took less than a day.
.
.
.