Staring at those lines of text, Theodore was silent for a long time. Shock didn't even begin to cover it.
Purple Cloud Palace?
Dao Ancestor Hongjun?!
Before this, Theodore had idly wondered what sort of figure the system would map to Hongjun within the wizarding world.
He'd once assumed Merlin was the likeliest candidate—after all, in the collective consciousness of wizards, Merlin was practically a proverb.
He had never imagined that "Hongjun" would appear in front of him in this way.
Even though Piercing Subtlety Heavenly Eye had only brushed against that insane aura for a fleeting instant, Theodore could say with absolute certainty:
That thing was warped beyond comprehension.
Compared to the existence that had left behind that madness, all of Voldemort's so-called Dark magic—including Horcruxes that could make even Dumbledore blanch—almost looked… upright.
If the system had tagged that presence as some notorious fiend of the Primordial World—one of the Twelve Ancestral Witches, Patriarch Minghe, Rahu and the like—Theodore would have been shocked, yes, but not this shaken.
But the system had chosen to label it as Hongjun.
Dao Ancestor Hongjun—who, in the Primordial, had merged himself with the Dao, become one with Heavenly Dao itself.
Which meant that the "Heavenly Dao" of this wizarding world…
Was that eldritch, twisted thing?
For a moment, Theodore genuinely didn't know what to say.
If that were the case, then the "I-think-therefore-it-works" style of wizard magic probably carried some terrifying, hidden price behind it.
If a wizard pushed too far beyond their ordinary limits, reaching for so-called ancient magic…
They might find themselves face-to-face with that price.
As for what truly lay behind all this—Heavenly Dao, Founders, madness—with just the scraps of information he had, even Theodore couldn't reason it out.
Theodore murmured to himself, "To learn the truth, Godric Gryffindor is still the most direct route."
"But from the look of him now, he's barely holding onto a sliver of clarity. The madness is already on the verge of swallowing his mind completely."
"I'll need a way to suppress that aura wrapped around him first…"
He sank into thought.
Using wizard magic alone? Almost impossible.
Modern healers couldn't even cure something as "simple" as the insanity inflicted on Neville's parents by repeated Cruciatus. Let alone a madness that had corroded Godric Gryffindor for centuries.
But if he used methods from the Primordial… that was a different story.
For instance: Three Lights Divine Water.
That rarely-seen wonder of the Primordial could wash away almost any filth and heal nearly any injury.
It had once saved even the toppled Ginseng Fruit Tree—one of the world's spiritual roots.
Compared to that, a mere magical madness would be nothing.
The problem was, even with Reversing Five Elements Origin Sea and its vast increase in qi intake, condensing just a single drop of Three Lights Divine Water was still a project measured in centuries.
Even for him.
But then Theodore realized:
He didn't have to start with Three Lights Divine Water.
He could take a step down—Purifying Spirit Water would do.
Purifying Spirit Water was basically the scraps-of-the-scraps left over from the process of refining Three Lights Divine Water.
But in the wizarding world?
Next to something like that, even phoenix tears would be utterly outclassed. The two weren't even comparable.
And the difficulty of condensing Purifying Spirit Water was much lower.
If all went well, he could probably manage a single drop by the end of this school year.
Theodore narrowed his eyes slightly.
"That's under natural qi absorption."
"If I can get my hands on proper pills to replenish me, dramatically increasing the rate of growth of my qi, then the time to condense Purifying Spirit Water will shrink a lot."
"And my Reversing Five Elements Origin Sea talent grows stronger the larger the Origin Sea is—the bigger the sea, the faster it devours qi."
"If I can flood it with enough pills in the short term and push its size to a certain threshold, then it'll be like starting an avalanche. My growth rate will jump to a completely different tier."
Right now, though, Theodore was pitifully poor when it came to pills or pill recipes.
The Flying Tiger Pill recipe he had was too low-level; the spiritual qi in it wasn't enough to matter much to his current needs.
And besides, Flying Tiger Pills were crucial for nurturing his Iron-Beaked Divine Eagle.
Hermes only had one restriction carved into him so far. Completing all twelve would require a horrifying number of Flying Tiger Pills; there weren't any "spares" to throw into Theodore's Origin Sea.
"I need a new pill recipe," he thought, "one specifically to assist cultivation."
His gaze slid to the line on his relationship panel linked to Madam Pince.
If he could reach Close Friend with her, he'd receive the recipe for Demon-Refining Pill.
As the Chan Sect Immortal who guarded the Demon Cavern, her close-friend reward would absolutely not be ordinary. It was perfectly suited to him.
And if he could one day reach Life-and-Death Bond with her, he'd get the recipe for Ten Thousand Beasts Gold Core.
Anything called a Gold Core in the Primordial was never trivial. Even immortals would be envious of such a pill.
"Looks like I should hurry up and finish cleaning the Restricted Section for Madam Pince," Theodore thought. "The sooner I get those two recipes, the better."
"For now, though… I should wrap up this round of talent fusions first."
His attention, which had been dragged away by that brush with madness, returned to the fusion furnace.
Reversing Five Elements Origin Sea and Piercing Subtlety Heavenly Eye had already burned through a big chunk of his reward panel.
But there were still plenty of miscellaneous talents cluttering the place that he simply didn't need anymore.
"Stuff like Crane-Like Light Step from Filch, or Peerless Martial Skill from Prefect Gemma…"
"Those can just be smelted down into Dao-rhyme."
A moment later, those talents blurred and vanished, and Theodore's Dao-rhyme counter ticked up by three wisps.
He shook his head.
"Three wisps isn't enough to upgrade anything important. I'll just hold onto it for now—save it until I can do a bigger round of enhancements."
After this round of fusion, his reward panel looked a lot cleaner.
The talents that truly defined his combat strength now were:
Reversing Five Elements Origin Sea
Proved Diamond Body Never Fails
Piercing Subtlety Heavenly Eye
Innate Talent for Spell Duels
All Things Transform
Staff Mastery Reaching the Divine
Sword Mastery Reaching the Divine
Clear Sword-Heart
Supporting those were various utility talents:
Reversed Dark Source
Blessing of Agriculture
Summon and Call Souls
Night's Ghostly Aspect
Chess Dao Excellence
Hidden Breath, Veiled Fate
Instinct to Avoid Calamity
And lastly, his divine arts and cultivation methods:
Three Heads and Eight Arms Divine Art
Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Barrier Crafting Method
Clear Glazed Bottle Crafting Method
Iron-Beaked Divine Eagle Nurturing Method
Five-Colored Lightstone Cultivation Method
Flying Tiger Battle Manual
Compared to when he had first stepped into Hogwarts, his panel was practically luxurious.
"My talents and rewards already cover every aspect of my growth," he thought.
"Honestly, a lot of them are too high-tier—I can't fully leverage them yet."
"What I really lack now is resources."
"For the time being, there's no need to stir up more storms. At most I can occasionally take some time to bully Voldemort a little, farm some extra merit."
"What matters is pills. I need those recipes, then the materials, then I fire up the furnace."
With that thought, Theodore finally left the Room of Requirement and made straight for the Restricted Section.
Over the last few days, he'd come to help tidy it several times. Together with the earlier sessions, he'd already cleaned more than eight hundred grimoires.
The thousand-book mark—the number needed to reach Close Friend with Madam Pince—was very close now.
"If all goes well, I should be able to get the Demon-Refining Pill recipe today."
With that expectation, he accepted the feather duster from Madam Pince with a bright face, and slipped back into the Restricted Section.
Madam Pince watched his retreating back, eyes full of gratitude and growing fondness.
He hadn't been at Hogwarts long, yet he'd already caused several huge sensations. His fame was, at this point, overshadowing that of the so-called Boy Who Lived.
In the past, a student with that level of attention would never have spared her—a mere librarian—more than a polite nod, let alone waste precious time helping her clean banned books.
With that kind of time, any other student would be holed up devouring those very banned books.
Thinking of this, Madam Pince made a decision in her heart.
"Perhaps," she thought, "it's time I share my little discovery with him."
"This is something Hogwarts librarians have chased for a thousand years. It's a secret passed only from librarian to librarian. Even the Headmaster knows less about it than we do."
Just then, while Theodore was dusting a shelf of particularly ominous tomes, he paused.
Ignoring the system's usual half-blind warnings about certain books being "great fiends of the Demon Cavern," a fresh line of text appeared.
[In your trials, you have repeatedly distinguished yourself among the younger generation of the Jade Void Palace. Despite this, you remain neither arrogant nor complacent, and have continued to enter the Demon Cavern to slay monsters and purge evil, greatly impressing the Guardian Immortal.]
[Having deemed you a worthy successor to the Dao of Demon-Slaying, the Guardian Immortal has resolved to tell you of a chance tied to an Innate Great Divine Power!]
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