After Mrs. Pince left with her reminder about keeping quiet, Adrian settled into his chosen seat and looked around the study area. The silence felt different from the common room's constant chatter, here, the quiet had purpose. He could actually think without Ron's commentary or the background noise of other students.
"A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" looked manageable enough, thick, but not impossibly dense. Adrian settled into his chair and began reading at his normal pace, wanting to establish a baseline before testing the Study Genius card.
An hour crawled by, and he'd barely made it through a third of the book. The magical theory demanded constant attention, forcing him to reread passages multiple times just to grasp the basic concepts. After some debate, he decided to push through and finish the entire thing before activating the experience card.
Another hour and a half later, Adrian finally closed the book with a weary sigh. His brain felt like mush. These old magical texts had the most irritating habit of using ten words where one would do, as if complexity somehow made the magic more impressive. Coming from a world of straightforward textbooks, the flowery academic prose was giving him a headache.
"Maybe this is just how wizards write," he muttered, wondering if overcomplicated explanations were actually part of magical tradition.
He definitely couldn't claim to understand half of what he'd just read.
[Ding!]
[After careful reading, you find "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" somewhat tedious and difficult to follow. Transfiguration proficiency slightly increased. Reading progress: 27%]
The system notification made Adrian pause. This was the first time he'd gotten reading feedback outside of class. The difference seemed to be completing an entire magical text rather than just skimming chapters.
He frowned at the system's assessment. While some sections had been challenging, "tedious and difficult to follow" seemed harsh. He'd grasped most of the main ideas, even if the details remained fuzzy.
The 27% progress made more sense though. Reading something once didn't mean you'd actually absorbed it. Otherwise every student would ace their O.W.L.S after a single cramming session.
"Alright, let's see what this Study Genius card actually does," Adrian whispered, spending his hard-earned 100 academic points.
[Study Genius Experience Card activated. Remaining time: 59:59]
The change hit him like a lightning bolt. Something shifted in his mind, not painful, but startling in its intensity. All the knowledge he'd struggled through suddenly reorganized itself, connections forming between concepts that had seemed completely unrelated. Within seconds, his thoughts crystallized into sharp focus.
It was like switching from a broken radio to high-definition television.
When Adrian opened his eyes, he looked down at the Transfiguration book with entirely new understanding. Without even opening it, he could recall every passage with perfect clarity. The confusing sections now made complete sense when viewed in proper context.
"A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" had obviously been revised dozens of times to serve as Hogwarts' standard first-year text. What had seemed like pretentious academic babble before now revealed itself as precisely chosen terminology with specific magical meanings.
Adrian reopened the book and began reading again, this time with full comprehension. His enhanced mind quickly identified the exact sections that had given him trouble during the first pass.
Page three, paragraph two. Page seventeen, the entire middle section. His hands moved swiftly through the text as concepts that had required careful consideration before now seemed almost elementary.
In less than twenty minutes, he'd worked through the entire book again.
[Ding!]
[After careful reading, you find "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" straightforward and well-organized, presenting no significant challenges. Transfiguration proficiency greatly increased.]
[Reading progress: 100%!]
[Reading reward: 5 Grade points]
[Transfiguration has reached Level 1!]
[Current proficiency: (12/200)]
[Level reward: 5 Grade points]
Two notifications appeared as Adrian set the book aside. The level increase didn't come with any dramatic surge of power or mystical knowledge download. He simply felt more confident about Transfiguration theory and practice.
The basic match-to-needle transformation from class now seemed completely doable. Even with his mismatched wand, success was just a matter of proper focus and technique.
This confirmed his earlier suspicion about the system. The proficiency levels didn't magically grant him new abilities, they represented his actual knowledge and skill development through legitimate study and practice.
With thirty-seven minutes left on the Study Genius card, Adrian wasted no time. He quickly returned to the shelves and selected "Detailed Explanation of Basic Magical Principles," a much thicker volume covering theoretical foundations behind common spells.
Under normal circumstances, this type of dense theoretical material would have put him to sleep within minutes. But with his enhanced mental state, Adrian found himself genuinely fascinated by the content. Complex magical theory seemed engaging rather than exhausting, and he absorbed information at an incredible rate.
He was so immersed in the reading that he barely registered the system notifications, completely focused on expanding his magical understanding.
About halfway through the text, Adrian's expression suddenly shifted. A strange fog descended over his mind, forcibly interrupting his concentration. His enhanced clarity began fading rapidly.
The sensation was deeply unsettling, like being dragged out of a vivid dream back to boring reality. One moment he'd been thinking with crystal clarity, and the next his thoughts felt sluggish and unfocused.
Adrian stared blankly at the open page, struggling to adapt to the jarring transition. The magical theory that had seemed brilliantly clear moments before now appeared frustratingly complex again.
After sitting in confusion for several minutes, he checked the system interface and realized exactly sixty minutes had passed. The Study Genius card had expired.
He looked down at the half-finished book and tried to continue reading, but the remaining content felt impossibly difficult. His reading speed had dropped to a crawl, making each paragraph a struggle.
After forcing himself through a few more pages, Adrian sighed and closed the book. No point torturing himself without the enhancement.
The hour of enhanced studying had taught him valuable lessons about the system's capabilities. The Study Genius card didn't just improve reading speed or memory, it temporarily transformed his entire approach to learning, turning complex concepts into easily digestible information.
For someone with his average talent and wand compatibility problems, this kind of academic boost could be the difference between success and failure at Hogwarts. If he could consistently earn enough points to use these cards regularly, he might actually survive the next seven years.
Adrian gathered his things and prepared to leave the library. Ron would probably be shocked to learn he'd actually spent over three hours studying, but the time had been well invested. Now he just needed to figure out more efficient ways to earn academic points.
Because at this rate, he thought wryly, I'll graduate sometime around my thirtieth birthday.