The Learning Space fell into silence.
An awkward, sticky tension spread between them like fog that refused to lift.
Tom narrowed his eyes at Andros.
And this towering, heroic-looking man, this so-called invincible Century King, avoided Tom's gaze with the guilty instinct of someone caught lying to their teacher. His face flushed a deep, humiliating red.
The situation was now painfully clear.
Andros wasn't teasing Tom.
He genuinely did not know what the Wand-Lighting Charm or the Levitation Charm were.
The wizarding world loved to act old-fashioned, but it wasn't frozen in time. Magic kept developing, slowly and unevenly, across centuries.
That development didn't necessarily create more powerful wizards, and it didn't cause any dramatic population boom either. But in practicality, convenience, and standardized casting methods, it had advanced a lot.
Tom could see the proof in the book he had manifested in the Learning Space.
Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, by Miranda Goshawk.
Before her, no one had systematized spells in such a clean, structured way. She had basically done for magic what someone else might do for mathematics, taking chaos and giving it a framework.
And according to the book's notes, the Wand-Lighting Charm and the Levitation Charm had emerged around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Andros was from ancient Greece.
If he knew those spells, that would be the real miracle.
Tom rubbed his temple and asked the question he couldn't hold back.
"Then how did people in your time light things up and control objects?"
Andros didn't answer with words.
He silently manifested a wooden stake in the air, then hurled a fireball at it.
The stake ignited instantly, becoming a blazing torch that burned steady and bright.
"Lighting is simple," Andros said. "Fire does the job. As for moving objects, wrapping them with will and magic is not difficult."
Tom stared at the torch, then at Andros.
So basically, ancient magic was just brute force.
Efficient in the way a hammer was efficient, but subtle like a hammer too.
Andros looked faintly offended, like the modern wizarding world had personally insulted his ancestors.
"To invent separate spells for such small matters," he muttered, disbelief heavy in his tone, "and then teach them to others so casually…"
His era had been a wild, brutal age for magic. Everyone treated magic as a weapon for survival. Knowledge was guarded like treasure. Spells were not shared lightly, because sharing meant giving another person the ability to kill you.
And living in dangerous conditions meant nobody cared about daily convenience. Nobody sat around thinking, how can we make lighting easier?
They thought about one thing.
How do I make my spells stronger?
How do I make them hit harder?
How do I win?
It wasn't until the Middle Ages, when Muggles rose in power and the church's witch hunts began, that wizards were forced into real unity. They built magical schools. They formed institutions. Magic gradually shifted from a private weapon to a structured system, branching into broader areas of life.
Andros stared at the book in Tom's hands like it was a forbidden artifact.
He hesitated, then asked cautiously, with the tone of a man trying to borrow someone's homework without sounding desperate.
"Tom… could you let me look at that book? Perhaps there are spells in it I already know. And if not…" He brightened suddenly, as if discovering a brilliant shortcut. "We can start with the Patronus Charm. That one is my specialty."
Tom's expression went flat.
He stared.
Then he stared some more.
"…."
This wasn't a private tutor.
This was a study buddy who had arrived with a legendary title and zero awareness of the modern syllabus.
One spell in, and he wanted to jump straight to the Patronus?
Tom might have a system, but the system was not doing the learning for him. Not yet.
"Forget it, Mr. Andros," Tom said, resigned.
He handed over the book anyway, then manifested a second copy for himself.
"Let's study together. Mutual progress. I suspect the development of later magic will surprise you."
Andros accepted the book with visible embarrassment, scratching the back of his head like a man who had just promised the world and delivered a pebble.
"Thank you, Tom."
Then the system chimed in.
[Teacher "Andros" approval rating has reached 20 percent. Host has gained Andros's Magical Power Talent.]
Tom felt it immediately.
A subtle but undeniable shift, like his mind had been rinsed clean and refilled with fresher air. His senses sharpened slightly. His fatigue dipped. His body felt more awake.
A smile tugged at his lips before he could stop it.
So this was another system function, another hidden benefit.
When a teacher's approval rating reached 20 percent, 50 percent, and then 100 percent, Tom would receive a reward each time.
The reward could be an ability the teacher possessed, or a natural talent.
Teaching and guidance were important, sure. But the wizarding world didn't care about fairness. Talent cared even less.
A person's ultimate achievement wasn't determined only by learning conditions or effort. It also depended on their inherent ceiling, the limit their talent allowed.
This approval system gave Tom a way to surpass his teachers, to collect strengths from multiple sources and combine them into something unprecedented.
It gave him a real path to becoming the kind of wizard history only produced once, if ever.
…
Tom spent a few minutes decorating the Learning Space.
He manifested a table, chairs, a sofa, and a low tea table. Then he and Andros sat down with one copy of Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 each, and began their beginner-level entry into modern magic.
Thankfully, the space granted Andros language ability. Otherwise, the man wouldn't even be able to read the text.
Andros, for all his earlier embarrassment, read even more seriously than Tom did. These were basic spells, yes, but to Andros they were eye-opening. It was like discovering that someone had turned a battlefield toolkit into a full household appliance set.
Magic could be used like this?
In his time, he'd mostly used it for duels.
And killing.
There was something unsettling about realizing how much of his life had been spent in a narrow lane.
But Andros's understanding of magic was already at a terrifying level. Learning these beginner spells was like a high school student reviewing primary school math. The concepts slid into place instantly.
Before long, he began experimenting.
And of course, he started with wandless casting.
Tom watched, eyes narrowing.
He could already tell what would happen if he didn't prepare.
If Tom didn't buy textbooks for the next few years as soon as possible, Andros would burn through the first-year material in a blink and then get stuck waiting for Tom to catch up with the supply chain.
Tom began practicing the Wand-Lighting Charm and the Levitation Charm.
This was different from what he'd done before, when he used pure will and raw magic to manipulate objects directly. Now he was using spells as a structured guide for magic, channeling it through language and wand movement into a specific effect.
Tom followed the pronunciation exactly as described, then moved his wand according to the book's instructions.
On his first attempt, the feather lifted.
Success.
But when he tried to guide it, to move it freely through the air, it wobbled, dipped, and fell.
Andros watched quietly for a moment, and Tom could see the teacher in him finally step forward.
He asked Tom to cast it again, carefully, then spoke with a thoughtful seriousness.
"Tom, the steps described in the book are standard for a reason. They work. They help most students grasp a spell quickly."
He raised a finger.
"But magic is the least standard thing in existence. Everyone is different. Their bodies, their instincts, their flow of power."
"Learn this way, and you will gain the spell quickly," Andros continued. "But it may not be the best method for you. You must adjust. Fine-tune. Find the version that fits you."
To demonstrate, Andros manifested his own wand, then performed the Levitation Charm in a complete, proper modern flow. His pronunciation was clean. His wand movement was controlled. The feather lifted smoothly and stayed steady.
Then he pointed out the detail Tom had missed.
"Look closely. My forearm movement is about fifteen degrees smaller than what the book suggests. That is because of my build. If I followed the exact angle, I would overexert and disrupt the casting."
He looked Tom up and down, judging his body with the detached eye of someone who had taught warriors.
"For you, the angle should be slightly larger. Your body has not fully developed yet. Exactly what is best can only be discovered through repeated practice."
Andros shrugged.
"Even I cannot decide it for you. I can only point you toward the truth."
Tom's eyes brightened with understanding.
"I get it."
He tried again.
Adjusted slightly.
Failed.
Adjusted again.
Then again.
Little by little, he found the rhythm. The feather began to respond more cleanly, lifting and shifting as if it had started to understand what he wanted.
By the end, the Levitation Charm felt far more natural, like he was no longer forcing magic into place but guiding it.
Three hours passed before Tom finally stopped and said goodbye to Andros, withdrawing from the Learning Space.
The fatigue from training there would vanish the moment he returned to the real world, but decades of life habits were hard to discard. Tom still believed in sleep. He liked it. He trusted it.
Besides, he only had one hundred Credits.
That meant fifteen hours of Learning Space time in total, at most.
He couldn't afford to waste it.
Tom opened his eyes in his bedroom, the real world quiet around him.
He lay still for a moment, staring into the darkness.
The system was real.
The Learning Space was real.
Andros was real.
Which meant his path had just split into something much larger than Hogwarts.
Tom exhaled slowly, then whispered into the empty room, as if speaking to the interface itself.
"How much stronger can I become… before school even starts?"