Three in the morning. Hogwarts, Slytherin Dungeons.
Jerry and Geralt were sleeping soundly, their soft snoring echoing through the chilly dormitory at the bottom of the Black Lake. The three boys had been in high spirits after the feast, staying up late to gossip before finally crashing.
The Sorting Ceremony had offered no major surprises. The "Savior" they had discussed on the train had indeed been sorted into Gryffindor. Hermione and Neville had followed him into the house of lions; Damian's brief interference on the train hadn't been enough to alter their deep-seated bravery.
Damian, however, was wide awake.
He had taken a dose of Sleeping Draught right before bed. It was a heavily modified version brewed by Professor Snape that worked wonders—it fully replenished a wizard's energy with only two hours of sleep.
Damian's late father had been Professor Snape's senior during their school days, and the two had maintained a solid relationship. Because of this, when Snape discovered Damian's terrifying natural talent for Potions, he often had the boy act as his private assistant after class.
Damian glanced out the reinforced glass window. On a moonless night, the murky water of the Black Lake was pitch dark and perfectly silent.
Preserved Egg was curled up sleeping on the stone windowsill. Damian idly wondered if the Kneazle was dreaming of catching the giant squid.
Closing his eyes, Damian turned his focus inward, sensing the phantom metal disc in his mind. The crystal on its rim was glowing a brilliant, solid red. The energy was completely full.
He concentrated hard, and the disc in his mind began to spin rapidly.
A moment later, the stone walls of the dungeon vanished, replaced by a blinding expanse of snow.
He was back.
He found himself standing on the exact same icy trail. Chris and Tina were frozen in the exact same positions they had been in the moment he left.
"Lord Damian..." Chris blinked, looking at the boy in absolute shock. "How did your clothes suddenly change?"
Little Tina, who had just finished climbing onto the repaired sled, also stared at him with wide, curious eyes.
Damian had forgotten he was wearing his Hogwarts robes. He quickly drew his wand and cast a silent Transfiguration spell, shifting the black fabric back into the heavy, fur-lined winter cloak that matched Chris's memory.
A faint blue light flickered in Damian's eyes as he gently cast Legilimency on the blacksmith. He wanted to see exactly what his world-hopping looked like from an outside perspective.
Flipping through Chris's immediate short-term memory, Damian saw it clearly. He hadn't vanished. To Chris, Damian hadn't moved a single inch—his heavy winter cloak had simply morphed into strange black school robes in the blink of an eye.
It was exactly as he suspected. Time in this world was completely frozen while he was back in Britain.
"Obliviate." Damian waved his wand, smoothly erasing the last ten seconds of memory from both Chris and Tina's minds.
Chris merely blinked, looking mildly dazed for a fraction of a second before shaking his head. He settled into the driver's seat of the sled as if nothing had happened. "Get on, Lord Damian. We'll reach White Stone Town by nightfall. We won't have to camp out in the wild."
Chris was a master blacksmith, and it showed; he had personally modified a small, coal-burning heater directly into the floorboards of the sled carriage, making the ride surprisingly comfortable.
An hour later, the dark silhouette of White Stone Town finally came into view.
The entrance was deserted. The main road was blocked by a heavy, man-high wooden barricade, flanked by a sturdy stone watchtower.
Chris pulled the sled to a halt before the gate and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Is anyone up there? Open the gate!"
While they waited, he pulled a leather skin from a drawer near the heater and took a deep pull of hot, spiced wine to warm his blood.
A moment later, a head wearing a thick, hooded cap poked out from the top of the tower.
The guard squinted down at the sled, then pulled his head back inside. A minute later, the heavy wooden door at the base of the tower creaked open.
The guard stepped out, crossing his arms and shivering violently as he yawned. "Chris? God, it's freezing out here. What brings you to town at this hour?"
Chris's craftsmanship was famous throughout the region; this particular Night Watchman had actually purchased his steel blades directly from the blacksmith.
Chris hopped down from the sled. "Good to see you, Jack."
He sighed heavily. "Gem Village hasn't been peaceful lately. The animals in the surrounding woods have gone completely rabid. They've been attacking the village relentlessly."
He gestured to the sled. "My granduncle left a property here in White Stone Town. I'm bringing Tina to live here permanently."
Jack looked delighted. "You're moving here? Fantastic! Now I won't have to hike all the way to Gem Village just to get my sword sharpened. You should have moved here years ago, mate!"
He stepped forward, grabbing the heavy wooden barricade to pull it aside.
Chris moved to help him haul the heavy timber. "Has White Stone Town been attacked at all? Why are you the only Watchman on the gate? We ran into a massive pack of mutated wolves on the road."
As a Night Watchman, if Jack spotted a threat, his only job was to blow the warning horn in the tower to summon the actual Town Guard.
Jack grunted, heaving the barricade open. "No, everything's been quiet here. And I'm alone down here because that lazy bastard Pol is still snoring up in the tower!"
After securing the gate, Jack rubbed his hands together furiously. He had forgotten his thick leather gloves in his haste to come down, and the freezing air was already biting at his knuckles. He just wanted to get back upstairs to the brazier.
Chris thanked him, bid him a good night, and led the massive white stag through the gates.
The architectural style of White Stone Town heavily mirrored medieval Europe, with narrow, winding streets and sturdy structures built from grey stone and heavy timber.
The streets were mostly deserted, giving the town a desolate, eerie feel. The only sign of life was a brightly lit tavern a street away, the raucous noise and laughter spilling out into the cold night air.
The town wasn't overly large. Before long, Chris halted the sled in front of a narrow, two-story house.
The building looked quite old, its grey-white brick walls weathered by decades of harsh winters.
"Before he passed away, my granduncle spent most of his time in the Royal Capital. He rarely came out here," Chris explained, pulling a heavy iron key from his coat. "I only came by occasionally to dust the place."
He unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Lord Damian, please feel free to use the study upstairs. My granduncle left quite a few of his old books in there."
Damian's eyes lit up. This was exactly what he needed. He desperately hoped the deceased wizard's library would help him finally understand the mechanics of this world.
Chris led him up the creaking wooden stairs to the study. It was a small room; a heavy oak desk and a single chair took up most of the floor space. A modest bookshelf stood against the right wall, holding about a dozen thick tomes.
Damian immediately pulled one down. It was the Illustrated Guide to Magical Creatures that Chris had mentioned on the road.
"You can take the bedroom right next door," Chris offered. "I'll go downstairs and get the fires started."
Damian thanked him absentmindedly, already engrossed in the book.
The Guide was rather basic. The entries were brief, offering only a hand-drawn illustration and a vague summary of the creature's abilities. And unlike the books at Hogwarts, the pictures were entirely stationary.
Still, the information was fascinating. Many of the creatures matched the mythology of his past life—like Merpeople who lured sailors with their voices. However, this world also featured horrifying fish-men with human bodies and grotesque fish heads, who apparently ruled vast, deep-sea empires.
Flipping further, he found accurate entries for both the Dragon-Serpent Tree and the Phantom Demon he had just fought.
Satisfied, Damian moved on to the rest of the shelf. Most of the books were dry travelogues, poetry collections, and local histories.
Determined to miss nothing, Damian pulled his Quick-Quotes Quill from his robes. He had paid ten Galleons for this enchanted pen, as it possessed an automatic dictation and copying charm. He intended to perfectly transcribe the entire shelf.
As he cleared the last few books, he noticed a single, tightly rolled parchment scroll that had been flattened beneath a heavy history tome.
He unrolled it carefully. The header read: The Aemon Basic Meditation Method.
The author, a wizard named Aemon, had recorded a foundational technique for mental meditation.
According to the scroll, these methods trained a wizard's spirit, allowing them to tap into their hidden potential and condense their mental energy into a vast "Sea of Spirit." Regular practice would even slowly expand the wizard's total reservoir of magical power.
But most importantly, it taught the user how to permanently construct a Runic Model within that Sea of Spirit.
Damian read eagerly. Casting Runic Magic involved two distinct steps: Condensing and Guiding.
First, the wizard had to Condense their raw magic into physical Runic Scripts. Second, they had to Guide those scripts into a specific Spell Model structure to release the spell.
If a wizard practiced the Aemon Method and successfully built a Runic Model inside their mind, the first step—condensing the runes—would happen almost instantaneously!
A spell like Lightning Bolt required thirty-two individual Runic Scripts. Without a Meditation Method, manually forming those runes took Damian five agonizing minutes.
But with this method mastered, he could summon the runes in a flash. He would only need to spend a few seconds Guiding them into the proper structure.
The total casting time would drop from five minutes to a mere ten seconds!
Damian's heart raced with triumph. He hadn't expected to solve the fatal flaw of Runic Magic on his very first night in town.
Salazar Slytherin's cryptic manuscript had been absolutely right: Meditation is the key to the Runic Script.
But this revelation only spawned a massive historical mystery.
If the "meditation" Slytherin spoke of a thousand years ago was the exact same technique used in this alternate world... where did the Hogwarts Founder learn it? Had Slytherin practiced a Meditation Method himself? Was there a deeper connection between these two universes?
Damian's curiosity burned brighter than ever. Once he returned to Hogwarts, he was going to tear the Restricted Section apart looking for clues.
But first, he had to master this technique.
He didn't need to steal the original scroll. Setting his enchanted quill to work, he quickly transcribed a flawless copy of the Meditation Method before carefully returning the original to the dusty shelf...
Every 100 stones = 1 EXTRA CHAPTER