Chapter 434: Tour One

Bu Laide led them to a public fireplace, handing each a pinch of powder, "Remember to shout Gilubis!" Then he was the first to step into the fireplace. Bai Lang and the others called out Gilubis in turn, tossed the powder into the fire, and entered. "This feels off, like someone is yanking hard," Bai Lang said. Agile and skilled in martial arts, Bai Lang could stand steady the moment he rolled out of the fireplace.

The other two were probably frequent travelers on the Feilu Network, accustomed to the place and not rolling out. Bu Laide took them to a simple stone cottage; inside the cottage there was only a table, two chairs, and a fireplace. Bu Laide opened a small box on the table, revealing three claws of an unknown creature that resembled a human hand but had seven fingers. The blackened claws had been dried this way. "This is a door key; each finger leads to a different magical beast habitat, while the thumb returns directly here. Once you return here, the other fingers will all disintegrate," Bu Laide explained.

"Well then, safe travels to all of you." He bowed, then signaled that Bai Lang and the others could set off. "Ah, 150 Galleons for something like this…" Bai Lang understood why this was a niche tour: the price was steep, the safety unguaranteed, and the very idea of giving you a route and leaving you to chance was unfriendly—yet some dangerous magical travel routes truly could only be handled through them.

The female witch and the male witch had already stepped outside, each snapping off a different finger and vanishing, and Bai Lang also went out, grabbed the middle finger and snapped it off with a click—then Bai Lang felt as if he had entered a tumble dryer; after the world spun, he found himself at the edge of a swamp. All around were ponds and grassy meadows above them, low shrubs, countless insects, and even trees whose trunks were twisted.

Bai Lang's magic was not yet at the level of water avoidance, and, disgustingly, he suddenly recalled the rule that junior wizards may not cast spells outside school—likely even abroad. "No problem, no problem; after all I don't rely on magic to live!" Bai Lang casually twirled a staff, daringly leapt across the meadow, and pulled out a tag tied under his hand; when stretched, the tag became a large moving map. "Ah, as expected, this is the swamp where Xude La roams."

The nine‑headed hydra Xude La is one of the most dangerous creatures expressly prohibited by the Ministry of Magic from being imported or kept; it is massive, ferocious, and its toxin is virtually irreversible—its blood is highly poisonous. Though called a nine‑headed hydra, the number of heads can range from three to nine, always an odd number. The hydra is immune to many spells, eats any animal, and is extremely hazardous to wizards.

Among serpentine monsters, it is as dangerous as a snake monster.

The swamp was quite quiet; if not for the buzzing insects, Bai Lang dabbed insect‑repelling magical potion onto his clothes and slipped through the meadow into the swamp—most wizards who come looking for Xude La meet their end this way. The swamp housed life; Bai Lang saw traces of some kind of water deer and footprints of an unknown animal.

Bai Lang learned what Xude La looked like after spotting its tail. A massive snake tail appeared before him, and breathing steadily, Bai Lang followed the tail and saw a gigantic serpent with seven heads—or rather a lizard that resembled a snake. The nine‑headed hydra has four sturdy legs; its locomotion resembles that of a lizard, yet it can also slither on its belly like a snake.

Its heads are a hybrid of lizard and snake; Bai Lang carefully stayed behind the line of sight of the seven heads, hiding near the hydra's hind leg to observe this terrifying creature of the magical world. Xude La's regenerative ability is extremely strong; even if you sever a head, as long as one head remains attached to the body and escapes, it will gradually regrow the lost heads—therefore Xude La's venom, blood, skin, and bones are crucial ingredients in some exceedingly rare magical elixirs.

These magical elixirs all seem to carry prefixes like "Regeneration" or "Undying"...

Bai Lang had no interest in challenging such a creature; he simply used a Muggle camera to photograph the beast—so long as he was cautious, the massive creature, at least a hundred feet long, would not notice him. "If you tried to keep this thing as a pet… it's not really my taste. And I've heard the nine‑headed hydra Xude La has no real intelligence; it's just a terrifying beast."

Continue deeper to find a bigger specimen? Bai Lang thought it over and judged it would be quite dangerous—not because of a bigger one, but because those "small" nine‑headed hydras only thirty or twenty feet long would treat Bai Lang as prey, and an attack would be hard to handle. The travel agency contract also states that collecting herbs or raw materials during a tour is prohibited, especially killing or secretly taking these magical beasts, which is illegal and can condemn violators to spend the rest of their lives in Azkaban.

After thoroughly admiring the nine‑headed hydra, Bai Lang decisively snapped off his second finger and vanished from the swamp—at the moment the door key yanked him away, he heard and felt a surge of magical energy as the hydra turned, roared, and lunged with a ferocious bellow.

Again the tumble‑dryer feeling; this time Bai Lang found himself in a valley strewn with wild grapevines and olive trees, a vast and complex terrain. "No signs of human activity," Bai Lang muttered. The place is not a problem for wizards who can cast spells, but it's unfriendly to junior wizards who cannot; fortunately Bai Lang is not an ordinary person, his strength and agility let him move freely here.

What magical creature is here? The tag reads "three‑headed dog"; this is a sanctuary under the Wizards' Union protecting three‑headed dogs and several other magical beasts. Compared with other dangerous creatures, three‑headed dogs are relatively easy to control. So Bai Lang soon spotted three‑headed dogs running and hunting in the valley—those were Lu Wei, apparently; Hagrid must have raised Lu Wei well, because Lu Wei is one of the larger specimens among these wild three‑headed dogs.

These three‑headed dogs prey on various wild animals, but they also fight each other—especially between two packs of three‑headed dogs. When Bai Lang was spotted by the dogs, a battle was about to erupt—he certainly didn't want to snap off another finger.