Chapter 89: The Guardian and the Blasting Curse (Seeking First Subscription, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Actively neutralizing most of the core's abilities and leaving only the most special one... this was a possibility Silven had thought of after coming out of Knockturn Alley.

At that time, in order to figure out the principle behind the 【Overload】 characteristic, he had read many books on wands, and in that book "The Wonderful Pairing of Wands and Potions," he found Zygmunt Budge's view on wand bodies.

In the book, he put his own perspective as a potioneer into wands, believing that the core could also have a "choice."

Just like when brewing potions, some ingredients need to be pre-processed — for example, peeling the shriveled figs, squeezing the juice out of the sopophorous beans, and smoking the lionfish spines over fire beforehand.

These operations were all meant to weaken or highlight certain effects of the ingredients, making the potion more perfect.

If that's the case, then why couldn't one weaken part of the core's effects to make the wand more perfect?

Zygmunt Budge put forward this view, but no one paid attention, including himself.

For centuries, everyone had assumed Budge had deliberately manufactured a topic with no logic just to get a girl's attention.

Because only the more well-rounded the core, the more perfect the wand — the very notion of weakening the core simply did not exist.

Until Silven turned to that page.

Because the things Zygmunt Budge had listed that could weaken the core happened to include Dragon Bloodwood.

Then he suddenly realized that Zygmunt Budge's idea coincided with his own.

Wasn't that previous Dragon Bloodwood wand exactly like that — abandoning everything else and leaving only the Avada Kedavra?

The reason might be that Voldemort liked the Avada Kedavra, so if the core were replaced with a dragon heartstring, would only Incendio be left?

Of course, if such a wand really existed, it definitely wouldn't sell, because no one would use only Incendio.

But what if there were ten, twenty, fifty different wands...

This was Silven's idea. He had temporarily given this kind of wand a name... a Directional Wand, meaning a wand fixed to use a single spell.

Then he found his grandfather Garrick, and in the old man's name ordered a batch of Dragon Bloodwood from the Fire Dragon Reserve, saving a great deal of money.

Silven hugged the Dragon Bloodwood and went upstairs in high spirits. Garrick Ollivander watched his back, wanting to say something but holding back.

He seemed to have guessed what Silven wanted to do, but he couldn't understand why Silven wanted to make that kind of "defective wand." In his eyes, this behavior was simply heretical — a desecration of wands.

But every time he wanted to advise Silven against it, that wand with a unicorn core would come trotting lightly into his mind, and casually shove the words he wanted to say right back.

What could be more heretical than using an entire unicorn as a wand core?

It seemed there was nothing.

Garrick Ollivander shook his head, and in the end just watched Silven disappear at the top of the stairs.

"He's not necessarily going to succeed," Garrick thought, because the core characteristic was only theoretical — there was no evidence yet that a dragon heartstring wand was definitely suited to Fire magic, only that the probability was relatively high.

Besides, the healers at St. Mungo's didn't all use unicorn tail hair either.

Ding-a-ling... the crisp sound interrupted his thoughts.

A customer had come in, followed by Professor Flitwick — clearly a new student coming to buy a wand.

"Just a guess!" Garrick murmured, shifting his gaze away from the stairs.

In the days before term started, Silven spent most of his time wrestling with those Dragon Bloodwood pieces. Fred and George occasionally came to Diagon Alley to ask him about wand-making techniques.

Not real wands — it was a kind of prank prop they had newly come up with. On the surface it looked exactly like a wand, but if someone tried to use it to cast magic, the wand would turn into a kind of rubber toy.

To make their creation more realistic and not be spotted at a glance, the two of them had come to Silven.

Silven sold them a bottle of turpentine for five Galleons. After a brief soak, the appearance of the fake wand immediately underwent a dramatic change.

Although there were still flaws, most wizards probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

To express their thanks, they also invited Silven to the Burrow, but Silven didn't go — his mind was entirely on the Dragon Bloodwood now.

The process was much harder than he had imagined, and along the way there were several long-overdue wand explosions.

That said, the power of Dragon Bloodwood was greater than cherry wood. Every few days, the people of Diagon Alley could watch an exciting "big firework" through the second-floor window of Ollivanders.

When neighbors came to ask about the situation, Garrick Ollivander would tell them, "It's fine, it's fine — Silven has the Shield Charm protecting him, no injuries."

"Boom!"

Before he could finish speaking that day, another roar came from overhead. Wisps of dust were shaken out from the cracks in the ceiling and fell onto the heads of Garrick and Florin Fosco.

Florin Fosco was utterly shocked, but Garrick, as if nothing were the matter, calmly gave his wand a wave and cleaned the dust away.

In fact, this was already considered light. He still remembered the first explosion of that magnitude half a month ago upstairs — the dust shaken down had been like rain.

Now the ceiling had long since been shaken clean.

Meanwhile, on the second floor.

Silven looked at the table with a hole blown out of it and, still shaken, released his troll wand from his grip.

Fortunately, he hadn't given this wand to Hagrid so quickly, and fortunately he had had Garrick use it to cast a Shield Charm in advance.

【Sluggish】: Records the first spell a wizard casts. Thereafter, regardless of what incantation is spoken or what gesture is used, all magic will be converted into the originally recorded spell.

Now, as long as Silven held this wand, he could protect himself in an extremely short time, relying on the Shield Charm to offset the damage from the explosion.

It was just hard on Garrick — after using the troll wand once, the man had been in a daze for several days.

But that didn't matter. Garrick was an excellent veteran wandmaker; he could adjust himself, just as he had the first time he learned that Silven could make wands out of Red Cap heart nerves.

Silven picked up Silvermane and gave it a practiced wave.

"Reparo!"

The shattered table and window were restored to their original state.

Silven looked at the wood fragments that couldn't be repaired and sighed softly — this was already the last Dragon Bloodwood wand body.

Although the process had been dangerous, compared to the harvest, none of this counted.

Silven opened the shapeshifter lizard skin bag beside him and took out five wands from inside.

【Dragon Bloodwood, unicorn tail hair, eleven inches】

【Status: Imbalanced】

【Trait: Spell effect -70%; Scouring Charm +35%】

Silven had already tested it — these two properties were independent; the Scouring Charm was not affected by the spell-weakening effect, making it the only spell unaffected.

……

【Dragon Bloodwood, Red Cap heart nerve, twelve and one-third inches】

【Properties: spell effect -70%; Severing Charm +30%】

……

【……Acromantula leg……Binding Charm +40%】

Seeing this, Silven nearly laughed out loud. What did 40% mean? Even if your Binding Charm could only barely tie up a rabbit, as long as you knew how to use it, picking up this wand would immediately bring you up to Auror standard.

Straight from A (Pass) to O (Outstanding)

If an Auror were to use it, they might even stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dumbledore… well, on the condition that Dumbledore didn't use the Elder Wand.

To this day, Silven still didn't know what that legendary wand actually looked like, or what special abilities it had.

Oh, there were still two wands left.

If seeing the Binding Charm wand nearly made him laugh, then these two would let Silven drop the "nearly."

【Dragon Bloodwood, unicorn tail hair, ten and a half inches】

【Status: Imbalanced】

【Properties: spell effect -70%; Patronus Charm +25%】

……

【Dragon Bloodwood, dragon heartstring, thirteen inches】

【Status: Imbalanced】

【Properties: spell effect -70%; Explosive Charm +25%】

……

A 25% positive boost wasn't much — it could even be called the lowest among these five wands — but looking again at those two golden names, Patronus Charm and Explosive Charm, his mood shifted once more.

The Patronus Charm — universally acknowledged as an advanced spell, the only way to fend off Dementors, and one of the abilities an Auror had to master.

The Explosive Charm: one of the most powerful offensive spells an ordinary wizard could learn, and also the spell that excited Silven the most.

The instant he saw it, all the explosions from before suddenly seemed to become interesting.

More importantly, it wasn't a one-time thing.

Looking at it this way, 【Overload】 probably came from Voldemort's soul — though it could also be because the Dragon Bloodwood wasn't old enough; in any case, Silven hadn't encountered it again.

But this worked out perfectly. As long as Silven could learn the Explosive Charm, this wand could be used indefinitely, neatly making up for the awkward shortage of offensive spells he currently had.

……

(End of chapter)