Chapter 223: Thunderbird

Allen soon met the owner of the voice.

The owner of the voice was an elderly man with a spirited demeanor but a very slender build; his hair was white, neatly groomed, and he had no beard. His eyes lacked the dullness typical of the elderly, instead shimmering with a lively light, just like a young man's.

A Niffler was perched on his shoulder, looking at Allen curiously. It kept sniffing the air with its nose, as if smelling whether Allen had something it liked on him.

The owner of the voice revealed a gentle smile, giving a feeling like a spring breeze, which inevitably made Allen feel fond of him.

Allen knew this was the owner of the Scamander Manor and a magizoologist—Newt Scamander.

Allen bowed deeply. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Scamander!" he said concisely, as he still had to mind the mandrake leaf in his mouth.

"Child, rest assured and stay here! Tina and I are very welcome to your arrival." Mr. Scamander gently helped Allen up.

He looked curiously at Allen's hands; today, Allen had randomly obtained two crab claws.

"Indeed, hearing of you is not as good as meeting you. I have always heard of your wonders, but when I truly see you, I cannot help but marvel at the magic." Mr. Scamander said gently.

"Mr. Scamander, I leave this child in your care. I must return to Hogwarts; I will come again the night after tomorrow." Professor McGonagall, standing aside, also spoke up.

"Very well, Allen is in good hands here, so rest assured!" Mr. Scamander seemed very familiar with Professor McGonagall.

Allen also waved goodbye to Professor McGonagall.

After a burst of green flame, Professor McGonagall disappeared into the fireplace.

At this moment, an old woman carrying a fruit platter entered the living room. The sight of Allen caused a flicker of surprise in her eyes, but she quickly controlled it.

"This is my wife Tina, and this is Allen Finis, who will be staying with us for a while." Mr. Scamander introduced cheerfully.

"Hello!" Allen said briefly.

"You are the Allen coming to undergo the Animagus ritual? I didn't expect you to be so... young..." Lady Scamander said with some surprise. "Rest assured and stay here; Newt and I like young people the most."

Allen nodded quickly; he detected Lady Scamander's American accent.

"Relax." Mr. Scamander gently placed his hand on Allen's shoulder. "Just treat this place as your home."

The slight tension in Allen's heart had long vanished; he knew the Scamander couple genuinely cared for him.

Then Mr. Scamander led Allen to his room and told him to rest for a while first.

Only then did Allen have time to observe the surroundings. This was an ordinary bedroom on the second floor; the decorations were very plain, yet they exuded a sense of life.

The walls hung with some lovely decorations about magical creatures, and several pots of flowers were blooming on the windowsill, even though it was already winter.

Then Allen felt something was wrong. He was surprised to find the sky outside was dim; it should only be three in the afternoon.

Just as he was puzzled, a huge flash of lightning streaked outside, illuminating his room and his face.

He hurriedly pushed open the window and stuck his head out, only to find the outside was covered in dark clouds, looking like black clouds pressing down on the city...

In the next moment, another huge flash of lightning streaked by. This time, Allen keenly noticed a beautiful creature weaving through the dark clouds.

Its golden feathers were particularly conspicuous in the dark clouds. It had three pairs of wings and a long tail, with a golden beak and golden eyes, and lightning flickered faintly among its feathers.

It wove through the dark clouds, and wherever it passed, lightning and rumbling thunder constantly appeared...

Then a crystal-clear raindrop fell on Allen's forehead. In a short while, a torrential downpour began. Allen quickly closed the window and drew the curtains.

The heavy rain lasted all night and stopped the next morning. The Scamander couple prepared a lavish breakfast for Allen.

Allen was surprised to find a Muggle television in the living room, broadcasting a news program. The content of the program was an apology for the weather forecast error the previous day.

"Tina and I have no prejudice against ordinary humans, and we quite like their creations." Mr. Scamander put down his newspaper and said to Allen. "After eating, I will take you for a tour around the manor."

Allen nodded and sat down. Under the surprised gazes of the Scamander couple, he finished his meal using his special utensils.

The weather today was a clear blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Although winter had already arrived, many plants in the Scamander Manor were still green.

"It seems Frank did a good job yesterday." Mr. Scamander shrugged and said. "Frank is the Thunderbird you saw yesterday." Mr. Scamander added.

Mr. Scamander was showing Allen around the manor. The main building of the Scamander Manor was a two-story English red-brick house, occupying less than one-twentieth of the entire manor's area. The rest of the manor was arranged into various environmental zones, where all kinds of magical creatures lived.

Allen roughly counted and found that the magical creatures here were more numerous than those on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest.

Additionally, he discovered that the Scamander Manor was built on a rarely visited cliff by the sea.

"None of my magical creatures are dangerous!" Mr. Scamander said to Allen.

Looking at the huge Graphorn strolling in the manor, Allen thought to himself: I don't believe a word of that.

With the leaf still in his mouth, Allen did not want to walk much further. After a simple tour, he returned to rest.

The good weather lasted until the third day. In the evening, Professor McGonagall arrived at the Scamander Manor.

They quietly waited for the full moon to rise, and the Scamander couple accompanied them.

Soon, the moon appeared in the sky, gently casting its somewhat cold light upon the earth.

Their group came to the edge of the cliff by the sea, where a single large tree grew all by itself.

"Spit it out!" Professor McGonagall said.

Allen carefully spat out the leaf he had held in his mouth for a month, gently holding it in his hand. Moonlight shone on the leaf, and it emitted a stronger light than a month ago.

Looking at the glowing leaf in his hand, he felt a mix of emotions. He had paid a great price for this day, but it was all worth it.

Recalling the month's experiences, he suddenly felt an urge to cry.

"Very good, completely undamaged. It passes." Professor McGonagall said gently, handing Allen a small crystal vial.

Allen filled it with saliva, then put the mandrake leaf inside...

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End of Volume 2 Summary

End of Volume 2 Summary

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I finished writing the summary long ago, but I actually forgot to post it because of work....

Volume 2 has ended like this. The total word count is about the same as Volume 1, around 220,000 characters.

A general self-assessment: I think that although my writing in Volume 2 has improved compared to Volume 1, it is still not very good.

What I'm actually most satisfied with is the opening of Volume 2 — I think that part is the best thing I've written in this book so far. The first half of this volume isn't bad either; the pacing and all that is still passable, but once I got to taming Yodel, things started falling apart.

Below I'll summarize it by category. I just got off work and I'm a bit tired, so I'll just write whatever comes to mind.

1. Plot design and pacing issues.

The more I write this book, the more it feels like a "farming" story — the protagonist researching magic and his talent is basically farming. But a book that only farms doesn't work, because there are no satisfying payoffs or explosive moments.

So the narrative structure of this volume is: research — produce results — showcase results.

The protagonist grows dragon scales from his transfiguration, so he goes to fight in the arena; he figures out the Blade Panther, so he goes to kill the Acromantula. That's why the first half of this volume has decent pacing — I was pretty comfortable writing it, and throughout the process I kept laying groundwork for the final battle of the volume.

The turning point was after taming Yodel. My original idea was: the end of Volume 1 was an unprepared encounter battle, so the end of Volume 2 would be a fully prepared battle.

To give the protagonist enough motivation to solo the Basilisk, I spent a whole 150,000 characters building up to it. I could feel the readers' expectations being pulled sky-high when the protagonist decided to solo the Basilisk, but what came next fell apart. The plot of the protagonist doing all kinds of preparations was actually pretty boring, and worse, the readers' expectations were slowly dragged down during that process — because you'd already shown your hand, so the readers didn't really have anything to look forward to anymore.

2. Character development.

In this volume I feel I've made some progress in developing the protagonist — he's not as childish as before — but that's all it is. The protagonist's personality isn't likable, and his character design has no real highlights. In short, this area is still very mediocre.

The characters besides the protagonist have completely become paper-thin cutouts. The trio has completely become background scenery — the trio has shown zero of the growth they had in the original work.

Apart from the trio, there's also far too little interaction with other plot characters.

Also, Yodel's characterization has no memorable points or highlights either.

In short, this area still needs continued strengthening.

3. Direction issues.

This volume mainly relied on the protagonist's research into Transfiguration and his own talent to drive the plot, but this area also ran into problems.

The more I write, the more I feel the random-transfiguration path is getting harder and harder to write with any novelty.

Because this area easily becomes formulaic and unoriginal — for example, the protagonist's hand turning into an octopus tentacle, a crab claw, a dragon claw, a unicorn hoof — functionally these aren't all that different. No matter what the hand turns into, in the end it's still going to grab things. At most you can write about the troubles and advantages these things bring, but writing it this way repeatedly easily becomes formulaic, and readers will feel there's nothing new and will quickly get tired of it.

Because of this, I looked up a ton of reference material — I only write things I feel have some novelty, because I want to give readers a sense of freshness rather than endlessly repeating myself.

So going forward I'll give the protagonist's random-transfiguration talent an upgrade, to keep this direction interesting.

Although random transfiguration is a lot of fun, the power it brings is unstable. Readers want to see the protagonist gradually grow and master stronger power, so the protagonist gaining inspiration through random transfiguration, then gradually mastering his own talent and turning it into an advantage for himself, is an inevitable path. I feel this part is written pretty well so far.

The Transfiguration Beasts section wasn't written very well either — none of the Transfiguration Beasts had much novelty, and their presence wasn't strong. I feel I got bogged down in too many details here, and for the sake of plausibility I never dared to write freely.

Still, at the very end of this volume I also gave a glimpse of the future development direction for Transfiguration Beasts — in the future, the things the protagonist can talent-transfigure into can also be applied to Transfiguration Beasts. I wonder whether the readers like this direction.

4. Scene design issues.

The current scenes are still too simple. The protagonist only operates in those few fixed locations. At the start that was fine, but after 400,000-plus characters it's no longer working — even I'm getting a bit bored writing it. This is also an area to strengthen going forward.

5. Other issues.

The slump in the final part of Volume 2 is also partly because I ran out of drafts — work started getting busy.

The reduction in my daily writing time has made the text I've been putting out lately feel dry and shriveled — I'm just writing to advance the plot, and I've even been throwing in fewer memes. Part of the reason, actually, is that lately I've been constantly outputting and rarely taking anything in. I haven't read other web novels in ages — my intake is way too low. If this keeps up it won't work. I really should read more web novels, to learn from advanced experience and strengthen myself.

I think my ideal state is having five or six chapters of drafts saved up — roughly the amount of one small plot arc. That way I won't end up in a situation like Chapter 183, where I only discovered a logic problem while writing it, wanted to change the plot but had no drafts saved, and forced myself to publish it anyway just to keep my full-attendance bonus.

During this period I also tried voice-typing, but the results weren't great. What limits writing speed is never hand speed — it's the speed at which the plot forms in your head.

As for romance scenes — I'll try to write fewer or none of them going forward. Lately I've also been looking for a few "dog food" romance novels to learn from, but unfortunately I can't really get into them.

Finally, let me talk about this book's performance. The average subscriptions on February 1st were 170; now they're 330. Once again, I'd like to thank all the readers for your support — I'll keep working hard.