Chapter 23: Study

Allen quickly found an abandoned restroom, closed the door, hid in the farthest stall, sat on the toilet, and tested every spell he knew—the results filled him with renewed ecstasy.

The text on the spell barrier was always the same length and format for identical spells.

The text on the barriers of different spells was clearly distinct.

Although he couldn’t understand the meaning of the characters, Allen knew he had touched the most fundamental mechanism of spellcasting.

This filled him with wild excitement—he had suffered too much since arriving in this world!

After finally being discharged from the hospital, he now owed a massive debt and had to work just to pay it off; after finally arriving at Hogwarts, he was bullied by his classmates, even the owl delivering his letters looked down on him.

And every day, his talent for Transfiguration brought mostly torment—he tried hard to improve in magic, only to realize his magical talent was just average.

Every day, countless transmigrants from Earth arrived in other realms, showing off, crushing enemies, settling scores, ruling with power and lounging in beauty—yet he was fast becoming the disgrace of transmigrants.

Why were all my brothers and sisters showing off while I just got beaten up?

Now, at last, his cheat skill had arrived—he could see the most fundamental mechanism of magic. Though this ability seemed weak, to him now it was like rain after a long drought—he could finally unleash his full potential on the path of magic!

Allen excitedly imagined his future, but soon calmed himself.

The problem now was that the characters on the barrier were too small and appeared and vanished too quickly—he simply couldn’t see them clearly!

Thinking of this, Allen frowned in despair—how could he not use such a good cheat skill?

Unwilling to give up, Allen cast another spell, this time widening his eyes, determined to see and memorize the characters on the barrier.

As if hearing his inner thoughts, Allen suddenly entered a strange state—he felt time’s flow had been slowed by an invisible hand; he could clearly see every detail of the characters on the barrier, and only when he finished casting the spell did he snap back to normal.

Allen burst into laughter—his cheat skill was indeed thoughtful! Though he still didn’t understand the characters’ meanings, he was in Hogwarts, the library with the greatest collection of magical books in the magical world, surrounded by countless learned professors—he felt zero pressure about deciphering them.

He quickly pulled out his notebook, cast the spell again, and entered the time-slowed state. The state felt both slow and fast—due to the complexity of the characters, Allen only managed to memorize two before being forcibly ejected from the state.

He immediately grabbed his pen and, before the two runes could slip from his mind, scribbled them onto his notebook, then repeated the process.

Soon, the notebook was densely filled with characters; half of the Cleanliness Charm’s runes were recorded—when Allen prepared to press on, he suddenly saw blackness, slid off the toilet, collapsed on the floor, and fainted.

After an unknown length of time, Allen awoke from darkness—he felt his whole body ached as if beaten, his head foggy, unable to focus for minutes.

He shifted into a more comfortable position, leaning against the stall wall, and slowly recovered; only then did he notice blood on his chest—already dried.

He struggled to his feet, leaned against the wall, and walked to the restroom mirror—he saw his face was pale, with traces of blood on his nose and mouth; the blood’s path suggested it had dripped from his nose.

Allen stared at his haggard reflection in the mirror.

He silently thought: Of course everything has a price—time slowdown was useful, but it placed a heavy burden on his body. Still, it was worth it—he had recorded many runes.

He slowly opened his notebook, studied the dense characters, and smiled with satisfaction—he had copied not only the runes but also their format and order.

He greedily gazed at the runes in his notebook; though he didn’t recognize a single one, they grew increasingly familiar—as if he had often dealt with them before.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck him—this format looked exactly like key-value pairs! Though not connected by familiar colons or equals signs, each line’s two words were linked by a unique symbol.

As a former programmer, Allen knew this structure intimately—key-value pairs, though hard to grasp at first, were everywhere in daily life—for example:

Name: Allen Finis;

Gender: Male;

Birth year: 1991;

This was the most common key-value pair: “Name” was the key (also called key), “Allen Finis” was the value (also called value)—keys were fixed, but values varied.

This was the most familiar and fundamental data structure to programmers.

Allen fell into deep thought—why did spellcasting produce something resembling key-value pairs?

He furrowed his brow, feeling he was on the verge of understanding, yet couldn’t grasp it.

Suddenly, he recalled the role of key-value pairs in his past life as a software developer—they were the primary format for data exchange between computer systems and terminals.

Exchange?!!

Allen’s gaze froze.

What needed to exchange?

He suddenly remembered Professor McGonagall’s words on the essence of magic: wizards cast spells by resonating with the world itself!

Then the key-value pairs on the barrier must serve to exchange information during resonance—what was the purpose of transmitting this information?

Was this world sentient?

Allen pondered, recalling every theory he knew about magic in this world.

Suddenly, everything clicked.

The four elements of spellcasting!

The correct incantation and specific wand movements were information; the caster’s subjective intention for the spell’s effect was also information; the caster’s focused attention was to better resonate with the world’s will and transmit the information more effectively.

Allen recalled the wave of light when the barrier shattered at the end of casting—was that the transmission of information to the world’s will?

He recalled Professor Dumbledore’s words on the wand’s function:

The wand’s purpose was to strengthen the wizard’s connection to the world’s will!

The wand’s existence drastically lowered the barrier to spellcasting, giving wizards with weak magical talent a chance to master magic!

Allen stared at his wand, tempted to split it open and examine its structure—but he held back.

He continued thinking.

Strengthened connection to the world’s will?

Connection?!!

Allen finally understood everything: wizards with strong magical talent could cast spells without wands because they could transmit enough information directly to the world’s will; those with weak talent needed an auxiliary tool—the wand—to transmit sufficient information.

In simple terms, the weakly talented had found themselves an “antenna” to help transmit information.

Allen looked at his wand—now that he thought about it, it really did look like an antenna!

But why did wizards go through so much trouble to transmit information to the world’s will?

The answer was obvious.

To cast spells.