Chapter 25: War God of the Girls

“Lei Niao!” Allen silently chewed on the unfamiliar word.

“Yes, your eyes resemble those of a Lei Niao, but I’m not an expert in this field—I can’t be certain yet.” Professor McGonagall explained.

“If I want to learn about magical creatures in the future, who should I ask? You know, today’s situation won’t be the last—I need more knowledge and information on this.” Allen hurriedly said.

“The professor most skilled in this area is Professor Kaitel Burn, who teaches Care of Magical Creatures, but he spends his free time with his little creatures, so you may not always find him.” Professor McGonagall hesitated here.

“Actually, I’d recommend Rubeus Hagrid, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts—he’s also deeply knowledgeable about magical creatures, especially large ones!” Professor McGonagall emphasized the word “large.”

“Since Lei Niao is also a large magical creature, you can seek more specific information from Hagrid.” Professor McGonagall added.

“Oh, I see. Then I’ll head back.” Allen realized he had no more questions.

“Don’t rush—I can’t take a sample, but I still need to take a photo.” As she spoke, a massive old-fashioned camera floated into her hands.

Allen reluctantly cooperated for the photo.

“I’ll send you a copy once the photo develops.” Professor McGonagall mused, “If you later prove you can still transform parts of magical creatures, Professor Dumbledore and I will consider offering you a stipend for collaborative research. Transforming into magical creatures has long been a hot topic in academia, but so far it’s remained purely theoretical—no one has achieved tangible success. You’re becoming increasingly valuable for study!” she added.

“(⊙o⊙)…” Allen didn’t know what to say and took his leave.

Outside Professor McGonagall’s office, Allen realized he was starving enough to eat a whole pig. Seeing it was still before lunch, he hurried toward the Great Hall to eat.

After wolfing down his meal, Allen finally felt his body had sufficient nourishment and began to feel drowsy—but he knew he couldn’t sleep yet; he still had too much to do.

Lei Niao’s eyes would vanish when he slept tonight—he didn’t know when he’d get them again! If he didn’t act fast now, he’d waste this chance.

Fortunately, today was Friday. He resolved to record as many characters as possible.

Allen returned to his dormitory, gathered all his writable textbooks and notebooks, stuffed them into a full bag, then went back to the abandoned washroom he’d visited that morning—only then did he realize it was a girls’ washroom; he’d been too rushed to notice last time.

But Allen didn’t care now—time was slipping away. He quickly scanned the surroundings, saw no one, and swiftly entered the girls’ washroom.

In the same corner stall, he carefully hung his bag on the wall and began another round of recording and experimentation.

This time, Allen was far more experienced. He first opened an old notebook and began casting again.

He rapidly cast all the spells he knew, this time without using time slowdown, instead quickly estimating the number of characters on each spell’s luminous screen.

His conclusion: the Lumos spell had the fewest characters, while the Transfiguration spell had the most—by over a hundred times more than the others combined. Even a hundredfold was a rough estimate.

The character stream of the Transfiguration spell moved so fast he couldn’t even make them out.

With this result, Allen executed his plan: concentrate forces for a decisive strike. He first targeted the spell with the fewest characters—Lumos—and prepared to “annihilate” it first.

When he re-entered time slowdown, he carefully sensed his condition, quickly memorized two characters, and immediately wrote them on parchment. This time, he copied those two characters onto ten sheets of parchment. He re-entered time slowdown, memorized two more characters, and wrote them on nine of the ten sheets. He repeated this process, recording in sequence. After ten cycles of time slowdown, he stopped—he felt his body had reached its limit and needed rest. He ended up with ten sheets of parchment, each bearing 20, 18... down to 2 characters.

He was testing how many characters a single sheet of parchment could withstand.

During his rest, Allen didn’t fully stop—he carefully sensed his body. His mood was calm now, no longer excited as in the morning, allowing him to perceive more. Combining this with his experience of time slowdown, he quickly reached a conclusion.

His time slowdown was a subjective perception—not an objective slowing of time.

In essence, time slowdown was his senses perceiving time as slower, while actual time flowed unchanged. This conclusion disappointed Allen—he felt he’d lost a powerful ability.

He also concluded that entering time slowdown was essentially a spell cast using his eyes’ power, but its mechanism differed entirely from a wizard’s spellcasting. Both were cost-free to him, manifestations of the world’s will, but since the magic acted directly on Allen, it imposed heavy strain on his body.

Once he felt his body had recovered, Allen resumed the cycle of entering time slowdown...

Two hours passed. Allen finally recorded all the Lumos characters. The original ten sheets of parchment showed clear changes: those with over ten characters deteriorated significantly—the more characters recorded, the worse their condition. The sheet with only two characters remained unchanged.

In the end, Allen chose the safest method—only two characters per sheet.

He quickly rewrote all the Lumos characters using this method, placing each character in a different position on each page so that when the notebook was closed, no characters would overlap.

Perhaps this would reduce the chance of the notebook burning. Allen silently comforted himself.

He then calculated the time remaining. Combining it with the time he’d spent recording Lumos, he quickly decided to use the rest to record the Scourgify characters.

During another rest, Allen leaned his head against the wall and mused bitterly: “If anyone found out what I’m doing in this bathroom, would I be dubbed the ‘War God of the Girls’ Toilet’ when I become famous later?”

What Allen didn’t notice was that outside the stall, a hand quietly picked up a sheet of parchment from the floor...