Chapter 64: Reflections on the Transfiguration Spell

Allen had played many games on Earth, and in those games, his favorite characters were always those who could summon minions—he played Warlocks and Hunters in Warcraft, and Undead Mages in Diablo.

There was no other reason—he simply loved outnumbering enemies, and seeing his minions take the front line made him feel especially secure.

But as he gradually understood the combat methods of this world, he realized he hated fighting this way—it was like a Western gunslinger duel, forcing you to expose yourself to enemy fire.

This style of combat made him feel deeply uneasy, because this wasn’t a game anymore; in a game, you could respawn, but here, death was final.

A gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall—this had always been Allen’s creed.

A spear is easy to dodge, but an arrow from the shadows is hard to guard against! Allen faintly remembered several key figures who had died in such chaotic battles.

So he had been searching for a combat style different from traditional wizards’.

Today’s discovery brought him hope—he realized he could, just like in games, use a summoning build in this world, and these summoned creatures could be customized.

Although customizing the transformation effect of the Transfiguration Spell involved immense difficulty, he had infinite possibilities!

Moreover, he felt that using Transfiguration to transform into animals already existing in the world might help wizards live better, but it was utterly unsuitable for combat.

Because all animals existing in the world had survived through natural selection—their bodily structures were never fully designed for combat, since they also needed to live and reproduce, and those functions were pure burdens in battle.

The greatest advantage of Transfiguration was customization—if he could customize a creature purely for combat, he would remove its digestive and reproductive systems entirely.

Since the product of Transfiguration possessed no intelligence, he could even remove its brain entirely, designing every part solely for combat.

After all, he needed a creature meant to fight for only about ten minutes, not one meant to survive for over a decade—those other systems were meaningless.

The thing didn’t even need to be a living being—so long as it could fight.

And this had the added benefit of reducing the difficulty of customization.

It was like designing an airplane engine meant to last 100 hours versus one meant to last 3,000 hours—the difficulty levels were not even comparable.

After all, his combat creatures were transformed from inanimate objects—they had no fear of death; all he needed was a technique like the Devil’s Body Shattering Art to exhaust his potential and unleash a burst of power to achieve his goal.

After this daydream, Allen finally snapped back to reality. Thinking of his current progress, he let out a bitter smile: imagination was beautiful, but reality was cruel—he was still far, far from achieving such a goal.

The information from the Mirror of Erised had only made him realize that Ancient Runes were likely a programming language.

His conversation with Professor McGonagall had revealed how the World Will processed Transfiguration Spells, leading him to speculate that the World Will was an artificial intelligence—further supporting his theory that Ancient Runes were a programming language.

Putting all this together pointed him clearly toward the direction his Transfiguration applications should take.

He pulled out his notebook, ready to record the gaps in his current knowledge.

1. Quantity of Ancient Rune knowledge. This was the foundation of everything;

2. Method of observing Transfiguration parameters. The Mirror of Erised was a good observation method, but it was clearly out of reach now—he must find a new way to observe.

3. Grammar of Ancient Runes as a programming language. The first two points were prerequisites—only when his Ancient Rune knowledge reached a certain level

could he analyze the program-like syntax within the second parameter of Transfiguration Spells, and analysis required a convenient way to observe those parameters.

4. Find a compiler for programming with Ancient Runes. Parameters and action logic needed many rounds of debugging before they could be finalized.

5. Method of storing Transfiguration parameters and action logic programs. To customize a combat creature, the parameters describing the transformation result would need at least tens of thousands of entries, and the action logic might require tens of thousands of lines—no human mind could handle such massive data, so he needed to store the debugged parameters and logic for direct retrieval when used.

6. Find the parameter escape mechanism for sending information to the World Will. How to translate the debugged parameters and logic into Transfiguration parameters and send them to the World Will—this was also a critical issue.

Allen stared at the long list he’d written and felt like crying. He suddenly realized he was still very, very far from success.

But he vaguely felt this was the right path to pursue—after all, Hogwarts’ curriculum was predictable and transparent, and he was already effortlessly mastering it.

Moreover, the combat content taught at Hogwarts was extremely limited, and no amount of preparation for the coming Wizarding War was too much.

After all, from his past-life short videos, he knew that Albus Dumbledore, the greatest white wizard of the twentieth century, had fallen in this war—how could he, so weak, have any excuse not to strive?

So he must walk this path as firmly as one walks the path of Dark Magic—he always felt this path held limitless potential in the end.

But for now, he still needed to be grounded.

So Allen began analyzing the points he’d listed in his notebook.

The first point—Ancient Rune knowledge—he had been constantly seeking ways to learn it; progress was slow, but there was no rush.

The second point—observation methods—Allen recalled reading about a magic called Memory Magic in a book; the enchantment on the Mirror of Erised was likely Memory Magic, and Dumbledore’s memory-viewing basin also seemed to belong to this category—so Memory Magic deserved focused study.

The third point—no point in thinking about it unless the first two were broken through.

The fourth point—Allen had a thought: he felt the wand’s ability to amplify information couldn’t be that simple—he believed neither the wand’s material nor its core alone could achieve this, and since wands were invented during the peak of Ancient Runes, perhaps they contained embedded Ancient Rune programs that could run inside the wand—this was fascinating. Thinking of this, Allen suddenly looked forward to his summer job at Ollivander’s.

The fifth and sixth points, like the third, were pointless unless the earlier ones were resolved.

After finishing this, Allen was startled to realize he had been sitting on the library steps for nearly an hour—he now felt freezing cold and only wanted to return to the common room’s warm fireplace.