Chapter 98

"The development of modern magic, due to the destruction of the earliest ancient runic ruins, has resulted in fewer observable magical phenomena. For a long time, the Wizarding World even relied on observing various phenomena caused by young wizards' magical outbursts to conduct magical research, or else had to rely on luck to find direction, but these methods are far too inefficient!" Dumbledore continued to state calmly.

"I have always believed that to achieve breakthrough progress in magical research, one must find a more efficient way to observe magic, but after so many years of searching, I have made no progress in this regard..." Professor Dumbledore lowered his eyes and said with some regret.

Hearing Dumbledore's words, Allen Finis was startled in his heart, but he dared not show it on his face; he happened to possess a highly efficient means of observing magic, but he dared not speak of it, because speaking out would likely cause him to lose his freedom and become a true "tool," which was something Allen Finis did not want to see.

"But your appearance has brought me new hope!" Professor Dumbledore said softly.

Allen Finis suddenly raised his head, looking at Professor Dumbledore, only to find that Professor Dumbledore's blue eyes were scrutinizing him...

"Professor, what do you mean?" Allen Finis said with some fear.

"You should now understand the purchasing power of ten thousand Jin Jin Jialong, haven't you thought about why the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts would give you so many privileges?" Professor Dumbledore asked this question calmly.

Allen Finis opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Dumbledore seemed not to expect Allen Finis to answer this question; he continued on his own: "Because your talent is a magical phenomenon that can be observed, and even possesses a certain degree of stability to some extent. Your talent is destined to greatly advance the development of Transfiguration. When we cannot find a more efficient way to observe, then observing you is a very good choice..."

Allen Finis's heart shook greatly; the amount of information contained in these words was too huge...

At this moment, Professor Dumbledore slowly bent down, looking Allen Finis in the eyes, and continued to say softly: "What surprises me most is that you also have the willingness to conduct magical research. Look at how beautiful your eyes are now! Exactly like Fawkes. So, are you currently in the stage of summarizing laws and utilizing your talent?"

Allen Finis did not know how many times he had felt shocked today; he had just been wondering why Professor Dumbledore wanted to go around in such a big circle to talk to him about science, only to find he was waiting for this...

He had always thought that after signing the research agreement, he would be in a state of being left to his own devices, and Professor McGonagall's sampling of his talent transformations each time was just a routine procedure; he never expected that a pair of eyes at the upper levels of Hogwarts was silently watching him...

So Professor Dumbledore knew everything about his research on his talent!

He looked into Dumbledore's blue eyes; from the blue pupils, he saw his own reflection, which gave him an even stronger feeling of being completely seen through...

Professor Dumbledore keenly perceived Allen Finis's tension.

"Ah ha! Do not be nervous!" Professor Dumbledore straightened his body and chuckled lightly, "I am interested in your talent; regarding your privacy, I will not investigate."

Allen Finis immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"I came to see you today, and talked so much with you, actually for only one purpose—to make you recognize your own potential and value."

"This year, you almost fell under Voldemort's spell and walked the path of Dark Magic; fortunately, you broke free in the end, so I think it is necessary to make you realize your own value. I know Dark Magic far better than you, and I can tell you with certainty that Dark Magic is far inferior to your talent!" Professor Dumbledore said with deep feeling.

Only then did Allen Finis understand Professor Dumbledore's good intentions.

"However, you do not need to have too much pressure; your most important task right now is to receive wizard education at Hogwarts,"

"As for magical research, there is no rush, but you have still submitted a satisfactory answer sheet." Professor Dumbledore lifted the parchment in his hand and said happily.

Mentioning this topic, Allen Finis felt much more relaxed in his heart.

"However, if you are interested in magical research, I will not stop you, but there is one point I must remind you of: magical research is a very dangerous matter." Dumbledore's expression became serious.

"This is an important reason why the progress of modern magical research is slow; after all, testing new effects of a spell always carries various unknown dangers. Many wizards have been injured or even lost their lives due to magical experiments, and this is also what makes many wizards hesitate to approach magical research. Actually, you should be fortunate that you chose to improve Lumos, a spell with no danger."

Hearing this, Allen Finis disagreed; his method of "magical research" was not the same as ordinary wizards, but he should be more careful when testing spells in the future...

Next, Allen Finis raised the request to learn memory magic from Dumbledore, but was refused by Professor Dumbledore; he believed Allen Finis was still too young, his foundation was not yet solid, and memory magic was too dangerous, so only when Allen Finis reached his fifth year would he possibly teach Allen Finis memory magic.

As for borrowing the Pensieve, Allen Finis did not even dare to mention it; Dumbledore's performance today was simply too terrifying, and he had no way to explain how he knew the function of the Pensieve...

The conversation ended here; Allen Finis felt he had gained a lot...

However, when he walked out of the Headmaster's office, he suddenly realized he had forgotten to discuss the experimental consumables with Professor Dumbledore, but thinking about it, it was the end of the term now, and it would be fine to discuss it next school year.

Hogwarts Hospital Wing.

Harry Potter had already woken up, but his face was very pale, leaning weakly against the head of the bed.

Hermione Granger was preparing fruit for Harry Potter, but this time she did not use a knife to peel an apple; instead, she chose to peel an orange...

Ron Weasley was waving his arms and legs, telling Harry Potter something, seemingly about yesterday's adventure...

But Harry Potter's gaze went past Ron Weasley toward the door; Ron Weasley also noticed Harry Potter's abnormality, turned his head, and found Allen Finis leaning against the door, smiling brilliantly...

Ron Weasley laughed loudly, ran over, hugged Allen Finis, and hammered his shoulder hard, saying: "Allen Finis, you are amazing!"

Allen Finis said softly: "Everyone is amazing!"

Hermione Granger ignored Allen Finis's arrival, continuing to peel her orange with care...

Harry Potter struggled to sit up straight; Allen Finis quickly stepped forward to stop him: "You still need to rest well; you have lost too much blood!"

"Thank you..." Harry Potter said weakly, but his words were cut off by Allen Finis halfway through.

"We are friends; this has never changed! Hasn't it?" Allen Finis said with a smile.

Then, in the midst of Hermione Granger's angry gaze, he snatched the orange she had just peeled and put it in his mouth...

The atmosphere in the Hospital Wing became cheerful again...

Ron Weasley started waving his arms and legs again, and as a result, he accidentally broke a cup; Hermione Granger rolled her eyes, waved her wand, and used the Repairing Charm to fix the cup.

Allen Finis watched this scene with a smile, his eyes flashing with strange light...

What no one knew was that deep in the very depths of his eyes, Hermione Granger's wand was reflected; a layer of light screen appeared on the wand, with strange characters flowing across the screen...

Allen Finis suddenly thought of the day he talked about grand strategy with Voldemort; Voldemort seemed to know Chinese, which made him somewhat puzzled...

However, he quickly remembered seeing a picture of Voldemort in his past life; the content of the picture was Voldemort holding chopsticks, picking food from a hot pot, looking very happy... (Experts in the comments section, please upload the picture)

Thinking of this, Allen Finis felt somewhat relieved...

Since he loved hot pot so much, knowing a bit of Chinese was nothing! Allen Finis thought irresponsibly in his heart.

(End of Volume 1)

Volume 1 Conclusion Summary

Volume 1 Conclusion Summary

Unknowingly, it has been 47 days since the book was published; this book has also reached nearly 220,000 words, yet the plot of the first part has only just been finished. I originally estimated the plot of the first part would be no more than 100,000 words; inexplicably, I have written so much. It seems my control over long novels is not yet good enough.

My favorite author is Ai Qianshui de Wuzei; every time he finishes a volume of plot, he always makes a summary. As a fan, I naturally must learn this point.

I have read every single comment from the book friends; here, I also greatly thank the readers who pointed out the problems in this book. I have summarized everyone's feedback as follows:

Putting heart into setting,

Writing characters with feet.

Always going off track,

The update rate is still too slow.

Below, I will share my thoughts with you, dear readers, from these several aspects.

First, the problem of character development.

The most frequently cited issue with this book is that the protagonist is portrayed as very childish; I recently re-read the previous chapters and found this to be true indeed, so I have summarized the reasons:

1. Character development was not emphasized in the early stages.

This is mainly reflected in the fact that this is my first novel; I had no awareness of character development at all, focusing all my energy in the early stages on how to make the story interesting, which led to the characters' behavior being extremely erratic in the beginning.

2. The methods used for character development were flawed.

Before starting this book, I read many web novel tutorials, and regarding character development, I believe one sentence is absolutely correct:

"The best way to develop a character is to let them make decisions when facing events!"

Making decisions can indeed effectively highlight a character's personality; I once confidently thought: I am a mature adult with experience, so if I make decisions for the protagonist, the character I write will definitely not be childish.

But facts proved that I thought too simply!

First, I simply cannot make decisions for the protagonist with a normal mindset.

This situation is similar to playing a game: your behavior in the game is completely different from your behavior in reality, yet these decisions are all made by you; writing a book is the same for me.

Taking the Flying Lesson plot as an example: the protagonist rides a broom to crash into Goyle. In reality, I would definitely stay out of it and keep a high and mighty distance, but in my favorite magical world, I found I couldn't make such a decision; I just wanted to get a thrill.

Then, the design of the plot affects the protagonist's decisions;

Again, taking the Flying Lesson as an example: to introduce the wand talent for transfiguration, the protagonist grew wings. Once having wings, their function must be utilized, just like in a movie, if a gun appears on screen, it must be fired within 30 minutes.

It is illogical for the protagonist to fly into the sky for no reason according to their personality, so something must force the protagonist to fly up; only by flying up can an accident be created, forcing the protagonist to use the wings.

Therefore, the chapters before this plot were all laying the groundwork to force the protagonist to ride a broom and fly up, but due to my personal lack of writing skill, this scene still came across as relatively immature and failed to fully stir the readers' emotions.

This is also an area I need to strengthen my learning in the future.

3. Plot design errors led to the character failing to hold up.

This brings us to the Qiluo Sect plotline, which readers criticize the most; although I wrote this thread very seriously, it was a disaster for the protagonist's character development.

Actually, Professor Quirrell originally had very little screen time in the outline.

(1) Teaching the protagonist ancient runes.

The protagonist would use the ancient runes he taught to analyze the Cleaning Charm.

The knife that finally killed Quirrell was handed to the protagonist by him personally.

(2) The three times on Halloween.

This was to force the protagonist to pick a side, giving him a stronger motivation than the trio when retrieving the Philosopher's Stone at the end.

(3) The protagonist's verbal sparring with Quirrell.

This point was to expand the world-building, provide satisfaction points, and make Voldemort appreciate the protagonist,

creating conditions for the protagonist to counter-kill Quirrell at the end. Although some readers think this part is very awkward, I felt very satisfied while writing it.

The plot design of this thread looks good at first glance, but I overlooked a particularly important point—the readers' perception.

First, due to my lack of writing skill, I could only write a stereotypical great villain image; if I could have written the image of a high-level villain, perhaps the readers could have accepted it.

But since Quirrell's villainous style was already so obvious, the protagonist still kept approaching him. To make the protagonist's behavior of seeking out Quirrell more logical, I had the protagonist imagine many things in his head, but the readers already know the plot, so they cannot empathize with the protagonist in this part; thus, this part seems very forced. Every time the protagonist imagines something, the readers feel the protagonist is stupid, so this plot design is catastrophic for the protagonist's character development.

Not to mention that I greatly strengthened this thread.

Actually, I have been summarizing these problems and will pay attention to them in the new chapters; the protagonist's behavior in recent chapters should be less childish, right? Should... right (facepalm)!

Second, the direction problem.

Here I must thank all the readers for their enthusiastic feedback; I guarantee that the protagonist's direction will absolutely not go astray in the future. The protagonist will have three directions going forward.

1. Analyzing hidden parameters of spells to expand their effects.

My inspiration for this point comes from skill upgrades in games; every time a skill upgrades, it gains extra abilities. Reasonably upgrading original spells is quite interesting; currently, I am most satisfied with the design of the Unlocking Charm. I also welcome readers to propose their designed spell upgrade effects; a spell can be upgraded multiple times!

2. The protagonist's mastery of their own talents.

Readers generally react very positively to this part, but I feel that random transfiguration cannot be done just for the sake of transfiguration or for the sake of comedy; it must be organically combined with the plot to be interesting. Every transfiguration I describe in detail now serves to advance the plot (except for the snake's nose; this plot was designed long ago, and I really didn't know how to insert the snake's nose into it).

Actually, I have quite a few good transfiguration ideas in my head right now; writing them out will definitely surprise you, but what gives me a headache now is how to combine them smoothly with the plot.

3. Rune programming and development of transfiguration spells.

The second point above is about the protagonist strengthening their own body, but fighting personally every time is too undignified, so this direction is about DIY-ing various interesting minions.

Third, the update aspect.

I dare not make any guarantees on this point; 4000 words a day is already quite stressful for me, but recently I feel my typing speed has improved, so regarding updates, I maintain a cautiously optimistic attitude.

Finally, looking back at these 220,000 words, I feel I have been successful, because I originally thought I wouldn't even be able to write 100,000 words before abandoning the book; being able to write this much, I feel I am quite successful (I must comfort myself this way).

The performance of this book is not good; this is mainly due to my personal reasons, as there were too many toxic points in the beginning that drove readers away, but my mindset is still very good now. The positive feedback this book has given me so far outweighs the negative feedback, so I will strive to finish writing this book.

After all, work experience tells me that only by fully experiencing a project can one gain the most.

And I want to keep writing; experience in this area is very important to me.

Additionally, in the plot of the first part, this book followed the original plot completely without major changes; this is because, as a first-time writer, I was afraid I couldn't control the plot, so I chose the most conservative writing method, but in the second part, I will make more attempts.

After all, I hope to be able to improve infinitely.

Finally, once again, thank you to the readers who managed to read this far despite so many toxic points at the beginning! I also hope everyone can frequently point out my problems; I have a very good temper in real life!