"Ah!"
Wade felt as if he were falling from high in the sky, dropping faster and faster.
"Where's my wand? My magic? I..."
Thud!
As his body hit the ground, Wade Reynolds suddenly opened his eyes. Staring at the green bed curtains above him, he was drenched in sweat.
The way she sent him back was a bit violent.
However, remembering the expression on the senior's face when she said she needed some time alone, Wade Reynolds did not find it strange.
After learning the truth, her mood certainly could not have been pleasant.
"I didn't expect someone like you to have nightmares."
Tom's voice drifted lazily from beside him.
Wade sat up. The mechanical watch beside him showed that it was already eleven at night. The lights in the dormitory had been extinguished, and only a faint glow came from Tom's bed.
Tom had propped his pillow against the headboard and was leaning comfortably against it while reading a book.
A lantern emitting a soft white light floated beside his head.
"I'm human too, Tom. What's so strange about having a nightmare?"
Wade wiped the sweat from his forehead. After that encounter with the senior, he felt completely awake.
"I see. That just proves... you have weaknesses too," Tom said, his eyes flickering.
"Oh? So it seems you're thinking about rebelling again?" Wade Reynolds glanced sideways at him. "Since I can't sleep now, how about we practice a little? Let me see whether your strength has improved."
Tom silently put his pillow and book aside. Then he extinguished the lantern, set it on the bedside table, and lay down.
"I'm not like you, Wade. I'm still a child. This is the time when my body is growing, and proper sleep is essential."
Wade Reynolds sighed. "You're much more timid than before. Where did your courage go?"
"When facing an opponent so powerful that victory is impossible, decisively choosing a strategic retreat is also a form of courage, Wade," Tom said calmly.
"Tom, has anyone ever told you that you're starting to sound more and more like Dumbledore?" Wade Reynolds frowned.
He had not paid attention for a few days, and now Tom sounded strangely like Dumbledore.
So who exactly was Dumbledore's favorite student now?
"Good night, Lord Dark Lord," Tom said without responding to the remark. After covering himself with his blanket, he pointed his wand at his own chest.
"Stupefy."
Wade Reynolds stared in stunned silence as Tom immediately fell into a deep sleep. When had he learned such a quick way to fall asleep?
…
Deep within the Forbidden Forest, inside the wizard's tower.
Wade Reynolds suddenly appeared in the laboratory on the first floor.
There was no one in the laboratory, only experimental equipment covered with a layer of dust.
Moonlight streamed in through the window, casting large, strangely shaped shadows across the bluish-gray floor.
Wade snapped his fingers, and the lights in the laboratory instantly turned on.
The entire room immediately became as bright as day.
The eerie and gloomy atmosphere from a moment ago vanished at once.
It had been quite some time since Wade had returned here.
After all, when Slytherin had appeared before, it had given him a strong sense of danger.
On one of the experiment tables, Wade saw his suitcase.
He raised his head and called out, "Professor, are you here?"
"I'm at the observatory on the 4th floor," a voice sounded beside Wade Reynolds's ear. It was Slytherin's voice.
Wade rubbed his ear in surprise.
The magic used to transmit the voice was somewhat similar to his own Whispering Charm.
Wade quickly headed up to the 4th floor.
The 4th floor was the top of the wizard's tower. The dome above was made from some unknown alchemical material.
From inside, the view outside was completely transparent, but from the outside, it looked like an ordinary roof.
At that moment, Slytherin was lying on a reclining chair that had been brought from somewhere unknown, gently rocking back and forth while reading a book.
Moonlight and starlight poured down, yet the only shadow on the ground was that of the reclining chair, making the scene appear extremely eerie.
Wade Reynolds rubbed the goosebumps on his arms.
It really felt like seeing a ghost. Then again, he was indeed a ghost now.
"What exactly happened tonight?" Slytherin asked, setting his book aside and turning his head.
"Something very strange happened, and then Professor Dumbledore discovered you."
Wade then told Slytherin everything that had happened that day, leaving out the parts he could not mention.
Although Slytherin was somewhat displeased that Wade Reynolds had accidentally exposed his presence, what had happened that day still captured his attention.
"Truly difficult to understand," Slytherin said, shaking his head. "In our era, we had never heard of such a thing. But could it be possible that this is how my bones disappeared?"
Wade shook his head. "Probably not. The conditions weren't there. When we dug up the grave back then, there wasn't nearly that much dark magical energy."
"According to your theory, perhaps someone in the same location in another parallel world was manipulating it?" Slytherin suggested.
"Not impossible... however..."
Suddenly, Wade glanced at the book beside Slytherin and narrowed his eyes slightly.
If he remembered correctly, this book came from the 3rd-floor collection, and the material in it would not have appeared until several hundred years after Slytherin's time. In that case...
"Professor, did the contents of this book already exist in your era?" Wade asked suddenly.
"The contents of this book?" Slytherin picked it up again and flipped through a few pages. "No. It only proves that knowledge continues to progress. Compared with the magic of later generations, the magic of my era was indeed much more crude. So learning a few new spells is quite necessary."
"Learning new spells?"
Wade took the book. Inside were recorded several extremely vicious Dark Magic spells.
"You can learn these spells?"
"Of course. Who do you think I am? I can even decipher those obscure ancient magical texts. Compared to that, books of spells this straightforward are nothing," Slytherin said proudly.
"Could you demonstrate one for me?" Wade asked.
"You dare question me, boy?" Slytherin stood up in displeasure and picked up the wand beside him.
As he rose to his feet, the reclining chair automatically transformed into a wooden training dummy shaped like a human figure.
Slytherin casually pointed his wand at it, and the wooden dummy instantly melted into a pool of black slime.
This was an extremely vicious Dark Magic spell. The moment it struck a human body, the victim would be instantly melted by the powerful curse.
Wade Reynolds looked at the pool of slime on the ground that still contained a strong curse, his eyes lighting up slightly.
"This spell is quite good," Slytherin said with satisfaction. "It seems there are indeed outstanding talents among later generations."
"So this really is a spell you just learned, old man..." Wade muttered.
Slytherin said irritably, "I already told you, such a simple spell is nothing to me. How could I possibly fail to learn it? I am Slytherin."
"But... have you ever considered one question? Ghosts cannot learn new knowledge," Wade Reynolds suddenly said.
Slytherin's eyes widened instantly.
Ghosts could be considered a very special kind of existence. They were the imprint left behind after a wizard's death.
They could not truly experience the world, could not touch or eat anything, and could not learn anything new.
A ghost's knowledge and talents remained fixed at the state they were in at the moment of death and could never progress further.
In other words, Slytherin had now learned a spell that had been invented several hundred years after his death. That was completely unreasonable.
Thinking of his missing bones, Slytherin slowly raised his head. "Is it possible... that I might not actually be dead yet?"
"But your research into immortality had only just begun. There were no results yet. How could you possibly have lived for so long?" Wade Reynolds said, equally puzzled.
"But... how do you explain this?" Slytherin pointed at the black slime on the ground and said excitedly.
Wade Reynolds sighed. "No matter what, the fact that this has happened can only prove that you are not an ordinary ghost."
"Damn it! Who tampered with me? What exactly did they do to me?" Slytherin roared in fury.
The proud Slytherin found the feeling of being manipulated like a fool deeply offensive.
"Perhaps it's not necessarily a bad thing, old man. Maybe you really aren't dead. I know of a legendary alchemist who has lived for nearly eight hundred years. Someone might have done something similar to you."
"You mean someone used me as a subject in an immortality experiment?" Slytherin said angrily.
In the past, he had always been the one using others as pawns and experimental subjects. Now it seemed he himself had become someone else's pawn and test subject.
Unforgivable.
Wade Reynolds did not say anything further. He was worried that if he spoke another word, Slytherin might explode on the spot from anger.
Still, he truly believed that Slytherin might have been used as an experimental subject in some kind of experiment.
After all, although Slytherin had been immensely powerful in his time, he had also been very old.
If someone needed a powerful wizard as a test subject, Slytherin would indeed have been an excellent choice.
"Then where are my bones? A moment earlier, I could still sense them!" Slytherin said.
"They disappeared right after you reached into the coffin, didn't they?" Wade Reynolds asked.
"Yes. You were there at the time, weren't you?"
"Perhaps the problem lies in that exact moment when you reached into the coffin.."
Wade Reynolds said thoughtfully.
"There's also something I've been meaning to tell you. If your remains had been lying in that coffin for a thousand years, whether they had turned into a skeleton or a mummy, the coffin should have contained traces left by the decomposition of a corpse. But there was nothing inside. So perhaps your body was never in that coffin to begin with. Of course, it's also possible that when you opened the coffin, you triggered some kind of teleportation magic."
"Do you think it's possible... that my body is actually still alive?"
Slytherin said uncertainly.
"And that the one who schemed against me intends to use both my body and my soul as experimental subjects? Yes, that would make sense. Otherwise, how could a ghost like me have remained dormant for a thousand years? And when I first awakened, I was still able to cast spells normally."
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