Chapter 103: Souvenirs & Nicolas's Investment
Lunch was also served at the dragon reserve, and the food was quite distinctive: dragon meat.
Looking at the large steak, Albert asked curiously, "Which dragon is this? Short-Snout or Green?"
"It should be Short-Snout. Judging by the muscle texture, it looks like it." Isaac looked for a while, not entirely sure. "We rarely eat dragon meat; generally, they are sold as materials."
"Alright." Albert mentally prepared himself for a moment before starting to cut the steak.
"It's actually quite good. I think it tastes better than regular beef." After taking a small bite, Albert's eyes lit up.
"Really?" Sofia was skeptical and also cut a small piece to taste.
"It is indeed quite good." Sofia felt relieved.
Ethan, having just returned from the bathroom, also sat down and began to taste this dragon meat, which wasn't easily obtained.
Seeing the two eating happily, Cyril said, "If you like it, I'll bring some to England. It's just that cooking it isn't easy; it requires house-elves to prepare."
"Forget it, tasting it once is enough." Albert rejected the proposal.
This dragon meat-themed lunch had quite a variety. Besides dragon steak, there was dragon meat stewed in Burgundy wine, dragon meatballs, fried dragon sausages, and other dishes.
After lunch, everyone was very satisfied with this dragon feast.
"In the afternoon, let's go see the dragon hatching process first. There happens to be a Welsh Green hatching today," Cyril said as he led the three toward the hatchery.
At school, our gamekeeper got a Norwegian Ridgeback egg and hatched it in his wooden hut. Unfortunately, I missed the hatching back then. Now is the perfect time to make up for that regret." Ethan was a little excited.
Sofia also remembered this incident. "You told us about it. You named it Norbert, right? When sending it away, you almost got caught."
"Yes, that Norwegian Ridgeback is different from the two kinds we saw today. It has black ridges on its back, hence the name Ridgeback." Ethan described Norbert's appearance to them.
At the door of the hatchery, Cyril took down four cloaks with blue magic runes from the wall. "Put these on. A slow-release Freezing Charm has been cast on them to prevent heatstroke from the high temperatures in the hatchery."
The three followed suit and put on the cloaks, immediately feeling a wave of coolness.
Cyril opened the hatchery door, and a heatwave hit them, distorting the air.
When Albert, who was last, entered the room, Cyril closed the thick door again. "The hatchery needs to maintain heat, so people need to close the door quickly after entering and exiting."
"The eggs you see are all dragon eggs in the process of incubation. These earthy brown ones with green spots are Welsh Green eggs, and these silvery-white ones with blue spots are Short-Snout eggs."
There were at least a hundred eggs being roasted by flames in the hatchery. They were placed on stone platforms, with nozzle-like fire outlets above them, flames gently licking the eggs.
"The eggs roasted by flames will be transferred to the hatching room after a month. Our staff responsible for checking their incubation status observe the eggs here and take the newly hatched dragons to the nursery immediately."
Cyril led them out of the incubation room, hung the cloaks back on the wall, and guided them in another direction.
The hatching room wasn't as hot as the incubation room. There weren't many dragon eggs here, and they were all in small individual compartments, similarly roasted by flames on stone platforms.
"These flames will stop spewing after our staff sees cracks appear on the dragon eggs." They observed the condition of the dragon eggs in the compartments through the glass on the doors.
"Alright, this is the room. According to calculations, this Welsh Green should hatch within the next hour, at most." Cyril signaled to the witch observing at the window to check on the other dragon eggs.
That was Eva, who specialized in this stage. Cyril had introduced the short, stout, middle-aged witch with black hair.
Eva smiled at them warmly and continued to observe the other dragon eggs.
Sure enough, as Cyril had said, after they waited at the window for about ten minutes, the dragon egg began to make clicking sounds.
Cyril pulled a handle on the door, and the flames stopped spewing. He opened the compartment door, indicating they could observe up close.
The clicking sounds became more frequent, and the heated stone platform slowly cooled down.
Gradually, a thin crack appeared on the eggshell, deepening and spreading downward.
This process lasted for more than five minutes. The crack deepened, and finally, with a piercing scraping sound, the egg split open. A small green dragon crawled out of the cracked shell.
It roared softly a few times, then stumbled and crawled toward Ethan.
Ethan reached out and held the small dragon, about thirty or forty centimeters long, in his hands.
"Take it to the nursery; it just hatched and urgently needs to eat."
Ethan carried it to the nursery.
Three wizards were responsible for feeding the young dragons, wearing thick dragon-hide gloves to prevent bites.
Feeding Welsh Greens was similar to feeding Norwegian Ridgebacks, requiring strong spirits and animal blood. The Shafiq Dragon Reserve used vodka and chicken blood.
There were more than a dozen young dragons being fed here, each locked alone in an iron cage.
After a gaunt wizard with long hair took the small dragon, Cyril said, "We will continue to feed them in the nursery for a month. By then, they will be over a meter long and can be released into the wild to fend for themselves."
After staying in the nursery for a while longer and interacting with different dragons, the four returned to the reception room.
"What magical creatures." Sofia was still savoring the feeling of having taken off the dragon-hide gloves and touched the small dragons. "Their scales are so tiny, like little fish."
"Actually, their scales are more like snakes," said Albert, who had also touched them.
This remark earned him an eye roll, and Albert stopped talking.
"Same thing, same thing." Ethan smoothed things over.
A short while later, Cyril returned with three pairs of dragon-hide gloves with silvery-blue scales, two pieces of eggshell, several bottles of dragon blood, and a few large scales.
"The eggshells are from the dragon that just hatched; you can keep them as souvenirs." Cyril handed these souvenirs to Albert and Sofia.
"The dragon teeth and horns you wanted, I'll give them to you in a while. There's no stock at the moment."
"No problem, I'm in no hurry." Ethan nodded.
In Greek legend, Cadmus sowed dragon teeth and grew invincible Dragon Tooth Warriors, so he wanted to test whether magical warriors transfigured from dragon teeth would be stronger than those made from other materials.
The trip to the dragon reserve opened the eyes of Sofia and Albert, who were Muggles, making them more interested in the magical world.
After returning home that night, Cyril brought out some books about dragons for the couple to read. This was at their own request; they wanted a deeper understanding of the beasts they had seen that day.
Taking this opportunity, Cyril took Ethan to Nicolas Flamel's residence again.
"Only been a day, why are you here again?" Nicolas still had that smiling expression.
Cyril signaled Ethan to take out the book.
"Nicolas, why did you give such an important book to Ethan?"
Nicolas Flamel refused the metal book Ethan handed over. "Is this book important? In the eyes of the world, immortality and turning stone into gold are indeed important, but in the eyes of a dying man like me, it doesn't matter at all. Giving this book to you is just fate. You just happened to appear when I needed to entrust this book. Don't overthink it."
Seeing his attitude, Cyril became a bit anxious. "But if others know this book is in Ethan's hands, it will bring him a lot of trouble."
Nicolas signaled for him to stay calm. "Then don't let anyone know. Right now, besides the three of us and Perenelle, only old Ronald at home knows. By the time the elixir we've stockpiled runs out, only you and your grandfather will know."
Cyril felt slightly relieved at that.
He knew that Ronald, the house-elf who had served Nicolas for many, many years, had also survived until now thanks to the Elixir of Life. It seemed Nicolas and the others were truly preparing for the next adventure they called death.
"How about giving this book to Dumbledore? As someone accomplished in alchemy, I think he should be able to better appreciate its value." Ethan still felt a bit uneasy.
"Up to you. This book is already yours; you can dispose of it however you want." Nicolas waved his hand with a smile. "If there's nothing else, you two should go back first. Perenelle and I should rest."
Since the host had spoken, the two looked at each other and bid farewell to Nicolas Flamel.
After they left, Perenelle walked out of the study carrying a cup of the same health drink as Nicolas and asked, "Didn't you plan to give this book to Dumbledore before? Why give it to Ethan? He's still a child."
"Yes, he is still a child now, but he is the last child of the Shafiq family. I don't know how far he can go in the future, whether he can control the Land of Death and further control death." He said the last sentence very softly, so softly that Perenelle almost didn't hear it.
Perenelle was startled. "What did you say? Control the Land of Death, control death? What does that mean? The Shafiqs are mysterious, but surely not to that extent? Doesn't the Grim Reaper exist? And even if he really exists, what does it have to do with the Shafiqs?"
Nicolas had a nostalgic expression. "Actually, there is something I haven't told you, but now that we are about to die, I think Matthew won't blame me for leaking the secret."
"Matthew? Matthew Shafiq? Hasn't he been dead for over two hundred years?" Perenelle thought for a moment and remembered who Nicolas meant.
"Yes, over two hundred years have passed in a flash. I still can't forget the shock of that time."
He said to his wife, "You should remember, back then Matthew and I agreed to go to the Mayan ruins in Mexico for an adventure, trying to find some strange knowledge left by ancient alchemists."
The old lady said, "I remember. You were gone for nearly half a year that time, and basically came back with nothing. It took a year of recuperation after returning to get back to normal."
"Yes, that was the time. Actually, during that adventure, I discovered a secret of the Shafiq family. But this secret was too significant, so Matthew urged me never to tell anyone. This is the secret I've kept from you for two hundred years. It was also after that time that the Shafiqs and I maintained a close relationship generation after generation."
Nicolas looked at his wife guiltily and continued, "At that time, in a collapsed ruin, the two of us fell into a trap. This trap, set by ancient wizards, was completely different from modern ones, so we didn't detect it. Poisoned arrows suddenly shot out, piercing through Matthew's Iron Shield Charm. And the ordinary antidotes we had prepared had no effect on that toxin, so at that time, I thought he was hopeless. However, unexpectedly, Matthew himself wasn't all that sad. Before he died, he told me not to be surprised no matter what signs I saw."
"Wait, before he died? Didn't he return to France alive?" Perenelle interrupted Nicolas.
"Let me finish," Nicolas said. "I watched him die bit by bit, and soon he lost all signs of life. Just when I intended to leave the ruins with his body and return to France to report this bad news to his family, a miracle happened. The body that had already started to cool gradually warmed up. A black flame burned on his body, and the wound on him slowly healed. After this phenomenon lasted for ten minutes, Matthew opened his eyes again. He had resurrected."
"Resurrected?! Not some strange thing borrowing a corpse to bring back a soul?"
Nicolas shook his head. "No, Matthew truly resurrected. I verified it. It was also then that I learned some secrets of the Shafiq family."
Thinking of the Shafiq family's marriage traditions, Nicolas sighed. "This mysterious family has consistently intermarried between the British and French branches to prevent the bloodline from spreading and to keep this secret. Have you noticed that apart from marrying female members of some Pure-blood families, rarely do their own women marry into other surnames?"
Perenelle thought for a while. "Now that you mention it, that's true. I've practically never heard of any family marrying a girl from the Shafiq family."
Nicolas said, "Because the women of their family mostly married into the British Shafiq family, or recruited some Muggle-born wizards to marry in. After Matthew resurrected, he told me that because of their family bloodline, most clansmen possess a second life. That's also why they are keen on adventure."
"So, what does this have to do with controlling death? Although the bloodline ability of resurrection is indeed incredible, the gap between that and controlling death is still too large." Perenelle was even more puzzled.
Nicolas smiled smugly. "Actually, there are other reasons I discovered after many years of observation. Although Matthew didn't say it explicitly, based on my experience, the bloodline traits of the Shafiq family are very similar to those of the legendary Satan. In Muggle mythology, Satan is the devil who rules hell and opposes God. He once took the form of the Great Red Dragon with seven heads and ten horns, wreaking havoc in the human world. Like the Grim Reaper in wizarding fairy tales, none of us are sure if He truly exists, but given Matthew's resurrection, I'd rather believe He really did exist."
"So, you're gambling that this last Shafiq might become the Master of the Land of Death and subsequently control death? How did you reach that conclusion?" Perenelle was even more confused.
"Cyril once mentioned to me that sooner or later he would go to Egypt to find something. He might not know that I'm aware of some of the Shafiq family secrets. I suspect what he's looking for is the legendary Book of the Dead." Nicolas's smile was smug.
"Besides, even if he can't do it, it doesn't matter. We have nothing to lose, right?" Nicolas ended the conversation with his wife with that remark.
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