When Jerry pushed open his dorm room door, he almost thought he had walked into the wrong room.
The desktop was covered with boxes of varying sizes. Wooden ones, iron ones, stone ones, and even a soft pouch stitched from some kind of animal leather.
There were about a dozen boxes in total, completely cluttering the desk that normally held only a reading lamp and a stack of parchment. A few boxes that couldn't fit on the desk were stacked neatly on the floor beside the desk leg, like miniature castles waiting to be unboxed.
"It isn't even Christmas yet."
He stood in the doorway, his grey eyes sweeping over the entire desktop. Then he raised his right hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and slowly traced a line through the air from left to right. An incredibly faint, greyish-black light shot from his fingertips, enveloping the surfaces of the boxes like a transparent mist. The light lingered on the boxes for about three seconds before reflecting back, carrying microscopic motes of variously colored light that reconverged at Jerry's fingertips.
Within the greyish-black light, those microscopic motes arranged themselves into a complex information matrix. Jerry's pupils constricted slightly upon receiving this information, then dilated back to normal.
No danger. No curses, no traps, no tracking magic.
He lowered his right hand, stepped into the dorm, and kicked the door shut behind him. The door closed with a soft click.
He walked up to the desk, bent down, and brought his face close to the nearest wooden box. His nostrils flared twice, sniffing the residual magical fluctuations on the surface of the box. Every wizard's magic possesses a unique vibrational frequency, much like a fingerprint; those familiar with them can identify the sender through these fluctuations.
The fluctuation on the first wooden box carried a crisp coolness, resembling the scent of the first snow of winter blanketing pine needles.
Catherine.
The fluctuation on the second iron box carried a warm heat, mixing the scents of herbs and old book pages.
Isabella.
Jerry's finger stopped on the third box. That box was made of stone, its surface rough, as if chiseled from some unpolished natural rock. The magical fluctuation on the box carried a scorching heat, resembling the scent of magma flowing over a steel surface.
Vera.
His brow lifted.
The fourth box, Catherine's. The fifth, Isabella's. The sixth, Vera's. The seventh, Catherine's.
Catherine and Isabella being assigned to the same camp was within his expectations. But Vera was at that camp too?
His grey eyes narrowed.
"Cassiopeia's doing, no doubt."
He muttered in a low voice, then reached out and picked up the first wooden box, using his thumb to flick open the brass clasp on the lid.
The lid flipped open, revealing an interior lined with deep green velvet padding, upon which rested a dagger.
The dagger was about twenty centimeters long, the blade incredibly slender, like an elongated willow leaf. The color of the blade face was silver-white, but under the dim light of the dorm room, it refracted a pale blue luster. There were exceedingly minute patterns on the blade's surface; those patterns were not artificially carved, but rather the natural crystalline structure formed by the metal during the forging process.
Jerry picked up the dagger, weighing it in his hand.
Light. It was at least two-thirds lighter than a wizarding world dagger of the same size. Yet, when his fingers pinched the sides of the blade, he could feel an incredibly faint, continuous vibration transmitting from deep within the metal, as if a microscopic heart were beating inside its crystalline structure.
"A magical artifact."
He placed the dagger back into the box and picked up the second iron box. The lid of the iron box was much harder to open; he had to use both hands to pry apart the rust-spotted iron clasp. The lid flipped up, revealing three jade disks inside. Each was about five centimeters in diameter, their surfaces engraved with densely packed runes. The style of the runes was entirely different from those in the wizarding world; the lines were smoother and more rounded, the structures more complex.
Jerry picked up one of the disks and held it up to his eye. The disk gleamed with a warm, moist luster under the light, and a few incredibly thin golden threads could faintly be seen flowing sluggishly within its interior.
"Fragments of an array disk."
He placed the disk back into the iron box and proceeded to open the third, fourth, and fifth boxes. Every single box contained something different. A pitch-black short sword, the blackness on the blade's surface seeming alive, rippling faintly under the light. A palm-sized bronze mirror, its surface slightly convex rather than flat; the image reflected on its front was distorted, like looking at a stretched world. A folding fan, its ribs made of some kind of animal bone, the fan face translucent; upon opening it, the outline of a mountain was painted on the face, and the outline shifted slightly the moment it was opened, like a living painting.
All of them were magical artifacts.
Jerry closed the last box, rested his hands on the edge of the desk, and swept his grey eyes over the opened and unopened boxes cluttering the surface.
"Looks like they reaped quite a bounty over there."
The corner of his mouth curved up.
The dorm door was pushed open from the outside.
No knock. Just pushed right open.
Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway, her left hand bracing the doorframe, her right hand holding a cloth sack. The bottom of the cloth sack was bulging, as if it contained several hard objects; the mouth of the sack was tied shut with a red string, the knot tied very loosely.
She wore deep green wizard robes, the hem sweeping across the threshold as she stepped into the dorm. Her square spectacles had slid down her nose slightly; she used her left index finger to push them back into place, then set the cloth sack down on the chair next to Jerry's desk.
"Vera had some things sent to my office. I brought them over for you."
Her gaze shifted from the cloth sack to the opened boxes and the magical artifacts inside them on the desktop. Her green eyes paused upon seeing that pitch-black short sword and the bronze mirror.
"Oh, it seems you have quite a few good things here."
She extended her right hand, her finger touching the edge of the bronze mirror. The mirror surface vibrated slightly the moment her finger made contact, and the distorted image reflected on its surface swayed in a circle along with it.
"Are all these sent back from the front line?"
"Correct." Jerry nodded. "Sent by Catherine, Isabella, and Vera. All of them are magical artifacts."
Professor McGonagall's finger moved away from the bronze mirror, drifting over the boxes on the desk. Her finger tapped the dagger, the array disk fragments, the short sword, the folding fan in sequence; with every artifact she tapped, her eyebrow lifted slightly.
"Not bad. Bringing these things back for research could keep the people in the laboratories busy for several months."
She withdrew her hand from the desk, crossed her hands over her lower abdomen, and turned to look at Jerry.
"How is the battlefield on the front line right now?"
Jerry's voice drifted over from behind the desk.
The corners of Professor McGonagall's mouth curved downward in a microscopic arc.
"Still the same old story."
Her tone carried the resigned exasperation of "What else did you expect?"
"Both sides are currently marshalling their forces and preparing for war. However, the friction on the front line is far more intense than the friction with the Olympian Pantheon."
She paused, drawing a horizontal line in the air with her finger.
"The number of missing wizards and captured live Cultivators is roughly the same. Both sides are researching each other's energy systems."
Her finger moved from the left end of the horizontal line to the right.
"We are researching spiritual power, and they are researching magic power. We capture their people for experiments, and they capture our people for experiments."
She paused.
"Up to this point, this war feels more like two research institutes stealing experimental materials from each other."
The corner of Jerry's mouth curved.
"Sounds like the laboratory version of the Cold War."
"Pretty much." Professor McGonagall nodded. "But this balance could be broken at any moment. As soon as one side achieves a breakthrough in the other's energy system first, the war will escalate immediately."
She paused, her green eyes staring at Jerry's face through the lenses of her square glasses.
"By the way."
Her tone shifted, transitioning from the businesslike delivery of a frontline situation report to a cadence mixing anticipation with a touch of urging.
"Tyranid Bionics has been approved for combat deployment."
Jerry's brow lifted.
"Approved?"
"Correct." Professor McGonagall nodded. "The Ministry of Magic's approval process took two months, but it finally passed. The Wizengamot vote resulted in thirty-seven in favor, twelve against, and one abstention."
She paused.
"Are you available today? If it is convenient, come with me to transport the first batch of bionic entities to the front line."
Jerry nodded.
"I am available."
He paused.
"However, could we go to the front line where Catherine and the others are stationed?"
Professor McGonagall's brow furrowed. She raised her right hand, her fingers rubbing her chin in thought for about three seconds.
"Yes, no problem."
Her hand moved away from her chin.
"Since the experiments will be conducted on the front lines anyway, practical reports will need to be written. Having Vera or Catherine write them might actually be better. Vera has combat command experience, and Catherine has the data-recording capabilities of an Overseer; the two of them collaborating on the practical reports will produce far better results than those researchers in the rear who only know how to slap their heads and guess."
Jerry nodded.
"Then it's settled."
"Mmh." Professor McGonagall nodded as well. Then her body suddenly lunged forward.
The range of that forward lunge was massive, like she was bending down to pick something up off the floor. Her right hand shot downward from the front of her body, crossing the edge of the desktop, crossing the empty space in front of where Jerry was standing, and reached directly for the crotch of his sweatpants.
Her fingers accurately grabbed that thing through the fabric of his sweatpants.
Jerry's body froze the instant he was grabbed. That thing twitched under the sudden gripping pressure of her fingers, the temperature of the shaft transmitting to her palm through the thin material of the sweatpants. Her five fingers tightened around the contour of that thing; the fabric indented under the squeeze of her fingers, outlining the thick silhouette of the shaft and the plump curve of the head.
"You had better keep this thing under control for me."
Professor McGonagall's voice came from above her bent body, her tone shifting from that previous businesslike cadence to a hushed, teeth-gritting tone. Her fingers clenched tightly on the fabric of his sweatpants, yanking that thing forward along with the material; Jerry's hips were forced to pitch forward two centimeters along with her hand.
"There are too many eyes and mixed company on the front line."
Her fingers adjusted their position on the fabric, sliding from the midsection of the shaft down to the base. Her thumb and index finger locked onto that indented edge between the shaft and the scrotum, giving a forceful pinch through the fabric. The force of that pinch was not light; Jerry's back arched involuntarily, the muscles of his lower abdomen contracting under the pressure.
"I have no desire to wipe your ass for you."
Her green eyes stared at Jerry's face from over the top rims of her square glasses. The angle was looking upward, because with her bent waist, the position of her face was about ten centimeters lower than Jerry's. But that upward gaze held no implication of submission; it was entirely a warning of "You'd best behave."
Jerry's grey eyes looked at Professor McGonagall's face.
"This thing you are grabbing right now is harder to control than any enemy on the front line."
The corner of Professor McGonagall's mouth twitched.
"I know."
Her fingers pinched again, the force heavier than before, the fabric letting out a faint rustle under her squeeze. Stimulated by her fingers, that thing began to engorge with blood and expand. The outline of the shaft grew more pronounced beneath the fabric by the second, the curve of the head transforming from a vague bulge into a distinct, perfect hemisphere straining against the material.
"Which is exactly why I must warn you in advance."
Her fingers released their grip on that thing. As her fingertips pulled away, they trailed upward along the contour of the shaft from the base to the head, dragging a shallow crease into the fabric before snapping it back into place with a soft thwap once her fingers completely lost contact.
She straightened her waist, tucking her right hand behind her back, and used her left hand to adjust the square glasses on the bridge of her nose.
"Gather at the Transfiguration classroom today at three o'clock."
Her tone returned to its businesslike stability.
"The first batch of bionic entities consists of twelve units in total, requiring specialized magical containers for transport. The containers are extremely heavy; you will help me carry them."
A distinct tent had pitched in the front of Jerry's sweatpants. That thing was fully erect after being handled by Professor McGonagall; the thick outline of the shaft was clearly visible through the thin fabric, stretching all the way from the waistband down to the middle of his thigh, the curve of the head stretching the fabric taut.
"Could you perhaps help me resolve this issue first before leaving?"
Professor McGonagall had already stepped to the doorway. She turned her head, her green eyes glancing through her lenses at that conspicuous tent pitched at the front of Jerry's crotch, and the corners of her mouth curled up.
"No."
She pushed open the door and stepped out of the dorm.
"Resolve it yourself. Three o'clock. Don't be late."
The door closed behind her with a click.
Jerry stood in the dorm, looking down at that bulge stretching the fabric to its absolute limit at the front of his crotch, and remained silent for two seconds.
"Every single time."
When Malfoy flew over from the sky, Jerry was standing on the lawns of Hogwarts.
The wingspan of that thing exceeded twelve meters; when its wings spread open, they could almost cover half the width of a Quidditch pitch. The feathers on the wings were dark grey, and the tip of every single feather continuously discharged tiny arcs of blue-white electricity. Those electrical arcs shot off the feather tips as the wings flapped, dragging fleeting, jagged ribbons of light through the air.
A Thunderbird!
Its torso was stouter than a Knight Bus; its chest cavity would expand a full size with every breath, stretching the scaled armor covering its chest until it creaked.
Its hooked beak was a dark gold, the tip so razor-sharp it reflected a tiny pinpoint of light under the sun.
Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird, circling three times above Hogwarts. Its altitude dropped with every lap, the downdraft from its flapping wings flattening a massive swath of grass on the lawn, the kicked-up dust forming a ring-shaped curtain of dirt in the air. Beneath the Thunderbird's abdomen, Malfoy's body was embedded in a specially designed control pod attached to the inside of the bird's chest cavity. His hands were plugged into the neural interfaces on either side of the Thunderbird's spine, his fingers wrapped in densely packed bio-fiber cables. Those cables extended from his fingertips into the Thunderbird's central nervous system, directly translating his will into the Thunderbird's actions.
Jerry stood on the lawn, looking up at the circling Thunderbird in the sky. His grey eyes narrowed; then he raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
Snap.
In the sky, a bolt of lightning struck down from the clear blue heavens. That lightning bolt came without any warning—no dark clouds, no thunder—just a pure white arc of electricity thicker than a bucket, striking straight down from the highest point in the sky directly at the circling Thunderbird.
"Ah!"
Malfoy's scream tore out from the Thunderbird's control pod, muffled into an off-key shriek by the bird's thick chest walls. The lightning struck the Thunderbird's back; blue-white electrical arcs spread outward along the wing feathers, wrapping the entire Thunderbird in a crackling shroud of electrical light. The Thunderbird's body convulsed violently the instant it was struck, its wing-flapping rhythm interrupted for half a beat. Then, the largest scale plate on the front of its chest suddenly lit up, the patterns on its surface activating like a magic circle as it began to frantically absorb the electrical arcs covering its body.
Within three seconds, all the electrical arcs were completely absorbed by the Thunderbird's scaled armor. Instead, the electrical arcs at the tips of the Thunderbird's feathers became even thicker than before, transforming from tiny blue-white threads into blue-purple pillars of light as thick as fingers, emitting a continuous, buzzing bzz-bzz-bzz electrical discharge sound as the wings flapped.
The Thunderbird dove from the sky. Its massive body pulled up sharply as it neared the ground, its wings snapping horizontally flat at its lowest point. The resulting downdraft blew the hood of Jerry's sweatshirt clean off the back of his head. The Thunderbird's talons gouged two deep trenches into the lawn, skidding for about ten meters before coming to a halt.
A scale plate on the side of the Thunderbird's chest popped outward, revealing the hatch of the control pod. Malfoy leaned his upper body out of the hatch, his platinum hair baked by the electrical arcs until every strand stood on end, looking like a dandelion just pulled off a static electricity sphere. His face bore a mixed expression of terror and exhilaration, his grey-blue eyes wide open, pupils dilated to the limit.
"What was that? Jerry?"
His voice carried a trace of excitement that hadn't fully faded from soaring through the skies; every word trembled slightly, his breathing as ragged as if he had just run a thousand meters. He braced his right hand against the edge of the hatch, pulling his entire body out of the control pod, his feet landing on the Thunderbird's back, standing right between the roots of its two wings.
"Time to head out."
Jerry bent down and picked up several Undetectable Extension Pouches from the edge of the lawn. Every single pouch was bulging shut, filled with the transport containers for the Tyranid bionic entities. He lifted the pouches to shoulder height, then tossed them toward the Thunderbird.
Seeing the pouches flying over, Malfoy immediately jumped from the Thunderbird's back back into the control pod. His hands plugged back into the neural interfaces on either side of the spine; the bio-fiber cables on his fingers flashed with a blue light the instant they reconnected. Under Malfoy's control, the Thunderbird's beak opened wide, the dark golden tips parting to the sides to reveal a massive oral cavity large enough to stuff an entire wardrobe inside.
The several Undetectable Extension Pouches flew accurately into the Thunderbird's mouth. The beak clamped shut with a clack, holding the pouches in its mouth. The Thunderbird's throat made no swallowing motion; it merely held the pouches suspended between the tip of its beak and the base of its tongue.
Clack-clack-clack.
The sound of high heels stepping on the flagstone path approached from the direction of the academic building.
Professor McGonagall walked out of the main doors of the academic building.
She had swapped out those deep green wizard robes, wearing instead a tight black combat suit. The material of the combat suit was some kind of highly elastic magical fabric, hugging her from just below her neck all the way down to her ankles, perfectly tracing the contours of her thirty-something-year-old body. The cinching at the waist pinched her waistline into a distinct curve; the fabric across her chest was stretched taut by the outward pressure of her breasts, straining into two plump arcs, the stretch lines of the fabric most dense at the peaks of those arcs. The fabric over her buttocks clung tightly to the contours of her flesh; with every step, the dynamic alternating contraction and relaxation of her glutes was faithfully recorded by the material.
A wide leather belt was cinched at her waist, from which hung a wand holster, potion vials, and a few small pouches. Her deep brown hair was tied back into a tight, high ponytail, exposing the skin at the back of her neck and both sides of her ears. Her square spectacles still perched on her nose, the lenses reflecting two tiny spots of light in the sun.
She walked up beside Jerry and the Thunderbird, placing a fist-sized old leather boot on the lawn.
"Portkey. Activates in thirty seconds."
Jerry walked over to the leather boot, extending his right hand to touch the upper of the boot with his finger. Professor McGonagall also extended her right hand, resting her finger on the sole of the boot. Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird, placing one massive talon atop the heel of the boot, the weight of the talon crushing the boot halfway flat.
Thirty seconds.
A layer of pale blue light suddenly ignited on the surface of the leather boot. The light expanded outward from the center of the boot, enveloping Jerry, Professor McGonagall, and the entire Thunderbird. Then, the world began to spin.
That sensation of spinning was completely different from Floo powder. Floo powder was a linear mode of travel, sliding along pipes, but a Portkey was a violent teleportation that ripped a person apart from one point and reassembled them at another. Jerry felt his body being yanked forward by an immense force from his navel; everything in his vision turned into swirling streaks of color, and his ears were filled with the howling of the wind.
The spinning lasted for about five seconds.
Then his feet hit the ground.
The instant he landed, a rich scent entirely different from the air at Hogwarts flooded his nasal cavity. That scent mixed earth, vegetation, metal oxides, and a crisp, chilling odor that permeated the entire space, smelling like ionized air. The air density was higher than in the wizarding world; inhaling it into his lungs produced a slightly swelling sensation.
Spiritual power.
The air of this entire world was saturated with spiritual power.
Jerry's feet stepped onto a black flagstone floor. Surrounding him was a vast, open clearing, packed with densely pitched tents; wizards wearing various uniforms shuttled between the tents. The perimeter of the clearing was ringed by a wooden palisade; beyond the palisade was a wasteland stretching to the edge of the horizon, and at the end of the wasteland lay a continuous mountain range.
Those mountains were more spectacular than any architecture he had seen in the Pantheon. Peak after peak rose from the horizon; the nearest peak was about twenty kilometers away from the camp, yet its height still required one to tilt their head back to see the summit. The mountain bodies were dark grey, their surfaces covered in something resembling a metallic sheen, glinting with a frigid light under the grey sky.
The scale of the camp was far larger than Catherine had described. The number of tents had ballooned from a dozen to hundreds; the area of the clearing had expanded from two Quidditch pitches to the size of a small town. In the center of the clearing, several simple stone buildings had even been erected; the architectural style mixed features of both the wizarding world and the Cultivation world. The walls bore both wizard runes and the engraved marks of Cultivator arrays.
The Thunderbird landed at the edge of the clearing; as its massive wings folded, the downdraft whipped the canopies of the two adjacent tents with a loud flap-flap sound. Several wizards who were moving supplies looked up, saw a Thunderbird with a wingspan exceeding twelve meters land right in the camp, and nearly dropped the crates in their hands.
Vera walked over from the direction of the headquarters tent.
Her fiery red hair swung from her shoulders to her back as she walked. She wore a modified combat robe, the hem cut to just above her knees, exposing two legs clad in tall black boots. Her pace was brisk, the soles of her boots pounding out a thump-thump-thump rhythm against the flagstone floor.
She saw Jerry.
A smile broke out on her face. That smile began from the right side of her mouth, slowly spreading to the left, finally forming a complete curve that carried a certain greedy implication. Her tongue darted out from between her lips; the tip traced an arc from left to right along her lower lip, pulling a tiny piece of dry skin left on her lip into her mouth.
That lip-licking motion lasted for about a second.
"You're here."
Vera walked up to Jerry, her fiery red eyes sweeping over Jerry's body from top to bottom. Her gaze paused on the crotch of his pants for zero point five seconds, then shifted to the Thunderbird behind him.
Professor McGonagall stepped up from beside Jerry, pointing a finger at the Thunderbird as it folded its wings.
"This is the latest combat product of the Tyranid Bionics course. The one controlling it inside is a first-year young wizard."
Vera's fiery red eyes swept from the Thunderbird's head to its tail, then back to its head. Her lips parted slightly, letting out a low "Heh."
"Not bad. Bigger than I imagined."
The scale plate on the side of the Thunderbird's control pod popped open, and Malfoy leaned his upper body out of the hatch. His platinum hair had undergone a transformation after entering this world: the blue-white electrical arcs that previously only flashed occasionally had now become thick electrical bolts continuously dancing between the strands of his hair. A very faint blue phosphorescence glowed on the surface of his skin—the external manifestation of abundant spiritual power permeating into his body.
He pulled his hands from the neural interfaces; the bio-fiber cables on his fingers emitted a bzz discharge sound as they disconnected. He hopped down from the control pod, landing on the flagstone floor, the soles of his boots sending out several blue electrical sparks upon impact.
"The air in this world is fantastic."
Malfoy rolled his shoulders, stretching both arms out to the sides, spreading his fingers wide in the air. Blue electrical arcs radiated outward from the tips of his ten fingers, looking like ten blue lightning tentacles.
"I feel like my whole body is overflowing with power."
The Thunderbird also underwent a transformation after Malfoy left the control pod. The electrical arcs at the tips of its wing feathers swelled from the thickness of a finger to the thickness of an arm. The scale plates on its chest gleamed with a much richer blue-purple luster, and its breathing rate accelerated; with every exhale, a small cloud of blue electrical mist blasted from its beak.
Jerry stood at the edge of the camp, his grey eyes gazing at the continuous mountain ranges in the distance, before glancing back at the frontline outpost that had expanded to the size of a city.
"Can I take a stroll through the mountains?"
Vera looked at Jerry, her fiery red eyes blinking once before her lips curved into a smile. Her nod was crisp and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.
"Go ahead."
She paused for a second.
"You can go pick up Isabella and Catherine while you're at it. The two of them led a squad into the Zhongshan Mountain Range on a capture mission. They set out yesterday; judging by the time, they should be heading back soon."
The Thunderbird's beak suddenly opened. Several Undetectable Extension Pouches were spat out from between the tip of its beak and the base of its tongue, dropping onto the flagstone floor with a series of slap-slap sounds.
"I want to go too."
Malfoy's voice came from beside the Thunderbird. His grey-blue eyes stared at those rolling peaks in the distance, the electrical arcs at his fingertips growing thicker in his excitement, crackling sharply in the air.
Vera glanced at Malfoy, then at Jerry. She turned and walked back into the headquarters tent, rummaged around for a few seconds, and emerged holding a handful of semi-transparent, greyish-white stones about the size of a fist.
"Recording Stones."
She shoved the stones into Jerry's hand. The surfaces of the stones were smooth and warm, with several incredibly fine silver threads flowing sluggishly within their interiors.
"Perfect timing to see what this big guy is capable of."
She pointed a finger at the Thunderbird standing on the flagstones. The Thunderbird's wings were slightly spread in the spiritually dense air, looking ready to take flight at any moment.
"Record it on video and bring it back to me. I need to compile the data and write the experimental report."
Jerry shoved the Recording Stones into his hoodie pocket, then turned to look at Malfoy.
"Let's go."
A smile immediately broke out on Malfoy's face. He turned and ran toward the Thunderbird, grabbing the edge of the control pod's hatch with both hands and hauling his entire body inside. His hands plugged back into the neural interfaces on either side of the spine; the bio-fiber cables flashed with a blue light the instant they reconnected, shining even brighter than before. The scale plate of the hatch clamped shut with a clack.
The Thunderbird's wings snapped open. The twelve-meter wingspan cast a massive shadow over the clearing, the downdraft from the flap whipping the flaps of several adjacent tents into a frenzy. The Thunderbird's talons pushed off the flagstone floor, its wings executing a violent downward beat as its entire body shot into the sky like a launched cannonball.
Jerry stood where he was, tilting his head back to watch the Thunderbird fly higher and higher into the grey sky. Then, a layer of greyish-black light bloomed from the soles of his feet, and his body slowly rose from the ground.
"Be back within three hours."
Vera's voice drifted up from below.
Jerry didn't turn back. His grey silhouette accelerated through the air, catching up to the Thunderbird flying ahead toward the Zhongshan Mountain Range. The two moving figures, one large and one small, grew more and more distant in the grey sky, eventually turning into two tiny specks that vanished amidst the silhouettes of the rolling peaks.
Professor McGonagall stood beside Vera, her hands crossed over her lower abdomen, her green eyes watching the two vanishing specks in the sky.
"He will be fine."
Vera's fiery red eyes were also fixed on the sky.
"I know."
She paused.
"What I'm worried about are those Cultivators."
The first peak of the Zhongshan Mountain Range rose from the ground at an angle nearing seventy degrees.
The surface of the mountain was covered in a layer of greyish-black rock; the grain of the rock was vertical, as if the entire peak had been violently ripped from deep beneath the earth by some immense power.
Growing within the crevices of the rocks were plants Jerry had never seen before. Their leaves were semi-transparent, with microscopic specks of light flowing sluggishly inside them, as if the plants themselves were undergoing some form of photosynthesis—only the object of their absorption had shifted from sunlight to the spiritual power permeating the air.
Jerry hovered in mid-air, the greyish-black light continuously jetting downward from the soles of his feet to maintain his altitude. His position was roughly midway up the mountain peak, about fifteen hundred meters above the ground. Looking down from this height, the camp had shrunk into a small grey square, the tents and buildings reduced to densely packed tiny dots.
The Thunderbird flew past his left side, the slipstream whipped up by its spreading wings blowing the hood of Jerry's sweatshirt back. Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird, weaving between the peaks; every turn was accompanied by blue-purple electrical arcs discharging from its wingtips, dragging glowing flight trails across the grey sky.
Jerry raised his right hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and drew a circle in the air before his eyes.
"Eye of Magic."
The circular light coalesced before his eyes into a transparent lens about thirty centimeters in diameter, hovering ten centimeters in front of his face. Looking through the lens, the colors of the entire world underwent a transformation. The originally grey mountains turned into transparent outlines; the rock structures, mineral veins, and underground water flows inside the mountains all became visualized lines and color blocks.
The spiritual power permeating the air also became visible. The spiritual power appeared as incredibly dense, silver-white micro-particles drifting slowly through the air, their density over ten times higher than the magic particles in the wizarding world. Whenever those particles encountered the magical field surrounding Jerry's body, they automatically bypassed it, acting like two immiscible liquids.
Through the lens of the Eye of Magic, Jerry's gaze swept across all directions of the mountain range.
The first light source appeared to his front-left, roughly three kilometers away. The light source took the form of an irregularly shaped flame; the flame was pale blue, about two meters tall and one meter wide. The edges of the flame danced continuously, spitting out a few microscopic sparks of spiritual power with every flicker.
Foundation Establishment Stage.
Jerry's grey eyes narrowed when he saw that flame. The Foundation Establishment stage was the foundational phase in the Cultivation system; at this stage, Cultivators completed the internalization of spiritual power, converting external spiritual power into their own cultivation base. The spiritual power fluctuations of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator resembled a burning flame; the size and stability of the flame represented the level of their cultivation.
The second light source, front-right, four kilometers away. Also flame-shaped, pale blue, slightly shorter than the first.
The third, dead ahead, two kilometers away. Flame-shaped, pale blue.
The fourth, to the right, five kilometers away.
Flame. Flame. Flame.
Through the lens of the Eye of Magic, Jerry's gaze rapidly swept over the entire front half of the mountain range, discovering a total of seventeen flame-shaped light sources within his field of vision. All of them were at the Foundation Establishment stage.
Then his gaze stopped.
Deep within the mountain range, about eight kilometers away from him, there was a completely different light source.
The shape of that light source was not a flame. It was a sphere, hovering roughly where the lower abdomen of some biological entity would be. The sphere was about thirty centimeters in diameter, golden-yellow in color, its surface covered in a continuously rotating halo of light. The halo spun so fast it formed a blurred ring of light in the Eye of Magic's lens. Inside the sphere, incredibly dense spiritual power circulated at high speed in a spiral trajectory, expanding outward from the core of the sphere and then contracting back to the core from the surface.
Golden Core.
Jerry's pupils constricted slightly upon seeing that golden-yellow sphere. The Golden Core stage was a level far higher than Foundation Establishment in the Cultivation system; at this stage, Cultivators condensed all the spiritual power in their bodies into a physical, solid pill, stored in the dantian region of their lower abdomen. The combat power of a Golden Core Cultivator was on an entirely different plane from the Foundation Establishment stage.
"Malfoy."
Jerry's voice, amplified by a spell, carried to the Thunderbird's control pod three hundred meters away.
"Three kilometers to your front-right, there is a Foundation Establishment Cultivator. Go test if your Thunderbird can beat him."
Malfoy's voice came from the Thunderbird's control pod, muffled by the vibration of the pod walls into a slightly metallic buzz.
"Foundation Establishment? What does that mean?"
"The level of a Cultivator. The ones whose spiritual power fluctuations look like a flame are Foundation Establishment. Go fight one to test the waters first. Be careful not to fly too deep; there's a Golden Core level one deeper in, and you probably can't beat that."
"Understood."
The Thunderbird's wings flapped violently, its massive body banking sharply in mid-air, diving toward the direction Jerry had indicated. The twelve-meter wingspan tucked inward to eight meters during the dive to reduce air resistance, its speed climbing within three seconds to a degree that made the air shriek. The blue-purple electrical arcs at its wingtips were dragged into two long ribbons of light by the high-speed flight, looking like the twin tails of a lightning bolt.
The target appeared in the Thunderbird's line of sight.
It was a figure in grey robes standing on a jutting rocky platform, a three-foot-long sword gripped in his hand. He appeared to be around thirty years old, a vigilant expression on his face, a halo of pale blue spiritual power permeating the air around him.
The Cultivator noticed the anomaly when the Thunderbird closed to within one kilometer. His head snapped toward the sky, the hem of his grey robes whipping out in an arc as he turned. He saw a giant bird with a wingspan exceeding twelve meters diving toward him at breakneck speed, blue-purple electrical arcs flashing on its wings.
The Cultivator reacted instantly. His right hand tossed the longsword upward; the moment the sword left his hand, a streak of pale blue spiritual power shot from his fingertip and infused into the blade. The longsword paused in the air for a second, then shot toward the Thunderbird with unbelievable acceleration.
Flying sword.
The blade emitted a piercing shriek as it tore through the air at high speed, a sharp whoosh as the tip thrust straight toward the Thunderbird's chest.
Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird to execute a violent barrel roll when the flying sword closed to fifty meters. The twelve-meter wingspan went almost perfectly vertical during the roll, the entire body transitioning from horizontal flight to a vertical glide. The flying sword streaked past less than three meters below the Thunderbird's abdomen, the spiritual power on the blade dragging a pale blue trail through the air.
Immediately after completing the barrel roll, the Thunderbird pulled up, its wings snapping downward in two forceful beats, transitioning back from vertical glide to horizontal flight. Then, Malfoy attacked.
The Thunderbird's beak opened; the blue-purple electrical arcs accumulated deep within its throat blasted outward, coalescing in the air into a lightning beam over two meters in diameter. The speed of the beam was blinding, taking a mere zero point three seconds from ejection to hitting the target.
The lightning beam struck the rocky platform beneath the Cultivator's feet. The rock exploded under the bombardment of the lightning, debris and dirt blasting in all directions, a cloud of grey smoke rising from the point of impact. The Cultivator had already leapt off the rocky platform before the lightning struck, his body levitating in the air via spiritual power, his feet planted on that flying sword as he hovered above the smoke.
A look of shock appeared on his face.
"What is that thing?"
His voice carried down from above the smoke, bearing obvious incomprehension. He had never seen a creature like this: massive wingspan, capable of shooting lightning, flying so fast his flying sword couldn't even catch it.
Malfoy gave him no time to think. The Thunderbird's wings flapped violently again, its body pulling a sharp hairpin turn in the air, wrapping from the Cultivator's flank to his back. The wings spread wide at the apex of the turn, the tip of every single feather simultaneously releasing blue-purple electrical arcs. Hundreds of electrical bolts converged in the air into a dense, crackling lightning net, covering roughly fifty square meters of airspace behind the Cultivator.
The Cultivator sensed the attack at his back and spun violently on his flying sword. His right hand pulled a palm-sized bronze shield from the storage pouch at his waist. Imbued with his spiritual power, the bronze shield instantly expanded to the size of a door, its surface gleaming with a golden luster, interposing itself between him and the lightning net.
The lightning net slammed into the bronze shield. The bzz-bzz-bzz sound of electrical discharge rang throughout the valley, blue-purple electrical arcs splashing wildly across the surface of the bronze shield, ionizing the air around it into a pungent cloud of ozone mist. The bronze shield trembled violently under the bombardment, its golden luster fading from bright to dim within two seconds, followed by the appearance of cracks.
The Cultivator's expression changed. His spiritual power frantically repaired the cracks on the surface of the bronze shield, but the lightning net's attack was continuous; every second, new electrical arcs shot from the Thunderbird's wings to replenish the net. The cracks on the bronze shield went from one to two, two to four, four to...
Bang!
The bronze shield shattered. The fragments scattered through the air, every piece crackling with residual blue-purple electricity. The instant the shield shattered, the Cultivator abandoned the fragments, leaping straight up from his flying sword, flipping one hundred and eighty degrees in the air. He planted his feet on the hilt of the flying sword and plummeted downward in a rapid dive, fleeing toward the base of the mountain.
Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird to pursue. Bolstered by the abundant spiritual power of the Cultivation World, the Thunderbird's speed increased yet another level. Its wing-flapping frequency accelerated from twice a second to three times a second, every beat leaving a blue-purple afterimage in the air.
After fleeing for about five hundred meters, the Cultivator was caught by the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird's talons thrust out from the air, five thick, razor-sharp claws clamping onto the flying sword beneath the Cultivator's feet, yanking the sword and the Cultivator out of the sky together. The Cultivator struggled desperately the instant he was grabbed, his right hand yanking three talismans in rapid succession from his storage pouch. Ignited by his spiritual power, the talismans burst into flame, shooting out a blast of fire, an ice cone, and a wind blade respectively.
All three attacks struck the Thunderbird's talons. The fire burned against the scales for half a second before being neutralized by the electrical arcs; the ice cone shattered into slush the instant it touched the scales; the wind blade left only a shallow, barely visible white scratch on the armor.
The Thunderbird's talons clenched tight. Under the immense crushing grip, the Cultivator's flying sword let out a screech of deforming metal, the blade bending into an arc. Losing his footing, the Cultivator tumbled from the flying sword, tumbling twice in the air before being snatched around the waist by the Thunderbird's other set of talons.
"Got him!"
Malfoy's voice rang out from the Thunderbird's control pod, carrying a pitch of excitement that verged on losing control.
Jerry hovered in mid-air, observing the entire combat sequence between Malfoy and the Cultivator through the lens of the Eye of Magic. His grey eyes narrowed as the fight ended, the corners of his mouth curling up.
"Foundation Establishment stage, perfectly beatable."
He shifted his gaze from Malfoy's direction, looking deeper into the mountain range toward that Golden Core level light source. The golden-yellow sphere remained hovering roughly where the lower abdomen of that biological entity would be, unmoving.
"Don't touch the Golden Core level one yet."
He transmitted this message to Malfoy via the amplification spell.
A sudden roar echoed from deep within the distant valley.
That roar was louder, deeper, and its vibrational frequency lower than the one Catherine had heard earlier—so low it made the entire mountain peak tremble slightly. The vibrations shook several rocks loose from the mountain face, the debris tumbling down the sheer cliffs, bouncing a few times in the air before vanishing into the mist at the bottom of the valley.
Through the lens of the Eye of Magic, Jerry directed his gaze toward the source of the roar. Deep within the valley, a massive light source was moving rapidly. The shape of that light source was neither a flame nor a sphere, but an irregular, continuously expanding and contracting cluster of light. The light was dark red, its interior pulsing frantically with countless thick meridians of spiritual power.
Demonic Beast.
Judging by the size of the light source, the Demonic Beast had to be at least twenty meters tall. It was moving toward Malfoy and the Thunderbird at breakneck speed, every step stomping a deep crater into the mountainside.
"Malfoy, you have a Demonic Beast approaching from your rear-right. About twenty meters tall."
Jerry's voice transmitted over via the amplification spell.
"I see it!"
Malfoy's voice came from the Thunderbird's control pod, carrying a thrill of excitement. The Thunderbird spread its wings, tossing the Cultivator it had just caught into a net bag hung from one of its talons, then banked, flying toward the direction the Demonic Beast was approaching from.
"Don't rush in too fast, test the waters first—"
Before Jerry could finish his sentence, the Thunderbird had already charged in. Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird, diving at full speed toward the Demonic Beast, the electrical arcs on its wings pulled into two long blue-purple tails by the high-speed flight, looking like a twin-tailed comet.
The Demonic Beast stepped out from the shadows of the valley.
Its size was even larger than Jerry had estimated. Standing over twenty-five meters tall, its four limbs were incredibly thick, its entire body covered in black scale armor. The surface of the scales rippled with a continuously flowing dark red halo of spiritual power. Its head resembled a lizard magnified dozens of times over; when its mouth opened, it revealed three rows of razor-sharp teeth, each tooth exceeding a meter in length. A tail stretching about fifteen meters dragged behind it, ending in a bulbous bone spike that swayed slowly left and right in the air.
The Demonic Beast saw the Thunderbird diving toward it and unleashed an ear-splitting roar from its throat. The roar echoed through the valley like someone frantically hammering a giant bronze bell. It opened its jaws to their maximum angle, and a dark red fireball surged from deep within its throat, blasting straight at the Thunderbird.
Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird to pull up sharply when the fireball closed to thirty meters. The Thunderbird's trajectory shifted from a dive to a vertical climb, the fireball streaking past less than five meters beneath its abdomen; the scorching heat wave singed several feathers on its belly, filling the air with the pungent stench of burnt feathers.
After climbing to about a hundred meters above the Demonic Beast's head, the Thunderbird flipped its body over, initiating a second attack from directly above. Its beak opened wide, and an even thicker lightning beam blasted from its throat, striking straight down at the top of the Demonic Beast's head.
The lightning beam hit the scale armor atop the beast's head. Blue-purple electrical arcs splashed wildly across the surface of the black scales, tearing the dark red spiritual halo on the armor to shreds. The Demonic Beast let out an agonized howl of fury, whipping its head back and opening its jaws wide to launch a second fireball from its throat.
This time, Malfoy didn't dodge. The Thunderbird's wings folded forward the instant the fireball approached, wrapping its entire body into a spherical shape. The fireball struck the surface of the Thunderbird's wings; the flames burned against the feathers for about two seconds before being neutralized by the continuous electrical discharge from the wingtips. The Thunderbird unfurled its wings from the sphere, a few charred feathers detaching and drifting through the air, carrying the stench of burning.
"This guy's scale armor is too thick!" Malfoy's voice rang out from the control pod.
Jerry hovered about five hundred meters from the battlefield, his grey eyes observing the flow trajectory of the spiritual power inside the Demonic Beast through the lens of the Eye of Magic. The Demonic Beast's spiritual power was concentrated in its head and chest cavity; the head was used to release fireball attacks, while the chest cavity served as the storage core for its spiritual power. The dark red halo on the surface of its scales was a natural shield formed by its spiritual power, far thicker and denser than the spiritual shields of Foundation Establishment Cultivators.
"Aim for its abdomen. The thinnest point of its scale armor is at the joint between the roots of its front limbs and its abdomen."
Jerry's voice reached Malfoy's ears.
Malfoy controlled the Thunderbird to alter its attack angle once more. The Thunderbird shifted from directly above the Demonic Beast to its flank, then swept past its right side at an extremely low altitude. At the exact moment it swept past, the Thunderbird's talons thrust out from beneath its abdomen, the five razor-sharp claws striking with pinpoint accuracy at the thinnest seam in the scale armor between the root of the beast's right front limb and its abdomen.
Screeech...
The razor-sharp talons shredded the weak scale armor at the seam. Dark red blood geysered from the wound, immediately vaporizing into white steam the instant it touched the air. The Demonic Beast let out a heaven-shaking howl of agony, its body listing violently to the right; losing its structural support, the right front limb buckled inward, and its entire massive body slammed heavily into the cliff face, smashing a crater two meters deep into the stone wall.
At the exact same moment the Demonic Beast crashed into the cliff face, the frantic sound of footsteps and the crackle of exploding spells echoed from the other end of the valley.
Jerry shifted his gaze from the Demonic Beast toward the direction of the footsteps.
A squad of eight people was moving rapidly from the entrance of the valley toward their location. At the very front of the group were two witches wearing modified combat robes, one with short brown hair, the other with long black hair. Behind them followed six combat wizards in various uniforms, wands gripped tightly in their hands; several of their robes were stained with blood and dirt.
Catherine ran at the very front. Her short brown hair bounced up and down as she ran; a few specks of dried mud stained her face, and the right sleeve of her combat robe was torn, exposing a bandaged arm beneath. Her right hand gripped her wand, while her left hand carried a bulging net bag; whatever was inside the bag seemed to be struggling.
Isabella ran behind her, her long black hair tied into a messy ponytail, a few stray strands clinging to her forehead. The wide leather belt hung at her waist, but three of the normally neatly arranged potion vials were missing; the empty slots clacked together with a tap-tap-tap sound as she ran.
When Catherine saw Jerry hovering in mid-air, her footsteps came to a dead halt. Her forward momentum caused her body to pitch forward; her left foot stepped onto an uneven rock, nearly sending her tumbling, but she braced her right hand against the adjacent stone wall to steady herself.
Her brown eyes widened into circles.
"Jerry?!"
Jerry descended from mid-air. The greyish-black light retreated into the soles of his feet, his sneakers landing on the gravel at the bottom of the valley with a soft crunch.
Catherine dropped the net bag in her hand. The bag hit the ground, the contents letting out a muffled groan before falling silent. Her legs kicked into gear as she charged straight toward Jerry; after running about five steps, she simply leapt into the air.
As she leapt, her entire weight crashed down from above, her arms throwing themselves around Jerry's neck as her legs wrapped tightly around his waist. Jerry's body took a step back under her weight; his right foot stepped onto a loose stone, slipping backward two centimeters, but his back didn't bend. His arms reached out from both sides, supporting Catherine by the buttocks, catching her securely.
Catherine's entire body hung off Jerry, her face buried in his shoulder, her nose rubbing against the small patch of bare skin below the collar of his hoodie. Her breathing was ragged, the rise and fall of her chest pressed tight against his, every exhalation leaving a patch of warm moisture against the skin of his neck.
"What are you doing here?"
Her voice drifted up from his shoulder, muffled, bearing a nasal tone that mixed pleasant surprise with a hint of grievance.