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[Disclaimer: Every ritual appearing in this novel is entirely fictional. Do not imitate them.]
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Kasen took out a small knife and carefully carved out the entire apple core. He painstakingly scraped away all the flesh clinging to it until only the endocarp and seeds remained.
Then he used the knife to cut a small wound into his palm.
"Ah... hiss..."
Grimacing in pain, Kasen dug all the seeds out of the core and stuffed them into the wound he had just made.
Almost instantly, emerald-green vines began growing from the cut.
Kasen hurriedly picked up the apple, now consisting of nothing but skin and flesh, and stuffed the vines growing from his wound into the hollow where the core had been removed.
The vines pushed into the apple's flesh and continued growing wildly, spreading like capillaries through every inch of muscle, fat, and skin in the human body.
The vines growing from his wound soon covered every inch of the flesh inside the apple.
Kasen then picked up the apple's endocarp, put it into his mouth, and carefully chewed it into a pulp. This was meant as an offering to some unseen existence.
As for what he was sacrificing...
As everyone knew, apple seeds and the endocarp surrounding the core contained cyanogenic glycosides. When cyanogenic glycosides broke down inside the human body, they produced an extremely poisonous substance called hydrogen cyanide.
Although the amount involved was about as lethal to a human as a Killing Curse cast by a first-year Hufflepuff, swallowing such a poison could still be interpreted as sacrificing a certain amount of one's life to that existence.
Never mind how much life was sacrificed. The point was that a sacrifice had been made, right?
It was the same principle as sacrificing sixty seconds of your life for every minute spent performing a ritual.
The instant Kasen swallowed the thoroughly chewed remains, the apple in his palm seemed to have all its vitality sucked away. In the blink of an eye, only a shrivelled apple skin remained.
Finally, all the vines growing from the wound crawled out of his palm and onto the apple skin, eventually forming a "map."
"That really hurt."
Kasen set the map aside, took out a Potion of Instant Healing, and poured it over the wound in his palm. Only then did the cut slowly heal.
"Next is this map."
Kasen picked it up and discovered that the previously shrivelled apple skin had become plump again.
Or, to put it more directly, it had become a hollow globe.
The vines had transformed into lines marking geographical locations across its surface.
A single drop of blood carried out of the wound by the vines had become a faint red dot that flickered in and out of sight.
"I really am a genius."
After praising himself, Kasen placed the map on his desk. However, he soon decided that still did not feel secure enough, so he simply stuffed it into his pocket and went upstairs to sleep with it.
The next morning, after casually eating something in the Great Hall, he travelled light, picked up the apple-shaped map, and left Hogwarts.
However, once he was outside, he suddenly realised...
His geography was not merely terrible. It was practically nonexistent.
All he knew was that the largest landmass was Eurasia, the one shaped like a giant drumstick was Africa, and the one resembling an upside-down Loch Ness Monster was South America. Beyond that, he recognised nothing.
In any case, whenever Kasen looked at a map, he never relied on the shapes. He only read the labels.
He hurried back to Hogwarts, found a globe, and carefully compared its markings with the lines on the apple map. Only then did he discover...
"Oh, the little red dot is in England."
Then, as though zooming in on a phone screen, he placed two fingers on the little red dot and gently slid them apart in opposite directions.
As the lines on the map began wriggling around again, Kasen compared it with the globe once more.
Mm. The Scottish Highlands.
Zoom in again. Then again.
This mountain range was here, and that mountain range was over there. Finally...
Hm? Something was wrong...
Kasen held the apple map farther away and examined it carefully. Why was this different from what he had expected?
He was far too close to the red dot. In fact...
The red dot might even be somewhere within Hogwarts itself.
Kasen began zooming in frantically. Sure enough, lines representing the Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake, and other landmarks eventually appeared.
Although Hogwarts possessed specialised magic that prevented mapping and surveying, occultism was, in a sense, not even magic. Nor did it belong to the Muggle world, so naturally, it was unaffected by that sort of spell.
However, man-made structures truly could not be drawn by the lines on the apple. That much was certain.
"Hmm..."
Muttering to himself, he suddenly appeared in the sky above Hogwarts Castle. Using the Black Lake and Forbidden Forest as reference points, he began comparing them with his own position.
When he finally confirmed that he was directly above the red dot, he looked down.
Just as he had expected...
It was the roof of Hogwarts.
.......
He looked again, and this time, he finally noticed something.
Wasn't this directly above the Headmaster's tower?
Kasen raised an eyebrow and teleported straight outside the window of the Headmaster's office.
The weather had not been very good recently, so the windows were closed.
Originally, Kasen had intended to teleport directly inside. However, when he remembered that he was entering the Headmaster's office to hunt for treasure, he decided that such impolite behaviour absolutely had to be avoided.
He should show Dumbledore some respect. That way, when he took something from Dumbledore later, it would seem far more reasonable, and he would not have to suffer those strange pangs of conscience.
Knock, knock, knock! Knock, knock, knock!
Dumbledore, who was eating dessert after his meal, heard the knocking on the window and turned around in surprise.
Then he saw Kasen, who was supposed to be out hunting for treasure.
After opening the window and letting him in, Dumbledore asked with some amusement, "How did your treasure hunt lead you all the way here?"
Kasen merely smiled at him without saying a word.
Seeing that familiar smile, Dumbledore immediately put on a confused yet solemn expression.
"You didn't come here to hunt for treasure in my office... did you?"
Kasen continued smiling without saying a word.
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