Today was the day of the final competition.
The standings were still tight.
Depending on who won the last round won it all.
Though that only mattered for four people.
Cassius, Cho, Daphne, and Hermione still held the top four and their points in the rankings were so close together that if someone secured first place in the last even which was weighted more than the other events because the challenge created by Grindelwald was more difficult than the others.
Two of the girls had dropped out, since even securing first in this last event wouldn't mean winning.
Choosing instead to cheer on their chosen champion.
With Luna cheering for her former fellow Ravenclaw Cho, while Hermione surprisingly had Astoria backing.
Fleur technically still had a chance but only if the stars aligned and she secured first while the entire current ranking flipped on its head in the way it ends.
As for Cassius himself, he had become most distant.
The girls saw this as his sulking from their attempt to steal a kiss from him.
But for Cassius himself, it was far from sulking.
He was absent a lot using his priority as a Hogwarts Champion to be excluded from classes, slipping away from the school grounds and disappearing to spend hours and hours at the Arcana.
He had promises to fufill, and he had no ability or excuses he could use since aside from time he could achieve a lot of his plans or promises now.
His spellwork was top tier, while his control in the last month had been getting a refresher course.
Not quite perfect like when he was younger but compared to before where he might as well be declared an Obscurial.
All power but no actual control.
Now his easiest spells were more refined and he could adjust the power he input into them.
Taking spells like Nox and being able to overload them into becoming practical laser beams.
At the Arcanum, Cassius under his disguise as a head researcher was free to roam all the floors and labs.
More than half the projects going on within weren't ones he even cared about, not directly at least, he cared enough to fund it because their completion would help the Magical world take steps forward to catch up to the Muggle world, while the other half had more than just investment interest as they actively assisted his efforts, or would reinforce his growing position within the world.
Experimental wandmaking to take the traditional which has survived for thousands of years but then enhance them with modern materials that were not available way back when wandlore was first invented.
Experimental Spellcraft, using Muggle concepts and sciences to attempt application to the creation of magical spells.
The current standard book of spells though robust was severely lacking in Cassius's mind.
If you provided a list of spells created by muggles for fantasy games and listed descriptions, what if you could actually try to create those into real spells?
Why is combat limited to only a dozen spells give or take?
Why is there only a single shield charm that only has varying degrees of protection?
Potioneering was another he wanted to be experimented with, and thanks to efforts in crossbreeding and splicing magical plants into creating all new species opened the doors for new possible potions all that remained was the scientific process of endless experimentation to find the correct brewing rations, the effects, and synergy between ingredients.
Coupling with spellcraft and potions.
Experiments on surgery, and healing were alsoing being done.
Mix that into even further experimentation into fixing curse damage otherwise unhealable, or regrowing limbs that were lost in the wars.
But there was an even deeper side to this.
Human experimentation.
Not on live humans of course.
Instead using the belief that the dead could be brought back to life, not like resurrecting figures from history, but more being able to restore life to those recently deceased, who should not have died in the first place.
This was paired with Cassius's secret experiments to take Muggle science on cloning into the magical realm where a new vessel could be created, which he dubbed project homunculus.
This was his means of fulfilling his promise to Helena.
She was his long long distant cousin but still you do what you can for family.
And if his experiment succeeded, more than one surprise would happen at the Yule Ball this year.
The research was already well into the final phase.
Having progressed beyond the cloning of animals which succeeded.
There of course was a margin of error.
On one side if you just created the shell sometime there would be a spark of life, and a consciousness would form on its own, while other times they just created and gave birth to a vegetable.
When it came to artificial humans, it was even worse.
Humans are a massively diverse species and subject to extreme bouts of mutations across the species.
And from the numerous creations that have been produced since they reached this final stage.
The results were varied all over the place.
Sometimes they'd get vegetables, sometimes a spark of life that faded moments later taking the life with it.
More often than not they'd produce a muggle, and not one that could be injected with the magic serum to produce a wizard.
But sitting on the table before him now, was the single success story.
Of hundreds of creations, only one met the requirements.
Only a single creation was alive, alive and with active magical circuits and magical core.
And the best part, considering what he was planning to do with it.
This creation turned out to be a female.
With growth that looked to be around 16-17 years of age which world great to match with his target.
Giving a once over all the reports that had compiled over the last week.
The subject was stable.
No active consciousness was present, the only part of the holy trinity of magical life that was missing but it worked in his favor since he already had a consciousness that could be implanted to make up for that deficiencies.
With everything else looking good, all that remained was actually performing the surgery and seeing if the true end of the experiment was a success or a failure.
And it was scheduled to happen tonight.
The body was ready, and the soul would be arriving tonight having agreed to the attempt, and worst comes to worse the soul is obliterated in the process.
But Cassius felt confident it was going to succeed, while the soul was willing to take the risk, accepting their fate either way.