The new term officially began, and Hogwarts took on a new atmosphere. The wizards coming and going all held black manuals in their hands, almost like everyone in the Muggle world decades later carrying a smartphone. They entered and left classrooms without needing to carry schoolbags or hug huge stacks of textbooks to their chests. One copy of the Manual was enough.
When they arrived at a classroom, they could pull up the corresponding textbook inside the Manual by pressing their wand against a blank page and softly speaking the title. Once they became skilled enough, they no longer needed a wand at all. They only had to think of it.
It was not only the students who had to adapt to this new tool. The professors also needed to keep up with the times.
The Manual was powerful for two reasons. First, it could retrieve information from an abundant database. Second, it had the powerful computing ability of the central brain. Under the coordination of the ghost Helena, these two features were organically combined, making Helena into an extremely powerful intelligent entity.
In theory, the young wizards who possessed the Manual could completely study on their own under the guidance of the book spirit Helena, just like Harry. As long as they had enough self-discipline, the results would be excellent. The original seven-year curriculum could be completed in four years at the fastest, or six years at the slowest.
As a result, the role of the professors was greatly reduced.
The most typical example was History of Magic. It was already widely recognized as the dullest course, and the History of Magic lecturer at Hogwarts was the pitiful Professor Binns, a forgetful ghost with a stubborn personality and a rigid mind. He often mixed up students' names, and his lectures were even more disorganized.
For a course like that, students using the Manual to study on their own could easily grasp the key points and earn decent results in their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s.
The Hogwarts students quickly realized this. Whether in public or private, they began judging the professors' abilities, especially by comparing them with Ms. Helena. The results were often cruel.
From a long-term perspective, it was almost inevitable that traditional teaching would be replaced. Even if every excellent lecturer had their own specialty, they could not withstand the fact that Ms. Helena was improving every moment.
She resided inside a modified Celestial brain. The thought strings it produced in a single second were comparable to the memories of an ordinary person's entire hundred-year life. She could digest the essence of human wizarding civilization, developed over thousands of years, in barely a week. After that came the process of replacing the old with the new.
Of course, if the central brain's computing power could not be successfully applied in practice, it would only remain empty theorizing. Many of Ms. Helena's improvement strategies required the users of the Manual to try them out and correct mistakes. The Manual built a bridge between thought and practice, and the workers building that bridge were the wizards of Hogwarts.
Under the guidance of the Manual, the students of Hogwarts, and even all future users of the Manual, would verify Helena's conjectures one by one. Every branch of every skill would sprout and grow, constantly flourishing until it gradually became a towering tree with lush leaves, a fishing net that encompassed the world.
The professors involved in the project were, of course, the clearest about the future direction of development. The appearance of the central brain would severely impact the existing teaching system. It was no different from smashing their rice bowls. However, for wizards, their natural rice bowl was magic. As long as magic still existed, they did not have to worry about going hungry.
The outstanding professors had already begun exploring new teaching methods. If the renovation and expansion of Hogwarts last year had given the thousand-year-old magical school a new body, then A Beginner's Manual for Spellcasters brought renewal and reform to its spirit.
Professor McGonagall was perhaps the one who kept up with the times the best. Her Transfiguration classes now no longer focused heavily on theory. Instead, she had the students practice more while she corrected and reminded them from the side. Transfiguration was profound. It was easy to take the wrong path or get trapped at a bottleneck, so this art demanded serious hard work.
Now, homework was no longer limited to essays. Professor McGonagall imitated Skyl's method and prepared workbooks for the students to "enjoy." By using this method, she forced students to study theory in their spare time. With Ms. Helena's teaching assistance, none of this was a problem.
Professor McGonagall urged the young wizards to be diligent in self-study. She herself was also spending time researching deeper magical systems.
The Manual was only the youth version of the Guide. As an apprentice of The Tower of Tomes, McGonagall enjoyed resources far richer than those of Hogwarts, especially the massive amount of knowledge from other worlds, which greatly broadened her horizons.
Professor McGonagall's new teaching method had only been tried for a few days. The students often complained that their burden had grown heavier, but the gains were real.
After class on ordinary days, the faculty members would also gather to discuss new teaching methods.
Some people worked hard to adapt and achieved excellent results. Others were frightened and uneasy. In short, in less than a week, the changes brought by the Manual had already become clear. The more a course emphasized practice, the less impact it suffered. The more a course leaned toward theory, the more easily it could be replaced by the Manual.
Examples of the former included Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Flying, and Care of Magical Creatures. Examples of the latter included Astronomy, Divination, Arithmancy, History of Magic, Ancient Runes, and Muggle Studies.
The students also gradually began classifying each subject in their minds. They spent more time and effort on courses that emphasized practice, while they paid less attention to theory classes. Along with that, their opinions of certain professors also changed, so this is all you're capable of? Studying from the Manual is better.
Amid the earth-shaking changes at Hogwarts, it seemed as though everyone was being swept forward. Every day, as soon as they opened their eyes, they had to face a new day of study tasks. The competition between the four houses had not stopped, nor had it grown out of control. Instead, it was like a warm fire, constantly urging the students to push ahead.
Skyl returned to his daily campus life. What he was considering now was the promise he had made earlier, to help Gryffindor reach the top ranks of three leaderboards.
The Manual had many different types of rankings. Some were fairly serious, such as the study-time leaderboard, exam-score leaderboard, house-points leaderboard, and Quidditch scoring leaderboard. Others were more unusual. When James designed the leaderboards, he fully brought out his wild imagination, along with a wizard's fearless spirit.
There was a nighttime wandering leaderboard that challenged the limits of the professors' patience. Unsurprisingly, the top three were Skyl, George, and Fred. They were truly far ahead, leaving everyone else in the dust. However, more contenders would probably rise in the future. The caretaker, Filch, was already impatient to begin midnight pursuit operations.
There was a dangerous dueling leaderboard. In magic, the rule was simple. The winner stayed standing, and the loser lay down. In short, the Dueling Club had become lively now. Everyone wanted to compete for second place on the leaderboard, the so-called position beneath one person and above hundreds or thousands.
There was a flight-time leaderboard beloved by magic broom enthusiasts. For Quidditch players, it was the best proof of their effort and sweat.
There was a candy and snack consumption leaderboard that Dumbledore badly wanted to join. Madam Pomfrey was furious, because before long, young wizards who had eaten themselves sick were lying in the hospital wing.
Aside from these, there were also potion-making leaderboards, Transfiguration practice leaderboards, Charms practice leaderboards, herb cultivation leaderboards, and magical creature care leaderboards. These were added by James at the request of the professors working in the White Tower.
There were even more unserious leaderboards as well, such as longest time spent spacing out, longest time spent dating, longest unpopped bubble blown, longest time holding one's breath, Gobstones rankings, wizard's chess rankings… In short, James had listed out the trivial details of Hogwarts school life in this way. It was ridiculous, but also very fun.
Since the start of term, the house points Skyl had earned had already passed three hundred. They all came from substitute teaching Potions. Never before had any student earned such an enormous number of house points in a single short term. On the house-points leaderboard, his rank was the highest in history.
The leaderboards refreshed on different schedules. Some refreshed once a week, some once a month, and some once a year. The house-points leaderboard refreshed once every school year. Skyl was now firmly at the top, and it was unlikely anyone could surpass him. That counted as one-third of his promise fulfilled.
There was also a dueling leaderboard that refreshed once a month. It counted consecutive duel victories. Skyl checked in at the club every day, so he also held the top spot steadily there.
Very few people invited him to a duel, but very few people refused his invitations either. Unless they were truly afraid of losing face, sparring with the transfer student was still quite interesting.
The Dueling Club tradition had started last year. No one quite remembered why such a club had been created in the first place. At the beginning, it was held in the Great Hall, and the whole school would gather to watch the excitement. When Hogwarts was expanded, an activity hall was built south of the main castle, on the eastern shore of the Black Lake. Professor Gellert requisitioned the hall as the Dueling Club's venue.
Students in fifth year and above would challenge each other during the day, and their catchphrase was always, "Don't go back to the common room after class. I'll be waiting for you at the club."
Because of that, as long as they did not run into a nighttime Astronomy class, most upper-year students stayed at the club until curfew was near.
In that case, Skyl only needed to secure one more leaderboard.
The nighttime wandering leaderboard was probably the easiest one to compete for, but Skyl's ranking was quickly pushed down because, after the new term began, he had been very obedient about going to bed early and waking up early. This stupid Hogwarts had nothing worth wandering around for anyway.
The study-time leaderboard was full of hardcore grinders. They carried the Manual in their spare time and studied anywhere, anytime, so Skyl had no way to make it onto the list. As for the various other leaderboards, too many were strange and bizarre, and he was basically uninterested in them. He also failed to squeeze into the top three of the exam-score leaderboard because he was missing two Divination courses.
He still could not make up his mind about the final leaderboard he wanted to fight for. After weighing his options, Skyl suddenly realized that he had originally made this suggestion to make the students compete harder, only for the grind to come for him instead.
"Crap. Karma caught up with me!"
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