[Minister for Magic's Office]
The current British Minister for Magic, Fudge, was slumped in his chair, expressionless as he fiddled with a spinning ornament on the desk.
Ever since Percy and Old Barty joined forces to sideline him, he had stopped going home.
Apart from necessary public appearances each day, all his eating, drinking, washing, and sleeping were done inside this luxurious office.
He knew very clearly that his current identity was just a puppet.
Old Barty and Percy would not allow him to leave their sight.
Even if he went home, it would be the same.
So to avoid bringing Old Barty and Percy's watchers and extra danger to his family, he simply stopped going home.
This was without doubt a kind of protection for his family.
Unfortunately, Fudge guessed his family probably would not understand this good intention.
They would only think he had gone out partying again.
But he could not blame them. After all, he had done that kind of thing far too many times, so much that he had lost his family's trust.
With a long sigh, Fudge stood up and looked out the window.
Under the magical sky screen, even though the entire Ministry was underground, Fudge could still see the brilliant sunset outside through the office window.
If he wished, he could even instantly change the scenery outside into a starry sky or a storm.
Sadly, he had no mood to admire any scenery now.
He knew very well that he was basically a lamb waiting to be slaughtered in Percy and Old Barty's hands.
And recently, after the Hogwarts incident, the uneasy feeling in his heart kept growing stronger.
He felt that the time for him to be slaughtered might be coming soon.
Bang!
With a sudden loud noise, the Minister for Magic office door was violently pushed open.
Fudge, who was immersed in sadness, jumped in shock. When he suddenly turned around, what came into his eyes was not black-clothed people holding butcher knives, but Link and Emily smiling.
This made Fudge instinctively want to shout a reprimand.
After all, even as a puppet, his current identity was still Minister for Magic.
And this obviously was not a place students like Link should come, even if Link was the heir of the Flamel family.
But before he could speak, Old Barty and Percy also walked into the office.
Seeing how respectfully they followed behind Link, Fudge's face, which had just improved slightly, instantly turned pale again.
Link chuckled and said, "Good afternoon, Minister Fudge."
Fudge blankly nodded. His gaze kept moving back and forth between Link and Old Barty. Finally he gave a bitter smile and said, "Looks like Mr. Flamel is the sponsor behind you."
"No," Old Barty said expressionlessly. "Lord Flamel is not my sponsor. Rather, he is my master!"
As he spoke, Old Barty bowed deeply to Link.
Seeing this, Fudge's face became even worse.
Thinking of that famous phrase Old Barty once told him about interests that night, Fudge suddenly understood and said, "So that's how it is. Then everything makes sense."
"Link Flamel, you must have connected with Grindelwald through the Beckman family, right? That Beckman guy was already an old saint follower. Now he even turned his grandson into one. That really is…"
"No! It should not be that simple!"
"Right now you already actually control Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the British Ministry of Magic!"
"If we talk about the power you hold, it's even greater than Grindelwald back then!"
"So your real intention is not reviving or rescuing Grindelwald!"
"You want to become the next Grindelwald yourself!"
"Merlin! What kind of devil is standing in front of me now?"
"Do you know how many people will die if you do this?"
"I… I'll strangle you!"
Fudge's face twisted. Like he had gone mad, he rushed toward Link.
But just as he moved, Newland, who had been standing beside Link, fiercely swung his wand.
"Impedimenta!"
Thud!
With Newland's level of magical power, the Impedimenta he cast was no longer just a sticky slowing force, but an invisible solid wall.
With a dull sound, Fudge slammed directly into that invisible wall, cried out, and bounced back.
Fudge fell to the ground clutching his nose and wailing. Blood kept flowing from between his fingers, quickly staining a large area of the carpet red.
"You won't succeed… Link Flamel… the International… the International Confederation of Wizards won't let you succeed…"
Fudge kept sobbing. It sounded like crying but also like a curse.
Newland frowned when he saw this and raised his wand again, ready to silence this noisy guy. But Link stopped him with a hand.
"Just the wailing of a defeated dog."
Link sneered and then walked toward the desk that symbolized ministerial authority.
Seeing this, Percy, Cedric, and the others all straightened their expressions.
Under everyone's gaze, Link pulled open the office chair and slowly sat down.
This sight made Fudge agitated again. He struggled desperately to stop Link.
Unfortunately Newland had been watching him the whole time.
With just a slight flick of the wand, Fudge was forced down to the ground again by strong pressure, looking as if he were kneeling in worship toward Link.
If the scene of the current Minister for Magic publicly kneeling were released, it would definitely become tomorrow's Daily Prophet front-page headline instantly.
But Link had no interest in looking at it at all.
At this moment all his attention was drawn to the streams of notification text flashing before him like meteors.
[Hidden Mission: British Minister for Magic! Currently completed (80%)!]
[Segment reward issued!]
[Golden Skill Point ×1 obtained!]
[Reminder: Full mission reward will be issued when completion reaches 100%!]
[Reminder: Hidden Mission – I Am the Minister! Activated!]
[Mission requirement: Become Minister of Magic of at least Britain, Germany, and France. For each additional major Ministry beyond that, reward bonus increases by 100%]
[I Am the Minister mission progress: British Ministry 80%, German Ministry −20%, French Ministry −55%!]
[I Am the Minister mission reward: Unknown!]
Among this large pile of information, the first thing Link noticed was the negative completion percentages for the German and French Ministries.
Because among all this information, only those two lines were glaring blood red.
This confused Link.
As for the German Ministry, it was reasonable they disliked him, since he had disrupted their plan to kill Grindelwald, wiped out the Alliance of the Despicable, and absorbed most of their assets through the Beckman family.
But why did the French Ministry have such strong hostility toward him?
Beauxbatons Magic School had shown the same situation earlier too.
Could something have happened there recently that he did not know about?
Link rubbed his brow in frustration.
He felt he needed to send Beckman to investigate the French magical world.
After all, all their overseas intelligence work was handled by Old Beckman.
If something major really happened without his knowledge, that would be Old Beckman's negligence.
Of course, those were matters for later consideration.
Right now the key thing was handling the situation in front of him.
Thinking this, Link looked again at his data panel.
The clearly displayed [Golden Skill Points: 3] improved his mood quite a bit.
After receiving the reward from the "Hogwarts Headmaster" mission, the first thing he thought about was the Minister for Magic position.
If gathering the authority of Hogwarts Headmaster could grant golden skill points, then with his current actual control over the British Ministry, as long as he stepped slightly out from behind the scenes, like revealing his identity in front of Fudge and then sitting in the Minister's seat, he should logically also gain golden skill points.
Now, facts proved his guess was correct.
At this critical moment before another battle with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, he finally accumulated three golden skill points.
Link's lips curved slightly upward. He took a deep breath and directly tapped the upgrade button for the Sectumsempra.
[Sectumsempra LV7→LV8 requires 3 golden skill points!]
[Upgrade?]
[Yes/No]
'Yes!'
The instant he pressed yes, Link felt a huge flood of information rush into his brain with a boom, causing his brain to freeze for a moment.
And right after that freeze came intense pain.
All the pain Link had experienced before, including the Cruciatus Curse, felt pale and weak compared with the pain now in his head.
The pain was so fierce that he felt it was no longer just physical.
It felt like a burning sensation coming from deep within his soul.
It was like some force was transforming part of his body and soul to adapt to the power he was about to gain.
Under such terrifying pain, Link almost instantly fell off the chair and twisted and rolled on the ground.
Emily, Old Barty, and the others were completely stunned.
Emily rushed forward almost immediately to help Link up.
But at that moment, Arkam and Yoyo suddenly came out from Link's collar and firmly guarded him, preventing Emily and the others from getting close.
Emily, Cedric, and the others became extremely anxious.
John, who had a hotter temper, even pulled out his wand and pointed it at Arkam.
Unfortunately, although Arkam and YoYo struggled when facing a legendary wizard like Voldemort who also spoke Parseltongue, dealing with elite ordinary wizards like them was extremely easy.
Almost the moment the tip of John's wand lit up slightly, YoYo turned into a blur and snatched the wand directly from his hand.
"You…"
John became embarrassed and angry. He reached to grab Newland's wand, but Cedric pulled him back again.
"Calm down. They won't hurt Link," Cedric said seriously. "Link should be in a very critical state now and cannot be disturbed at all."
"But Link looks very painful now!" John shouted anxiously.
Yet facing Cedric's firm gaze, John finally chose to stay silent.
That did not mean he planned to do nothing.
Soon he vented all his anger on Fudge and beat him up badly.
The reason John did this was because when Link fell earlier, Fudge had been clapping happily.
So after Fudge's miserable screams lasted nearly half an hour, Link's struggle finally stopped.
Arkam, who had returned to his original form, went back to Link first. Using his tail carefully, he helped the sweat-soaked Link, who looked like he had just been pulled from water, up and let him lean against him.
Emily and the others, who had been anxiously waiting, quickly gathered around and asked about Link's condition.
But Link had no mood to respond.
He just breathed heavily and closed his eyes to feel the changes in his body.
This upgrade was completely different from previous ones that only poured knowledge into his brain.
During that intense pain earlier, a strange force improved his body and his entire magic circulation system from inside out.
This greatly increased Link's total magical power and significantly boosted both his magic mobilization speed and instant output amount.
Not only that, Link felt his body had become more adapted to curse power.
Before, when casting dark magic like the Sectumsempra or Killing Curse, his body would always suffer slight damage from the curse power.
This damage was tiny, almost negligible, but it truly existed.
Because that was the nature of curse power.
Its destructive force not only caused irreversible harm to enemies but could also harm the caster.
That was why elderly dark wizards often had weaker bodies than white wizards.
Their bodies had already suffered irreversible damage from overusing dark magic.
Now this situation would never appear in Link again.
And his increased adaptability to curse power also meant the purity level of curse power he could withstand had greatly increased.
Link opened his eyes and grinned at everyone. A nearly transparent blazing curse flame ignited in his palm.
This flame looked extremely fragile, as if a random breeze or even someone's breath could easily extinguish it.
Yet this beautiful flame like a piece of art caused the temperature of the entire office to rise rapidly the moment it appeared.
John, who stood closer, even had the tips of his hair singed.
Everyone else in the office also showed shock on their faces.
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