"Fists are faster within two meters. Didn't your parents teach you that? All of you, settle down. My time is precious," Alan said coldly.
Seeing that his equipment was ready, Alan didn't waste any more words. He used a spell to seal their mouths, then walked toward them and began a systematic search of their persons. Now was the time to inspect the harvest.
Under the malevolent, helpless gazes of the Death Eaters, Alan inventoried his gains: over 600 Galleons, a few private letters, numerous silver ornaments, and various daily sundries. He also found a small leather pouch on Torquil. Upon inspection, he discovered it was an alchemical item enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm. Most of the group's valuables had been stashed inside it.
Stowing these items into his own spatial pouch, Alan gave Torquil a light, dismissive pat on the shoulder. "You dare to cause so much trouble with such a pathetic hoard? I'm almost embarrassed for you."
Torquil, nursing the pain from the earlier punch, could only glare with raw fury.
Alan paid him no mind. Instead, he lifted the silencing spell from Torquil's mouth and spoke in a deceptively gentle tone. "Next, I'll be borrowing your bodies for a short while. Don't worry, I'll be very careful. I'll try my best not to break you."
*Key word being 'try,'* Alan thought to himself.
He walked over to his tool bench and picked up a long metal probe fitted with a circular dial. It looked somewhat like a specialized medical thermometer. He approached the bound men, his eyes fixed on the instrument.
"First, let's test the resonance of this measuring device. Previous external tests failed to accurately gauge the internal magical reserves of a wizard, so I must attempt a direct internal reading," Alan muttered.
Lying on the floor, Torquil watched the boy approach with the sharp object. For the first time in his life, his hair stood on end. He thrashed against his bonds, his voice cracking.
"What are you doing? Stay back! I am the second heir to the Travers line! I warn you—Agh!"
Before Torquil could finish his threat, Alan had already knelt by his side. With a sickening squelch, he plunged the metal probe straight into Torquil's chest. Blood welled up instantly, staining the man's robes. Alan cast a quick constriction spell to stem the flow, ensuring the subject wouldn't bleed out prematurely.
The four other men watched in absolute horror. They hadn't expected this level of brutality; they thought Alan was a student, not an executioner.
Alan ignored them, focusing entirely on the needle of the dial. "Strange. Why is there no reaction? I inscribed the Bloodline Perception, Integrity, and Monitoring runes specifically for this. It worked in the external trials, though the accuracy was abysmal. Is the sensitivity coefficient set too high?"
Expressionless, Alan yanked the probe out. He made a quick adjustment to the dial and, with another wet thud, drove it back into Torquil's chest at a slightly different angle.
"Ah, sorry. I was a bit distracted," Alan said, looking down at the two bleeding punctures with a touch of awkwardness. "It seems I've made a second hole. Don't worry, I'll patch those up for you later."
"Agh!" Torquil, pushed past his breaking point, roared through a mask of agony. "You monster! If you want to kill me, just do it! What are you doing to me?!"
He screamed, twisting his body in a desperate attempt to escape, but he remained pinned to the floor by the weight of Alan's Shield Charm. Alan didn't even look at his face. He was fully immersed in the data.
"There we go. The pointer is stable now. No irregular fluctuations like in the open-air experiments. It seems measuring reserves within a living vessel is indeed feasible."
Alan looked at Torquil then and asked, "How do you feel? Aside from the pain, do you notice any other sensations? Any tingling or coldness in your limbs?"
Torquil was pressed into the dirt, feeling nothing but a white-hot, searing agony in his chest. He couldn't believe the boy had the nerve to ask if he felt anything *else*. In response, Torquil unleashed a torrent of curses and raw, animalistic howls that made the others in the room shudder.
"Subject shows no immediate adverse reactions. Mental state remains active. Currently, utilizing Bloodline Magic for measurement appears to have no obvious side effects on the core magic," Alan noted aloud, recording the findings on a clipboard.
He cross-referenced the dial's position and recorded Torquil's reserve value. He decided to call the unit of magic 'Ke,' defined by the cost of a single, standard casting of the Wand-Lighting Charm. Lumos, being the spell with the lowest consistent drain, was the most logical baseline. He had considered the Levitation Charm, but since that was a continuous drain, it was too variable for a fixed unit.
Torquil's current value sat at 637 Ke. That meant he could cast Lumos 637 times before hitting zero. A standard Disarming Charm cost roughly 3 Ke, meaning Torquil could fire off over two hundred of them. Compared to a typical third-year student, Torquil's reserves were roughly four times larger.
"Based on this, Torquil is actually quite formidable. Excellent. Next, let's see if extreme emotional distress causes a measurable spike or drop in active magic values."
With that, Alan tucked the clipboard away and pulled on his brass knuckles again. He delivered a measured barrage of strikes to Torquil's chest, specifically targeting the area around the wounds.
"Agh!!!!!" Torquil, his voice already rasping, let out an earth-shattering wail. The sound was like a rusty saw being pulled across stone, a harrowing noise that seemed to vibrate in the very bones of the observers.
The silence of the house only served to amplify the terror. The four remaining Death Eaters began to tremble uncontrollably, watching the boy who looked like a student but acted like something far older and much more dangerous.