"Dream on. Do you think I would reveal the Travers family's secrets so easily? And I warn you, if this book gets even a tiny scratch, it will be considered damaged. You will have violated our agreement and will be removed from the library immediately," Yulia warned, her voice trembling with a mixture of hope and spite.
"Heh, you certainly remember the fine print when it suits you. But don't worry, I'm a man of my word. And who said I was going to damage it?"
With that, Alan brought the specialized hammer down. The head, inscribed with a parsing rune, struck the notebook's cover with a heavy, resonant bang.
Yulia flinched. Just hearing the impact, she knew the force was considerable. Although she had immense confidence in the family treasure's durability, the sight of him hammering a centuries-old relic made her stomach churn.
*Got it!*
Upon impact, a distinct magical fluctuation rippled through the air. However, no aura or spell patterns manifested on the surface, indicating the enchantments were layered deep within the material. Alan adjusted his grip. *Well, let's see how many more hits you can take.*
He began to strike the notebook with rhythmic, furious precision, like a blacksmith at a forge. A series of heavy thuds echoed through the quiet library. Yulia watched, her eyes wide, wanting to scream for him to stop, yet she was transfixed by the fact that the notebook remained completely unmarred despite the violence of the blows.
Under the continuous kinetic pressure, the notebook finally shed its mundane disguise. The cover shimmered, revealing a dense network of magic runes, crisscrossing in a pattern that appeared chaotic to the untrained eye. Once the runes surfaced, the book became impossible to pry open, as if locked by a complex, invisible mechanism.
Seeing this, Yulia gradually relaxed. The treasure was intact. *Even if you are brilliant, Alan, you will never crack the cipher on that book. Without the unique blood of the Travers family, those secrets stay buried.*
Then, she watched in horror as Alan pulled a crystal vial of blood from his pocket.
The moment the runes appeared, Alan had recognized the signature. They were the same bloodline-locking spells used on the password box he had encountered previously, merely a more sophisticated, reinforced iteration. Fortunately, he had harvested a significant amount of Torquil's blood before the man's demise.
Under Yulia's stunned gaze, Alan applied the blood to the focal points of the runic array. As the protection was bypassed, the entire volume emitted a violent magical surge. Vivid auras of shifting colors flashed across the cover as the seals buckled and broke. After several seconds, the agitation faded into a calm hum.
"How... how is this possible? How could you know the sequence?" Yulia stammered, her mouth hanging open. Alan ignored her, happily flipping through the now-supple pages.
"So that's it. The 'magic book' Torquil mentioned is exactly that—a literal magic book. It's less of a text and more of a highly advanced, book-shaped alchemical tool. This is light-years ahead of the runic storage books Lily showed me," Alan realized. It was a sophisticated vessel designed to hold and execute active magic.
On the first page, a spell name and its incantation were displayed in bold script at the top.
Fiendfyre.
Below the name were two distinct sections. The upper window displayed the complete, glowing magic rune for the spell. The lower section contained a wealth of data: precautions, counter-spells, personal notes from generations of Travers ancestors, and even a log of when the spell had been cast directly through the book's interface. This lower section functioned like a scrollable display; with a gentle swipe of his finger, Alan could look through centuries of research.
"Good heavens. Each page is a living spell. These records allow a wizard to learn the magic at an accelerated rate—and even if they can't master it, they can channel the spell through the book itself." Even Alan was floored by the ingenuity of the design.
He began to leaf through the pages, discovering a compendium of the world's most dangerous arts: the three Unforgivables, Legilimency, Occlumency, and the complete Slytherin Mental Protection Spell. A quick check of the logs confirmed the protection spell had been used recently, perfectly matching Torquil's story.
But when he turned to a page that bore no title, he froze.
"What is this?" Alan's eyes widened. On this page, the incantation and history sections were blank. In the center sat a single, magnificent magic rune composed of interwoven silver and electric-blue lines.
It was an ancient primordial magic rune.
He had only heard of such things in hushed tones from Lily and Professor Bones. These were the original, raw marks found only on the bones of prehistoric magical beasts, within ancient ruins, or formed by natural magical phenomena. They were the source material from which modern magic was derived.
Most runes used by wizards today are "parsed"—broken down and optimized to make them easier to control and spread. While modern runes were more accessible, the primordial versions possessed raw, unadulterated power. They were notoriously difficult to handle; an average wizard might spend decades trying to parse a single one. Only the most powerful could ever hope to utilize them in their raw state.
"Could this be the gift Lucius gave to Yulia?" Alan recalled a fragment of memory from Sampel Travers, where Lucius Malfoy had asked his sister to safeguard a specific rune for him.
"This looks like an elemental mark. A lightning rune?" Alan studied the geometry. He was familiar with lightning runes from his studies of elemental theory. His affinity for the element was high—likely why his Thunderbird-feather wand had chosen him—but he had never prioritized it. Ordinary lightning spells were notoriously inefficient; the magical output required to generate a lethal voltage was often too high to be practical for a fourteen-year-old with a busy research schedule.
This rune, however, promised something entirely different.