This room was brighter than the previous one.
Sean stepped inside cautiously.
The chamber contained only a single table, and on the table rested a book.
Under Sean's Magic vision, the book emitted a faint white glow.
It was clearly a magical object.
Sean approached the table and carefully opened it.
Looking at the blank pages, he murmured,
"So it's… a notebook."
"Hmm? There's also a quill."
He picked up the quill from the table.
Under the Magic vision, the quill also radiated a faint magical glow.
"A blank notebook… could Voldemort have learned something like this from here?"
Sean couldn't help thinking of one of Voldemort's Horcruxes—
Tom Riddle's Diary, which contained fragments of Voldemort's memory.
Sean picked up the quill and wrote a sentence on the first page.
"How do I pass this stage?"
As soon as he finished writing, the quill flew out of his hand and landed on the notebook.
It began writing by itself.
"A sacrifice."
The quill answered his question.
Sean picked it up again and wrote another line.
"What kind of sacrifice?"
The quill responded.
"A living sacrifice."
Sean froze.
He lifted the quill but didn't write another question immediately.
The answer clearly resembled the standard procedure of dark wizards.
It was asking him to kill someone.
He wrote again.
"What did Tom Riddle do when he came here? Did he offer a sacrifice?"
The quill replied:
"Information unavailable."
Sean fell into deep thought.
Peeves had said that Tom Riddle had failed the third test.
Yet Riddle's personality made one thing certain—
For power, he would absolutely have harmed other students.
But if that were the case…
Why did he fail?
Had he simply failed to carry it out?
At that moment the notebook flipped open.
The quill wrote automatically on the second page.
"Sign your name. Offer the sacrifice within three days. The door to the next stage will appear before you."
Sean stared at the message.
Combining it with what he already knew, he felt something was wrong.
He picked up the quill again.
But instead of writing his name, he asked another question.
"What year was Tom Riddle in when he came here?"
The quill quickly wrote the answer.
"Third year."
Then it turned to a blank third page and wrote the same instruction again.
"Sign your name. Offer the sacrifice within three days. The door to the next stage will appear before you."
Sean didn't pick up the quill again.
Instead, he thought carefully.
A third-year Tom Riddle was already as powerful as many seventh-year students.
Unlike Sean, he had kept a low profile.
He had carefully learned from every professor while hiding the darkness in his heart behind flawless acting.
Young Riddle had been an incredible actor.
Even Dumbledore had failed to see through him at first.
"If Riddle had three days to kill someone, there's no way he couldn't do it," Sean muttered.
"So why did he fail?"
He thought harder.
"He could do it… but still failed the test."
"Maybe the test wasn't about whether he could do it."
"Maybe it was about what choice he made."
If this were a test created by Salazar Slytherin, Sean might not have thought this way.
But the test belonged to Merlin, the legendary wizard.
There had never been rumors of Merlin being cruel or bloodthirsty.
A human sacrifice didn't seem like the sort of challenge Merlin would design.
"The second stage tested courage."
"The third stage tested talent."
"So this stage… must be testing character."
Sean picked up the quill.
Without hesitation, he wrote on the third page.
"I give up."
Tom Riddle would harm his classmates for power.
Sean wouldn't.
And Sean believed Merlin would never entrust his treasure to someone willing to sacrifice others for strength.
The moment Sean finished writing those three words—
The notebook suddenly floated into the air.
The pages flipped rapidly.
Then the notebook fell to the ground and began transforming.
Before Sean's eyes, it turned into a door.
Meanwhile, the quill transformed into a key, lying quietly on the table.
Sean sighed in relief.
"These temptation tests might work on Voldemort…"
"But I'm a transmigrator who's lived two lives."
Sean had chosen the opposite answer from Tom Riddle.
And he had guessed correctly.
Back then, when Tom Riddle wrote his name in the notebook, he had been immediately expelled from the chamber, returning to the Slytherin common room.
When he later tried to reenter through the fireplace, the entrance had disappeared.
He had even been burned by the flames when he tried again.
"This is the final stage."
"I wonder what treasure Merlin left behind."
Sean picked up the key and unlocked the newly formed door.
The moment it opened—
The sight before him left him stunned.
Below his feet stretched a lush forest, quiet and mysterious.
In the distance—
He could see Hogwarts Castle.
Sean realized he was standing on the crown of a gigantic redwood tree.
The tree's trunk was nearly ten meters in diameter, likely older than Hogwarts itself.
It stood deep within the Forbidden Forest, untouched for centuries.
"So it's a secret passage… leading into the Forbidden Forest."
Sean was surprised.
He knew of several secret passages in Hogwarts.
But those all led to Hogsmeade Village.
None led into the dangerous Forbidden Forest.
"Where's the treasure?"
"Merlin wouldn't seriously tell me the scenery itself is the treasure, would he?"
Standing near the trunk, Sean looked up and scanned the tree canopy.
Then he saw something that made his eyes widen.
"Wait… what?"
"This isn't the Triwizard Tournament!"
On two branches of the giant tree—
Two people were hanging.
Cassius.
And Chris.
Both appeared unconscious.
Their hands were bound, and they were suspended by ropes.
Sean followed the ropes upward.
Both of them were tied to the same rope.
If he freed one—
The other would fall from the treetop.
From this height—
It meant certain death.
The scene reminded Sean of Harry's dilemma in the Triwizard Tournament, when he had to choose who to save from the bottom of the Black Lake.
Except Harry had managed to save both.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
Sean tried casting a Levitation Charm on Chris.
But the spell hit an invisible barrier and was deflected.
Which meant—
Magic was forbidden in the final test.
Sean looked up at the two rope ladders above him.
One led to Cassius.
The other led to Chris.
He could only climb one ladder.
Save one person—
And watch the other fall to their death.
For the first time, Sean felt completely torn.
Saving either one felt wrong.
He couldn't just stand there and watch the other die.
"Merlin…"
Sean roared in frustration.
"Are you messing with me?!"
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