Three in the morning. The Slytherin dormitories at the bottom of the Black Lake.
Jerry and Geralt were sleeping soundly. The three boys had been in high spirits last night, chatting late into the early hours of the morning before finally passing out.
The Sorting Ceremony had held no surprises. The "Savior" they had discussed all night was placed in Gryffindor. Hermione and Neville hadn't lost their deep-seated bravery due to Damian's minor interference on the train; both had joined the house of lions as well.
Damian sat up in his four-poster bed, feeling completely refreshed. He had taken a specialized potion before going to sleep—an improved Draught of Dreamless Sleep brewed by Professor Snape himself. It worked miracles, fully replenishing a wizard's energy with only two hours of rest.
Damian's late father had been Snape's senior during their school days, and the two had maintained a good relationship. Because of this, when Snape discovered Damian's monstrous talent for Potions, he often had the boy act as his personal laboratory assistant after class.
Damian glanced out the window. On a moonless night, the waters of the Black Lake were dark, silent, and eerie.
Nox was curled up sleeping by the glass. Damian wondered if the Kneazle was dreaming about catching the giant squid.
Focusing his mind, Damian sensed the metal disc. The crystal was glowing brilliantly—the energy was completely full.
He concentrated, and the artifact spun rapidly in his mind's eye. A moment later, the dormitory vanished, and he was plunged back into the freezing snow.
Chris and Tina were in the exact same positions they had been in before he left.
"Lord Damian..." Chris blinked, looking at him in utter bewilderment. "How did your clothes suddenly change?"
Tina, who had just climbed into the back of the repaired sleigh, also peered over curiously.
Damian cursed internally. He quickly pulled out his wand and cast a complex Transfiguration spell, reverting his Hogwarts robes back into the thick, furry traveling cloak that matched Chris's memory.
A subtle blue light flickered in Damian's eyes as he cast a silent, gentle Legilimency spell on the blacksmith. He needed to see exactly what his dimensional travel looked like from an outsider's perspective.
Through Chris's eyes, Damian saw that he hadn't physically disappeared. Instead, in the blink of an eye, his heavy winter cloak had inexplicably morphed into his sleek, black Hogwarts uniform.
So that's how it works, Damian realized. It seemed that whenever he traveled to a different world, time in the dimension he left behind completely stopped.
Before his initial return to Hogwarts, he had told Chris to go ahead and that he would catch up to them in White Stone Town. Clearly, not a single second had passed here since he activated the disc.
"Obliviate." Damian waved his wand, smoothly erasing the glitching wardrobe malfunction from both Chris and Tina's minds.
Chris dazed for a fraction of a second, then shook his head and sat down in the driver's seat as if nothing had happened. "Get in, Lord Damian. We'll reach White Stone Town by tonight. We won't have to freeze in the wild."
Chris was a master blacksmith. He had personally modified the underside of the sleigh with a clever heating furnace.
An hour later, the dark silhouette of White Stone Town finally came into view.
The entrance was blocked by a wooden barricade as tall as a man, flanked by a sturdy stone watchtower. The streets beyond were quiet and empty.
Chris brought the sleigh to a halt at the gate. "Is anyone there? Open up!" he shouted. He pulled a leather wineskin from a drawer near the sleigh's heater and took a long swig of hot wine to ward off the biting chill.
A head wearing a thick, hooded cap poked out from the tower window.
The guard squinted at the sleigh below before pulling his head back inside. A moment later, the heavy wooden door at the base of the tower creaked open.
The man from the window stepped out, crossing his arms and yawning widely. "Chris? It's freezing out here. What brings you to town at this hour?"
Chris's craftsmanship was famous across the region, and this particular Night Watchman had bought weapons from him in the past.
Chris hopped down from the driver's seat. "Good to see you, Jack. Gem Village hasn't been peaceful lately. The wild animals have gone frenzied and keep attacking the perimeter. My granduncle left a house here in White Stone Town, so I'm moving Tina here to stay safe."
Jack's face lit up. "You're moving here? Fantastic! Now I won't have to trek all the way to Gem Village just to get my blades sharpened. You should have moved here years ago."
He stepped forward, grabbing the heavy wooden fence to drag it open.
Chris moved to help him push. "Has White Stone Town been attacked at all? Why are you the only Night Watchman at the gate? We ran into quite a bit of deadly trouble on the road."
As a Night Watchman, Jack's primary job was to blow the warning horn in his tower to summon the actual Town Guard if a threat appeared.
Jack grunted as the gate swung open. "Nah, everything is quiet here. That lazy bum Pol is still snoring up in the tower."
He rubbed his freezing hands together. He had forgotten his thick gloves upstairs, and the icy wind was already making his fingers go numb. He just wanted to get back to his warm fire.
Chris bid the guard farewell and led the massive white stag through the gates.
The architectural style of White Stone Town heavily resembled medieval Europe from Damian's past life, filled with sturdy brick and stone structures.
The night streets were deserted and eerily quiet. The only signs of life came from a rowdy tavern a block away, its raucous noise echoing through the frosty air.
The town wasn't very large. Before long, the sleigh pulled up in front of a quiet, two-story house. The building looked quite old, its grey-white brick walls weathered by time and the harsh northern elements.
"Before he passed away, my granduncle spent most of his time in the Royal Capital," Chris explained, digging a heavy iron key out of his coat. "I only came by occasionally to dust the place. Lord Damian, feel free to head upstairs to the study. There are some books my granduncle left behind."
Damian's interest peaked. He desperately hoped the deceased wizard's books would help him understand this world's unique magic system.
Chris led Damian up the creaking stairs. The study wasn't large; a heavy oak desk and a reading chair took up most of the space. A single bookshelf stood to the right, holding about a dozen thick tomes.
Damian pulled one down. It was the Illustrated Guide to Magical Creatures Chris had mentioned earlier.
"You can take the bedroom right next door," Chris offered. "I'll go get the fires lit and tidy up."
Damian thanked him and immediately opened the book. The creature descriptions were frustratingly brief, offering only a hand-drawn sketch and a vague summary of their abilities. Unsurprisingly, the illustrations were static—it seemed the books in this world didn't use magical moving photographs like the ones back home.
He recognized several creatures that perfectly matched the magical beasts from his own world, such as Merpeople. However, the lore here was vastly different. While his world only had Merpeople with human torsos and fish tails, this world also documented horrifying fish-men with fish heads and human bodies that dominated the deep seas.
He also found entries for the Dragon-Serpent Tree and the Phantom Demon, both of which matched his recent, violent encounters perfectly.
Setting the bestiary aside, Damian inspected the rest of the shelf. Most were mundane travelogues, poetry collections, and history texts.
Drawing his wand, Damian tapped the spines of the books he wanted. "Geminio." He flawlessly cast the Doubling Charm, instantly creating exact, permanent physical copies of the texts so he could study them later without stealing Chris's family heirlooms.
As he finished duplicating the books, he noticed a lone, dusty parchment scroll tucked away in the back corner.
He unrolled it carefully. The header read: Aemon's Basic Meditation Method.
The scroll detailed a technique for training the human spirit through deep meditation. By continuously tapping into one's mental potential, a wizard could condense their spiritual energy into a vast internal reservoir—a 'sea of spirit'. Over time, this process would permanently increase the total volume of magic power within the body.
But most importantly, it allowed a wizard to construct a Runic Model directly within their mind!
Casting Runic Magic normally involved two excruciatingly slow steps: 'condensing' raw magic into physical Runic Script, and then 'guiding' those scripts into a structured Spell Model.
However, if a wizard mastered this Meditation Method and pre-built the Runic Model in their sea of spirit, the 'condensation' step would happen instantaneously!
A spell like "Lightning Bolt" required thirty-two individual Runic Scripts. Without this meditation technique, manually condensing those runes took Damian nearly five minutes.
With it, he could instantly conjure the scripts and immediately move to 'guiding' them into the spell matrix. The entire casting process would be reduced to a mere ten seconds.
Damian was overjoyed. He hadn't expected to solve the fatal flaw of Runic Magic this quickly.
Salazar Slytherin was right, Damian thought, his mind racing. Meditation truly is the key to Runic Magic.
However, this breakthrough only deepened his suspicions. If the "meditation" Salazar Slytherin had written about was actually this exact Meditation Method, where on earth did the Hogwarts Founder learn it? Had Slytherin practiced it himself? Had he visited this world?
Damian's curiosity about the Founders' era burned brighter than ever. When he returned to Hogwarts, he was definitely going to tear the Restricted Section apart looking for clues.
Since he had fully memorized the short scroll, Damian didn't even need to duplicate it. He carefully rolled the parchment back up and returned it to its rightful place on the shelf...
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