The drifting snow gradually settled back to the ground.
Damian flicked his wand, and the colossal 'treant guardian' retracted its wooden greatsword, leaving a massive, jagged slash mark deep in the earth.
Nothing moved inside the gash. Through Damian's magical senses, the two wizards' magical pulses had gone completely silent.
He stepped forward to survey the results of his attack, frowning at what he saw. Within the huge gouge, the pair's flesh had literally been crushed and merged with the frozen soil and snow.
This was the first time he had used Transfiguration in actual combat. Against a large, stationary target, its raw destructive power far exceeded his expectations.
With a silent Levitation Charm, he carefully sifted through the bloody slush. Besides the wizards' mangled remains, he found only some twisted metal and a long, Black Finger-Bone.
"Scourgify." The scouring charm washed the gore away. The Black Finger-Bone remained pitch-black, about five or six centimeters long. It was clearly non-human and practically pulsed with dense magic—another magical artifact.
Searching the nearby snowdrift, he also recovered the Invisibility Eyeball that had dispelled his invisibility; the treant guardian had miraculously avoided crushing it.
White Stone Manor lay dangerously close by. Damian guessed that Madam Alsha had already heard the commotion and would be sending people to investigate the scene at any moment.
Working quickly, he reverted the massive treant and its wooden sword back into ordinary trees with a complex untransfiguration spell. He then cast a Vanishing Spell to completely erase the wizards' bloody remains. Finally, he used a sweeping Levitation Charm to flip the surrounding snow, burying the massive sword scar.
He had left the manor only moments ago. Madam Alsha would surely guess he had been ambushed here, but this quick cover-up would keep anyone from pinning down exactly what kind of magic he had used.
Once the battlefield was completely clean, Damian closed his eyes and Apparated straight home.
Moments after Damian vanished, Madam Alsha and her grey-haired butler arrived at the edge of the forest.
The butler produced a polished, disc-shaped artifact designed to detect lingering magical pulses.
After a moment of scanning, he shook his head. "There is no residual aura from Lord Damian or his ambushers. They have already left."
Madam Alsha nodded slowly. "Let's take a closer look."
They soon reached the center of the battlefield. Even in the dark, it was obvious the snow here had been violently disturbed.
The butler kept scanning with his disc. "The snow is showing chaotic magical reactions. Someone used magic to rapidly sweep the battlefield clean."
Alsha simply raised her right hand. A swirl of glowing, greenish wind gathered above her palm.
With a gentle toss, the wind rapidly expanded, becoming a localized gale that violently pushed the top layer of snow aside.
Moments later, Damian's massive, hastily-buried gouge in the earth was revealed.
The butler looked startled. Creating such a massive physical mark was no small feat. He stepped forward, using the disc to test the residual magic lingering in the frozen dirt.
"Strange," he muttered, his brow furrowing. "The magical trace here is incredibly faint. This trench wasn't caused directly by a spell."
Alsha knelt and pinched a clod of dirt from inside the trench. Even through her thick evening glove, she could feel that the soil was packed far denser than the surrounding earth. It gave her serious food for thought.
Halfway along the gouge, the butler suddenly exclaimed, "Here! The aura is clear: two wizards. One Second-Level Wizard Apprentice, and one Third-Level Wizard Apprentice."
"The scent of blood is strongest here," Alsha concluded after examining the immediate area. "They must have been gravely wounded or killed on this exact spot."
After finishing his sweep of the perimeter, the butler stood up and summarized his findings. "According to the readings, Lord Damian is at least a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice with formidable combat skills. He dispatched a Second and a Third-Level attacker in a matter of minutes, completely erased the bodies, and left without a trace."
"So young, yet already a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice…" Madam Alsha murmured, a dangerous, elegant smile touching her lips. "A very fine specimen indeed."
Back in his quiet study in White Stone Town, Damian replayed the evening's events in his mind.
He had left the manor at an entirely unpredictable hour, yet the ambushers had clearly been waiting for him.
He didn't recognize the pair at all. Judging from their crude, straightforward methods, they were almost certainly hired blades.
Since arriving in White Stone Town, he had met very few people. Though he had briefly clashed with Link and Anna, they had made peace—there was absolutely no reason for the Court Wizards to set assassins on him.
Therefore, the instigator was almost certainly someone who had attended the banquet tonight.
Madam Alsha had many admirers. Her subtle, intimate gestures on the dance floor, combined with her whispered invitation to the back garden, had not gone unnoticed. The keen eyes of the nobility at the banquet had likely seen everything.
But would one of her jealous suitors really go so far as to hire killers over a single dance?
If Alsha was as perceptive as she seemed, she would undoubtedly know exactly which of her devotees was capable of such an extreme reaction.
Had she deliberately drawn that hatred toward him?
If so, why? To use an assassin to test his true strength?
There were simply too many questions and too little understanding of Alsha's true motives. Information in this world was scarce, so Damian decided to shelve the problem for now. He needed to focus on his own growth.
He turned his attention to his spoils: the Invisibility Eyeball and the Black Finger-Bone.
He tried the Invisibility Eyeball first. A simple, straightforward infusion of his magic easily activated the artifact, confirming it was a localized invisibility dispeller.
The Black Finger-Bone, however, proved trickier. No method he tried could rouse a reaction from it.
Finally, he decided to channel Runic Magic into it, attempting to cast Lightning Bolt. The moment he did, he noticed that the 'guidance' stage of the spell matrix accelerated significantly.
Previously, shaping the spell model had required eight seconds. With the Black Finger-Bone in his hand, the 'guidance' phase was shortened to just six seconds—a massive twenty-five percent reduction in casting time!
Further tests confirmed that the passive acceleration effect persisted as long as he carried the bone on his person.
After finishing his experiments, he pulled out the protective gem Link had given him by the river. The stored Mage Armor had been entirely expended during the fight, leaving behind a dull, colorless crystal.
Damian remembered reading in Chris's study that these gems were called mana-stones. Using a specialized 'Magic Stone Engraving Technique,' a wizard could burn Runic Magic directly into them for single-use storage.
More importantly, mana-stones also served as physical vessels for holding raw magical energy.
Curious, he channeled his own magic into the clear gem. Its color rapidly deepened until it turned a rich, vibrant sapphire blue once again.
Once it was fully blue, it could absorb no more energy. Damian estimated its maximum capacity was roughly equal to the total mana pool of a First-Level Wizard Apprentice.
He realized that these mana-stones were invaluable—they were effectively rechargeable batteries for storing magic!
Unfortunately, he lacked the alchemical formula to craft them from scratch. Mana-stones were highly complex alchemical products, not natural minerals he could just dig out of the ground.
After inventorying the night's gains, he finally prepared to return to Hogwarts.
Sensing the metal disc in his mind, he found that the crystal within was fully charged once more.
Focusing his intent, he visualized the artifact spinning rapidly. In an instant, his study vanished, and he was plunged back into the familiar darkness of his Slytherin dormitory.
His roommates, Jerry and Geralt, were still sleeping soundly. Nox dozed peacefully on the windowsill beneath the glass of the Black Lake.
Because time had stopped in this dimension while he was gone, no one even suspected he had ever left.
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