After Damian killed Jack, he searched the noble Wizard's pockets and pulled out an ornate silver pocket watch. It was a first-order magical artifact.
Once activated, it could instantly deploy a localized Ice Shield spell. Because Jack had been paralyzed by the preserved basilisks eye from the very beginning, he had never even gotten the chance to use it.
Next, Damian began searching the lavish bedroom. Relying on the surface memories he had plucked from Jack's mind, he grabbed a heavy tome from the bedside table. He slotted it into the empty space on the second shelf of the corner bookcase.
Click. The massive mahogany bookshelf slowly swung outward, revealing a hidden compartment in the wall. Tucked safely inside was a heavily padlocked iron chest.
Damian pulled the heavy chest onto the floor. Jack's memories revealed that the physical key was buried somewhere on the outskirts of White Stone Town.
Damian didn't have the time or patience to go digging. He simply pointed his wand at the heavy iron mechanism. "Alohomora."
The Alohomora charm struck the metal, and the heavy tumblers instantly clicked open.
Although he had already seen its contents in Jack's mind, Damian couldn't help but grin when he lifted the lid. The haul was massive!
The noble White family had ruled over White Stone Town for nearly three centuries. Even though recent generations had been quite profligate—Old White had literally given away a manor—they still retained a staggering amount of generational wealth.
Damian quickly took inventory. There were eight large, glowing Magic Stones, along with kingdom gold coin bills worth tens of thousands of Gold Coins.
However, since the bank notes had to be formally deposited at a Wizard Bank to be used, they would be difficult to offload quietly for now. There were also several parchment property deeds for estates in White Stone Town, and even one for a townhouse in the Royal Capital.
Most importantly, there were over a dozen heavy spellbooks. Damian skimmed the ancient bindings; most contained advanced Runic Magic, and three were highly restricted manuals on Meditation Methods and wandless casting.
Advanced magical theories like these were heavily guarded by elite wizarding factions, rarely ever leaking to the public. Link had mentioned that the Court Wizards possessed two unique variants of High-level Meditation Techniques.
However, only investigators ranked Adjutant or Investigator and above could access the Court Wizards' restricted archives. Since Link was only a Level 7 Investigator, even he didn't have the clearance to study these techniques.
The Moon Candle Dream-Walking Ritual Jack had mentioned was also in the chest. The dark ritual was scrawled on a piece of human parchment without much explanation, detailing only the gruesome setup process.
There was another dark artifact resting at the bottom of the chest—a pitch-black, first-order magical artifact shield. It was heavily enchanted to resist attacks at the level of a Wizard Apprentice.
Because the heavy shield was inconvenient to carry, Jack had kept it locked away. Space-storage type magical artifacts were heavily regulated in the Blizzard Kingdom, making magical storage quite rare for the average wizard.
Fortunately, Damian had one. After a rough inventory, he swept everything from the iron chest into his undetectable extension pouch.
Raising his wand, Damian pointed it at Jack's headless corpse. "Confringo!" The Blasting Curse smashed the remains into powder.
Next, Damian slipped into the adjacent study and completely cleared out the White family's collection of rare books.
After looting the room bare, he returned to Jack's bedroom and cast Incendio, setting the ancestral home ablaze.
With a sharp crack, Damian Apparated away, leaving nothing behind but roaring flames.
Back at his residence on Riverside Street, Damian began to carefully tally his gains. Tonight's harvest was beyond bountiful.
The stolen spellbooks contained over a dozen unique Runic spells. Most were variations of Zero-order Cantrips and First-order Spells, but the utility spells were fascinating.
The tomes detailed runic variations of the Ring of Repulsion, the Web Spell, the Mage Armor, Appraisal, Detection, Spirit Sea Fog, and advanced Sleep incantations.
Damian selected a few of the most practical combat spells to prioritize learning.
His highest priority was the Court Wizards' unique variation of the Ring of Repulsion. Unlike a standard spell, this Runic version only required tracing ten specific Runic Scripts in the air to release an omnidirectional, invisible shockwave of kinetic force.
With the magical boost from his dark focus artifact—the Black Fingertip Bone—he could cast this repelling shockwave in under two seconds. For a duelist like Damian who excelled at mid-to-long-range combat, keeping enemies away was crucial.
The Court Wizards' version of the Mage Armor, a modified Shield Charm, was next on his list. While its defensive resistance was far superior to the standard Hogwarts variant, its casting speed was significantly slower.
The spell required mentally mapping sixteen complex Runic Scripts. Even with his artifact's boost, it would take Damian three full seconds to cast.
However, unlike a standard shield that shattered or faded quickly, this runic Mage Armor would autonomously sustain itself for thirty seconds as long as its threshold wasn't breached. Investigators frequently cast this on themselves right before stepping into an ambush.
Damian had already mastered advanced detection spells like Appraisal and Detection. He had traded potions with Link earlier in the week to learn them.
These analytical charms could roughly identify the grade of a magical artifact and even gauge the density of another wizard's sea of spirit. When they had first met, Anna had used a similar spell to determine that Damian was a First-level Wizard Apprentice.
However, judging a wizard's strength this way was a rookie mistake. A wizard trained in advanced Spirit Sea Fog could project a false, weakened aura.
A standard detection spell would only read the conditions presented by the fog. Of course, a truly powerful wizard could force their Appraisal through the fog, which was exactly why Damian intended to prioritize learning the Spirit Sea Fog technique himself.
The runic variations of the Web Spell and the Sleep Charm overlapped too heavily with his existing repertoire, so he set those texts aside.
The offensive magic was what truly caught his eye. Two spells in particular—the Lightning Summoning and the Great Lightning Summoning—seemed to belong to a terrifying, elemental series.
The standard Lightning Summoning required a complex sequence of thirty-two Runic Scripts. It was an incredibly destructive piece of Runic Magic, capable of calling down a localized bolt of lightning straight from the sky to strike a target.
Its advanced form, the Great Lightning Summoning, was the crown jewel of the collection. It required a grueling sequence of eighty Runic Scripts to cast.
This devastating spell called down several bolts of lightning from the sky to strike a target. It was heavily affected by ambient weather; if cast during a natural thunderstorm, its destructive power was practically limitless. It had an incredibly high ceiling for raw damage.
However, the casting time was a massive drawback. Even relying on his artifact, it would take Damian fifteen seconds of unbroken concentration to channel the Great Lightning Summoning. Using it in a fast-paced duel would be suicidal.
Among the remaining offensive spells, Damian also planned to learn the "Hand of Burning" technique. It was essentially a modified version of Invisible Hand wrapped in flames.
The spell could create a hand burning with flames, which could be used to physically grab, crush, and incinerate enemies.
Even better, when casting Invisible Hand, one could seamlessly convert the magic into the Hand of Burning, making his telekinesis incredibly versatile.
The remaining Fireball, Magic Missile, and Rolling Stone variations overlapped with the destructive curses he already knew, so they went to the bottom of his reading list.
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