A Mana value as high as 66 points, fully unleashed at 200% output power—just how powerful would that be?
Kate had never tried it before, and this was the first time she'd unleashed it in front of Dumbledore and the old butler.
Even the simplest Levitation Charm began to turn terrifying under the boost of such immense Mana. The moment the spell left her lips, the ground beneath Kate's feet gradually began to sway.
After an earth-shattering tremor, the entire Hogwarts castle began to shudder, as though doomsday were about to arrive.
A massive crack spread rapidly out from beneath Kate's feet; fissures crisscrossed the ground, completely encircling the castle before them.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Kate intoned the incantation once more, and the castle before them went from its initial faint trembling to a violent shaking, while the cracked earth beneath the castle kept bulging upward.
Shattered stones and countless plants and trees rose swiftly into the air under the influence of the Levitation Charm at full Mana power.
This was already far beyond the range of what an ordinary underage Wizard could achieve.
The old butler watched that frail little figure from behind and instinctively made to step forward, only for Dumbledore to press a hand on his shoulder and hold him back.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
With the third Levitation Charm, the fissures—centered on the lawn in front of Kate—kept widening, and then shot up swiftly like bamboo shoots breaking through the soil.
Kate watched it all with an expressionless face. She could feel that her surging Mana was still vigorous, nowhere near the point of exhaustion.
In that case, she'd give it another try!
With a light flick of her wand, Hogwarts castle trembled and, together with the earth beneath it, slowly rose into the air.
As if it were a miracle, a child not yet fourteen years old had actually suspended this fortress of war—large enough to hold a thousand people—in mid-air.
But to them, this was not the point.
Dumbledore narrowed his eyes slightly, his azure-blue eyes straining amid the flying sand and rolling stones to make out the Chamber of Secrets that might exist among the tangled, intricate underground pipes.
"Professor!" Kate's eyes flew wide as she pointed toward that sealed room above the castle's foundations, connected to several thick pipes. "Is it over there?"
The old butler narrowed his eyes a fraction. "Pipes? Could it be that fifty years ago the Basilisk traveled back and forth through the pipes to carry out its killings?"
"It would appear so," Dumbledore said, his gaze turning slightly cold. "This Chamber of Secrets connects to the pipes of some bathroom. If we forcibly destroy the Chamber now, the Basilisk might escape."
Understood—it would be best to kill it inside the Chamber of Secrets.
The old butler nodded, then walked over to Kate's side and said softly, "Good child, you can set it down now."
Kate turned with a smile and lightly set Hogwarts castle back in its original place, then cast a Mending Charm. In but an instant, the damaged environment all around was immediately restored.
Dumbledore walked over at a slow pace, crouched down to meet her at eye level, and asked, "How do you feel now?"
"I've never gone at full firepower like that before," Kate said with a grin, gripping the wand in her hand. "Professor, you must be able to appreciate how I feel right now."
Indeed—when one possessed Superman-like power, one was constantly bound by one's own sense of morality; apart from a few critical situations, one could almost never use that power freely.
Dumbledore understood this perfectly well.
Originally, in his view, although Kate was born with powerful Mana and an extremely strong ability to learn, she had, on the whole, still not exceeded the limits of an ordinary person.
But now it seemed that—able to lift Hogwarts castle effortlessly without batting an eye—this child had, in the span of just a year and a half, already reached a height that ordinary Wizards could never attain.
"I recall you'll be turning fourteen in a few days, won't you?" Dumbledore smiled gently and rubbed her head.
Kate nodded. "Mm, my birthday is the third day after Christmas."
"Then it seems we'll need to settle this swiftly, so you can spend your birthday with peace of mind."
He rose slowly to his feet, used a Scouring Charm to clean the grime off her, and then strode briskly toward the castle.
Kate blinked, glanced back at the old butler, and then followed close behind him, step for step.
The portraits and ghosts inside the castle had all been moved out as well. Now, in this enormous castle, there were only the three of them—the living—no, there was also a Basilisk lurking.
"I imagine the commotion just now may well have woken the Basilisk slumbering in the Chamber of Secrets, so keep an eye on the entrances of every pipe and be ready to defend yourselves at all times."
Dumbledore cautioned them as he walked.
Kate couldn't help saying, "Actually, if it's the pipes we're worried about, I have a way too."
He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her.
"Mm... I imagine you probably already know that I buried some little alchemical gadgets in the walls of Hogwarts a while back."
Under his gaze, Kate spoke a little guiltily, and with a wave of her wand, a handful of golden threads wriggled out from the cracks in the wall and lay softly in her hand.
"Using these to seal off each of the pipes, we only need to find the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Even if it's a matter of waiting by the stump for the hare, we'll still get our Basilisk in the end."
She never fought a battle unprepared. Since they were going to deal with the Basilisk, she had to make ample preparations—so she'd even brought along the potion to cure petrification.
It was just that she didn't know... whether Dumbledore would think she got up to far too many of these little schemes....
Meeting Dumbledore's eyes with an uneasy heart, Kate suddenly felt rather thirsty and instinctively swallowed.
But soon, that probing gaze finally dissolved into a kind of helplessness.
That rough, large hand patted her head again. She didn't dare blink even once as she watched Dumbledore give a soft sigh.
"I didn't know."
"...?" She hadn't caught up yet.
Dumbledore repeated himself: "I didn't know you'd buried things in the walls—why would you assume I know everything?"
Kate's voice caught, because last year Old Man Dumbledore had known her whereabouts like the back of his hand, which was precisely why she'd assumed he must be secretly watching her.
"Ahem! Miss," the old butler put in quietly, seeing the atmosphere grow a touch complicated, "alchemical items are very difficult to imbue with Mana. Unless one investigates carefully, no one would discover them."
She stared, eyes wide, somewhat dumbfounded.
So... the reason her various little schemes had been discovered last year was actually because the things she'd used had all been imbued with her Mana?
So Old Man Dumbledore hadn't actually been monitoring her every single day?
Hsss..... Then it seemed she'd just blurted out something rather momentous.
Watching her go from utterly dazed to suddenly enlightened, then realize something was off and turn all embarrassed, Dumbledore couldn't help laughing out loud.
"It's all right—go on and try."
He gave a light chuckle, mortifying Kate so much that she half-wished she could just burrow underground and have a 1v1 duel with the Basilisk on the spot.
How embarrassing—every one of her little schemes had been laid bare.
She looked up at the old butler, drew a long breath, and tossed all the golden threads in her hand back into the wall.
"There's no telling how long the golden threads will hold, so let's settle this quickly—hurry and find the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets."
With that, she immediately turned and dashed into a girls' bathroom.
Good grief, why did these embarrassing things always happen to her!
Only after the heat on her face had subsided a little did she emerge from the bathroom. Seeing the corridor was now empty, she went straight to the bathroom that the students had always rumored to be haunted by Moaning Myrtle.
Of course, by now Myrtle too had been temporarily moved to a safe place near Hogwarts.
Kate searched for a good long while beside the pipes above the bathroom's sinks before she spotted a little snake engraved on the side of a copper tap.
She tried turning the tap, and this one alone gave no water.
This is the one!
Kate's heart leapt with delight. She immediately stepped out into the corridor and sent up a signal, and the moment she turned around, she saw that Dumbledore had appeared right behind her.
"Uh... Professor....." Startled by his sudden appearance, Kate instinctively patted her chest and grumbled under her breath, "Next time you use Apparition, don't come quite so close."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow slightly, turned around, and saw the old butler hurrying down the stairs, asking in a rush, "Have you found the entrance already?"
Kate nodded and led them both into the bathroom, pointing at that tap.
"There's a snake carving on it—it should be a mark left by Slytherin's heir. It's just that I tried a spell on it earlier and couldn't open it; perhaps there's some other way to open it."
Trying to guide them, she asked further, "Since this is a door that only Slytherin's heir can open, what special method could be passed down through their bloodline alone?"
Dumbledore and the old butler exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Parseltongue."
As the name suggests, Parseltongue was an ability to speak in the language of snakes and communicate with them—understood only among the precious few Parselmouths.
"I've heard of this ability," Kate said with an air of dawning realization. "Could it be that Slytherin himself spoke Parseltongue? No wonder he made a snake the symbol of his house!"
She looked at them expectantly. "So, Professor, Grandpa, can either of you speak Parseltongue?"
In any case, she wasn't Slytherin's heir and had no interest in Parseltongue; even knowing such an ability existed, she couldn't be bothered to spend the effort learning it.
"Let me try." With a grave expression, Dumbledore drew her aside, walked up to the tap, fixed his azure-blue eyes intently on the little snake atop it, and let out a strange hissing sound.
At once the tap gave off a flash of white light, then began spinning rapidly, and the sink shifted and vanished along with it, revealing a very large pipe—wide enough for a person to crawl into.
Kate had just made to step forward when the old butler held her back. "You wait here for us."
"What?" She frowned, displeased. "Grandpa, the Professor and I already agreed—we're going to destroy the Basilisk together!"
Dumbledore raised a hand in time to stop the quarrel about to break out between them. "Rand, I promised Kate I'd go with her."
The old butler's aged face tightened. "Albus, you ought to know just how dangerous the Basilisk is."
"It's precisely because of that that I must bring her along to see it with her own eyes." Dumbledore looked at him deeply, until the old butler's somewhat pale face slowly turned away, and only then did he give a faint smile.
Seeing this, Kate hurried to follow him, and one after another they leapt in.
The old butler heaved a sigh and had no choice but to slide down the passage after them.
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