Moonlight spread over Nicholas Manor as night quietly replaced the day, and the stars took their places above the darkened estate. Inside his bedroom, Leo stood beside his desk with two fingers raised like a sword master from an old fantasy drama, his expression solemn and his eyes fixed on the pen holder in front of him as though it contained a terrible enemy.
"Monster, where do you think you're going?" he whispered. "Take this!"
The dozen pencils inside the holder shot upward at once, streaking toward the ceiling with sharp whooshing sounds. Leo's eyes widened when he realized they were moving faster than expected, and just before they hit the plaster, he stopped them in midair.
"Phew. That was close."
The pencils hovered obediently above him while Leo let out a breath and began controlling them more carefully. They swam through the air like fish, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, before gathering into the shape of a great sword and then breaking apart into a three-dimensional geometric figure.
The improvement was obvious. After his strange magical outburst, his control had increased far beyond what it had been before. His mental power responded more smoothly now, and the objects moved with much greater precision.
"Leo, bath time!"
Rose's voice came from outside the door.
"Coming!" Leo answered immediately.
Then he clasped his hands behind his back like a master withdrawing from battle. "Sword, return to sheath."
The pencils shot back into the pen holder. Unfortunately, he still hadn't fully mastered the strength of his control, so they clattered loudly as they landed, with several nearly bouncing out again.
Leo ignored the noise and grabbed his clean clothes. He had already thought of something else interesting to test.
In the bathroom, steam rose gently from the bathtub while Leo sat in a mountain of bubbles, staring at the running tap with focused concentration. Instead of falling into the tub as usual, the water flowed out and gathered slowly in midair.
Drop by drop, it formed a rippling ball of water.
Leo's eyes shone.
"Water Dragon Bullet, version seventy-seven!"
He waved his bubbly hands wildly in front of his chest, then suddenly pointed at the wall. The floating water ball shot forward and slapped against the tiles with a loud splash before running down to the floor.
Not bad.
Not powerful, but fun.
"Now watch my thousand transformations."
He gathered more water and tried to reshape it into different forms. A snake, a bird, and a tiny spinning ring appeared one after another, though the shapes remained unstable and only held for brief moments before collapsing back into droplets.
Then his head buzzed sharply.
The sensation came suddenly, like the dizziness that struck when someone stood up too quickly after sitting for a long time. His vision swayed, and his body went slack.
Leo leaned against the edge of the bathtub.
"Come…"
"Waiting for your arrival…"
"Come…"
The murmuring voice appeared again inside his mind.
This time, Leo did not panic. He closed his eyes and sank inward, using the meditative technique from his previous life to recover the mental energy he had just wasted playing with water.
Ever since the first magical outburst, his recovery speed had improved noticeably. His mind settled faster than before, and the faint exhaustion faded with surprising efficiency.
When Leo opened his eyes again, the bathwater had cooled. He quickly rinsed off, dried himself, changed into clean clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom.
As he passed the living room, he saw his parents and grandparents watching television together. He did not disturb them, because the voice had left behind a trace, a strange directional pull, and he wanted to check where it was coming from.
"Leo, go to bed early once you're back in your room," Stoke called from the sofa without turning around.
"Okay. Good night, Mum and Dad. Good night, Grandpa and Grandma."
After saying good night, Leo hurried out of the living room.
But he did not return to his bedroom.
Instead, he headed toward the basement.
The stair light clicked on, spilling weak yellow light over the narrow steps. A household fire axe floated beside him in the air, and in his right hand he held his wand, Judgment.
Standing before the old basement door, Leo quietly stared ahead. The closer he got, the clearer the murmuring became inside his mind. At the same time, his blood seemed to stir restlessly beneath his skin, as though something beyond the door was calling not only to his thoughts, but to his body itself.
He took a slow breath.
This was probably stupid.
No, not probably.
Definitely.
He looked exactly like the kind of naive young wizard who learned three spells and immediately went poking at ancient mysteries.
Still, he raised his wand.
"Lumos."
A faint reddish light glowed from the tip of Judgment.
Leo opened the door and stepped inside.
The basement was dim, and the old pull-cord light switch hung near the wall. He walked over, tugged it, and the room lit up with a dull orange glow.
"Tomorrow I need to tell Dad to replace this with a proper switch," he muttered.
The basement was cluttered but not filthy. Cardboard boxes, tools, spare household items, and old furniture filled the space, though Stoke had cleaned it recently while repairing things around the manor, so there wasn't much dust in the air.
Leo closed his eyes and expanded his senses.
"Come…"
"Here…"
"Here…"
The call grew clearer.
He opened his eyes and turned toward the source.
In the corner of the basement sat a large wooden chest.
Leo frowned.
"Strange. Have I seen that before?"
He had been in the basement before. Even if he hadn't carefully inspected every corner, he had at least wandered around, and a chest that large should not have escaped his notice.
Yet the stranger part was that he felt as though he both remembered it and didn't. It was clearly in his sight, but his awareness kept trying to slide away from it, as if the chest were not a solid object but some illusion projected into the room.
"A Confundus Charm?" Leo murmured. "A powerful one?"
He immediately thought of the magical world's common concealment methods. The Confundus Charm was not rare; in fact, wizarding society relied on similar effects constantly to separate itself from the Muggle world.
Those protections were everywhere, so ordinary that wizards barely seemed to think about them. Like fine hairs on human skin, they were always present and usually ignored.
Leo was still thinking when he suddenly realized his hands had moved on their own.
They were reaching toward the wooden chest.
His fingertips were almost touching the surface when a force burst outward.
Leo was thrown back.
At the same time, his body instinctively controlled the floating fire axe. It swung down hard toward the chest.
Bang!
Leo hit the floor backside first.
The axe, meanwhile, bounced back at terrifying speed and buried itself into a wooden pillar behind him.
Cold sweat broke across Leo's forehead. That axe had nearly taken his head off.
He scrambled upright, ignoring the ache from the fall, and looked toward the chest again.
The illusion-like feeling had vanished.
The wooden chest now felt real.
Solid.
Present.
Then it trembled violently.
A cracking sound echoed through the basement as the lid slowly opened a narrow gap. Dim light leaked from inside, faint and strange.
Leo wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and tightened his grip around Judgment.
"I want to see what you really are."
He stepped closer.
Just as he reached for the lid, a black shadow shot out from the opening.
"Aguamenti!"
Leo staggered backward and cast the spell he had practised in the bathroom. Water gathered quickly in the air and shot toward the shadow, but the target twisted away with impossible agility.
The water struck nothing.
"Caw!"
A sharp cry echoed through the basement.
Under the orange light, Leo finally saw what had flown out.
It was a black bird with glossy feathers that shimmered faintly with hidden colour.
A raven.
Even stranger, the raven clutched a crystal ball the size of a baby's fist in its talons.
The bird circled Leo once.
Leo should have raised his guard higher, and his mind knew that. Every rational part of him insisted this was suspicious, dangerous, and deeply abnormal.
But his body disagreed.
His instincts told him it was safe.
That nothing here meant him harm.
Leo nearly laughed from sheer disbelief.
Wonderful.
His brain and body were now holding separate meetings.
Fortunately, the raven did not attack. It landed in front of him, nudged the crystal ball across the floor with one claw, then tilted its head and stared at him.
The meaning was obvious.
Here, kid. Take it.
Leo's hand twitched.
His body wanted to pick up the crystal ball immediately, but he forced himself to stop. Instead, he stared at the raven, then stared at the crystal ball.
The raven stared back.
One boy and one bird remained frozen in silent confrontation.
Finally, Leo spoke before he could stop himself.
"For me?"
The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted to slap himself.
What was wrong with him?
Why was he asking a bird questions?
A raven.
A glossy black raven.
"Caw. Yes, kid."
The raven spoke.
In human language.
Leo's hand moved automatically.
"Oh. Really? Thanks."
He picked up the crystal ball.
Then his brain caught up.
"Wait. You can talk?"
The raven was calmly preening its feathers, as if speaking were the most normal thing in the world.
Leo stared at it, then at the crystal ball in his hand, then back at the raven.
Before he could finish demanding an explanation, the crystal ball erupted with brilliant golden light.
It was dazzling.
Blinding.
Leo felt as though a thousand-year-old slab of ice had been pressed against his forehead. His whole body shuddered from the sudden cold, and then his head became unbearably heavy.
The next moment, he collapsed onto the basement floor.
When Leo regained awareness, he was no longer in the basement.
He was inside his spiritual world.
But this time, the familiar darkness was changing.
Space unfolded around him in an instant, transforming into a vast library laboratory. Towering shelves filled with books stretched into the distance, while worktables crowded with strange instruments, glass vessels, parchment rolls, and magical tools surrounded him on all sides.
In front of him stood a scruffy old man dressed in black-and-white wizard robes.
The old man looked directly at Leo and grinned.
"Hey, little brat from the Nicholas family!"
....
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