Professor Snape Has Arrived

Chu Yao came back to her senses from her pleasant fantasy. Looking at the Ten Thousand Souls Banner before her, which was fearsome but clearly having trouble with its "business," she once again beat her chest and stamped her feet in her heart.

Born at the wrong time! I was born at the wrong time!

Such a good chance to rack up merit and refine a magic treasure, missed just like that!

These days, even killing a chicken is against the law. Is my Ten Thousand Souls Banner really going to end up as a toy that can only be used for show and to scare little children?

Oh, right, I also have to watch out for the Heavenly Dao here punishing it as a bug... How frustrating! This is so frustrating!

She resentfully poked the Ten Thousand Souls Banner in her sea of consciousness with a finger of divine sense. It looked imposing, but was actually at some risk of "unemployment." In the end, she resigned herself to circulating her cultivation technique and absorbing the sparse spiritual energy around her.

Forget it, forget it. I won't think about it anymore. The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

I'd better just cultivate. At least my cultivation as a sword cultivator is real.

As for the Ten Thousand Souls Banner... old friend, you'll have to put up with lying around in my sea of consciousness as a decoration for now. Maybe when we go to Hogwarts someday, you can scare the ghosts and Dementors there?

Alas...

Spiritual energy slowly gathered inside the cave abode as Chu Yao entered a meditative state. Her slightly furrowed brow, however, showed that she was still dwelling on the missed "golden banner-refining period."

Time flew by as she cultivated, studied the system, and learned English.

With the powerful divine sense she had honed in her previous life as a Mahayana Stage cultivator and supreme master of the demonic path, Chu Yao's ability to learn languages was astounding. In a short time, she could already converse fluently in a London accent that carried a certain inexplicably noble and aloof air.

One day in late July, a tall man in pitch-black robes, his face pale and his expression gloomy, appeared silently like a bat outside the Ten Thousand Swords Sect's ancient mountain-protecting array.

The senior sister, Chu Wushuang, who had been notified in advance, led the professor from the West inside with an expressionless face.

Severus Snape, Hogwarts' Potions Class professor, was now surveying the Eastern sect that Dumbledore had described as having "a heritage of more than three thousand years." He looked at it with considerable interest—or rather, with his usual gaze, as though examining a cauldron of Potions that might explode.

More than three thousand years...

Much older than Hogwarts.

It seems... there's something to it after all.

It had to be said that if Chu Yao had not known full well that her sect was so poor from supporting its disciples and their flying swords that it was nearly reduced to pawning its pants, she too would have thought the Ten Thousand Swords Sect looked extraordinarily imposing, steeped in immortal air, and thoroughly convincing.

As far as the eye could see, halls and pavilions rose along the mountainsides amid swirling clouds and mist. Their upturned eaves, carved beams, and painted rafters gleamed with the soft luster of jade in the morning light.

The vast plaza paved with white marble was clean enough to reflect a person's image.

Spirit cranes glided gracefully across the sky, uttering clear, melodious cries.

The air was filled with the faint, fresh fragrance of plants and... hmm, a barely perceptible hint of medicinal pills?

(Is Martial Uncle Zhang experimenting with new dishes in his pill furnace again?)

Signs of disrepair in the details?

There were none!

At least, none that Professor Snape could see.

To keep their junior sister from being looked down upon in a foreign land because her "sect was poor"—though they thought it would be good enough if Chu Yao did not bully anyone else—the entire sect had launched a sweeping "sect image maintenance campaign."

Pillars with peeling paint? Try the Illusion Technique—they looked as good as new!

Cracked floor tiles? Cycle between Transmute Rock to Mud and Transmute Mud to Rock for a seamless finish!

Herb gardens overgrown with weeds? Force them to grow with the Yimu Growth Technique, making them look full of vitality!

Even the stone lion outside the dining hall, which Chu Yao had accidentally chopped a corner off while practicing her swordsmanship, had been repaired overnight by a senior brother skilled in stone carving, using the Turn Stone into Gold technique—or a fake version of it. Though the color was a little mismatched on close inspection, who would let a guest get close enough to look?

Tsk, tsk. The senior brothers and sisters really went to a lot of trouble...

With a filter like this, even I'm about to believe our sect is rolling in wealth.

Author's note: Thank you, my darling readers, for the favorites, likes, check-ins, comments, flowers, gold coins, and memberships. Love you all, sending you a heart ♥