Fire from the Nose

Many people would not give up easily until they had run headfirst into a wall.

Albert's roommates were clearly no exception. After studying the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and Its Countermeasures Against the Dark Arts for a long time, they finally could not resist trying it themselves.

"Armor Charm!" Fred drew his wand downward and recited the incantation from the book, but nothing happened.

"The book says the Armor Charm doesn't glow!" George reminded him, comparing their wand movements.

"Here, try again." Lee picked up Dark Forces: A Defensive Guide and threw it at Fred.

"Are you trying to kill me with a book?" Fred hurriedly jumped aside and glared at Lee Jordan.

"Facing danger brings out your potential better. Besides, one book definitely can't kill you," Lee immediately argued.

"Use this!" Albert irritably tossed Fred's pillow to Lee. He thought it would be difficult for Fred to succeed anyway. Throwing books around was just asking for trouble.

As it turned out, Albert was right. After being hit by his own pillow several times, Fred temporarily gave up.

Of course, neither George nor Lee succeeded either.

"All right, you two should just practice the easier spells." Albert could not help rolling his eyes at them.

What should this be called?

Overestimating themselves? Biting off more than they could chew?

Yeah, Professor McGonagall had probably seen him the same way back then.

But Albert was different from the three of them!

He had the panel and the Experience Pool. As long as he learned a skill, he could cheat by spending experience whenever he wanted.

"Is there any trick to learning the Armor Charm quickly?" Fred could not help asking.

"A trick?" Albert thought for a moment. "Practice more—that's probably the fastest trick."

"But how did you master those spells so quickly? Summer vacation wasn't even that long!" George was somewhat depressed. He had realized that Albert knew quite a few spells.

It made him wonder who had actually been born into a wizarding family.

"I think I can probably guess part of the reason," Albert said after thinking about it.

"What reason?" Fred immediately pressed.

"Have you ever played a game where you can level up?" Albert glanced at their expressions. "Yeah, I'm guessing you haven't. Let me put it another way. Don't you need practice to get better at chess?"

"What does that have to do with chess?" the twins could not help complaining.

"Chess requires not only talent, but also practice to improve your skill. The better you are at chess, the stronger you become." Albert casually gave a not entirely fitting example. "Magic is actually much the same. Casting spells requires talent..."

"You mean your talent is better than ours?" Lee cut in mockingly.

"No, I mean you need practice to improve your magical power and your control over magic," Albert explained helplessly.

"You mean your magical power is stronger than ours, and your control over magic is better too?" the twins asked suspiciously.

"Yes, at least that's what I think for now." Albert nodded. "As I mastered more and more spells, I found that learning new ones became easier than before. I still remember something Professor McGonagall once said: Hogwarts teaches underage wizards how to control and use magic."

"Why do I feel like you're feeding us nonsense?" Fred raised an eyebrow.

"I would never do that. Besides, I said it was only a guess." Albert shook his head repeatedly. He was not misleading the three of them. As the number of spells he taught himself increased, the experience he gained from failures while learning magic was also gradually accumulating. That was the extra accumulation of experience missing when he used the Experience Pool to directly level up skills.

After repeatedly failing, the Weasley twins temporarily gave up trying to master the Armor Charm and focused their attention on the Unlocking Charm.

After an entire afternoon of practice, Fred was the first to succeed. He successfully used the Unlocking Charm to open his drawer's lock.

"That's brilliant! How did you do it?" George looked at Fred with some envy. His own drawer remained completely unmoved.

"Look, Fred learned the Unlocking Charm first. I win." Albert, who was reading nearby, winked at Lee. With an innocent expression, he held a Pepper Imp out to Lee Jordan. "Eat it. A bet's a bet."

"What were you betting on?" Fred asked in confusion.

"Which of you would master the Unlocking Charm first." Albert smiled. "The loser had to eat this..."

As he spoke, he pointed at the Pepper Imps they had bought from Honeydukes.

"Albert's right. A bet's a bet."

George patted his friend on the shoulder and looked at him eagerly. Yes, he was looking forward to Lee eating that candy and breathing flames out of his nose.

"It's all your fault." Lee looked resentful as he unwrapped the candy and stuffed it into his mouth. His cheeks immediately turned bright red, and cold sweat formed on his forehead.

The next moment.

"Hot..." When Lee opened his mouth, spicy flames really shot out of his nostrils, instantly covering George's face.

"Bastard, you did that on purpose." George's face had darkened somewhat, and it was filled with the smell of pepper.

"Cough, cough." Lee spat out a few more sparks.

However, after witnessing George's fate, Albert and Fred immediately moved far away, afraid of getting caught up in it for no reason.

That guy had definitely done it on purpose. Yes, that had to be it.

A few minutes later, Lee, who had just rinsed his mouth in the washroom, looked resentfully at Albert. The peppery taste had not completely faded, and his nostrils were still red from breathing fire.

"Next time, I'm never betting on this with you again," Lee said irritably.

"Next time, we can eat Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans instead." Albert blinked and randomly picked out three with his eyes closed.

"That's not a bad idea."

"Aren't you going to keep practicing? Succeeding once doesn't mean you'll succeed every time." Albert tossed a chocolate bean into his mouth and resumed flipping through Nineteenth Century Charms Selection. He had already read two-thirds of the book.

"How's your Disillusionment Charm coming along?" Fred changed the subject.

"I haven't fully mastered it yet. That spell is much harder than the Unlocking Charm." Albert glanced at the panel. The Disillusionment Charm only had 35 experience points, and he still needed to train hard to reach the 100 needed for Level 1.

"Is that spell really that difficult?" George asked skeptically.

"Of course it's difficult." Albert could not help rolling his eyes. "I heard it's one of the spells Aurors must learn. By the way, what kind of profession is an Auror?"

Albert naturally knew what an Auror was, but as someone born in the Muggle world, he should not know too much about the wizarding world.

"We're doomed!"

"What's doomed?" Albert asked in confusion.

"We definitely won't learn the Disillusionment Charm this year!" the twins wailed. It was an essential spell for sneaking out at night.