Lupin's Condition

"He was a vile little man!" The Old Wizard floated high in the air, looking down at Pedro the Goblin. "He took advantage of his female apprentice's madness to fake his death, leaving me behind for an enemy even he couldn't handle."

Pedro flushed and secretly took a step back, then suddenly puffed out his chest and stepped forward. "All you apprentices wanted me dead, so why can't I use you as shields?"

"Ha." The Old Wizard let out a piercing laugh. "So you finally admit it, huh?"

"Why don't you think carefully about why none of your apprentices ever treated you like a teacher?"

Pedro finally calmed down. His cold, mocking gaze swept over the Old Wizard. "You're dead. You're a ghost now. I don't need to fear you anymore."

"Yes." The Old Wizard gave a snickering laugh, dripping with mockery.

"Aren't you the same? Your apprentice wants to kill you too!"

"Yes, yes, yes." The Old Wizard had thoroughly inherited Anton's "yeah, yeah, whatever" attitude, making Pedro flush with anger again.

Anton looked curiously at the Old Wizard. "Last time I followed you to the Wandering Wizard gathering, Pedro was there too. You two seemed to be getting along just fine."

The Old Wizard sneered. "Because he can't kill me."

Pedro sneered at the same time. "Because he can't kill me."

How interesting. Anton clicked his tongue in amazement. "So you maintain that delicate balance?"

Then the two spoke in unison again. "People have to learn to compromise."

What the hell did they mean, people had to learn to compromise? Neither of them was even human.

One was an old Goblin several centuries old, and the other was a ghost still barely maintaining his own will.

"Could you tell me about Lupin first?" Anton pointed at Lupin's model on the pile of sand. "Oh, I mean the uncle I told you about."

No matter how much those two argued, he did not care. Whatever their relationship to him, neither looked reliable.

The Old Wizard said Anton liked lying, but Anton felt that not everything the Old Wizard said was necessarily true either.

Lupin was more reliable.

He would have to count on Lupin to protect him, a child, in the future. How could he not care?

Regardless of their personalities or morality, the two had one thing in common: a researcher's seriousness.

The Old Wizard looked stubbornly intent. "Don't compare a Blood Curse Orc to a Werewolf. How can they be the same? You simply can't see the truth of magic. I saw with my own eyes that a Werewolf's magical trajectory was exactly the same as an Animagus's."

"I don't understand what you're talking about." Pedro looked impatient. "An Animagus is an advanced Transfiguration Spell. A Werewolf is a toxin that targets magical power. A Blood Curse Orc is a curse that targets bloodlines."

"It's like the difference between Goblins, House-elves, and humans. They may look different only in appearance and height, but fundamentally, they are entirely different species."

"Oh, poor Pedro. He thinks that living for several centuries means he understands everything, when in truth he only knows a few little tricks everyone else already knows." The Old Wizard spoke in a sing-song, mocking tone from midair.

"What the fuck do you know!" Pedro exploded, jumping up to hit him. Unfortunately, he was too short. No matter how he flailed, he could not reach the Old Wizard.

"Heh, can't reach me. Heh, can't reach me. Hehehe." The Old Wizard drifted back and forth.

Anton could already imagine what would happen next, because he had experienced it himself.

This poor Mr. Pedro would have a noisy ghost with an invincible bug hovering beside him whether he ate, slept, or used the toilet.

As expected of a master of the Cruciatus Curse. Even after death, he still had the ability to torment people into madness.

Wonderful.

Anton could start looking forward to the wonderful life of sleeping peacefully and waking peacefully from now on.

After waiting with great difficulty until the two had argued themselves out, Anton cleverly raised his question again at the very moment the atmosphere was about to freeze over.

Pedro the Goblin finally had an excuse to back down. Without even looking at the Old Wizard, he continued pointing at the sand on the table.

"Young Wizard, watch carefully."

The Werewolf's features vanished from the sand, leaving behind only a black silhouette in the shape of a Werewolf.

That black body began to split apart, like clusters of jellyfish covered in countless tentacles.

The tentacles entwined, contracted, and twitched.

Then the tentacles suddenly tightened, reforming into the shape of a human.

"This is what Transfiguration Spell transformation looks like under magical perception."

The model constantly shifted from human form to Werewolf form, then from Werewolf form back to human form. At that moment, Pedro snapped his fingers.

The sand condensed into a wand, which blasted out a fan-shaped wave made of sand.

Then the white sand tightly wedged itself into the imperfect seam left when the Werewolf had just transformed into human form.

"That is roughly the effect." Pedro put the Cigar back in his mouth. "You can understand it this way: after a transformation, the appearance shows nothing, but in essence there is a slow, unstable period of adjustment. Powerful soul-type spells will leave effects that are difficult to heal in that state."

"Simply put, Fiennes's Cruciatus Curse magic was fixed into his transformation process. Unless that spell's magic is removed, he will suffer the long-term negative effects of a weakened Cruciatus Curse."

The Cruciatus Curse had become a weakening aura?

Anton blinked in astonishment. "So a Werewolf is at his weakest for a period before and after transforming, and soul-type spells are especially effective?"

"Gaga." Pedro gave a strange laugh, pointing at Anton as he looked at the Old Wizard. "Your apprentice is just like you. The first thing he cares about is killing."

The Old Wizard sneered. "Aren't you the same?"

What the hell did he mean, killing? Shouldn't attack power be the first concern when it came to spells?

Anton rolled his eyes. He was just a child who knew a little about spells. If he did not prioritize things that could keep him alive, what was he supposed to consider?

Still, no matter what, he finally understood Lupin's condition.

"Can it be cured?" Anton asked.

Pedro sighed. "It's very difficult. It's like threads attached to every bone in the body; they must be peeled away one by one. It requires an extraordinarily delicate operation, and I can only remove them bit by bit during the brief window of each Full Moon Night."

"It will take at least six times—half a year."

"What a foolish method." The Old Wizard mocked him again. "You only remember how every Dark Magic spell is cast, yet you do not understand their mysteries at all."

Pedro the Goblin's anger surged again, and he began firing back with a rich vocabulary of insults accumulated over several centuries.

Anton's eyes lit up. "How should it be treated?"

The Old Wizard smiled smugly. "Simple. Use the Displacement Soul Curse to expose all magic that does not belong to the body on the outermost layer. Then use the reshaping force of Werewolf transformation, and it will naturally repel that magic."

"As for how to twist the soul into that shape, you need the Eye of the Wizard Potion."

Seeing that Pedro did not refute him, Anton grew excited. "I can brew the Eye of the Wizard Potion. Mr. Pedro, can you try treating him that way?"

"Hahaha." The Old Wizard burst out laughing. "Try my ass. Goblins cannot cast human spells, and he doesn't dare drink the Eye of the Wizard Potion."

"Isn't that right, my dear Teacher? Back then, you had that Centaur witch steal my experimental materials. I bet you had someone test the potion, didn't you? Did they all die? You don't dare drink it, do you?"

Pedro merely sneered. "I refuse this proposal."

He turned to Anton. "Young Wizard, I cannot let you treat the Werewolf. Fiennes hopes that once you cure him, the Unbreakable Vow will kill me!"

"Gaga." The Old Wizard drifted back and forth. "You'll beg Anton to do it, you stupid, self-righteous Goblin. To kill me, you trapped yourself in an Unbreakable Vow. Removing it bit by bit—what a laughable method."