Everything Changed!

Everything Changed!

"What exactly are these Celestial Conjunctions you mentioned?" Ted felt his throat grow a little dry. A bad feeling lingered in his heart.

Sure enough, Mr. Giggs's next words made him suck in a sharp breath.

Celestial Conjunctions was the term used in the wizarding world to describe the intersection of two worlds.

It was said that there had been two of them so far.

The first had occurred in 1945, supposedly shortly after Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald and imprisoned him in Nurmengard.

The celestial phenomena had fallen into chaos then, with the stars in the sky all displaced.

Even in broad daylight, enormous celestial bodies could be seen moving across the heavens.

The abnormal celestial phenomena lasted a full four and a half months! The climate had also been extremely abnormal during those months.

It could go from blazing sun to swirling snow in just a few hours.

It rained at the poles, while egg-sized hail fell in tropical rainforests.

Even the length of the days changed. On the longest day, the sun did not set for a full forty hours. On the shortest, day and night combined lasted only twelve hours.

And many things that had never existed before appeared in the world.

For example, magical creatures and herbs from other worlds.

During that time, magical creatures from other worlds ran rampant without restraint, directly sending the Muggle world—which had already been terrified by the abnormal celestial phenomena and weather—into utter panic.

If it had not happened right after the end of the Second World War, when the Muggle world was in chaos and technology was still underdeveloped, without the casual photos and videos of today, the wizarding world's Statute of Secrecy would have been rendered useless.

It was said that the entire wizarding world had spent several months and enormous effort barely managing to cover it up through Muggle governments, experts, and the media.

Then they had to hide away those newly emerged magical creatures so they would not rush into the Muggle world and cause trouble.

Even now, some magical creatures still accidentally appeared before Muggles. The Ministry of Magic's Magical Accidents and Catastrophes Department and Magical Creatures Management Control Department were often run ragged because of it.

Whenever Mr. Giggs brought this up, he would let out a gleeful laugh.

Apparently, he was quite delighted to see the Ministry of Magic suffer.

Ted suddenly recalled those bizarre urban legends he had seen in old newspapers. At the time, he had thought the papers were making things up to boost sales.

Who would have thought they had been legitimate newspapers! And the Otherworldly Race known as Dwarves had appeared after the second Celestial Conjunction.

Mr. Giggs said, "The second Celestial Conjunction took place ten years ago, after The Dark Lord was defeated by The Boy Who Lived..."

"Oh, right. You know about The Boy Who Lived, don't you?" he asked.

"I do." Harry Potter, right?

Mr. Giggs slapped his thigh, his face full of excitement. "That's right! Neville Longbottom!"

Ted: Huh?! (#Д)!

"Neville Longbottom?" Ted's throat became even drier. It was practically smoking—no, sparking!

Ted: This is bad. This is really bad!

Mr. Giggs nodded. "Thanks to Neville Longbottom, he defeated The Dark Lord when he was barely over a year old and put an end to the chaos. The second Celestial Conjunction happened after The Dark Lord's downfall."

He pointed out the window. "Dwarves, Elves, Demi-humans, and even those ugly, evil Fishmen, Kobolds, and Goblins all appeared after the second Celestial Conjunction. It's been ten years now."

Ted nearly crushed the tortoiseshell in his hand. There were Elves besides Dwarves? And what were Demi-humans? Fishmen, Kobolds...

Ted trembled with rage. In the blazing summer heat, he was covered in cold sweat, his hands and feet icy.

Hell was empty, and all the devils were here. Could this world possibly get any worse?

What the hell would it take to satisfy you people when it came to transmigrators?

Tears of helplessness streamed down his face. This world was filled with malice toward transmigrators. When would transmigrators finally stand tall? Mr. Giggs was still prattling on. "See? Races like Dwarves and Elves are relatively close to wizards. That Dwarf Blacksmith Shop is the first shop in Diagon Alley opened by an Otherworldly Race! Everyone's over there watching the excitement!"

"Oh, right, Ted, why don't you go take a look too? Work can wait!"

Ted rose stiffly and walked out like a soulless corpse, his mind constantly turning over the matter of the Celestial Conjunctions.

With things this messed up, could the original plot still continue?

Chu DaXiao had said: a transmigrator's greatest advantage was knowing the plot! Now, before I've even done anything, my advantage is gone! Damn it~ Ted went to see the Dwarf. Sure enough, he looked like one from a fantasy setting: around 1.3 meters tall, thick and sturdy like a large wine barrel, with a long beard bound in copper rings and braided.

Whenever the Dwarf shopkeeper raised his voice, it was as though he had a permanent Sonorus charm on him.

He was very displeased with the wizards crowding around to stare at him, glaring and bristling with anger.

"Merlin's beard! I wonder if the elders have gone senile. What's the point of opening a Blacksmith Shop here? Being treated like a monkey on display! What could these stick-thin wizards possibly need forged?" His voice boomed like thunder.

Beside him, a beardless but equally short and stout female Dwarf tried to persuade him, "Keep your voice down. The elders want us to integrate into the wizarding world. Opening a shop is only the first step..."

After Ted finally calmed himself down, he took the opportunity to chat with the bookstore clerk while sorting books that afternoon.

"Aaron, do you know of any books that introduce Celestial Conjunctions?"

Aaron said, "Are you interested in Celestial Conjunctions because of that newly opened Dwarf Blacksmith Shop too?"

"Take a look at Magical Creatures Appeared in the Decade: Supplement. It was published two months ago. Other than that, there's only A History of Magic, which records the events of the past decade."

"You have to understand, we still haven't figured out how many things now exist in this world that didn't before. Ten years is far too short. Who knows whether there are strange things hiding in some remote mountain ravine..."

Ted briefly flipped through the copy of Magical Creatures Appeared in the Decade: Supplement Aaron had recommended. It contained entries on everything from Goblins to Kobolds.

For now, races such as Fishmen, Goblins, and Kobolds had all been classified by the Ministry of Magic as magical creatures, and highly dangerous ones at that.

Fair enough. Their languages were incomprehensible, and they were brimming with malice.

In other worlds, weren't they monsters? As for A History of Magic, he had never even opened that textbook—who would want to read that? Yet he had never expected the history of the past ten years to hold such an enormous surprise.

After work that afternoon, Ted returned to the Leaky Cauldron.

Old Tom was still behind the counter, polishing an oak goblet as if he would never finish.

Ted walked over and asked quietly, "Mr. Tom, a new shop opened in Diagon Alley today—a Dwarf Blacksmith Shop. I heard a new term, Celestial Conjunctions. Could you tell me about it?"

As the owner of the pub, Old Tom was naturally well-informed.

Ted wanted to verify the accuracy of the information through him. Perhaps Old Tom knew some additional details.

"You mean Celestial Conjunctions? Yeah, there was a huge mess ten years ago. Quite a few careless wizards were even killed by monsters and races from other worlds!"

Old Tom began telling him stories from the past decade about Otherworldly Races and monsters from other worlds.

The Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes from other worlds were more or less like Ted remembered. They had their own civilizations and magical powers, so they got along relatively well with the wizarding world.

Elves in particular were attractive, elegant, wealthy, magically powerful, and long-lived. Wizards considered all of that a plus.

"An Elven elder was invited to join the Wizengamot in the fifth year after the second Celestial Conjunction. The Daily Prophet reported on it for an entire week at the time..."

The Wizengamot was the highest authority in Britain's wizarding world, and had existed far longer than the Ministry of Magic.

Its members included the Minister for Magic, the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, senior Ministry officials, and other renowned wizards. It held tremendous influence over the British Ministry of Magic.

To be accepted in just five years, and even invited into the Wizengamot, showed that the Elves truly had some skill.

As for the so-called Demi-humans, they were humans with certain animal characteristics.

For instance, animal ears or tails.

Furries rejoice~ Compared with races like Fishmen, Kobolds, and Goblins, which killed and ate people and were classified as humanoid monsters, Demi-humans were recognized by the wizarding world as humanoid races and accepted as "people."

But compared to the Elves' privileged status, many pure-blood families were far from friendly toward Demi-humans. They considered them as lowly as Muggles, or even mongrels.

As for monsters from other worlds, there were simply too many to describe in a day and a night.

Old Tom lent him a copy of Magical Creatures You Should Know.

It was a book published only last year. It recorded not only common magical creatures and Dark Magic creatures, but also many dangerous magical creatures that had appeared after the two Celestial Conjunctions.

"Take your time reading it. No need to hurry to return it," Old Tom said.

Thanks to reader "Naming Difficulty Syndrome" for the 5,000 reward! Thank you~ Thanks to readers "Wo Ruier Te Cheng" and "I Sing a Song for You" for the 500 rewards! Thanks to reader "May Everyone Be Safe for Life" for the 100 reward! Thank you, everyone~