Making You Think You Could Challenge Me Was My Mistake

In Li Weide's presence, Tom was still fairly willing to listen to reason.

After Li Weide's analysis, Tom gave up on the idea of joining the Followers of Grindelwald.

Whether Grindelwald could succeed was another matter. At Tom's age, with his current meager abilities, if he really went along with that group's antics, he might not even get the chance to grow up...

Because of Li Weide, Tom had fully recognized his own shortcomings. Now, he could be said to possess a great deal of self-awareness.

So, the two of them temporarily stayed at the Hog's Head Inn, waiting for school to begin while practicing magic on their own.

During that time, Dumbledore came by in person, apparently to repair the Protective Magic that had been breached in the attic.

After finishing, he hurriedly left Hogsmeade Village again without staying to so much as look at Li Weide and Tom.

Clearly, the war between them and Grindelwald had reached a fever pitch. It was already no easy matter for him to spare the time to come here.

Especially since Grindelwald was currently in Britain, putting the British Ministry of Magic on high alert.

Because Dumbledore had repelled Grindelwald several years ago, the British Ministry of Magic had come to value his abilities greatly.

As a result, the British Ministry of Magic could hardly go a moment without Dumbledore's help...

In fact, Dumbledore had proven his importance.

So long as he was present, Grindelwald's Followers of Grindelwald could gain no advantage.

Thus, Dumbledore's reputation in the Wizarding World continued to rise...

To keep track of how the situation was developing, Li Weide and Tom both subscribed to the Daily Prophet.

According to the Daily Prophet's reports, Grindelwald's group and the Aurors led by Dumbledore had fought seven or eight battles of varying scale in Britain in the span of just two weeks.

Both sides suffered heavy losses. Yet strangely, while there were many wounded on both sides, very few had died.

It was as though neither side had truly been fighting to the death.

Finally, after two weeks had passed, Grindelwald, unable to gain any advantage against Dumbledore, led his subordinates out of Britain and vanished without a trace.

People speculated that he had most likely returned to Nurmengard in Austria to regroup.

However, although no victor had been decided this time, Grindelwald's withdrawal still made the wizards of Britain's Wizarding World breathe a huge sigh of relief.

"Stupefy!"

"Bang!"

"Too slow. Your intent is too obvious... Before you even cast the spell, I can already predict where it'll land. How are you supposed to hit me? Come on, keep going!"

In the woods near Hogsmeade Village, Tom finally gathered the courage to launch his first formal challenge against Li Weide.

After more than two weeks of grueling practice, Tom felt that it was time to get his revenge on Li Weide.

In his eyes, after practicing so hard day and night, his abilities had definitely caught up to the lazy and unmotivated Li Weide!

So today, he would settle both old and new scores!

Unfortunately... things did not seem to be going in the direction he had hoped...

Tom, who studied earnestly and practiced painstakingly every day, could not do a thing to Li Weide, who merely flipped through books casually before wandering around all day!

More precisely, his spells could not even touch the corner of Li Weide's robes!

And from beginning to end, Li Weide had not even taken the hand holding his wand out from behind his back...

In other words, Li Weide had not fought back at all, yet Tom could not do anything to him!

The other party even had the leisure to criticize his movements while dodging his spells!

Thus, the more Tom attacked, the stronger his sense of frustration became...

"Your footwork is too slow. If I attacked right now, you wouldn't even have time to dodge behind cover."

Li Weide's commentary reached him again, nearly shattering Tom's resolve.

"Fight back already! You keep nagging and nagging—aren't you annoying?" Tom's unwillingness and frustration turned into an angry roar.

"Fine..." The moment Li Weide finished speaking, Tom discovered that his wand had flown out of his hand.

By the time Tom came back to his senses, he had already been tied up and hung from a tree...

The expression on Tom's face was truly something to behold—anger, confusion, and shock...

He had not even seen what happened before he was defeated!

"How... how did you do that..." Tom could not help asking as he watched Li Weide slowly approach.

"I already told you. You have to cast quickly. If you chant your spells so sluggishly, your attacks won't pose any threat at all."

Li Weide stood beneath the tree, craning his neck to look at the miserable Tom hanging above him.

"Y-you've already learned Nonverbal Spells? Is that why your attacks were so fast?" Tom stared at him in shock.

"What you're surprised about is a little strange, Tom. Nonverbal Spells aren't the point! The first day we met, when I knocked you down, did I ever chant an incantation?"

Li Weide's question left Tom slightly stunned.

Before Tom could recover, Li Weide continued, "Back then, when you knocked those two human traffickers down in the alley, did you... chant any incantation at all?"

"Why was it that before you learned spells, your attacks were clean and decisive, but after learning spells, they became so much more sluggish?"

"I really don't want to say this, but... Tom, despite studying so hard lately, not only had you failed to improve—you'd actually regressed quite a lot..."

Those words struck Tom like a bolt from the blue.

Before learning spells, he could cast Nonverbal Spells at will. After learning spells, he could no longer cast Nonverbal Spells... If that wasn't regression, what was?

"Th-then... why is that?" Tom ultimately couldn't resist asking the person before him—the one he had once hated most.

Li Weide shook his head. "Because before you learned spells, you didn't overthink things when attacking. Your intent was extremely pure—you only wanted to take your opponent down. That happened to align with the essence of magic, as well as the conditions for casting Nonverbal Spells..."

"But once you learned spells, you had more things to think about. The pauses between every syllable of each incantation, the arc of every wand movement—all of it had to strictly follow what was written in the books..."

"As a result, your spells did look beautiful, but you lost the purity you had when casting before. Along with that, both the power and speed of your attacks regressed terribly."

Tom said dejectedly, "Is that why you rarely read books or study spells? Was I wrong to study spells?"

Li Weide shook his head. "No, Tom. I never said studying spells was wrong. In fact, you should continue studying and learning them."

"And you should study every spell thoroughly. Only by understanding the basic principles behind them can you cast them however you wish, without being constrained by technique or the syllables of an incantation."

"Our previous Nonverbal Spell attacks merely happened to trigger a certain kind of magic by accident. In fact, if we used Nonverbal Spells with a complete understanding of that magic, you'd find their power far greater than before."

"As for how much greater... you just experienced my Disarming Charm. You should understand."

Still hanging from the tree, Tom frowned and fell into thought.

A moment later, Tom suddenly asked, "You told me all this... Aren't you afraid that I'll eventually catch up to you, then defeat you?"

Li Weide still wore a gentle smile. "It was my mistake to give you the illusion that you could challenge me. But don't worry—you'll soon stop having that illusion."

Tom glared at Li Weide with a dark expression.

He seriously suspected that this bastard would die if he went a day without showing off!