Diary, Today Is 2077

In the Chamber of Secrets, Murphy had summoned Alex again.

Before them was still Tom Riddle's Diary.

Because he had previously obtained the Thorn Oath Spell, Murphy had not had time to dig deeply into the diary's abilities.

Nor had he brought up anything like learning dark magic.

Now it was time.

But before that, he had to make sure that in his exchanges with the diary, he held the dominant position.

Murphy had not forgotten that this was an extremely dangerous dark magic object. If he wanted to use it, rather than be used by it, he had to understand it well enough. Therefore, he felt it was necessary to run some tests on the diary's abilities.

Murphy continued to have Alex hold the pen, then threw the diary into water. After a few minutes, he fished it out and had Alex write, "Diary, how do you feel?"

The diary: "I don't understand what you mean."

He then propped the diary over a fire and roasted it for a few minutes before asking again, "Diary, do you feel anything?"

The diary: "What am I supposed to feel?"

It seemed this thing did not have temperature receptors.

Murphy handed Alex a hammer. "Come on, smash it in the face."

Alex: "..."

It was just a notebook. What had it done to you?

But he still did as told and struck it a few times. The diary was completely unharmed.

Murphy then brought over a steel wool ball and scrubbed the notebook cover several times, continuing to ask, "Diary, how do you feel?"

The diary: "I don't feel anything."

Murphy took out a small notebook and wrote, "Conclusion: no sense of touch."

Next, Murphy used verbal abuse, noise stimulation, and other methods to confirm that the diary had no hearing; soaked it in salt water and bathed it in chili water to confirm that it had no sense of taste; and used Alex's stinking fart to confirm that the diary had no sense of smell.

In the end, Murphy concluded that Tom Riddle's Diary did not possess the five senses.

During this, Alex watched Murphy madly torture the notebook and could not help suspecting that his employer had some kind of perverted hobby.

This was a thinking diary. If it knew someone had treated it like this, would it not be furious enough to die?

So that was why you used Lucius Malfoy's name?

After the last trial, Murphy had become famous in the wizarding world, and Alex Wood naturally knew his real name was not Peter Parker.

Later, he had also seen in the Daily Prophet that a Muggle-born wizard said Peter Parker was actually the name of a Muggle comic protagonist.

At first, Alex had very much failed to understand why Murphy had told him a fake name.

But now, he seemed to understand a little.

He was probably afraid someone would put a sack over his head on the road.

The five-sense tests were complete, but Murphy was still not satisfied. Next, he needed to know the diary's perception of time. "Diary, do you know what time it is now?"

The diary: "I'm not sure."

"From when I began writing the first sentence until now, how much time has passed?"

The diary: "Not very long."

"Can you count the seconds for me?"

The diary: "I can't do that."

A smile appeared on Murphy's face. There was no built-in clock inside the diary; its concept of time was vague.

Next was the logic test. "Three Muggles and three werewolves are at a small river crossing. There is only one small boat at the crossing that can hold two people. As long as the number of werewolves is greater than the number of Muggles, the werewolves will eat the Muggles. How can the small boat be used to bring everyone safely to the opposite bank?"

The diary was silent for a while. "The werewolves can bite the Muggles and turn them into werewolves?"

Murphy: "..."

He wrote in his small notebook, "Poor comprehension ability."

"That doesn't count as safe for the Muggles," Murphy had Alex write in the diary. "Think carefully about the meaning of the question. Don't make additional extrapolations."

After a while, the diary replied, "I don't know the method."

Murphy added in his small notebook, "Logic ability not high."

Then next was the test of its computing power.

"Forty-five times sixty-three equals what?"

"2835."

Very good. This showed that Tom could do basic mathematical operations.

"Then, what does 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4, all the way up to 100, equal?"

"..."

The diary was silent for a while, then gave the answer: "5050."

"What is 1×2+2×3+3×4+...100×101?"

"..."

This time, the diary stayed silent ten times longer.

In the end, it still gave an answer: "343400."

Whoa!

Murphy grew excited. "If you multiply 1 times 2 times 3 times 4, all the way to 2008, how many zeroes are at the end of the product?"

"..."

The diary got stuck. After a long while, a line appeared: "I don't know."

Fine.

Murphy had been hoping it was some notebook-style supercomputer. Looked like he had been overthinking it.

Summary: lack of five senses, confused perception of time, ordinary comprehension and logical ability, average computing power, but ample knowledge reserves. Conclusion: usable as an information lookup tool.

The testing was more or less done, so Murphy decided to get down to business.

He sent the bewildered Alex away, then switched to an oil-based pen himself. "Hello, diary."

The diary did not respond, probably because Alex's handwriting was different from Murphy's. Or maybe because oil-based ink was harder to absorb?

Murphy continued writing: "Today is April 21, 2077. The weather is overcast, because Arasaka Corporation dropped another tactical nuke on a survivor village that supposedly had wizards gathered in it. Several thousand tons of radioactive dust were blasted into the sky, and it will take more than a month for all of it to drift past the dome. It's going to be a little cold here for a while."

The diary: "..."

What the hell? What the fuck was this supposed to be?

Murphy: "Today was another day of scavenging. I picked up this notebook in some ruins. It looks very old. That's strange, because we stopped using pen and paper to record things a long time ago. But I like it a lot, and I also found this pen. If I sell it to an antique dealer, maybe I can get some money for it."

"I've tested it. This notebook isn't afraid of being soaked in water or burned by fire. It must have some kind of secret, so I've decided to keep it."

"I once saw records of the world before the Great War. In that world, people sometimes used precious virgin wood pulp to make paper for writing. I never thought there would come a day when I would get to use such a luxury myself. Mom in heaven, can you see this? I'm writing on real paper!"

The diary: "..."

Was he writing a novel?

How could paper possibly become expensive?

And what was the Great War? Had another war broken out in the Muggle world?

Murphy: "Today is May 2, 2077. The weather is still overcast. The radioactive dust hasn't passed yet. City Management Company issued a notice telling everyone to stay home and avoid going out as much as possible."

The diary: "..."

That wasn't right. Who was he trying to fool? He had only just finished writing April 21!

Murphy: "June 35, 2077. Heavy snow. Today, they livestreamed the shooting of a girl. Because she had been detected as a wizard."

The diary: "..."

This was getting more and more chaotic, wasn't it!

What the hell was the 35th supposed to be?

And heavy snow in June?

However, the recorder's final sentence made the diary instinctively feel a faint trace of panic.

What did that mean?

Muggles had killed a wizard?

Why?