Leaving It to Luck Isn't Safe Either

After the Quidditch season began, Hogwarts seemed to be set ablaze with excitement. Both students and teachers were especially worked up.

It was not until more than a week after the season ended that the fervor gradually died down.

The students attended classes as usual and did their best to complete the homework assigned by their teachers. Everything seemed to have returned to how it was at the start of term.

However, Harry, Ron, and Hermione could often be seen in the library these days. Whenever they had time, the combination of one top student and two poor students would immerse themselves in the sea of books.

Not to study, though, but to look up information on Nicolas Flamel.

Harry and Ron were convinced that Snape was after whatever Fluffy, the Three-headed Dog, was guarding. Therefore, finding out what Fluffy was guarding was of vital importance.

Expecting Dumbledore to tell them was clearly unrealistic, and it might even alert the enemy. So they could only focus their efforts on Nicolas Flamel, hoping to find some clues in the records about this wizard.

Hermione knew that Snape was not the one trying to harm Harry, but someone else was. However, she had promised Aaron to keep it secret and could not tell them the truth.

The reason she was helping the two of them look for information about Nicolas Flamel was because she guessed that the person trying to harm Harry was also after whatever Fluffy was guarding.

The library was enormous, with tens of thousands of books inside. Its densely packed shelves and hundreds of narrow aisles made searching for a single name among all those books like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Naturally, they could not search book by book. That would take forever.

They guessed that since Nicolas Flamel had some connection to Dumbledore, the greatest White Magic wizard of the age, he had to be a great wizard at the very least. So they narrowed their search to books that recorded the great wizards of recent and modern times.

But after searching for over ten days, they still had not found Nicolas Flamel's name in any of those books. Of course, perhaps they simply had not worked hard enough.

After all, they were only searching during their spare time, and more than ten days of spare time had only been enough for them to roughly flip through fewer than a hundred books. Compared to the whole library, that was barely anything.

That night, Aaron lay on his bed in the common room, hugging the dragon-shaped body pillow that was already sound asleep as he silently opened his personal status panel.

Host: Aaron Gaius

Magical Energy: 950 (Intermediate Mage, your path in magic has only just begun)

Talent: Once in a Century (Upgradeable, gains 2 Magical Energy every day)

Items: Moon Drop (can remove any negative curse), Resurrection Potion (can resurrect any creature that died within one hour)

Magic Points: 888 (Hogwarts Sign-in, gains 10 points per day)

Soon. If I work hard for another half month or so, I'll be able to advance to High-level Mage. Aaron thought excitedly. When he saw the number of Magic Points, he nodded in satisfaction.

For no other reason than that it was such an auspicious number. What a good omen!

"System, open the Magic Shop."

"Alright. Opening it for the host."

As soon as it spoke, the shop interface appeared before Aaron.

Magic Category: @Transfiguration (1000 Magic Points, includes Animagus); @Water-Repelling Charm (100 Magic Points, allows free breathing underwater); @Levitation Charm (10 Magic Points); @Patronus Charm (200 Magic Points); @Apparition (800 Magic Points).

Material Category: @Phoenix Feather (30 Magic Points); @Dragon Blood (20 Magic Points); @Mandrake (5 Magic Points);

@Bezoar (1 Magic Point); @Rhino Horn (3 Magic Points).

Item Category: @Magic Carpet (200 Magic Points, 3 meters long and 2 meters wide); @Magic Crystal (100 Magic Points, contains powerful magic and can supply energy to a Magic Array); @Felix Felicis (500 Magic Points); @Invisibility Potion (100 Magic Points, conceals the drinker for three hours); @Collector's Edition Quaffle (30 Magic Points, a priceless treasure in the eyes of Quidditch fans)

"Phew!" Aaron drew a long breath, excited but also somewhat helpless.

He looked at the Magic Carpet he had been longing for and decisively placed the order, storing it in his system space.

After buying it, Aaron only had 688 Magic Points left. Yet the remaining products gave him a firsthand understanding of what it meant to be unable to have both fish and bear's paw.

He ignored the Material Category items outright. Those things were all available on the market, and he had no use for them for the time being.

But he wanted both the remaining Item Category and Magic Category products. With his current "wealth," though, he could only choose a small portion of them.

After thinking for a while, Aaron turned his gaze to Felix Felicis. Gritting his teeth, he chose to buy it.

He had not forgotten that there was still a major battle to fight this term. To deal with a Dark Lord barely clinging to life, what he needed was absolute strength.

But he happened to lack that strength right now, so he could only take an unorthodox approach and place his hopes on luck.

As long as his luck was good enough, even while charging into battle, bullets would curve around him. Spells were no different.

Of course, the amount by which luck could be improved had to be limited, but sometimes all one lacked was that tiny bit of good fortune.

Aaron frowned as he looked at the small bottle of Felix Felicis in his hand. "This... is there even two hundred milliliters in here?"

"The host should learn to be content. One small sip grants good luck for the next twelve hours. This little bottle is enough for the host to use several times."

Aaron said nothing, tacitly accepting the explanation, but it was little more than psychological comfort.

If he put all his faith in luck and assumed everything would be fine, that was no different from courting death.

After all, his opponent was the Dark Lord. Even if he was only a remnant soul, he was not someone Aaron could defeat right now. He might evade the first spell through luck, but there was no guarantee he could avoid the second.

Thinking of this, Aaron quietly made a decision in his heart. At worst, he would go all in when the time came.

Over the next period of time, owls delivered packages to Aaron every day.

Besides Abei's dragon meal sets, Jeans also sent several books and two mysterious little boxes.

"What is this?" Draco asked curiously one morning, picking up one of the boxes from Aaron's package.

"The one in your hand should be a Magic Ring from the Middle Ages. An antique over a thousand years old."

"Wow!" Draco exclaimed. "But what are you doing with something like this?"

"I can't tell you that. I naturally have my own use for it," Aaron said mysteriously. "Shouldn't you be studying? Don't forget about your bet with Hermione!"

"I haven't forgotten." Draco's little face reddened, and then he could not help looking somewhat dejected. "But I'm not as confident anymore.

"You have no idea. I thought I had been working hard enough. My performance these past few months even exceeded my father's expectations, and he specifically wrote to praise me a few days ago.

"Honestly, my father has never praised me this seriously before."

"Isn't that a good thing? A father knows his son best. It proves your efforts these past few months haven't been wasted," Aaron said meaningfully. Draco's talent was actually quite good. After seriously applying himself for several months, he was already among the very best first-years.

"That's true." Draco awkwardly scratched his blond hair. "But when I went to the library before, Granger nearly scared me to death. The stack of books on her desk was this thick."

As he spoke, he gestured with his hands. It was about two feet high.

Aaron's eye twitched. He knew Hermione loved studying, but that level of dedication was still rather astonishing.

"Ahem! People better than you are still working hard, so what excuse do you have not to?"

"But I feel like I can already see the outcome.

"No, not feel like. I'm not someone who refuses to face reality. There's an eighty percent chance I won't win this bet."

"Giving up already?" Aaron laughed. "Draco, do you know the difference between a crushing defeat and a narrow loss?"

Draco froze for a moment, then pondered it. "I don't think there's any difference. They're both losses."

"That's right." Aaron nodded in agreement, then stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "But this is exactly when you need to seriously consider that question."

"What do you mean?"

Aaron slapped his forehead and explained, "You and Hermione are competing in Grades. The full score is one hundred. She might score one hundred, but if you work harder, it's not impossible for you to score one hundred too, right?"

"Um... I do have a slight chance of getting full marks now, but only a very slight chance."

"Then there you have it. If you work hard, you still have a chance to tie. But if you lose, would you choose to lose narrowly with ninety-nine points, or suffer a crushing defeat with eighty points and be left far behind?"

"Of course ninety-nine," Draco said immediately, as if he had realized something.

"Exactly! Even if you lose in that situation, it'll still be an honorable defeat.

"To put it bluntly, at least you won't lose too badly, and no one will have anything to gossip about. The next time you see Hermione Granger, you'll still be able to hold your head high with confidence. At the very least, you won't feel guilty."

"I know what I need to do." Draco said, then pulled Crabbe and Goyle, who were beside him, to their feet. "Get up, you two. Come to the library with me to study."

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