Differences

Tierra ultimately accepted the duel invitation. Hermione was a little unhappy about it, but she could only watch Tierra with a worried expression.

"All right, now you two..." Professor Flitwick stood in the middle of the open space, preparing to teach the two young wizards the proper movements for a wizard's duel.

But before he could finish, Tierra, who had just stepped out from the crowd, raised his wand.

"Petrificus Totalus!" A flash of white light struck Malfoy, and Malfoy immediately toppled stiffly to the ground.

"Hey! Tierra, the duel hasn't started yet!" Flitwick cried in his shrill voice.

To him, a duel without wizarding etiquette was not a proper duel.

Petrificus Totalus was a spell Tierra had learned and become proficient in after arriving at Hogwarts.

The spell was originally supposed to be a basic spell taught in third year.

After studying Magical Theory for five years, Tierra had accumulated enough knowledge. What he lacked were only technique and foundational knowledge.

After coming to Hogwarts, those problems had been easily resolved. After every Charms class, he was always the last to leave, clutching Beginner Spellbook III borrowed from the library and asking Professor Flitwick endless questions, frantically making up for his shortcomings in spellcasting technique and gaps in his basic knowledge.

Every teacher liked studious children. Even though the knowledge this child asked about had far exceeded what he should have encountered, Professor Flitwick still answered enthusiastically.

But Flitwick would not shield someone who broke the rules of wizard dueling, even if he was only a first-year Little Witch.

"What are you looking at, Tierra? You should know that in a wizard's duel, you can only begin attacking each other after the referee—that's me—counts down from three!" Flitwick said angrily after casually lifting Draco's petrification.

"Expelliarm—"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Draco, who had been unexpectedly knocked down, was clearly unwilling to accept it. After climbing to his feet, he ignored the pain in his backside from the fall and flicked his wand, intending to fire an Expelliarmus at Tierra.

But Tierra, who had kept his eye on him the entire time, reacted first. Draco was hit by a second Petrificus Totalus and fell stiffly back to the ground like a corpse.

A repeat performance.

Now even Flitwick had no idea what to do.

Not only Flitwick, but McGonagall and Snape also looked stunned.

The duel ended with a whimper.

Although Flitwick did not declare Tierra the winner, in the hearts of the Gryffindor students, Tierra had won.

Almost all the young wizards crowded around Tierra, congratulating him all at once.

Only Hermione looked a little unhappy, standing absentmindedly at the very edge of the crowd.

Hermione felt that she had been left far behind, but at the same time, a fierce competitive spirit ignited within her.

"That was really impressive, Tierra!" Ron congratulated him.

"Awesome!" Harry took the opportunity to rub Tierra's soft hair. He had wanted to do that for a long time. Tierra seemed to be a bit of a clean freak and bathed every day, so he always carried a faint, fresh scent of soap. His hair was always soft as well, and since it had not been cut in a long time, it shone like silk.

Tierra was not used to such crowded enthusiasm, especially the lavish praise from the other young wizards. It made him a little embarrassed, and he responded somewhat awkwardly, completely unlike how at ease he had been when whipping up the whole class during flying lessons.

Wedged among the fluffy heads of so many young wizards, Tierra seemed to sense Snape giving him a long, deep look. Then Snape swept his robes and left.

After leaving the Great Hall, Snape did not return to his office in the dungeons. Instead, he went to the third floor and stopped before an enormous, ugly stone gargoyle.

"Honey Yuzu Tea!" Snape uttered a word completely devoid of magic.

The enormous gargoyle nodded with remarkable human-like understanding, then began to turn, revealing a spiral staircase behind it.

After finally shaking off the enthusiastic young wizards, Tierra arrived at the library on the fifth floor.

Hermione was already there, carefully studying a thick book spread open before her.

Her bushy, broom-like hair stood out sharply among the older students.

Tierra did not disturb her. He quietly walked around Hermione and went to his usual seat by the window, opening the copy of Introduction to Alchemy that he had borrowed for over a month.

He had returned Principles of Potions last week and replaced it with Principles of Magic, a book that not even graduating students would borrow.

When Tierra borrowed that book, Pince had given him several strange looks.

Who knew what had gotten into Snape today? He had insisted that Tierra duel Malfoy, wasting more than ten minutes of his study time for no reason.

More than a month had passed since the start of term. The more Tierra studied, the more he could feel the vastness... and utter disorder of magical knowledge.

In the library on that alien world, whether it was the Necronomicon, the R'lyeh Text, or other ancient books Tierra could now access, all magic recorded within them, though described differently, was built upon the Three-Dimensional Theory of Magic.

But none of the books Tierra had seen in the Hogwarts library contained any knowledge related to the Three-Dimensional Theory of Magic.

The Necronomicon and Merlin's notes attributed the source of magical power to the Spiritual Dimension, while books such as Hogwarts' Principles of Magic attributed the source of magical power to the power of bloodlines.

These books believed that magic was a power of thought, and that wizards could wield magic because their special physical structures allowed the power of their thoughts to affect the real world.

In other words, the power of magic came from the soul, and only wizards possessed such souls. Tierra called this the Magical Soul Theory.

Hogwarts' magical textbooks attributed all magical power to the soul, and in their view, the soul was a kind of matter, just like the body.

Tierra had first discovered the difference between what he had learned and what Hogwarts taught in this Introduction to Alchemy.

According to the Necronomicon and Merlin's notes, alchemy was the perfect fusion of the Spiritual Dimension, Material Dimension, and Spiritual Dimension, thereby reaching the "origin point" of all three dimensions—the Philosopher's Stone.

As long as the three dimensions overlapped even slightly, it could be called an alchemical item. If all three dimensions fused perfectly, it became the Philosopher's Stone.

This was vastly different from what Introduction to Alchemy said.

According to Introduction to Alchemy, to create an alchemical item, one needed to inject a soul possessing magical power into special magical materials—most often some magical creature. In the early days of alchemical exploration, wizards' souls had been used instead.

Thus, the early development of alchemy was often accompanied by bloodshed and brutality.

But clearly, extracting a soul by itself was not an easy task.

And Introduction to Alchemy explained methods of separating the soul completely and intact.

Naturally, the entire process was also filled with bloodshed and brutality.

It was not until a genius wizard and an established master alchemist jointly discovered the twelve uses of dragon blood that the door to modern alchemy was opened.