Terrifying

"You mean... the trick?" Albert deliberately drew out his voice, pretending that he was trying to think of how to answer the question.

After a moment, he finally spoke, "The trick is... to put in the same effort you would on Final Exam and practice the incantation diligently."

Albert originally wanted to say "cheating," but after thinking about it carefully, he gave up, figuring no one would understand what "cheating" meant anyway.

At that moment, the expressions on everyone's faces froze. They thought they were going to hear some useful tips, but it turned out that... they had been tricked by Albert again.

Before they could even voice their thoughts, Albert continued, "Okay. Actually, this is another kind of magic, a variation of the Wand-Lighting Charm, somewhat like... well, the Leg-Locker Curse and the Full Body-Bind Curse. Of course, this kind of magic is more difficult to master than the Lumos Charm ."

"So, you weren't just shaking your wand?" Shanna finally understood what was going on.

However, because the spell was cast while the tip of the wand was glowing, it gave the illusion that the ball of light was shaken off the glowing wand.

"Of course not." Albert was speechless, not expecting these people to think that way. Well, undeniably, it did look like he was randomly shaking his wand just now.

The crowd's curiosity didn't last long. They might be interested in the spells Albert practiced, but not many wanted to learn them. For most students, homework and practicing Charms in class took up a lot of their free time, leaving them with no extra time or energy to practice new, more complex spells.

Especially those Charms that you don't understand at all and that require a lot of time to learn.

Shanna was undoubtedly the most efficient student in her class, second only to Albert. At least, that was true when it came to homework, which was related to her Muggle education as a child.

After finishing her homework, Shanna began practicing the Duplication Charm using the paper strips.

Those were spells she learned from Albert. They weren't too difficult to learn, but it still took a lot of time to practice them before she could master them.

Unlike Shanna, Albert's learning progressed rapidly. The ball of light he emitted grew larger and larger, and it didn't immediately extinguish; it could even fly forward a distance.

This rapid progress was so astonishing that everyone realized Albert would soon master the magic.

Shanna looked up, staring blankly at the sphere of light floating above her, her face filled with disbelief. "It actually worked?"

From the time Albert started practicing until now, it's only been less than half an hour! "No need to be surprised, this is normal," Fred casually reassured him. "Albert must have practiced secretly, you just didn't know."

Albert glanced at the Skill Panel; the skill only had 65 experience points and hadn't even reached level one yet, but the experience gained was already astonishing.

"Looks like you forgot the party time," someone said, interrupting everyone's thoughts.

Katrina had somehow appeared behind Albert, and she too looked up at the vanished orb of light above her, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"By the way, you actually reminded me." Albert put down his wand, took out a pocket watch from his pocket, opened the cover and glanced at the time, saying, "Twenty minutes left."

"Last time, you took me to Classroom 21. This time, I'll take you to Classroom 17," Katrina said, turning her back to Albert. "That evens things out."

The two were obviously talking about the Charms Club; they had both received invitations.

In fact, the day after Katrina mentioned that Albert hadn't been invited, he received an invitation from Professor Flitwick. Similar to Professor McGonagall's invitation to the Transfiguration Club last year, the Task Panel directly completed a quest related to the Charms Club, and even rewarded him with 2000 experience points.

After completing the task, Albert immediately leveled up his Charm Theory to level two, meaning he wouldn't have to worry about not understanding Professor Flitwick when participating in club activities. Furthermore, he hadn't used all 2000 experience points from the task reward; he still had a third left.

George looked up at the two figures as they walked away and muttered to himself, "When did their relationship become so good?"

"Geniuses are usually friends with geniuses too," Shanna said, pursing her lips.

"Then what do you think we are?" Fred disagreed with her. They all got along very well, especially a few months ago when Albert ventured deep into the Forbidden Forest to find them.

If Albert didn't consider her a friend, why would he take such a big risk? "Roommate," Shanna said without hesitation.

"No, no." George didn't pay much attention to that excuse, wagged his index finger, and said jokingly, "Actually, we're geniuses too!"

"What genius?" Lee Jordan couldn't help but tease, "A genius of pranks?"

"I think he's a troublemaker genius." Shanna watched the group fooling around speechlessly, then continued to practice her Duplication Charm. She planned to take advantage of the free time at the beginning of the semester to quickly master the spell.

"I think Katrina has had a tough time."

"Hard?"

"She seems to enjoy competing with Albert, which isn't a good choice." Fred pulled a card from his pocket and waved it in front of Shanna: "Want to play a game?"

Without looking up, Shanna asked in return, "Don't you have homework?"

"Never mind, forget I said anything."

Seeing Fred's discomfiture, George and Lee Jordan couldn't help but laugh.

In fact, they also envied Albert's talent, but as friends and roommates, the three of them were well aware of Albert's situation. Perhaps he was indeed a genius, but in places unknown to others, he also put in unimaginable effort.

In order to master those Charms, Albert also needed to spend a lot of time studying and practicing.

Especially when writing letters to those so-called "pen pals," they send a thick stack at a time, and it seems to be getting thicker and thicker, which is seriously anti-wizarding.

The three of them had read the contents, and the feeling of being able to understand each word individually but not when put together was truly awful.

Those things were countless times harder than their homework.

Albert was able to write several letters a week and receive the same number of replies, which seemed terrifying to them.

However, even with all that, that guy still looked more relaxed than them.

Katrina is a genius, but in the eyes of the three, she's just so-so. That's why Fred said Katrina had a hard time competing with Albert.

Sometimes, being a genius isn't scary; what's scary is being more talented than you and working even harder.

Because they had long since been left far behind, the three of them felt no jealousy. They were all aware that they were no longer on the same level as Albert in some aspects.