Finals

Damocles's words made Albert's heart sink.

He wouldn't get jinxed to death by that guy's poisonous praise, would he? What annoyed him even more was that before he had even gotten the chance to show off, the other man had already done it for him.

Albert had dared to choose Baruffio's Brain Elixir because he had absolute confidence in himself. He also intended to use this competition to pull off something big.

The kind that killed several birds with one stone.

He just wondered how many "Potions Masters" would end up with swollen faces from the slap.

What was Baruffio's Brain Elixir? It was a potion capable of permanently raising the drinker's intelligence and making their thoughts sharper.

Runespoor eggs had remained popular on the black market for centuries precisely because they could make the consumer's mind more agile.

If Baruffio's Brain Elixir had not been so dangerous, with its tendency to burn out the drinker's brain, it would have been driven to astronomical prices on the black market long ago.

Every parent wanted their children to have a better start than others, and those wealthy wizarding families would gladly spend heaps of Galleons on such a potion.

However, brewing a perfect Baruffio's Brain Elixir was far too difficult. Buyers also had no way of telling the difference and could easily be deceived with inferior potions, so most wizards were unwilling to take that risk.

At present, the Baruffio's Brain Elixirs sold on the black market were all inferior products diluted with water to reduce their danger. They could temporarily make people smarter after drinking them, but the effect was time-limited, and drinking too much came with severe side effects.

If a potioneer could brew a perfect Baruffio's Brain Elixir, they would likely become an object of admiration for countless