Hogwarts in January lay firmly in the grip of bitter cold, thick frost coating the windowpanes. Talk of Wilkes's coma in the castle gradually gave way to the pressure of the new term's coursework, but the alarm bells in certain people's hearts never stopped ringing.
In the abandoned classroom, every breath condensed into white mist. Snape devoted nearly all his spare time to Advanced Potion-Making, the Half-Blood Prince's annotations along the page margins seeming to hold a fatal allure for him. He was no longer merely searching for ways to deal with enemies; it was more like he was holding a conversation across time and space with this anonymous predecessor.
Elsewhere, Lin Yanqing compared the Advanced Protective Rune Blueprint previously awarded by the system as he practiced more complex combined runes on a tough piece of dragonhide. His fingertips trembled slightly from prolonged concentration, but his gaze remained focused. Wilkes's coma and Regulus's warning weighed on his heart like heavy stones. He knew full well that Snape's strength alone was far from enough.
"Ding-dong! (?-?) Detected that the contracted target's reliance on a specific body of knowledge (the Half-Blood Prince's notes) is continuously increasing. Analyzing correlation... Warning: Excessive reliance on knowledge from an unknown source carries potential risks." "Timed Mission [Tracing the Source · II] issued." Mission Description: Investigate the identity of the "Half-Blood Prince" and any potential dangers hidden within his notes. Mission Requirement: Find a crucial clue concerning the Half-Blood Prince's true identity within seven days. Mission Reward: Knowledge Purification Scroll (can identify the potential risks of a specific body of knowledge once) x1, System Points +200. Failure Penalty: None (but the risks will persist). (￣﹏￣)
The system's warning made Lin Yanqing's heart tighten. He looked at Snape, who was engrossed in a complicated potion formula,