Lin Yuan watched Professor McGonagall lead Harry away, his heart filled with understanding.
The script is proceeding smoothly. The Chosen One is about to join the Quidditch team and begin his legendary journey.
However, Lin Yuan knew that this scene was not over yet.
Because the greatest variable outside his "script" was still standing on the field.
Sure enough, after seeing Harry get "dragged away," Malfoy's smug, triumphant smile returned.
He felt that he had won back a round.
His gaze swept over the worried faces of the Gryffindor students before finally landing on Lin Yuan, who had remained as calm as an outsider from beginning to end.
After humiliating Longbottom and provoking Potter, he was now going to turn his sights on this Oriental boy who had just stolen his thunder in such a bizarre manner.
"Hey, you Oriental boy over there!" Malfoy shouted in an extremely arrogant tone. "Isn't your 'soup making' technique supposed to be impressive? What's the matter? In Flying Class, can you only stand on the ground and put on an act? Or is it that all you Orientals can do is walk on two legs?"
His words drew a burst of ear-piercing laughter from the Slytherins.
Ron, Seamus, and the others were so furious that they wanted to rush over and argue with him, but Hermione held them back with all her strength.
Lin Yuan slowly raised his head and calmly looked at Malfoy hovering in midair.
He knew this was his own opportunity.
An opportunity to establish his authority over that Malfoy fellow.
He said nothing. He merely patted the docile broom beside him lightly.
Then he climbed onto it.
He did not push off the ground. He simply willed it.
"Bzzzt—"
A barely audible sound, like the plucking of a zither string, rang out.
Lin Yuan and his broom "rose" vertically and steadily from the ground in a posture that completely defied physics.
There was no acceleration, no roaring wind.
Just like that, as though lifted by an invisible hand, he slowly rose until he was level with Malfoy.
His black robes did not flutter in the slightest in midair, as though even the wind had willingly made way for him.
Malfoy's smile froze on his face.
On the ground, all laughter and discussion vanished in an instant.
The entire training ground fell deathly silent.
"You..." Malfoy looked at the Oriental before him, whose expression was indifferent and whose calm gaze made his heart tremble. He stammered, unable to get the words out.
Lin Yuan paid no attention to his shock.
He merely wanted to test something.
He wanted to test what he could accomplish by using his vast divine soul to control this crude "Magic Artifact."
Thus, he moved.
"Whoosh!"
His figure vanished from where he stood.
In the next instant, he appeared behind Malfoy, less than three inches from the back of his head.
Every hair on Malfoy's body stood on end. He whipped around, only to see empty sky.
"Smack."
A hand lightly patted his left shoulder.
He looked left in terror. There was no one there.
"Smack."
His right shoulder was lightly tapped again.
Like a puppet that had seen a ghost, he stiffly turned to the right, but still saw nothing.
"Looking for me?"
Lin Yuan's voice came from directly in front of him, calm and level.
Malfoy abruptly raised his head and saw Lin Yuan hovering before him, both hands behind his back and his expression indifferent. It was as though that ghostlike movement just now had been nothing more than a casual turn while out for a stroll.
"Monster... You're a monster!" Malfoy's face was as pale as paper, and his voice was filled with fear.
He could no longer care about provocation or dignity. He turned his broom around and tried to flee back to the ground.
However, Lin Yuan merely smiled faintly.
He extended his right hand toward Malfoy and gently clenched his five fingers.
"Bzzzt!"
Malfoy's accelerating Comet 260, which was fleeing at full speed, seemed to have its throat seized by an invisible hand. It abruptly stopped in midair, remaining completely motionless no matter how Malfoy urged it onward.
Divine Soul Interference... remote object control. It seems to work remarkably well on these "Magic Artifacts" from this realm, which have simple formations attached to them. Lin Yuan reached his conclusion.
He released his hand, and Malfoy's broom regained its freedom.
Then Lin Yuan's figure turned into a black line too fast for the naked eye to follow. Circling the still-shaken Malfoy, he began a one-sided flying display that completely crushed his opponent.
In midair, he performed movements that the children below had seen only at the Quidditch World Cup—maneuvers that only the greatest Quidditch athletes could execute.
Right-angle turns without the slightest reduction in speed.
Inverted flight, his robes remaining perpendicular to his body rather than to the ground.
In midair, he spun at tremendous speed like a gyroscope around the tail of his broom as its center, yet remained as steady as a rock.
He even let go of both hands and slowly stood up on the broom, "walking" two steps through the air as though on level ground.
Finally, he transformed into a black streak of light that shot into the sky, rising straight into the clouds and becoming an almost invisible black speck. Then, in the next second, he plunged vertically like a black meteor.
Just as everyone thought he was about to crash into the ground and let out terrified screams, he came to an instantaneous stop in an utterly inconceivable manner, only a foot above the grass.
Then he gently descended to the ground.
The broom, like a loyal servant that had completed its mission, automatically slipped away from beneath his feet and stood quietly and obediently beside him.
The entire training ground was silent enough to hear a pin drop.
Everyone seemed to have been turned to stone by Medusa's gaze, transformed into statues.
The arrogance and mockery on the Slytherins' faces had long since been replaced by fear and awe.
Malfoy, meanwhile, had collapsed limply onto his broom, trembling like a lizard that had been toyed with by a dragon.
The Gryffindors looked at Lin Yuan as though they were looking at a god.
Ron's mouth was hanging open, while Hermione's eyes shone with a mixture of admiration, confusion, and fervor.
At some point, Madam Hooch had returned. She stood at the edge of the field, still holding the potion bottle meant to treat Neville, but her gaze was fixed firmly on Lin Yuan.
Her hawk-like eyes were filled with shock and bewilderment such as she had never experienced in her life.
She had seen geniuses and Quidditch champions.
But she had never seen... flying like this.
That was not technique, nor talent.
That was... absolute dominion over the sky!
Lin Yuan ignored everyone's gazes and calmly summed things up in his mind:
The flying artifacts of this realm are crude, but they have the advantage of directly responding to the divine soul. By controlling one, I can more directly sense the shallow pathways of this world's "Law of Wind" and "Law of Space." For me, it is a decent object for "comprehending the Dao."
He raised his head and looked toward the sky, which seemed to have grown even higher because of his flight.
His path toward the Dao had gained another interesting direction.
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