Sorting? Do I Have to Fight a Troll?

"How exactly are they going to sort us?" Harry asked Ron nervously. "Will it hurt?"

"I don't know... Fred and George joked I'd have to wrestle a troll," Ron said, his face even paler than it had been on the lake. "But I think they were messing with me... right?"

Hermione was a completely different story.

"I know it's definitely not wrestling a troll," she began reciting rapidly, as if it eased her nerves. "I reviewed every spell we might need, like Incendio, or the Levitation Charm, Wingardium Leviosa, in case we have to demonstrate magical talent..."

Far from soothing anyone, her words only made those around her more anxious.

Lin Yuan leaned against the wall, listening with interest.

He knew perfectly well what the Sorting was about—just a talking hat.

But what intrigued him was how the hat actually worked.

"Reading thoughts? Scanning soul traits? Or some deeper algorithm based on 'fate' or 'causality'?" he mused. "The hat itself is a powerful magical artifact. Where does its 'intelligence' come from? Is a Soul Imprint of an ancient wizard attached to it, or was it created through some alchemical process to produce true artificial intelligence?"

Just then, a commotion rippled from the back of the crowd.

Several students let out stifled screams, pointing at the wall.

A dozen pearl-white, translucent ghosts filed out through the stone behind them, arguing fiercely as they drifted along.

A ghost who looked like a plump monk said cheerfully, "Forget all that, Peeves is just causing trouble again. We should give him another chance!"

"My good friar, we've given Peeves far too many chances!" countered another ghost, his cravat askew and his eyes melancholy. "He's disgraced the entire ghost community!"

Completely ignoring the stunned, living first-years packed into the room, they filed straight through the opposite wall and vanished.

"Whoa..." Ron murmured. "So the legends are all true."

Hermione had put away her spell compendium too; clearly, the existence of ghosts went beyond what her books covered.

Lin Yuan watched with keen interest.

"I see. Not true souls, more like 'information residues' formed from intense obsession and magical energy. They're bound to the form and memories of the moment of death, unable to enter the true cycle of reincarnation. In a sense, this is also a kind of 'immortality'—but the price is eternal imprisonment."

He gained another layer of understanding about this world's "soul science."

"Alright, we're ready. Follow me."

Professor McGonagall's figure reappeared in the doorway. Her stern expression silenced all the first-years instantly, and they nervously lined up.

They followed her out of the small room, across the entrance hall, and up to the massive double doors leading to the Great Hall.

The moment the doors swung open, the whole world seemed to light up.

Hogwarts' Great Hall was stranger and more magnificent than any scene Harry had ever imagined.

Hundreds of candles floated in midair, illuminating four long tables already packed with students.

Golden plates and goblets gleamed on the tables.

At the front of the hall was the staff table, where the teachers sat.

But the most breathtaking sight was the ceiling.

It was a deep black, like the edge of the universe, shimmering with a velvety luster, dotted with countless stars—some bright, some dim, seemingly within reach—and even a few wisps of silvery clouds drifting slowly and gracefully across.

"It's been enchanted with extremely advanced magic to perfectly simulate the real sky outside in real time. I read about it in Appendix Three of Hogwarts: A History." Hermione stood beside Harry, speaking in a hushed, almost reverent tone, to herself and to him.

Harry couldn't hear a word she was saying. He just stared, mesmerized, at that magnificent, real-seeming starry sky, feeling like an insignificant speck of dust floating in the boundless universe. It was a dream more beautiful and unreal than any he'd ever had.

Lin Yuan glanced up.

"Hmm. A large-scale, permanent illusion array, synced directly with the external weather system. Advanced, but the principle isn't hard to grasp." He made the judgment calmly.

Professor McGonagall led them to the front of the hall, making them line up facing the entire student body, between the staff table and the student tables.

In the center, on an enormous, ornate chair that looked like it was made of pure gold and carved with intricate patterns, sat a legendary wizard he'd only ever seen on Chocolate Frog cards.

And this wizard, arguably the most legendary in the magical world, was now sitting right in front of him, alive.

Albus Dumbledore.

His silvery-white hair, bright as moonlight, and his long beard—long enough to tuck into his belt—shone with a soft, holy radiance in the light of the floating candles.

His high-bridged nose looked like it had been broken several times, giving it a peculiar, crooked shape.

He wore his signature half-moon spectacles, and behind the lenses, his bright blue eyes—clear as a summer sky—were filled with kindness, wisdom, and a hint of amused insight as he smiled at the nervous first-years huddled together like frightened quail.

When Dumbledore's gaze swept over Lin Yuan, Lin Yuan clearly felt a gentle yet irresistible mental force, like a spring breeze, brush lightly across his soul.

Lin Yuan's heart tightened.

Good heavens!

Was this an indiscriminate scan?

He immediately suppressed all fluctuations in his soul, disguising himself as an ordinary eleven-year-old boy, full of curiosity and a touch of nervousness about the future.

That gaze didn't linger on him long before moving on.

Lin Yuan breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"The greatest White Wizard is truly unfathomable," he concluded. "His mental power—or what this world calls 'Legilimency'—has reached a level almost akin to the 'Dao.' It seeps in without a sound, impossible to guard against. From now on, in his presence, I must remain constantly vigilant."

But he hadn't come away empty-handed. In that very moment, Lin Yuan had used his divine soul to "see" the true essence hidden beneath Dumbledore's aged frame.

That withered body was nothing more than a shell.

Beneath that shell lay a soul core so terrifyingly powerful it blazed like a star—fierce and blinding.

His magic was nothing like Professor McGonagall's precise elegance. It was a vast, bottomless ocean of deep blue.

Calm on the surface, but beneath the waves lurked a cataclysmic force capable of raising towering tsunamis, even overturning the entire world.

Lin Yuan could even sense, with razor-sharp clarity, an immensely powerful and obscure law force—saturated with the aura of death and fate—coiling like a venomous serpent around the wand in Dumbledore's hand. That wand, outwardly unremarkable, seemed to be made of ordinary elder wood, yet it had formed a strange symbiotic bond with Dumbledore's own soul.