Effective Learning Makes Me Happy

The accident in flying class was only a minor interlude. Even when it happened, few people took it to heart.

Not to mention broomstick beginners—even among professional Quidditch players, plenty suffered accidents or even died every year.

Klon's bad mood from the accident had faded before lunch.

"Hey! Adam, want to go watch the Quidditch team train? They're trying out new tactics today!"

Klon skipped into the dormitory and saw Adam writing something while petting his two kittens. Klon knew Adam was going to refuse him.

Sure enough, Adam said without looking up:

"No, you go ahead. I'm not that interested in Quidditch training."

Watching a Quidditch match was one thing. The game's balance was atrocious, but its competitive intensity was through the roof, and violence was involved more often than not. No wonder it had become the most widespread and beloved sport among wizards.

Training, however, was incredibly dull—repeated passing drills, practicing catching high-speed golf balls, and so on... Adam had gone once before and lost interest after that. If he had free time, he could treat it as a walk, but he was busy now.

"Oh, Adam, come with me. I remember you already finished all your homework... What's this?"

Klon shuffled over behind Adam and found the parchment filled with dense words that seemed to dance before his eyes, making him dizzy.

"It's an essay on Potions."

He ran short of ink halfway through a word, and Adam casually cast a Refilling Charm on the quill's shaft.

"A Potions essay? This isn't homework, is it? Why are you writing this?"

"Do you remember how I went to ask Professor Snape questions after Potions Class the day before yesterday? He told me that if I could prove my ability, I wouldn't have to repeat potion-making procedures I'd already mastered in class. Instead, I could put more advanced knowledge into practice. Then he tossed me a copy of Powerful Potions."

Adam patted the book beside him.

The potion knowledge in Powerful Potions was far beyond the first-year curriculum, but to Adam, it only counted as a difficult problem.

He felt Professor Snape had probably only given him the book to put him in his place. Even if the essay he eventually wrote was not particularly brilliant, as long as it had substance, Professor Snape would probably insult him a few times before allowing him to brew different potions from his classmates during class.

But Adam still wanted to do his best and see whether he could give Professor Snape a surprise.

"I really don't understand top students like you."

Klon had thought Adam would be exempt from homework. Instead, he was being exempted from current homework only to do even harder homework, so he promptly moved farther away from the parchment.

"Then Bernard and I will go watch it, okay~"

"Yeah. Try not to get hit by a ball."

Don't ask. That had happened before... though not in Hufflepuff.

Adam spent another two days refining his essay. After three more rounds of checking and revision, he finally copied the final draft neatly onto parchment in elegant handwriting. When all the sheets were joined together, they stretched a full four feet long.

After the thick stack of parchment was placed on his desk, Professor Snape was unusually silent for a long time before speaking.

"Padding the word count will not improve the quality of an essay, Mr. Reed."

"I know, Professor. I've already tried to keep my wording as concise as possible."

Adam shrugged. Using Powerful Potions as a starting point, he had organized all his knowledge and understanding of Potions into this essay.

Honestly, after finishing it, his skill in Potions seemed to have improved as well. Sometimes, after writing later sections, he realized his earlier understanding had not been deep enough and went back to revise them. Otherwise, he would not have needed several drafts after completing it.

Professor Snape picked up the essay and glanced at it. He had originally intended only to skim it. He had already picked up the first page and was about to turn it when, after reading a few lines, he could not help frowning and returned to the first line to read it word by word.

"...You may go for now. I will call for you after I have finished reading it."

After finishing the first section, Professor Snape put down the essay and said this.

"All right, thank you, Professor Snape~"

Professor Snape had apparently built up a resistance to Adam's torment. At first, when he saw Adam acting so differently around him from the other students, Professor Snape would frown, turn away, and look vaguely disgusted. Now, however, Professor Snape could nod naturally without changing expression.

After leaving Professor Snape's office, Adam stroked his chin in thought.

Could he go to the other professors and do the same thing, speeding up his studies?

Although his progress in converting wizarding spells into mage magic was limited by his magical knowledge and therefore slow, he truly learned spells at a tremendous pace.

Hogwarts had an exceptionally impressive faculty. Aside from the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, every professor in every other subject was a top talent in their field. As the saying went, not taking advantage of a bargain was the same as taking a loss. Even Professor Dumbledore had been unable to escape him. By building a good relationship with Fawkes, Adam still occasionally dropped by after mastering the Portkey spell. There was no reason to pass up the other professors' generosity. Once he graduated, opportunities like this would be hard to come by.

Thus, on a bright and breezy afternoon, Adam strode into one professor's office after another with the urgency of someone rushing to buy discounted eggs at the supermarket, then returned laden with a stack of hefty tomes.

"Adam, did you go to the library?"

Only Uther was in the dormitory when Adam returned. He looked at Adam in surprise.

"I just came back from the library. How did I not see you?"

"These aren't books borrowed from the library."

Adam placed the books in his hands neatly on his bedside table.

"I borrowed them from the professors."

"Professors... Which professor?"

"Quite a few. Professor McGonagall gave me this one, Professor Flitwick gave me these two, Professor Sprout gave me this one..."

"W-wait... Did you attend some book exchange hosted by the professors? Why would they lend you books?"

"Because I felt the class material was moving a little too slowly, and I wanted to broaden my knowledge."

Uther looked as if he wanted to speak but stopped himself, wearing an expression that said, "Do you even hear yourself?" After a long while, he finally asked:

"The professors agreed?"

"I suppose they did. Professor McGonagall and the others initially advised me to build a more solid foundation, but I spent some time convincing them..."

Adam blinked and decided to skip over the specific methods he had used to persuade them.

Such as turning a teacup in Professor McGonagall's office into a cockatiel, or demonstrating a wandless, nonverbal Levitation Charm for Professor Flitwick... things like that.

By comparison, Professor Sprout had been the hardest to persuade. But after Adam's persistent pleading, the gentle witch reluctantly gave him a book after setting a few questions to test him, and agreed to take him to Greenhouse Three over the weekend to care for the Mandrakes.

"So much stuff... Can you really learn all of it?"

Just looking at that stack of books gave Uther a headache.

"It's actually manageable. I've always been studying on my own before this, and haven't I still had time to play with you guys? Now that I have professors guiding me, my study time hasn't increased, but my learning efficiency will definitely be higher than when I was studying alone."

Suppi was not on the bed, so Adam picked up Kero and took a deep sniff.

"Effective learning makes me happy!"

Unlike his previous life, where he had tediously memorized knowledge that ninety-nine percent of the time would never be used again after graduation, learning magical knowledge was like exercise becoming addictive. The feeling of continually improving himself was truly intoxicating.

"...As long as you're happy."