Over the next month or so, Harley felt very content.
When Harley got home that day, the Dursleys weren't there. It turned out they had gone shopping for things Harley would need.
That evening, Harley moved into the guest room at the Dursleys' house. Aunt Petunia had given it a thorough cleaning, and all the furnishings had been replaced.
Uncle Vernon gritted his teeth and handed Harley some money, allowing her to buy new clothes and anything else she wanted.
The condition was that for the rest of the time before Harley started school, she had to stay in her room and stop summoning those strange black flames all the time.
Harley didn't mind. Even if she did summon the black flames, Uncle Vernon couldn't do much about it anyway.
Besides, she didn't have that much time to waste arguing with the Dursleys. In fact, she spent most of her time reading.
During her flight, Harley had often read books, especially those available to ordinary people that described the many kingdoms.
After all, she had been constantly wandering from place to place. Learning about the politics, culture, customs, and other aspects of each kingdom had been essential.
Now, Harley had once again begun studying the Wizarding World's information with practiced ease, starting with a close reading of A History of Magic.
These books might seem dull, but the knowledge they contained was extremely important.
One book in particular was very useful to Harley: From Prefect to Minister, written by the current Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge.
Though the book was full of the author's self-praise, the writer was the current Minister for Magic, after all, so most of the information was still worth considering.
It gave Harley a lot of useful information, especially about the Ministry of Magic's structure and political system.
Besides these miscellaneous books, the textbooks required by Hogwarts also benefited Harley greatly. They gave her a general understanding of the magical system.
It was a system very different from the Sequence Pathway.
The Sequence Pathway could only be followed by consuming specific Potions. These granted the corresponding abilities or the qualifications to study occult knowledge more safely.
But anyone could take Sequence Potions and have a chance of becoming a Beyonder. Even those who weren't Beyonders could still encounter and use some occult knowledge—though whether it was safe was another matter.
In that world, almost everyone had the potential, but the total amount of supernatural power was limited.
In this world, supernatural power was unlimited, but only those with the aptitude could use it—in other words, magic.
Those without the aptitude couldn't use magic, even if they came into contact with it.
Furthermore, judging by what she knew so far, magic seemed safer than the Sequence Pathway. As long as you didn't go looking for trouble, you probably wouldn't die.
Setting out on the Sequence Pathway meant living with the constant risk of losing control and going mad. Some Pathways demanded caution even from the Low Sequence. One wrong step could send you plunging into the Abyss.
According to the information Harley had obtained after killing that Secrets Sorcerer, who belonged to a long-established lineage, the higher one advanced in the Sequence, the easier it was to go mad.
So once you embarked on a Beyonder Pathway, you had to fight madness for the rest of your life.
Magic, however, seemed to have none of these problems. It even had established schools, with textbooks that every Warlock could read, and there was never any mention of madness or losing control.
Harley didn't know whether powerful Warlocks ever encountered such problems, but ordinary ones at least seemed safe from them.
What Harley paid the most attention to was Potions. As a wild Beyonder, she had brewed almost every one of her Sequence Potions herself.
Especially at the demigod level of a Demoness of Despair or a Demoness of Unaging, even the Demoness Sect couldn't possibly have ready-made Potions in storage.
Learning to use the available ingredients to brew suitable mixtures had always been a required skill for Beyonders.
Of course, that didn't apply to those barbaric physical-class professionals.
What's more, Harley needed to find a Potion suitable for her current condition so she could regain her strength. That made the importance of Potions rise another level.
The Dursleys hadn't been having a good time lately, because a Witch was living upstairs.
Harley rarely left her room. She only occasionally went to a nearby Chinese herbal medicine shop to buy some ingredients, or let her owl stretch its wings.
But the strange noises coming from Harley's room were genuinely worrying. The Dursleys were a particularly conventional family, and they didn't want people gossiping about them.
So when Harley finally announced that she was leaving the next day and asked Uncle Vernon to take her to King's Cross Station, Uncle Vernon was overjoyed.
He had wanted to put on a brave front and sneer about why a Witch would need to use a normal person's train.
But when he saw black flames suddenly flare up in Harley's hair, he swallowed the words he'd been about to say.
Harley nodded in satisfaction, pleased that Uncle Vernon knew what was good for him.
The next day, Harley got up early. Her belongings filled several large trunks, containing everything from spellbooks to the pretty dresses and skincare products she had bought.
As far as skincare went, Harley thought Warlocks were absolutely no match for ordinary people. She hadn't seen a single Potion for beauty care in any Wizarding World magazine.
Uncle Vernon drove so fast that the car nearly flew, trying to get away from the Witch inside as quickly as possible.
When they arrived at King's Cross Station, Uncle Vernon helped Harley unload her luggage, said a quick goodbye, and hurried off.
Judging by his expression, what he wanted to say probably wasn't goodbye, but good riddance.
Harley didn't care. She piled her luggage onto a trolley and headed for Platforms Nine and Ten.
Since the ticket Dumbledore had given her said Platform 9 3/4, it had to be a platform belonging exclusively to Warlocks, something like Diagon Alley.
Dumbledore hadn't told Harley how to get to Platform 9 3/4, but she had her own way of finding it.
Harley gently pinched the earlobe of her left ear and opened her Spirit Vision.
A Demoness's Spirit Vision wasn't as powerful as that of the Seer or Secrets Sorcerer Pathways. It couldn't be used for Divination or to see through the forms of Mythical Creatures.
When a Demoness used Spirit Vision to look at people, at most it could give her a simple read on their emotions or let her see invisible Spirit World Creatures.
Its greatest strength was that it allowed her to observe the world inside mirrors and even peer through a mirror at things on the other side. It was an excellent ability for stealing information.
For inanimate objects, however, a Demoness's Spirit Vision could still just barely reveal the Spirituality that lingered within them.
For instance, when Harley had used Spirit Vision to peer at the Onyx Peacock's egg, she had seen a brilliance like starlight.
According to the Witch who had brewed Harley's Potion at the time, that radiance came from the lingering Spirituality in materials from supernatural creatures, and was therefore one of the keys to brewing Potions successfully.
Now Harley planned to find the station entrance by sensing the strength of the Spirituality—or, in other words, the magic.
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