A Brand New Way to Influence Mana

Snape waved his wand, and a massive projection instantly appeared above the classroom. It displayed the surface of the podium along with Snape's own hands, ensuring everyone could clearly see the details of his technique.

"Step one: weigh the ingredients and determine the ratios, starting with the dried nettles..."

Snape began selecting ingredients and operating the instruments, his movements standard and fluid.

"Next is crushing the snake fangs. Pay attention to my technique..."

"Begin brewing the slugs. Note that you must choose slugs with tentacles, and do not put them into the pot with cold water during the first boil. You must ensure the water is boiling before adding them..."

"Melting the porcupine quills... Attention! You must remove the cauldron from the fire and let it cool for a certain amount of time before adding the quills, or else you can wait to have your face disfigured... To save time, I am using magic to cool it here. Do not do this when you perform it yourselves; I fear your clumsy magic would blow up your cauldrons in the process."

"And then, the final step..."

Snape mixed the slug solution, which had already been boiled three times, with the other ingredients and began stirring in a specific rhythm and direction.

"Hm?!"

Because he was sitting in the front row, Avada could see Snape's movements directly without looking at the projection overhead. The scene that appeared within his perception made him nearly cry out in surprise.

In his perception, the magic structures contained within the various ingredients were originally chaotic, and picking them out individually seemed to have no meaning. However, when they were dropped into the slug solution, their magic structures gradually merged under the reconciliation of the solution's simple magic structure, forming a regular, beautiful, and brand-new construction!

The entire process was like restoring a broken puzzle, smooth and pleasing to the eye.

This was a phenomenon he had never observed in the past few years—if one wanted to obtain a certain magic structure, the most direct way was to cast a spell, using mental power to alter the surrounding magic. But this brand-new method before him, using the magic structures inherent in the magical ingredients to fuse and assemble, could accomplish things that were extremely difficult for direct spellcasting at a very low cost.

Take this Cure for Boils Potion as an example: it only took a skilled first-year wizard ten minutes or so to brew it, whereas if one wanted to achieve the same magic structure using only a wand, the difficulty would be no less than casting an Aguamenti charm!

Aguamenti was a spell that could only be learned in the sixth year; the difficulty was self-evident!

Only then did Avada realize that Potions was, in fact, a brand-new way of influencing magic, distinct from any other form of sorcery!

"I must master Potions!"

He secretly made up his mind, deciding that even if Snape targeted him in the future, he would thicken his skin and ask for his guidance.

On the podium, Snape finally completed the potion. He poured it into a glass vial and held it up to show everyone. It was a pale blue potion that shimmered faintly under the dim light, looking absolutely beautiful.

"Now, I will distribute the materials for making the potion to you. Begin working in pairs. I hope none of you are so foolish that two people cannot even manage to assemble one set of experimental equipment!"

"Miss White, you are with Mr. Shabi; Mr. Macnair, you are with Mr. Alex..."

Snape walked to the back of the classroom, beginning to group the students by house from back to front. When he reached the front row and saw Avada and Baron, a hint of amusement flashed in his eyes.

"It is a pity that both the Hufflepuff and Slytherin students are odd in number. So, Mr. K, why don't you pair up with Mr. Shafiq?"

"It is perfect; it will also allow Mr. Shafiq to supervise your brain, which cannot even remember the recipe for a Wiggenweld Potion, so that you don't cause any trouble in my class..."

He handed a set of ingredients for the potion to Avada and Baron, then turned around to patrol the classroom.

"Don't mind him, he actually thinks quite highly of you..."

Baron explained to Avada with some embarrassment: "The Wiggenweld Potion is something that can only be mastered next semester. The fact that you could recite most of the recipe just after entering school has already exceeded his expectations. I think he probably wants you to guide me, but he can't put down his pride..."

"Focus on your experiment, no whispering!"

Snape appeared behind the two of them out of nowhere and tapped their heads with a piece of parchment.

"Cough, cough."

The two shivered, straightened their expressions, and hurriedly began the experiment.

"Dried nettles, snake fangs, porcupine quills, slugs..."

Baron was responsible for precisely weighing each ingredient and handing them to Avada for secondary processing. Avada put the snake fangs into the mortar and used the pestle to crush them into powder, one strike at a time. Although this was a purely physical process, Avada had already memorized the magic structures that occurred when he watched Snape's operation, so details like how fine to crush them or whether to spread them out or clump them together were not a problem for him.

Next was snapping the porcupine quills into small segments, snipping the dried nettles, and boiling water to prepare the slugs. It had to be said that these classic, time-honored recipes had almost no room for optimization after being tested and improved by countless generations; instead, Avada found quite a few hidden risks in the operation.

For example, if you didn't snap the porcupine quills into small segments here but instead ground them directly into powder to speed up the reaction, then congratulations: the excessive reaction surface area would cause a magic change that was supposed to happen later to occur prematurely, and then generate a structure similar to the Incendio spell with the other unreacted components...

While complaining internally, Avada worked methodically with Baron: boiling, cooling, adding ingredients, boiling, stirring, and cooling a second time...

Under the guidance of detailed notes, the standard operations of Avada and Baron, and the effect of constantly monitoring every change in magic with Magic Sense, the pair's progress was rapid, standing out from the explosions, rushing air, coughing, exclamations, and Snape's scolding that echoed through the classroom from time to time.

Soon, they reached the final step.

"Stir seven times clockwise, pause for three seconds, then stir two times counter-clockwise..."

Baron read the notes in a low voice and glanced at Avada, who was performing the operation. He saw him stop after five and a half clockwise stirs, pause for two seconds, and then continue stirring clockwise.

"Hey, the steps are wrong!"

Baron reminded him urgently, only to see Avada continue stirring calmly, explaining, "Don't panic. This is another stirring technique I saw in the library earlier; it happens to be perfect for the current potion. If nothing goes wrong, the effect of the potion formed using this technique will be two to three times that of the original."

This was also a lie; in reality, Avada had finally discovered a flaw that could be improved. This flaw was exceptionally conspicuous in his Magic Sense, but he didn't know why his predecessors hadn't touched it.

Baron nodded, not interfering due to the trust he had built in Avada during Charms class.

Finally, Avada completed the improved version of the stirring. As the glass rod was withdrawn from the cauldron, the originally colorless potion gradually turned into a deep azure blue, even darker than the original. Avada took out a glass vial, poured the potion in, and shook it at Baron with some pride: "I told you, you can't go wrong trusting me."

"Impressive."

Baron nodded in admiration, then raised his hand to call Snape over to inspect their finished product.

However, after Snape inspected their potion, he did not offer praise, nor did he simply turn and leave; instead, he let out a sneer from his nose.

"Mr. K, do you think your genius brain has discovered an unprecedented improvement?"

He took a piece of meat from an animal—he didn't know which—from a shelf nearby, then waved his wand to make it covered in boils: "Come, let me show you the effect of this 'genius potion'."

He carefully opened the vial and poured the azure blue potion onto it. As the potion made contact with the skin, a sizzling sound rang out. The skin on the meat that touched the potion turned black and decayed rapidly as if splashed with acid, eventually leaving behind a large, shocking black spot.

"Your genius technique strengthened the effect of the potion threefold, so it went from only killing boil mites to burning away the entire piece of skin, Mr. K!"

"And if you still don't give up and intend to dilute it with water, then I wouldn't mind watching the fireworks one more time!"