End of the First Semester

The appearance of the Wit-Sharpening Potion directly opened the door for Avada to explore his mental power.

During the first weekend after school started, he spent the entire morning in the library, finishing all his weekend assignments in one go. After attending the first Hufflepuff picnic on Saturday noon, he locked himself in the Room of Requirement.

After consuming the Wit-Sharpening Potion, the effect of the draught and Avada's own abilities triggered a massive reaction comparable to a chain reaction: the potion allowed him to observe the process of his mental structure being optimized, while his simultaneously enhanced mental power allowed him to easily memorize every detail. Furthermore, his speed of thought and the frequency of his inspiration were greatly increased, making his understanding of mental power advance as if he were riding a rocket!

Not only that, but his research on the Diadem also accelerated significantly under the influence of the potion, leading to brand-new breakthroughs. Just like that, with the help of the triple samples of the Wit-Sharpening Potion, the Diadem, and Avada's own mental power, he developed a preliminary talent optimization plan after only two weeks and set aside an entire day to transform his own mental power.

However, an accident occurred during the implementation process: when he began to fully analyze his mental power, he was stunned to discover a magical structure of unknown purpose hidden within it.

It was exceptionally sturdy and tightly connected to his mental power, as if it had grown there naturally. At the same time, its existence constantly suppressed Avada's cognitive activities, effectively reducing his intelligence—in other words, Avada's talent should have been better than it currently was, but he had been forcibly "dumbed down" by this inexplicable mass of magic!

What made Avada even angrier was that after long and arduous research, he finally confirmed the identity of this magic: it was that failed "Name Curse"!

The moment he confirmed this, he almost sent a Howler directly to the Department of Mysteries.

This thing had been suppressing his intelligence for eleven years!

Voldemort's performance in terms of strategy in his later years might have even been partly due to this curse!

Fortunately, with the help of his previous research results, he finally succeeded in "excising" the curse. The moment the curse completely dissipated, Avada felt a roar in his head, and his mental power surged as if it were boiling, causing his speed of thought and memory to improve by a significant margin out of thin air.

Just like that, his talent was upgraded from "average person" to "relatively smart average person."

And after Avada implemented his talent optimization plan and achieved success, he officially transformed from a "relatively smart average person" into a proper "smart person."

As for the inspiration to evolve from a "smart person" to a "genius," he had already obtained it through the Diadem.

But by this time, it was already after Halloween, meaning it was November. In other words, he had been researching with his mind tightly wound for two whole months, basically without any rest; attending classes was considered a form of relaxation for him. Therefore, after his talent was improved, the physically and mentally exhausted Avada decided to take a good rest. Aside from self-studying advanced knowledge and occasionally heading to the Room of Requirement to study the trinkets left behind by his predecessors, he stopped assigning himself any other tasks.

After Avada returned to normal school life with his improved talent, the most intuitive change was his rapid progress in Potions—at the beginning of the term, Snape had mocked him, saying it was impossible for a first-year to master all the knowledge from the first to fourth years. Yet, two months later, he had already completely digested the second-year textbook, and his progress in the third-year material was already more than halfway through.

Coupled with the fact that Avada, determined to master Potions, often braved the mockery to go find Snape for questions, these improvements were naturally seen by Snape. Although his outward attitude hadn't changed—still snorting through his nose before starting his sarcastic remarks—Avada still noticed that when he explained things, he seemed much more meticulous and included more of his own unique insights.

There was no need to even mention his own Head of House's Herbology class—Potions and Herbology had been inseparable since ancient times. Moreover, since he started practical work in the greenhouses, his Magic Sense had also come in handy, leading Professor Sprout to greatly praise Avada's progress.

What comforted Avada even more was that the professors seemed to no longer focus on his real name. Every time they took attendance or called on him to answer questions, they were able to call out "Mr. K" or "K" without changing their expressions, rather than knitting their brows into a knot or stumbling over his name like they did at the beginning.

His classmates also became accustomed to this—even if some overly curious fellows tried every trick to inquire, once they learned that it was Headmaster Dumbledore who required Avada to hide his real name, they tactfully stopped probing.

Gradually, even he himself almost forgot that his original name was "Avada Kedavra."

In addition to his achievements in magical research, his relationship with his classmates also gradually became familiar and harmonious. Baron went without saying; even during the two months he spent researching like a madman, they almost always went to the library together, whether he was dragging Baron along or Baron was dragging him.

Then there were Cedric and the Weasley twins; all three of them were successfully selected for their house's Quidditch team this year. Cedric naturally invited Avada (and Cho) to watch the final selection. To Avada's surprise, Fred and George actually still remembered him and also invited him to visit the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts.

Their explanation was that they were very satisfied with the title "Prank Magus," so they had always remembered Avada's "favor." However, they both tacitly avoided the fact that it was Baron from Slytherin who had proposed the title.

Thus, after accepting the invitation, Avada decisively dragged Baron along to attend the Gryffindor preliminary tryouts. Baron also believed this was an opportunity to change the stereotypes about Slytherin and ease the meaningless feud between the two houses, so he readily agreed.

At first, the twins and other Gryffindors were a bit dissatisfied, but they didn't want to lash out at a first-year student who had just enrolled and didn't know anything yet. When Baron displayed a quite sincere and friendly attitude, their resentment dissipated quite a bit.

And during the school Quidditch match, after Charlie Weasley led the Gryffindor team to victory, this little bit of resentment completely vanished into thin air.

Later, Avada heard that Baron had been given a hard time by some Slytherin seniors because of this, but he himself didn't really care.

Besides that, the mental magic he had gained inspiration for from the Diadem's link module was finally completed. Its function was to remotely connect the mental power of two people, allowing both parties to hear what the other was thinking in their hearts—of course, this link was limited to the surface of their mental power, would not pry into others' thoughts like Legilimency, and required the other party's consent to connect, effectively acting like an in-team voice chat.

However, tests showed that this link was currently only applicable between humans and could not be used on animals, and the effective range was only a few dozen meters. As for non-human intelligent creatures like house-elves or centaurs, Avada had not yet experimented with them.

Finally, the time arrived for the Christmas holidays.