Infiltrating the Office

Just as Professor Baker said, the Disillusionment Charm itself is not difficult to cast.

Baron was the first to successfully cast his first Disillusionment Charm after half an hour, turning himself into a messy pile of color blocks; then Avada, who had been eagerly observing the magic structure of the charm, immediately caught up. After successfully casting it, his skill improved rapidly, and he soon managed to achieve a preliminary blend with the environment.

However, Baron was already unfazed—after these few days of training, he had grown accustomed to Avada's "slow-start, fast-acceleration" learning pattern.

Then, under Professor Baker's further guidance and Avada's real-time corrections via Magic Sense, Baron's proficiency with the Disillusionment Charm also began to improve rapidly, reaching Professor Baker's standards in just a moment.

This had been the pattern they maintained since they began training: Baron was responsible for learning it first and demonstrating it to Avada, then Avada would quickly increase the skill's proficiency and feed the results back to Baron... This method, akin to stepping on one's own left foot to reach the sky, increased their progress speed significantly, and the close cooperation between the two even drew admiration from Professor Baker.

However, as Professor Baker also said, mastering the Disillusionment Charm was only the beginning.

After Baron's Disillusionment Charm passed, they began to learn the supporting techniques: silent walking, erasing footprints, masking scents, utilizing obstacles, and breaking line-of-sight, among a series of tactical movements. If it weren't for the fact that Avada and Baron were only first-years, Professor Baker would likely have taught them the Silencing Charm as well.

Learning magic can be cheated with Magic Sense, but there are no shortcuts for physical training, especially for Avada, who didn't have much athletic talent—over the next few days, even though Professor Baker had slowed down his teaching pace to accommodate Avada, he still felt immense pressure.

But when his learning results were truly put into practice, Avada felt that the previous pressure was nothing.

When Professor Baker had told them to master the Disillusionment Charm, he once said, "It will come in very handy during the process of acquiring magic materials." At the time, the naive Avada didn't know what this meant, but now the answer was finally revealed...

[Someone's coming, use the Disillusionment Charm, quick!]

[Received, already hidden.]

"Yo, K? You're here too?"

"Cedric? Are you here to see Professor Baker?"

"Oh, right, there's a point in the textbook I don't quite understand... Did you just finish seeing him?"

"I wish, but he's not in his office right now, so I'm waiting for him here. By the way, what's the point you don't understand? I've basically self-studied the second-year Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, maybe I can help you?"

"Uh... thanks for the offer, let me show you, let's discuss it together."

"Hmm, doesn't seem difficult, it should be this..."

[K, the protective magic is cracked, we can go in.]

"Well, I guess I don't understand it either. Sorry, I was a bit arrogant, wasted your time..."

"Don't worry about it, it's already amazing that you can self-study second-year material. I'll go check the library, see you tonight."

"Alright, see you tonight..."

After confirming that the intruder Cedric had completely left, Avada immediately cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, hugged the wall, and silently and quickly rounded a corner, arriving in front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts office door. At this moment, the door that should have been tightly shut was open a crack, and there was a slightly unnatural patch of color next to it.

That's right, Avada and Baron were breaking into the Defense Against the Dark Arts office.

It was now mid-February. As time progressed, the setup for the Consciousness Extraction Magic had finally reached its final step. But here, the two discovered a problem: it was almost impossible to complete this step using only spells; they had to rely on specific magic materials to assist in the "formation."

Those materials were either dangerous prohibited items or so rare that the price alone made even Baron pause. When they asked Professor Baker what to do next, he was well-prepared, stating that some of these materials could be found in the Forbidden Forest, while others were kept in his office...

Thus, with the help of the "Forbidden Forest Creature and Herb Distribution Map" and the "Defense Office Exploration Guide" provided by Professor Baker, the two first snuck into the Forbidden Forest. After collecting quite a few herbs, they worked together to take down a small Acromantula to collect its venom. An accident occurred along the way—their location happened to be right on the patrol route of the gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid.

At that time, Avada made a sacrifice; he dispelled his Disillusionment Charm and pretended to be a first-year student who had wandered into the Forbidden Forest alone out of curiosity about magical creatures, getting caught on the spot by Hagrid to cover Baron's actions.

Fortunately, thanks to his fairly rich knowledge of magical creatures and decent communication skills, he ended up having a great chat with Hagrid. After talking for half an hour about the habits of a Hippogriff, Hagrid didn't report his behavior to Sprout, only giving him a verbal warning and telling him not to violate school rules by exploring the Forbidden Forest again.

Then, it was the turn of the Defense Against the Dark Arts office.

However, sneaking into the office was actually safer than going to the Forbidden Forest. After all, it was a place Professor Baker had set up himself, and the information provided was the most detailed and thorough. Moreover, the fake Baker's habits were consistent with Professor Baker's, so he knew exactly when he would leave the office, how long he would be gone, and whether he would notice signs of an intrusion upon returning.

The only problem was that cracking the protection and alarms at the door took time, and other students would inevitably pass by during that period, so one person needed to stand guard outside and communicate with the other via Mental Link at all times, which led to the scene just now.

Since Hufflepuff generally had better social connections than Slytherin, even though Avada, with his Magic Sense, could crack the protection faster, he still chose to stand guard, leaving the cracking task to Baron.

After the protection was completely cracked by Baron, the two carefully widened the door crack, squeezed inside, and after closing the door silently, they immediately began searching according to the given locations.

[Part of the materials are scraps from making crystal balls. The location of these materials belongs to the shielded part; even the fake Baker doesn't know...]

After Avada treated the soles of his shoes with magic, he squatted on the ground, counted the floorboards, and tapped a few times in a specific rhythm with his wand. The floorboard lifted on its own, revealing the bottles and jars in the hidden compartment below: [We can take all of these without worry.]

As he spoke, he took off his wizard robe to use as a bundle and packed the hidden materials—later, he just needed to cast a Disillusionment Charm on the robe itself, and it would be fine.

[But the other part is hidden in a normal storage cabinet. Taking them rashly will leave traces... Do you have the fake materials for replacement?]

[Of course.]

While he was acting, Baron also put on protective gloves, precisely pulled out drawers one by one to take out the useful materials, and stuffed the fake materials to the very bottom so they wouldn't be easily noticed as missing: [How much time has passed?]

[Twelve minutes until the earliest expected return time of the fake Baker.]

Avada checked his Muggle watch and messaged through the Mental Link: [But we need to leave a buffer for accidents, and erasing traces takes time, so we need to hurry.]

[Understood.]

Baron accelerated his searching speed, while Avada checked off the list to ensure all required materials were present. A few minutes later, they finally completed the collection task.

Afterward, having meticulously erased every trace of their intrusion and confirmed through Magic Sense that there was no one outside the door, Avada was the first to cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and the large bundle in his hand. He then opened the door and slipped out, with Baron following closely behind.

The cracking of the door's protection was a technical disassembly rather than a violent destruction, so there was no need to worry about the protective magic revealing that someone had been there.