At the Dursleys', You're a "Loli"!

4 Privet Drive.

"Ha! With the little demon gone, I'm the biggest one in the house!"

Vernon felt as if he'd been set free. He specially contacted a restaurant in London to order a feast, paid a hefty delivery fee, and had them send it all the way to Surrey.

"Dudley, stop training. You'll never see Tom again."

Vernon looked at his son doing push-ups in the hall and urged him with a pained heart.

Ever since Tom's personality had changed, his once round and adorable son had been wasting away day by day, now as thin as a bamboo pole, ready to blow away in a gust of wind.

Damn Tom Riddle!

"No, Tom's just gone to school, not to the afterlife. We'll meet again. When he comes back, I want to see his back for sure." Dudley shook his head in refusal.

He'd felt his stamina improving lately, so he'd added a hefty chunk to his training.

Watching the big guy effortlessly knock out "a hundred push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, a hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run" every day, with the volume only increasing, he was genuinely envious.

Ding-dong!!

The doorbell rang.

Vernon thought the feast had arrived and hurried to the door to greet it, only to find a terrifying demon and his lackey.

Vernon stumbled backward. "Aren't you supposed to be at Hogwarts?"

"I went to school, not the afterlife. How can I not come back?" Tom was speechless.

"Then when are you leaving?"

"..." Tom was speechless again. Was that even human speech?

Just because he'd taken a few punches from him? The head of Grunnings, and he'd lost even the basic art of language.

"Move yourself?"

"OK, I'll move right away."

Meeting Tom's gaze, Vernon's bulky frame retreated a few steps, reluctantly clearing the doorway he'd been blocking.

Nothing to be done—in the Dursley house, he was the "weakling."

Ignoring Vernon, Tom greeted Dudley in the living room in passing, then he and Harry each dragged their large bags straight back to their own rooms.

With a thought, he called up the panel.

Staring at the 10 achievement points, Tom felt a mix of nervousness and anticipation. He really wanted to know what he'd pull this time. The two personas he'd drawn before were both very useful.

[Sturdy] had given him a strong physique, and the other, [Domineering], was...

[Domineering (Lv.1): Fierce and overbearing, terrifying to behold. Those who oppose you will feel fear and lose the will to resist.]

With the [Domineering] persona, basically anyone who'd tasted his fist once wouldn't come looking for trouble again.

This effect was especially useful in a place like Britain, where campus bullying was everywhere. It had solved a lot of his problems and let him get through school life more easily.

"I wonder what I'll get on the third try?"

With a thought, the 10 achievement points vanished instantly, and a brand-new trait shifted from transparent to solid, slowly floating up on the panel.

[Laziness (Lv.1): The pinnacle of sloth. Higher rest efficiency. You only need 4 hours to satisfy what others need 8 hours of sleep for.]

"An excellent ability!" Tom was thrilled.

One of the biggest problems Tom found most troublesome was his weak body.

He had a lot he wanted to do, but because he was too young and his body wasn't fully developed, he needed more rest than an adult, or it would affect his physical strength when he grew up.

But with [Laziness], he could save himself more time, cutting his rest time in half.

If he could find a way to push the [Laziness] persona to its peak, maybe one minute could satisfy a whole day's rest.

With the persona lottery done, next up was...

Learning spells.

His previous use of magic had basically been limited to telekinesis. Sure, magic was omnipotent, and Harry had once used accidental magic to Apparate and grow hair, but those were accidents, uncontrollable.

To trigger magic reliably, he had to stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

"reh-PAH-roh!"

Tom followed the book, snapped a pencil in two, and pointed his wand at it, making a clockwise circle.

Reparo, the most common repair spell for wizards. It could fix ordinary Muggle items with minor damage; magical item repairs depended on the situation.

Silence—

Nothing happened.

The pencil didn't budge.

Just as he thought.

Even with the textbook, he'd never had any systematic training. For example, the size of the wand's rotation, or the speed and force needed during the rotation—he had no reference at all.

He could only rely on testing over and over again by himself.

Even if he now possessed talent on the level of the Dark Lord, learning even a simple spell without a teacher guiding him was still somewhat difficult.

The reason Hermione could master a series of simple spells before starting school was probably because she had done countless research and practice alone at home.

Seems like the same type of grindset king.

Shaking his head... Next, Tom continued twirling his wand, casting Reparo dozens more times on the broken pencil, but unfortunately, every single attempt failed without exception.

The wand didn't even emit the faintest glow.

"Let me check the contents of other spells." Tom chose to give up bashing his head against this wall; he had his own way of learning.

Magic was a very subjective thing, so he needed a flash of inspiration.

By trying out a few other spells, perhaps one of them would have casting conditions that matched his usual habits, allowing him to succeed.

If he could cast just one spell, he could then draw analogies and gradually master the others.

Floating Charm, Alohomora, Lumos...

Tom tried casting all the first-year spells, but none succeeded. However, when he tested a second-year spell...

"dih-FIN-doh!"

Diffindo, an attack-type spell that could cut objects apart, strictly forbidden for use on people.

Just as he swung his wand down—

Snap!

Half of the pencil on the table suddenly shattered into even smaller fragments.

Casting successful!

"Awesome! Finally used my first real spell in life!" Tom felt an immediate surge of surprise and joy.

The magnificent and fantastical world of magic had just cracked open a door for him.

"dih-FIN-doh!"

He swung his wand again immediately, but this time, nothing happened.

Tom tried to recall the feeling of his first successful cast—as if he were cutting something with the wand, a swift slash, a decisive, sharp tone, imagining the pencil being split apart in his mind.

Snap!

The other half of the pencil instantly broke into even finer pieces.

At last, he had grasped the casting conditions for "Diffindo." Next came repeated practice.

A powerful wizard could silently cut any object with just a finger, without speaking.

Once he practiced "Diffindo" to that level, he might find it easier to learn other spells.

Aiming at the pencil's remains...

"dih-FIN-doh!"

"dih-FIN-doh!"

"dih...

Meanwhile.

Far away at Hogwarts.

The door to the headmaster's office opened from the outside, and an oily-haired middle-aged man walked in.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, you called for me?"

Severus Snape entered and closed the door behind him.

"Yes. Although I think it's unnecessary, it's still very necessary. For that reason, I plan to give you an early warning before September first arrives."

Dumbledore's fingers rubbed together as he pondered his wording.

"?" Snape was utterly baffled.

What was this old codger going on about?