Before School Starts, the Book is Already Open

Things from Limbo could actually be brought out!

Ian felt as if he had discovered another incredible secret.

Come to think of it, it made sense.

Since he could bring candies, Chocolate Frogs, and the like into Limbo, it shouldn't be all that surprising that he could bring things out of it as well.

"Truly a fantastical world."

Looking at the scrap of formal wear in his hand, Ian couldn't help but sigh in wonder.

It was called a world of idealism for a reason.

There were too many mysteries in this world that had yet to be uncovered.

If Ian hadn't been lucky enough to acquire such a talent, who knew how many more years it would have taken for the living in the current world to even touch upon matters related to Limbo.

The living were forbidden from entering.

Only the dead could pass through.

He reckoned that even if Ian were to tell other wizards or scholars who studied Limbo about his various discoveries, they certainly wouldn't have the ability to verify them.

For most wizards, everything within Limbo was an adventure that could only be experienced after death.

Precisely because of this, even the greatest wizards in the world knew very little about Limbo.

As a territory that only ghosts could tread, the fact that Ian could actually bring back clothing from a ghost forced him to re-examine his perspective on Limbo.

It isn't just a simple netherworld of pure spirits, then...

Logically speaking, ghosts were merely a form of energy.

Yet, the scrap of formal wear in his hand had a touch that was as real as could be. The line between the illusory and the real had clearly become blurred. Ian could only rely on his own recollections to speculate—perhaps such gifts to the "current world" weren't things that could be done on a whim?

He had noticed that Mara had specifically torn a piece from her own dress. Given her abilities, she could surely have conjured something that looked like parchment out of thin air using anything nearby.

However, she had chosen to tear her own beautiful, proper dress... Did this imply that only by such means could Ian bring it back from Limbo to the current world?

Very likely!

Ian looked at his other hand. Before his figure had vanished from Limbo, he had clearly been holding the wand that Mara had transformed from a metal picture frame.

However, that wand had not been brought out with him. It was just like the experiments Ian had conducted with the flowers and plants of Limbo when he first acquired this talent.

Originally, Ian had assumed that since they were things from the world of the dead, it was normal that flowers and such couldn't be brought back to the living world. He had always felt that Limbo might be a world composed purely of "energy."

But now, that understanding had been refuted. The scrap of fabric in his hand, which even felt as if it still held a trace of warmth, forced Ian to reconsider his view of Limbo.

Even if bringing items out of Limbo required meeting certain conditions or rules, it ultimately proved that the boundary between life and death was not impenetrable. If the clothing of the dead could cross this boundary, did it also mean that... the dead themselves could return to the world of the living?

Hiss—that is truly a bold thought!

The more Ian thought about it, the more his heart raced.

This was absolutely a topic fraught with taboos.

However, if there really were a way to bring the dead back to the mortal realm, then, setting aside ethics, morality, and other messy factors, this would definitely be an achievement worthy of recording his name in the history books!

Perhaps his glorious deeds would even be recorded on a Chocolate Frog collector's card!

Fame and fortune are secondary; if I could find Lily Potter's soul and bring her back to this world, wouldn't Harry Potter give me all the Galleons in his vault?

And if Lily Potter were to cheer him on a bit, why bother watching the traditional Harry Potter leveling up and fighting monsters? We could skip straight to Snape going berserk and smashing Voldemort's head in!

Such thoughts were perhaps nothing more than the wild, childish imaginings of Ian's mind.

However, who could say for sure?

This world had a rule that love was the most powerful magic... and wasn't the love of a devoted "simp," pushed to the absolute extreme, also a form of love?

There's potential here! There's definitely potential!

The more Ian thought about it, the more he felt this was a direction worth investing his energy into researching.

Perhaps.

The next time he entered Limbo.

He could ask Mara, who clearly possessed a wealth of profound knowledge, about these matters—though this witch in the castle certainly didn't seem like a good person, she was, after all, truly teaching Ian the knowledge of magic. Regardless of her motives, Ian had already become her apprentice.

Whether such a teacher-student relationship would be good or bad in the future.

No one could know.

At least for now, having a teacher to clear up his confusion and pass on her craft could certainly not be considered a bad thing for Ian.

"I wonder if the mirror Teacher Mara wants is the Mirror of Erised in the school." Ian had not forgotten the request the witch made of him when they first met. Although she had accepted him as an apprentice even without him obtaining the mirror, he could tell that the witch was still very concerned about that mirror.

To take.

Naturally, one should also give back.

This was Ian's principle for conducting himself in the world.

No one owed him anything by birth, nor was anyone required to pay for him unconditionally... Even the pouch of Galleons left behind by Snape, and the Galleons spent on purchasing books and necessities, were things Ian felt he had only borrowed from Snape; he neither liked nor enjoyed the feeling of taking advantage of anyone.

"Perhaps if I find the mirror and bring it to Teacher Mara, she might be so pleased that she'll teach me the other two Unforgivable Curses as well."

He had already learned the Killing Curse, anyway.

Azkaban was already on his itinerary.

Ian felt that not completing the whole set would truly be a loss.

It was just like playing Genshin Impact.

One always wanted to collect all the character cards.

The reason Chocolate Frogs sold so well was just like the collectible card marketing in Ian's memories; they all exploited more or less the same obsessive-compulsive psychology.

"This homework assignment shouldn't be some kind of Dark Magic, right?" Having sorted through his speculations regarding Limbo, Ian finally turned his gaze back to the fragment of the dress.

The moonlight outside the window was bright.

Yet it could not illuminate the dim characters on the dress fragment.

"Lumos!"

Ian drew his Elder Wand. While successfully casting the spell to illuminate his surroundings, he also gained three points of proficiency in [Lumos].

"Time to learn new magic!"

Ian excitedly brought the light source closer to the dress fragment.

The next moment.

He was dumbfounded.

He saw that the characters inscribed on the dress fragment by some unknown means were crooked, twisted, and bizarre, piecing together a text he couldn't understand in the slightest.

"Ancient Runes?"

Ian felt something was off.

He felt as if he had seen an introduction to this kind of script somewhere before.

"Textbooks!"

Ian's heart stirred.

He sprang up from his bed in one motion and rushed to the place where he kept his various textbooks and sundries, pulling one of his textbooks from the pile.

Magical Theory, by Adalbert Waffling.

Flipping through the pages based on his memory, Ian quickly stopped at the introduction to the origins of magic, where he discovered what he was looking for in the section regarding Ancient Runes.

The same crooked, twisted, and bizarre characters.

"These are Ancient Runes!"

Looking at the textbook, which only provided a brief and vague introduction to the relevant knowledge since it was only a first-year book, Ian finally understood what the witch meant by homework.

It wasn't just about simply learning magic.

It was also about learning the Ancient Runes used to record this new magic.

Yes.

The magic recorded by the runes might only be secondary.

These twisted runes were the real homework!