Mechanical Transfiguration Pocket Watch, A Young Man Comes to the Dueling World

"Happy, I'm so happy!"

At the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Lucien swung a metal grappling hook. With a flick of his arm, the claw shot toward a thick branch. Gears turned, the cable retracted, and his body sprang swiftly into the air.

Midair, he released the hook again and flung it toward another branch, shuttling back and forth between the trees.

Cosplaying as Spider-Man in the Forbidden Forest.

Lucien was as delighted as a child who had just gotten a new toy.

Landing steadily on the ground, Lucien put away the grappling hook, and a faint light flashed.

The grappling hook in his hand returned to the shape of a brass-colored pocket watch.

With a snap.

He flipped open the pocket watch's cover, and Lucien looked at the dial.

The dial was evenly divided into twelve sections, with no markings or numbers.

Different patterns were engraved on the sections. One held a longsword, another held a shield, another held a grappling hook, while some sections were still completely blank...

Unlike an ordinary pocket watch with an hour hand, minute hand, and second hand, this pocket watch had only a single lonely hand, now stopped between the two sections at the very top.

This was the Mechanical Transfiguration Pocket Watch.

Lucien could engrave Transfiguration onto it, twelve kinds in total.

And these transformations were not unchangeable once engraved. If he wanted to replace them, he could do so at any time.

According to the description, these transformations were semi-permanent fixed transformations. As long as Lucien replenished it with magic intermittently, the recorded transformation effects would continue to exist.

Click—

Lucien pressed the button on the side of the pocket watch, and as he infused it with magic, he thought of the object in one of the sections.

Almost instantly, the pocket watch turned into a brass-colored shield with rotating gears, large enough to protect his entire body.

Mm, it transformed very quickly, and all he needed to do was infuse magic and imagine the engraved object.

It was much more convenient than using a wand to cast Transfiguration.

And speaking of wands.

Lucien held the shield in his left hand, drew his wand with his right, and lightly tapped it toward a stone.

"Confringo!"

The stone was instantly blown apart, fragments scattering everywhere.

The roar of the explosion also startled birds and beasts in the Forbidden Forest into shrieking.

That was right. When using the Transfiguration pocket watch, it did not affect his ability to cast spells with his wand at all.

In fact, items like shields could even conceal his figure and block some low-powered spells, or spells that had to be defended against with a physical object.

Exactly! This was how wizards should fight!

Why leave one hand empty all the time?

Eh, now that he thought about it, wasn't this exactly how Gryffindor fought back then?

Lucien remembered a book he had read that introduced the deeds of Hogwarts' four great founders.

When it introduced Godric Gryffindor in particular, it especially emphasized that he was a legendary dueling master.

Not only had his magical accomplishments been extremely high, his swordsmanship had also reached a supernatural level.

According to legend, what Gryffindor was best at was holding a sword in one hand and a wand in the other, using magic to clash and interfere from a distance, then closing in and chopping the opponent to death with one strike.

Lucien thought about it, and it made sense. Gryffindor's relic was a great big sword. That thing couldn't have just been placed there like a ceremonial object to look pretty.

Harry had used it to stab the Basilisk to death, and Neville had used it to cut off the head of the great snake Nagini.

Whoa. Looking at it that way, producing sword saints really was an ancestral virtue of Gryffindor.

Lucien turned the shield back into a pocket watch, then pressed the button again, transforming it into a metal longsword that gleamed with a sharp, cold light.

Mm, every time he switched forms, he had to turn it back into a pocket watch first. That was a small drawback.

Fortunately, the transformation speed was very fast. He only needed to grasp the right timing for switching.

With a casual motion, he flourished the sword beautifully, the blade slicing through the air.

Aunt Penelope had hired a private tutor to teach Lucien swordsmanship, so he was no stranger to using a sword.

Although the longsword felt very smooth in his hand, Lucien still frowned.

There were still limitations. In wizard battles, close combat was not all that common. It would be better to have something with a longer range...

If those pure-blood wizards were considering this problem, they might think of crossbows.

But Lucien was Muggle-born, and even more than that, he had transmigrated here, so...

Turning the longsword back into a pocket watch, Lucien flipped open the cover and pointed his wand at the watch while constructing an image in his mind:

Grip, firing pin, rifling, cylinder...

Once the pattern on the square had grown complete and clear, Lucien smiled and pressed the button.

The pocket watch in his hand vanished, replaced by a brass-colored revolver with hard, sleek lines!

Lucien waved his wand, transfigured a small stone into a bullet, and loaded it into the cylinder.

He aimed at a tree trunk.

"Bang!"

Lucien glanced at the scorched bullet hole in the trunk, thoughtful.

It had the power of a normal handgun, but it still wasn't enough.

In a wizard's battle, who didn't layer themselves with several Protegos and Impedimentas? Otherwise, they'd be too embarrassed to say they knew magic.

So the killing power of plain bullets was very limited.

Still, Lucien felt he could try refining some special bullets, using his knowledge of alchemy to make bullets with magical effects.

Of course, Lucien knew very well that the thing with the higher ceiling was still magic, with all its infinite mysteries.

He didn't expect to blow apart the head of someone as powerful as Voldemort with a little pistol, but as long as it could distract the opponent even slightly in battle, then the scales of victory would slowly begin to tilt.

Lucien looked down at his hands, very satisfied.

A wand in one hand, a gun in the other!

A Young Man Comes to the Dueling World

After putting away the pocket watch, Lucien returned to Hagrid's hut.

He played with the dog for a while, then hoisted his little hoe and walked into the vegetable garden beside it.

Passing through the huge pumpkins and juicy tomatoes Hagrid had planted himself, Lucien arrived at the corner of the garden.

Two rows of emerald-green sprouts swayed slightly, as if welcoming his arrival.

Lucien had buried a total of thirty Chinese Biting Cabbage seeds.

Although the loan only required him to plant ten, this was still his first time growing magical plants, so to be safe, he had planted a few extra.

Besides, Lucien wasn't short on Potions. Refining magical fertilizer, pesticides, and the like was very convenient, and with the system's daily loans of finished potions included, his output was quite large.

In any case, although the extra Chinese Biting Cabbages couldn't be eaten, they could still be disguised as hidden weapons.

Lucien crouched down and began observing the seedlings.

A small slit had already appeared at the tip of each sprout, like a little mouth, but sharp teeth had not yet grown out.

Lucien reached out and scratched a sprout. The little slit actually widened, as if it were laughing from being tickled.

He watered them with fertilizer, then sprayed herbicide and pesticide.

Lucien then swung his hoe and turned over another patch of soil nearby, preparing to plant some other crops or magical plants.

He didn't know whether the Eastern soul in his body had awakened, or whether the title "Diligent Little Gardener" was taking effect, but these days he really loved planting things.

He looked up at the round, bright moon.

Lucien chuckled softly.

Returning by moonlight, hoe over my shoulder.