18. Publishing a Book

Fudge represented a large part of the Ministry of Magic's political establishment. As long as he firmly opposed awarding Sherlock the First Class Order of Merlin, any recommendations from others would always be overturned.

Dumbledore had also written to Fudge about the matter. He believed that honors people deserved should not be withheld. Once people had acknowledged someone's greatness, that person's future accomplishments would no longer come as an excessive surprise to them.

What he meant was that even if Sherlock were awarded the First Class Order of Merlin now, the Ministry of Magic would not need to worry about what honor to grant him when he achieved even greater things in the future.

Because all the wizards in the magical world had already come to see Sherlock as no ordinary person, if he went on to accomplish even greater things, people would not think it was such a big deal. After all, Sherlock was not mediocre.

Naturally, Dumbledore's letter to Fudge was, to a great extent, advising him on what he should do. That was simply how Dumbledore was; his reputation in the magical world was already high enough.

So even if he achieved something extraordinary again, no one would be surprised. Instead, they would simply think, well, it was Dumbledore, wasn't it?

Yet when Fudge read the letter alone, with no one else around, Dumbledore's elder-like, lecturing tone enraged him enough to tear the entire letter to pieces.

"Bastard! You like that child so much, do you? Then let's see what you'll do if he chooses not to attend Hogwarts in the future and goes to Durmstrang instead..."

Fudge threw a furious tantrum in his office, while becoming even more determined not to award Sherlock the First Class Order of Merlin.

But clearly, he should never have underestimated Sherlock's talent from the very beginning.

A month later, Sherlock invented another spell: the Delicious Food Spell. Its ability was to transform inanimate matter into delicious food.

For example, a piece of wood as thick as an arm could be turned into a delicious ham with the Delicious Food Spell, while drawing a circle on a tabletop could turn it into something like a fried egg pancake.

At its core, however, the spell was a form of material transmutation, changing one substance into another. The Delicious Food Spell merely fixed the resulting substance to the category of food.

Another trait was that the flavor of whatever one ate would be the flavor imagined by the caster. For instance, a piece of wood could be turned into something that looked like ham, but if the caster imagined the taste of cake—

Then they would be able to enjoy ham that tasted like cake.

There were also prerequisites for casting the Delicious Food Spell: living creatures could not be turned into food, matter had to be provided for transmutation, and food could not simply be conjured from nothing, along with other such requirements.

But for a wizard who happened to get lost in the wilderness and was starving, being able to fill their stomach with a single spell was wonderful, was it not? Even if they were thirsty, they could turn a stone into broth.

And when the Daily Prophet revealed, alongside the spell's publication, that it had been independently invented by Sherlock Mephisto, it immediately caused another uproar throughout the magical world.

After all, the first spell, Scarless Healing, had already shown everyone what a true genius was. The second spell, Whispering Word Spirit, had given many wizards the chance to communicate with their inseparable pets.

As for the third spell, the Spring Life Spell, aside from botanists and potion masters who enjoyed brewing potions, ordinary wizards who did not care for growing flowers and plants had not felt much of an impact.

But the fourth spell was truly down-to-earth.

A single spell could produce a delicious feast. Muggles had fairy-tale authors who often wrote stories about legendary wizards producing a grand meal on the dining table with a wave of their wands.

But even in the magical world, such tales were treated as nothing more than fairy tales.

Wizards did not possess abilities so perfectly suited to fairy tales, nor was magic omnipotent.

Yet a child of only five had turned every impossibility into possibility. It was something even great wizards who had been famous for years could not—or rather, absolutely could not—do!

Less than a month after the Delicious Food Spell, before wizards young and old had even recovered from the shock of a spell that could create delicious food, Sherlock published another newly invented spell in the Daily Prophet: the Memory Projection Spell. This spell could project anything one imagined in one's mind through a wand. Those thoughts could be hidden memories, hopes for the future, or beautiful fantasies.

In short, whenever a wizard willingly wanted others to see everything they imagined, they no longer needed to pull their thoughts out through a wand and use a Pensieve to make it happen.

Although this spell was quite interesting, and useful in certain respects, its impact was nowhere near as great as that of the Delicious Food Spell.

So while the magical world was once again thrown into an uproar, people found it easier to accept this time. At the same time, they began mentally preparing themselves for whatever strange new spell Sherlock might come up with next.

Spells that ordinary, talentless wizards could never invent, and that even talented wizards would be proud to create just one of in their entire lives, were being churned out by that fellow as though he were a spell-printing machine.

This reminded the wizards of the magical world of the legend that Mephisto had invented one-fifth of all Dark spells.

Fortunately, none of the spells Sherlock invented counted as Dark magic. Instead, they were relatively useful forms of white magic.

That put some people in the magical world at ease. They were already terrified that a wizard with such extraordinary talent might follow the evil path of the previous Dark Lord. Especially a young wizard whose talent far surpassed that of earlier generations—if someone like that grew up and chose evil, it was impossible to imagine who could stop him.

And Sherlock's subsequent actions truly lived up to the nickname the wizards of the magical world had given him. He really was like a spell-printing machine.

For the most part, he invented one spell every month afterward.

The Thunderclap Spell could unleash a sound far louder than thunder in an instant. Such a thunderous roar had a powerful deterrent effect on certain evil creatures and ghosts, though it had to be used with care—shattering every window in an entire building would not be good.

The Softening Spell could turn anything, including hard metal, into a soft substance. For example, an iron sheet would become as pliable as paper while retaining its hardness and sharpness.

The Hardening Spell restored any soft object to its original hard state, making it the exact opposite of the previous spell.

The Body-Binding Lock Spell locked every joint in a living creature's body, leaving it unable to move. The entire body became like a lock that could not be opened, unable to act. It differed from the Petrification Spell.

The Air Dance Spell allowed the body to drift gracefully through the air, though it could not move rapidly in midair. Otherwise, it would simply grant the ability to fly.

The Swift Flash Spell increased the body's frequency and speed of movement. The more skilled the practitioner, the faster it could be developed. When used together with the Air Dance Spell, it granted the ability to fly at high altitudes.

However, although it had been confirmed that the Air Dance Spell, Swift Flash Spell, Softening Spell, and Hardening Spell had indeed been invented by Sherlock, they had not been made public in the magical world.

So at present, Sherlock was the only one who knew them.

Later, Sherlock also invented some rather interesting but not particularly practical spells. For example, Dazzling Flash could emit an intense, eye-irritating light; staring directly at it without warning could cause temporary blindness. It was a vastly improved version of the Wand-Lighting Spell.

And there were many other spells like that.

By the time Sherlock spent his seventh Christmas, he had recorded the twenty-four spells he had invented during the two years from age five to seven, aside from those he did not wish to reveal and intended to keep for himself. He wrote down all the remaining spells of lesser significance.

There were fourteen spells in total that could be made public.

With the help of his mother, Aili, Sherlock compiled the methods for using those fourteen spells into a book. The inspiration behind each spell's invention, as well as usage techniques, precautions, amusing anecdotes from using them, and more, were all written into the book and submitted to publishing houses in the magical world.

The moment it was released, wizards throughout the magical world bought it out completely.

Even Fudge had no choice but to swallow his reluctance and, with a fawning eagerness, lead people once again to Mephisto Manor to award Sherlock the First Class Order of Merlin.

From that point on, among all living people, only Dumbledore and Sherlock had received the First Class Order of Merlin. They were the only two living recipients in the current age.