A Prosperous Opening, Wealth Pouring In

"Headmaster, I didn't do it on purpose." Zhang San's attitude in admitting fault was exceptionally good.

Only after recovering from the excruciating pain in his soul did he realize just how grave a sin he had committed. Several hundred people across the school had stayed up all night because of him, listening helplessly to his ghostly wails until dawn.

Dumbledore said calmly, "Siri, I am not blaming you. I called you here only to solve the problem. Hogwarts is responsible for what you have become, and we must bear all the consequences."

"Thank you for understanding, Headmaster..." Zhang San sighed.

If I hadn't been killed the moment I arrived, who would willingly throw away the life and cultivation they had worked so hard for and start over on the path of ghosts? Wasn't I forced into it by this damned reality?

Dumbledore gazed at Zhang San with deep eyes and said quietly, "Silde, I need to understand something. Are these miserable screams an occasional occurrence, or part of your daily cultivation?"

"It's part of the daily routine, sir," Zhang San said awkwardly.

Although increasing the frequency at which he absorbed moonlight could effectively reduce the pain, it still hurt when it was supposed to hurt. The pain simply was not as intense as the first time—so he still had to scream when the time came.

Dumbledore drew a sharp breath. "My child, have you heard of the Shrieking Shack?"

"The haunted house that is said to emit agonized screams on nights with a full moon?" Zhang San asked.

Dumbledore nodded. "It was a safe house I prepared for a special Hogwarts student. Perhaps Hogwarts needs a new 'Shrieking Shack.'"

"But Headmaster, my screams cause disturbances in magical elements. Chaotic magic ignores physical barriers and broadcasts my voice directly into every wizard's ears," Zhang San explained apologetically.

Dumbledore muttered, "No wonder it was so clear... It seems I will need to prepare a special magical barrier for you. As long as the magical isolation is done properly and the elemental disturbances caused by your howling are contained outside the castle, the teachers and students should be able to sleep peacefully."

"Headmaster, can that really be done?" Zhang San asked in surprise.

Dumbledore nodded. "I will invite a magical expert to Hogwarts as a guest and ask him to construct an isolation array."

The old Headmaster had a wide circle of friends and extensive connections in every field. Dumbledore's specialties were Transfiguration and alchemy. He had once served as Hogwarts' Transfiguration professor, discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and achieved remarkable accomplishments in alchemy alongside his partner, Nicolas Flamel.

The friend he invited was none other than the legendary alchemist—Nicolas Flamel. This old wizard, who had lived for more than six hundred years with the help of the Philosopher's Stone, was practically a living encyclopedia of magic.

The wizarding world in Nicolas's youth was still in its classical era. Wizards of that time pursued raw power in their spellcasting, yet their spells were unreliable more often than not. Their magical systems depended heavily on runes and sacrificial rituals.

It was not until the modern magical system was established, greatly lowering the threshold and difficulty of spellcasting, that wizards finally escaped the ridiculous fate of being stabbed to death by Muggle farmers wielding pitchforks.

Thus, it was impossible to find a wizard more proficient in magical arrays and runes than Nicolas Flamel—unless one could find some immortal creature in the dark world that had lived even longer than Nicolas Flamel.

There were also legends at Hogwarts concerning the Ancient Runes professor—Bathsheba Babbling. Rumor had it that she had been a professor at Hogwarts for more than fifty years, yet her appearance had never changed throughout all that time.

Some claimed she had the bloodline of a magical creature, while others simply believed she was a vampire.

But Hogwarts had never given the public a definitive explanation, nor had Professor Babbling ever commented on those rumors. She simply taught her subject with composure, collected her salary in peace, and no one had ever come to Hogwarts to cause trouble over it.

With the old Headmaster's reassurance, Zhang San felt much less pressure about his midnight howling. With old Mr. Nicolas handling it, this little matter should be easy enough.

When Zhang San left the Headmaster's office, he saw many exhausted-looking students heading out of the castle in twos and threes. Their destination was remarkably uniform—Zhang San's underground arcade... uh, temple.

At that moment, Harry and Ron had officially begun their duties as temple attendants in Zhang San's little shrine. Harry was responsible for selling incense and candles at the entrance and handing out game tokens, while Ron was responsible for keeping order in the arcade.

Ron Weasley had displayed an equally extraordinary talent in video games. During the machines' trial run yesterday, Harry had been pummeled into the ground by the red-hot Ron for an entire afternoon.

Why did Harry's eyes immediately light up whenever Zhang San mentioned Malfoy? Because he genuinely could not beat Ron, and the Savior wanted to try fighting a different opponent.

Ron's job in the arcade was to punish skilled players. Whenever he encountered someone who was good enough to keep relentlessly beating up the NPCs without losing, yet hogged the machine without feeding in more tokens, Ron would walk over, insert a token, and enter two-player versus mode.

As long as Ron defeated the other player's character, that person would have to insert another token. That would speed up token consumption, raise the turnover rate, and prevent anyone from playing for ages on a single token.

Because fifth-year students had to take the Ordinary Wizarding Level Examinations, or O.W.L.s, while seventh-years faced the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests, or N.E.W.T.s, the students who came to play were mostly fourth-years and below.

Aside from the two official temple attendants, several Weasley brothers had also come to help maintain order.

Percy Weasley, George Weasley, and Fred Weasley were all central figures in their respective Gryffindor years. With them keeping the place under control, students from the other houses would at least show some respect.

Besides, with such entertaining arcade machines right in front of them, the young wizards would not choose this moment to settle personal grudges. Playing games was the most important thing.

Clatter!

Crash!

Bang!

The arcade was bursting with activity, and the hottest game was still the Street Fighter II that Zhang San had placed such high hopes on. This fast-paced fighting game, where every punch landed with a solid impact, won the unanimous favor of Hogwarts students.

Compared to throwing punches in real life to solve problems, finding an arcade cabinet and fighting it out seemed far more refined.

Since Harry had to sell incense at the entrance, his fated battle with Malfoy had to be postponed. Young Master Malfoy had burned through one Galleon's worth of incense and candles in exchange for one hundred and seventy tokens. This small basin of game tokens would be enough for him to hone his fighting skills.

At this point, Zhang San could not help complaining about the wizarding world's currency exchange rates: one Galleon equaled seventeen Sickles, and one Sickle equaled twenty-nine Knuts.

What financial genius came up with that system? The goblins were plainly taking advantage of wizards being bad at arithmetic to vent their resentment over losing the Goblin Rebellions, weren't they?

"Harry, how much have you sold?" Zhang San asked.

Harry Potter pointed to the coins in the box. "More than a hundred people came. Although most students only bought one stick of incense to test the waters, there should be seven or eight Galleons' worth of money here altogether."

"How's the repeat purchase rate?" Zhang San asked again.

"Not many people have come back yet... Their ten tokens probably haven't run out. But I think they'll be back soon. If they don't use their tokens sparingly, ten of them will last an hour at most," Harry analyzed seriously.

Zhang San was practically grinning from ear to ear. This was incense offering from more than a hundred people! A village-level Earth God shrine might not receive this much incense power in ten days or half a month.

Magnificent! Wonderful!

"Back when my troop was first formed, we had barely a dozen men, seven or eight guns..." Zhang San hummed Shajiabang as he floated into the temple, delighted by the profits.

At this rate, he would soon accumulate enough incense power to fashion himself a physical body. Then he would no longer have to drift around like a ghost. A body molded from incense power would be nearly indistinguishable from that of a living person; ordinary people would hardly be able to tell the difference.

His future was looking brighter than ever.