Congratulations on Early Enrollment

[Brain Storage]

In 1990, by the side of a small river.

A crude wooden puppet crouched shakily on the ground, roasting a wild rabbit over blue flames.

Not far away lay a long-haired little boy... or perhaps a little girl, it was hard to tell.

The child pointed at the half-cooked rabbit and said, "Why are you up so early? Forget it, consider yourself lucky to have run into me."

"I'm a kind-hearted person who can't bear to see small animals suffer. Now you don't have to chew on flavorless weeds anymore."

Unfortunately, the wooden puppet clearly lacked intelligence, otherwise it would have surely hit this shameless fellow with a brick.

The child, stung by the spicy roasted meat, picked up a bowl of water and closed his eyes in pain as he looked at his reflection.

The child had been transmigrated into this world for a full ten years now.

The good news was that he also had the standard system for transmigrators.

The bad news was that his system only had two functions.

The check-in and lottery function, though unfortunately, his system only gave him junk during check-ins, things like tables, chairs, benches, pots, and pans.

One function provided junk, and the other stored it; over these ten-plus years, he had managed to save up enough to open a large grocery store.

His thoughts drifted back to that unremarkable afternoon when he held a celestial-looking pill, so excited he almost wanted to worship the system as his godfather.

Glancing at the "Strength Pill" written on the wooden packaging box, the child roared, "Swallowing a golden elixir into my belly! My fate is determined by me, not by heaven!"

Then the accident happened. Looking in the mirror, he felt that if his system could display tags, the "handsome and dashing" tag should have had a "sweet and lovely" one added after it.

Seeing the fine print on the wooden box stating that the Beauty Pill had the side effect of increasing strength, the child felt the sky collapsing.

Thinking of this, he still felt a lingering fear as he checked his pants to confirm that his 460mm caliber naval gun was still there, and only then did he let out a long sigh of relief.

"System, check in!"

"Check-in successful. Congratulations on obtaining a bottle of Leibi."

The youth rolled his eyes; he had long since become accustomed to such strange pirated goods.

He drained the Leibi in a few gulps, waved his hand to summon a cluster of blue flames, and the high temperature scorched the grass where the flames touched into a piece of glass.

He flicked his hand and tossed the empty bottle into the fire; the extreme heat left not even ash behind.

The child nodded with satisfaction. The system still cared about him, at least it gave him the talent to conjure fire at will.

The system had also given him a book about souls, and he had even innovated to develop the wooden puppet.

Thinking that he had mastered three skills at such a young age, the child sighed, "This must be what it means to be a young prodigy."

After a burp, the child patted his half-full stomach and said, "Let's go, puppet. Let's go home and make some fries."

The two of them turned and left, with no intention of cleaning up the bones scattered all over the ground.

They hadn't gone far before they saw a small two-story house in the forest.

In front of the house, an old man with a white beard was peering into the room.

The youth: I must have woken up too fast! Are thieves these days cosplaying as Gandalf to scout locations?

Dumbledore was even more confused. Yesterday, when he was bored, he flipped through the Book of Admittance to see which little wizards would be enrolling next year, and immediately after, he saw a name that surprised him: Orion Black.

One of the Black family's descendants was a missing Death Eater, and another was currently doing time in Azkaban.

Dumbledore had wondered if it was a Muggle-born little wizard.

But it was unlikely to be Muggle-born; the name sounded too much like the Black family, so he decided to come and see for himself.

Looking at this wild-looking child with long black hair and gray-blue eyes, who looked three or four parts like Sirius Black and wore somewhat tattered clothes, he said uncertainly.

"Little girl, do you know a child named Orion Black who lives around here?"

The youth pointed at his own face, "If nothing goes wrong, old man, I'm the one you're looking for."

Dumbledore: !!!

Orion Black? He knew this person all too well. At the very beginning, he didn't even have a dog; when he opened his eyes, he was in an orphanage with only a slip of paper with his name on it.

Looking at the crooked-nosed old man in front of him, a flash of astonishment crossed his face. Orion sighed incessantly in his heart, Why didn't I take a closer look at the manual back then?

"Ahem, hello there, Orion. I am Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

It was Orion's turn to be astonished. Holy crap! Isn't Dumbledore a protagonist in Harry Potter?

Before transmigrating, he had scrolled through quite a few short videos related to Harry Potter.

Dumbledore prepared to go through the motions and show off a bit. With a wave of his wand, a small stone on the ground turned into a white mouse, which kept circling around Orion.

Orion, who had just regained his senses, looked at the unknown white creature scurrying around him and was so frightened that he immediately conjured a cluster of Fiendfyre, burning the mouse and the surrounding ground into glass.

The astonishment did not disappear; it merely transferred to Dumbledore's face.

"Child, where did you learn that?"

"Oh, it's innate."

Orion spouted nonsense with a straight face. If he didn't say it was innate, was he supposed to say it was drawn from a system?

Dumbledore!!! This is no ordinary young wizard; he must be subjected to Legilimency!

Dumbledore, having closed his Legilimency, felt a bit dazed. He could only see a calm devoid of any distracting thoughts within the boy's mind. Had he been blocked?

Oren opened the bedroom door and said, "Please come in, Headmaster Dumbledore."

The room was very clean. The surrounding walls were covered in orange-yellow wallpaper, though the furniture inside appeared somewhat old.

The two sat opposite each other on the sofa. Dumbledore suppressed the astonishment in his heart and pulled a book from under the coffee table. On its blue cover was a drawing of an incense burner and a pile of incomprehensible foreign characters.

"So, you are a child who loves to read."

Oren nodded in agreement. The system had certainly provided no shortage of books over these many years.

Dumbledore casually pulled out another book... a notebook faintly emitting black mist.

Something was wrong! It was very, or perhaps even extremely, wrong! Dumbledore raised an eyebrow and began to flip through the notes.

Dumbledore closed the book and asked sternly.

"Child, do you know what Dark Magic is?"

Oren replied, "Huh??? What kind of thing is that? Is it edible?"

Dumbledore...

"Then where did this notebook come from? Have you read it?"

"I picked it up."

As soon as Oren finished speaking, he pointed out the window. Dumbledore looked over to see a wooden figure stumbling toward them from not far away.

"That is a wooden figure I improved and developed according to the contents of that notebook."

Dumbledore's vision went dark. The notebook taught how to extract souls, and this wooden figure had been infused with one!

Watching the old man who looked as if he were about to faint, Oren said, "I used quite a few rabbit souls."

Knowing that rabbit souls were used, Dumbledore finally managed to catch his breath.

"Child, this is a very evil form of Dark Magic. It cannot be..."

Looking at Oren's clear and foolish eyes, Dumbledore stopped his sermon.

"Child, where are your guardians? I need to speak with them."

Oren pointed to a photo on the wall and said, "I'm an orphan. Grandma Omi adopted me. She passed away three years ago."

Blue Fiendfyre, an orphan, deep research into souls—Dumbledore let out a sharp, internal shriek.

The young wizard before him was not old, yet he already knew two powerful pieces of Dark Magic. With that opening move of Fiendfyre, in just a few years he would be a junior Grindelwald, capable of burning a city to the ground in minutes.

This child must not be left to grow wild in the Muggle world; he had to be taken back to Hogwarts for proper education.

"This wooden figure and the notebook are too dangerous, so I will confiscate them for now."

Oren waved his hand to show he didn't mind. He had long since memorized the notebook, and he could make the wooden figure at any time.

Dumbledore sighed incessantly in his heart. The second Dark Lord, Voldemort, was suspected to not be fully dead yet, so how had a good seedling for a third Dark Lord appeared? His life had been like walking on thin ice; could he still make it to the other side?

Dumbledore looked at the photo of the old woman on the wall.

"She looks like a stern old lady."

"Grandma Omi only looked stern; she was actually very gentle."

"Child, you must have had a very hard time in the years since your Grandma Omi passed away, right?"

Oren complained internally: You bet I did. If not for the relief supplies the system occasionally provided, he would have become a transmigrator who starved to death.

Oren bluffed, "She left behind an inheritance. Originally, they wanted to send me back to the orphanage, but I snuck back out."

"Oh, so you are living by yourself now?"

Something's not right! Headmaster Dumbledore, your ulterior motive is showing!

"Sigh~ I cannot watch a young wizard live all alone with no one to rely on. I have decided to take you back to Hogwarts early."

Dumbledore stood up and, from somewhere, produced a pointed wizard's hat and plopped it onto Oren's head.

This hat looked like it was worth 3,600 bucks.

"Go and pack your luggage, Oren."

Watching the man who had been a kind old grandfather just a moment ago transform into a weird old man in a hurry to kidnap a child back to school, Oren decided to struggle a bit.

"Um... Headmaster, do you think I should just wait for the normal enrollment?"

"It's fine, child. You are only half a year away from enrollment anyway. Consider this early arrival as pre-school education."

Oren...

Helpless, Oren could only pack his luggage. In truth, there wasn't much to pack; after all, he had a grocery store system and lacked nothing.

In the bathroom, Oren faced the mirror and imitated the ancients, tying up his long hair.

He combed his hair into the style of an adult. Looking at himself in the mirror, he couldn't call himself handsome and dashing, but he could at least call himself sweet and lovely.

"If it grows longer, what if I defy the heavens and change my fate in a few years, turning back into a tough guy?"

A ten-year-old little bean, his back as he left the bathroom was so desolate and bleak.

When he returned to the living room, Headmaster Dumbledore now had a suitcase in his hand. With a wave of his wand, Oren's luggage flew into the case on its own.

"Let's go, child. We still need to make a trip to Diagon Alley to purchase your school supplies in advance."

Dumbledore grabbed Oren, and with a pop, they vanished from the spot.