Snape? I'd Avoid Him?

Before long, Kane arrived outside Hagrid's Hut and pounded on the door.

Creak—the door opened.

"Kane, what is it?" Hagrid asked in delighted surprise when he saw him.

"Hey, Hagrid. Are you free right now?"

"Er, honestly, no. Dumbledore, for some reason, wants me to go to Diagon Alley and buy a huge batch of Mandrake seeds. It was supposed to be Professor Sprout's job, but Professor Sprout's been a bit busy lately, so, er, heh..." Hagrid gave an awkward smile.

Kane nodded. Hagrid was not his personal nanny; of course he had things to do. Besides, Kane did not need Hagrid to protect him. He only needed Hagrid to tell him where those giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest lived.

So, without any unnecessary preamble, Kane got straight to the point. "I heard there's a nest of spiders in the Forbidden Forest. Where is it?"

The instant Kane asked that question, it struck right at Hagrid's heart. Kane's appearance was indeed highly deceptive. With that face, asking that question, he looked exactly like someone going into the Forbidden Forest to make friends with the spiders.

After all these years, someone had finally discovered how adorable they were!

Hagrid briskly returned to his room, found a white ball of spider silk rolled into a bundle, and handed it to Kane.

"This is a token shared by the spiders in the Forbidden Forest. As long as you carry it, they'll even lead you to their nest."

Hagrid only briefly explained how to find the giant spiders and said nothing more. Children did not like being guided or lectured when making friends. Better to let Kane discover the little spiders' adorable qualities for himself.

Meanwhile, Kane had no idea what Hagrid was really thinking. All he knew was that the white ball of spider silk in his hand could lead him to the spiders' nest in the Forbidden Forest.

Hagrid, you really are Hogwarts's greatest authority!

Before long, Hagrid left Hogwarts in high spirits. Kane was willing to befriend the Acromantulas—this was an excellent beginning. As more and more people accepted his little darlings, the Acromantulas would one day live peacefully alongside humans and might even appear in pet shops on Diagon Alley.

By then, Kane had already entered the Forbidden Forest. After wandering around for quite some time, he finally found a small spider. He let it smell the ball of spider silk in his hand, and soon the little spider began leading the way.

What a nice little spider. He would definitely leave it for last and let it keep breeding, with descendants stretching on forever.

However, when Kane followed the little spider to the nest and truly saw Aragog, he realized there was no need to spare that little spider after all. There were so many of these spiders that, barring any accidents, he would not be able to kill them all anytime soon.

After Aragog, suspended at the center of a massive web, made a sound that humans could barely hear, the second-largest spider—apparently the second-in-command of the colony—came scuttling over. Its huge jaws stopped mere centimeters from Kane's face, as if it were inspecting whether this little wizard posed any threat.

When Kane saw a massive spider head suddenly dart toward him, he had just been wondering what method he should use to attack. Now the spider had delivered itself right to him. Wasn't that perfect?

The next moment, his wand appeared in his hand and thrust fiercely into the giant spider's head. With Shadow Erosion, the spider changed almost instantly. Then, a basic Knockback Jinx erupted inside its head.

With a bang, the enormous spider turned directly into a slippery spider gland and two clumps of spider web, which Kane swiftly picked up and stuffed into his pocket.

In that instant, Aragog thought of many things. Finally, his tiny brain realized one thing: the person in front of him was an enemy.

He looked toward the little spider in the corner that had led Kane here. Was it you?

Unfortunately, before he could say those words, the little spider's shadow suddenly twisted into a grotesque giant mouth and bit off its head in one gulp. It dropped two more spider webs and a gland. Worth mentioning was that although this spider was small, it also dropped a piece of monster meat.

With the second spider dead, the other spiders finally came to their senses. The little wizard before them was an enemy, not a friend. In an instant, they all pounced on him.

Kane flicked his wand, summoning a vast swarm of killer bees as though scattering beans to raise an army. They charged at the densely packed spiders in an instant.

Meanwhile, Kane picked up all the scattered spider webs from the ground and stuffed them into his pocket.

"Human, where did you get that ball of spider silk?" Aragog suddenly spoke in human language and asked Kane.

"Whoa, this big guy can talk?" Kane was somewhat surprised, but only somewhat. Though the creature looked terrifying, it was actually so old it was practically falling apart. The odds of it personally managing to ambush and kill him were probably lower than the odds of him being crushed to death by a barrel of tartar sauce falling from the sky.

By the time the limited number of killer bees had been slaughtered to the brink of extinction by the relatively limitless spiders, Kane had already gathered enough spider web. With a flick of his wand, he cast a burst of Shadow Flame that forced most of the spiders back, then left without looking back.

Those who knew understood that Kane had done this to obtain spider web and upgrade Eternal Realm technology. But those who did not... or rather, the spiders, could only feel endless terror and confusion at the sight.

A little wizard had used the token Hagrid gave him to find their home. Upon arriving, he killed their second-in-command without a word, then, as if he had gone mad, used magic and those strange shadows to kill a scattered number of their offspring.

In the end, as though he had killed to his heart's content, he left without saying a word. The way he had entered and exited the spider colony as if it were uninhabited territory did not look like the behavior of a normal person at all.

"Hagrid... was it you who led this lunatic to me?" Aragog finally let out a sigh. Whether it was because his good friend outside the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid, had been deceived by that evil little wizard who played with shadows and turned a butcher's blade upon his offspring, or because...

Had something happened to Hagrid?

In any case, a trace of melancholy could actually be seen on a spider's face. When he next saw Hagrid, he would certainly have plenty to talk about.

As Kane staggered out of the Forbidden Forest, he first returned Hagrid's ball of spider silk to the wooden stump in Hagrid's yard. Now that he knew where the spiders' nest was, he no longer needed it.

After returning to the dormitory, he found that Harry and Ron had already gotten up. Since they were not in the dorm, they had most likely gone off somewhere to find food.

Kane was happy to have some peace and quiet. He plopped down in a corner beside the Alchemy Engine, pulled out fistful after fistful of spider silk, and fiddled with it for a while before making a top hat.

A top hat restored Sanity much faster than a flower garland, and more importantly, it was far less embarrassing to wear. He only needed to...

Kane placed the two top hats on the ground and smashed them hard twice, wrinkling them slightly. Then he violently bent one into a smooth curve, turning it into a cowboy hat, and put it on his head.

Feeling his mind relax, he suddenly even wanted to sleep. Speaking of sleep, he remembered something else. In two seconds, he handcrafted a tent, stuffed his bed inside it, and gained yet another way to restore Sanity.

With the most pressing problem resolved, only one final task remained. To make the Spirit Particle Disintegrator, he still needed four rabbits...

Aragog's spiders were probably still in the Forbidden Forest hunting him down, so... rabbits... He remembered that the Potions classroom had several rabbits used for testing potions...

Emmm...

Would Professor Snape welcome me?

Probably not.

Would I back down and not go?

Absolutely not. Me, avoid his edge?

Thus, just as Harry and Ron had used some shady means to pack up a huge pile of food from the basement and were about to leave, they saw Kane striding aggressively toward the Potions classroom from another direction.

???