Room of Requirement

After leaving the headmaster's office, Ian realized that all of the day's classes had already ended.

Walking along the corridor, he did not return to his dormitory immediately. Instead, he looked up at the familiar stone wall—the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts.

That mysterious room would always appear when you needed it most.

He murmured inwardly, "I need a research room."

After pacing back and forth three times, the stone wall trembled slightly, and a doorway slowly emerged.

Just as he was about to push the door open, a translucent figure drifted out before him—it was Helena, Ravenclaw's ghost.

"Ian," she asked softly, "did your mother ever mention 'restrictions'?"

"Restrictions?" Helena froze for a moment, her gaze dimming. "I remember Mother mentioning them. She and my uncle Salazar were unparalleled geniuses in that kind of magic.

But she only mentioned it briefly back then. She said she would explain it to me in detail once I was grown... unfortunately, that time never came."

Ian looked at her pale blue figure, his tone softening. "Now, I'll make up that lesson for her."

He pushed open the door and entered, with Helena following at his side.

--

The furnishings inside the Room of Requirement slowly took shape according to his will.

The walls were covered in alchemical rune arrays, while a stone table etched with silver patterns stood in the center. Faint blue light floated through the air, as though streams of magic were breathing.

Ian walked into the room and lightly touched those familiar patterns with his fingertips.

This place carried countless memories for him.

He had spent countless nights in this room, and it was here that he had completed his initial system of magical theory.

He remembered that when he had first come into contact with dark magic, he had secretly tried to slip into the Restricted Section—only to be detected by Dumbledore every time.

The detection array the old wizard had placed around the outer perimeter of The Library seemed almost custom-made to target him. The moment Ian approached, the spell would activate.

Even more troublesome, every professor had been expressly forbidden from granting him a pass.

So he had simply turned to studying that detection array instead.

Yet whenever he was close to cracking it, Dumbledore would alter the formation in advance and replace it with another structure.

The feeling was like facing an opponent who was always one step ahead.

In his anger, he had once ordered the Room of Requirement to create "a room containing every book in the Restricted Section,"

but the system had responded coldly—request denied.

It was then that he discovered that the headmaster of Hogwarts also possessed a certain degree of control over the Room of Requirement.

For a time, he had been struck by a realization—

Every stone brick and every wall in this school seemed to be covered by Dumbledore's will.

That day, standing in an utterly empty room, he had truly understood the boundary between "power and knowledge" for the first time.

He had failed to break through that line of defense, and so he had decided that after graduation, he would become a "thief of knowledge"—

traveling across the world to steal, collect, and organize the forbidden tomes sealed away by the Ministry of Magic.

Only then had he understood—

No matter how gifted he was, there was still an insurmountable gulf between him and Dumbledore's century of accumulated knowledge.

To surpass someone like that, there were only two methods:

Time, or—endless knowledge.

He had chosen the latter.

The Ian of today was no longer merely the student he had once been.

He had mastered the fusion theories of dozens of systems, including alchemy, space, souls, elements, necromancy, and bloodline modification;

at the same time, he possessed all of Voldemort's memories.

In terms of knowledge, he was now no less capable than Dumbledore.

His only weakness was that his Magic Core had yet to break through.

--

"Mother personally created two things," Helena recalled softly as she floated in the air. "One was this room, and the other was her diadem."

Ian turned to look at her, his gaze calm and profound.

"That is why your mother—Rowena Ravenclaw—was the one who truly understood the 'nature of magic.'"

He walked to the table and took out an exquisite box.

Inside lay the long-lost Ravenclaw's Diadem.

"Wit beyond measure." He recited the ancient words inscribed upon the diadem, his fingertips trembling slightly.

That ancient alchemical relic had once been corrupted into a Horcrux by dark magic, but it had finally regained its purity.

"Because of that shattered soul, I was unable to study it in depth before," Ian murmured. "But now, with Voldemort's memories, I can finally extract it perfectly."

He raised his wand and gave it a light tap.

Silver light coiled around the diadem, spinning like a vortex.

It was surgery upon the soul and magic, so precise that every tremor could cause irreversible damage.

A moment later, faint black mist was extracted and sealed inside a crystal vial.

The diadem once again gleamed with clear, pure light.

Ian smiled—

"Finally... you have returned to the form that belongs to knowledge."

Helena watched the diadem, tears glimmering in her eyes.

"If Mother could see this, she would surely be very happy."

"Perhaps." Ian replied. "Her soul has long transcended joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure."

He bent down and set the diadem on the table, silently pondering—

This was not merely a relic, but a blueprint of wisdom.

--

Meanwhile, another "battle" was in full swing inside the Hufflepuff common room.

The watching students had gathered excitedly in a circle.

At the center, enormous monsters conjured through magical projections flashed across the table—

White dragons, warriors, trap formations, as though it were a real magical duel.

The two players were—

One was Hufflepuff's favored son, Cedric Diggory,

while the other was his younger schoolmate—Susan Bones.

They were playing a brand-new magical card battle game—Duel Monsters.

Susan smiled sweetly, but her eyes were sharp. "Cedric, you are indeed one of the rare experts at Hogwarts. But—aside from my cousin, no one can defeat me."

Cedric raised a brow, his expression serious. "Don't be so confident. It's not as if I came unprepared."

Throughout the entire winter break, he had studied hundreds of deck combinations and repeatedly read the original Muggle-world manga, Yu-Gi-Oh!.

He believed that today, he would definitely win.

"Do you know what the 'card of the heart' means?" Susan suddenly asked.

"Of course. That's just a setting from the manga." Cedric snorted.

"Wrong." Susan gave a mysterious smile. "When my cousin was developing the next generation of Duel Disks, he added a magical array—so long as your will is firm enough, you can draw the card you want."

A wave of shocked cries rose from the crowd.

"Isn't that cheating?!"

"Th-That's way too overpowered!"

Susan merely smiled and drew a card.

The instant she saw that card, her smile deepened.

"I sacrifice the three monsters on my field—summon Obelisk the Tormentor!"

Golden light erupted, and the air shook.

The three monsters dissolved into points of light as a colossal deity descended, its oppressive presence sweeping through the entire common room.

The students instinctively retreated, as though they were facing a true god.

It was the Soul Projection Array Ian had specifically designed for Duel Disks, capable of simulating the aura of a deity.

He had once wanted to grant self-awareness to The Winged Dragon of Ra,

but the prototype had directly backlashed and attacked him, demanding to know whether he was "qualified" to wield the power of a god.

Only then had he abandoned the plan.

--

The air in the Hufflepuff common room was nearly crushed apart.

Cedric's Blue-Eyes White Dragon instantly shattered before divine power.

The entire room fell silent.

A moment later, cheers erupted.

"Susan won!"

"Hufflepuff's goddess!"

From that day onward, Susan Bones became more than just a rising star of her House;

she even became a legend throughout Hogwarts.

And her casually spoken explanation—

"Because I believe in the card of the heart."

—was also revered by later students as a symbol of the fusion of magic and faith.