The Room of Requirement

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

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

That mysterious room always appeared when you needed it most.

He silently repeated in his heart, I need a research room.

After walking 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 floated out from ahead—Helena, Ravenclaw's ghost.

"Lin An," she asked softly, "did my mother ever mention 'limitations' to you?"

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

But she only touched on it briefly then. She said she would explain it to me in detail once I grew up... Unfortunately, that 'once' never came."

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

He pushed the door open, and Helena followed at his side.

--

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

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, like magical currents breathing.

Lin An walked into the room and lightly traced 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 completed his earliest system of magical theory.

He remembered how, when he first came into contact with dark magic, he had secretly tried to sneak into the Restricted Section—only for Dumbledore to notice beforehand every time.

The detection array the old wizard had set around the outer perimeter of The Library seemed practically designed just for him. The moment Lin An approached, the spell activated.

What was even more troublesome was that every professor had been expressly forbidden from giving him a pass.

So he simply turned his attention to studying that detection array.

Yet whenever he was about to crack it, Dumbledore changed the formation beforehand, replacing it with an entirely different structure.

It felt 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."

The system had answered 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 moment, he had been struck by a sudden realization—

Every stone brick and every wall in this school was almost entirely covered by Dumbledore's will.

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

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

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

Only then did he understand—

No matter how gifted he was, a chasm still lay between him and Dumbledore's century of accumulated knowledge.

There were only two ways to surpass someone like that:

Time, or—endless knowledge.

He chose the latter.

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

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

At the same time, he also 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."

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

"So your mother—Rowena Ravenclaw—was the one who truly understood the 'essence of magic.'"

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

Inside lay Ravenclaw's Diadem, lost for so long.

"Wisdom without end." He recited the ancient words engraved upon the diadem, his fingertips trembling slightly.

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

"Because of that fragmented soul, I couldn't study it in depth before," Lin An murmured. "But now, with Voldemort's memories, I can finally extract it perfectly."

He raised his wand and tapped it lightly.

Silver light wrapped around the diadem, swirling like a vortex.

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

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

The diadem shone once more with clear, pure light.

Lin An smiled—

"Finally... you've returned to the form that belongs to knowledge."

Helena gazed at the diadem, tears glimmering in her eyes.

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

"Perhaps." Lin An replied, "Her soul has long since transcended joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure."

He bent down and placed the diadem upon 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 formed an excited circle.

At the center of the table, massive monsters created through magical projection flickered into view—

White dragons, warriors, arrays of traps, as though this were a real magical duel.

The two players were—

Cedric Diggory, Hufflepuff's favored prodigy,

And 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 really are one of Hogwarts' rare masters. But—other than my cousin, no one can beat me."

Cedric raised an eyebrow, his expression serious. "Don't be too confident. I came prepared."

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

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 something from the manga." Cedric snorted.

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

A wave of shocked cries rose from the crowd.

"Isn't that cheating?!"

"Th-That's way too ridiculous!"

Susan merely smiled and drew a card.

The moment she saw it, her smile widened.

"I offer the three monsters on my field as tribute—summon Obelisk the Tormentor!"

Golden light erupted, and the air shook.

The three monsters dissolved into motes 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 Lin An had specifically designed for the Duel Disk, capable of simulating a deity's aura.

He had once wanted to grant Self to The Winged Dragon of Ra,

But the prototype had directly backfired 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 the power of the god.

The entire room fell silent.

A moment later, cheers erupted.

"Susan won!"

"Hufflepuff's goddess!"

From that day onward, Susan Bones not only became the rising star of her house,

But even became a legend throughout Hogwarts.

And her casually spoken explanation—

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

Was later revered by students as a symbol of the fusion of magic and faith.