Over the next several days, Manus devoted all his spare time to brewing potions, though he did not need to pay too much attention to the process. He could record the potions' progress with a Memory Crystal.
By comparison, the steady growth of the Wizard Sage Party and the next stages of his plans deserved more attention.
There was no movement from Voldemort, which came as no surprise.
Although he had escaped with his life that day, the toll of using so much forbidden dark magic was very real.
So-called forbidden magic was either excessively cruel to others or excessively cruel to oneself. In the hands of a master of dark magic, those two costs could often be exchanged to some extent.
Voldemort clearly would not bear those agonizing costs himself. Even though his modified body was highly resistant to them, he would never suffer the slightest loss if he had a choice.
And whether he transferred the cost elsewhere or bore it and then used various expendable resources to make up for the damage, it all took time.
Regulus Black's test paper had yet to come back, which was perfectly normal. This was no academic exam.
If Regulus could return it within just a few days, Manus could only conclude that he probably had not even finished the questions testing his abilities, let alone those testing where he stood.
With no movement even from Regulus, the Death Eaters naturally had yet to react to the Wizard Sage Party, even though word of the new research topic on its task board had already leaked out to some extent.
The topic itself was confidential, but the discussions it sparked were not. Manus's secrecy magic, adapted from the Fidelius Charm, assigned different levels of confidentiality to protected information.
For information he actually