Kreacher led her out of the bedroom, through the dim corridor, and to an ornately carved wooden door on the first floor.
The silver handle on the door had oxidized black. Kreacher gave it a gentle push with his bony fingers, and the heavy wooden door let out a teeth-grating creak.
The training room beyond the door was far larger than Vera had imagined, nearly half the size of a Quidditch Pitch. It was clearly the result of an Undetectable Extension Charm.
Several crystal chandeliers, long since extinguished, hung from the high dome. The surrounding walls were covered in all manner of magical traces—charred scorch marks, deep imprints, and even several marks that looked as though they had been clawed by some enormous beast.
Most eye-catching were the training dummies standing in the middle of the room. Enchanted to simulate the reactions of real people, they were excellent targets for practicing combat spells.
Vera wheeled herself up to one of the dummies and thoughtfully examined the surface, which was covered in traces left by all kinds of spells.
She raised a hand and brushed over a deep cut, her fingertips sensing the lingering magical fluctuations.
What if I used the Magic Circuit to understand, memorize, and learn from these lingering traces of magic...?
Her eyes lit up, and her ever-composed expression finally showed a trace of excitement.
This Was How You Used a Magic Circuit
With her fingertips touching the dummy's scarred surface, Vera closed her eyes and tried to actively awaken her Magic Circuit.
The golden patterns flickered beneath her skin and gradually gathered across her retina, transforming the spell fluctuations lingering on the dummy into clear mana trails—
In her vision, those long-dried magical traces gradually glimmered beneath her fingertips: the silver trail left by a sharp Severing Charm, orange-red points of light pulsing within the blackened scorch marks caused by an explosive spell, and even several strange purple patterns left behind by dark magic...
These magical traces, from different eras and of varying strengths, seemed to be reactivated under the Magic Circuit's perception, clearly revealing their respective mana flows before her eyes...
She subconsciously narrowed her eyes, wanting to see every one of those magical trails clearly. But at that moment, a sharp pain suddenly stabbed from her temples into her brain.
Vera let out a muffled groan and jerked her hand back, her breathing turning slightly hurried.
"Miss!" Kreacher rushed forward in alarm. "Are you all right?"
Vera waved a hand, fine beads of sweat already forming on her forehead. "I'm fine..."
So that was it. At her current Magic Circuit level, trying to see the mana trails of so many spells at once was still too much for her.
Having understood that, Vera took a deep breath and gripped her newly purchased wand. "I'd like to practice here alone for a while."
Kreacher hesitated. "But you... Would you like Kreacher to prepare some snacks?"
"No." She shook her head and said softly, "If I need anything, I'll call you."
After the house-elf left, Vera rested for a moment before opening her eyes again and refocusing on the dummy.
This time, she did not greedily attempt to sense every trace at once. Instead, she carefully searched for the simplest one—a mark left behind by a basic Severing Charm.
She cautiously extended her hand, her fingertips lightly touching the nearly invisible indentation.
The Magic Circuit activated once again, golden patterns flowing beneath her skin as the mana trail of that Severing Charm was clearly displayed before her.
It was a bright pink thread, winding through the air like a living thing before finally disappearing into the dummy.
Vera held her breath and tracked the mana trail with complete focus, trying to sense the magical principles contained within it.
Suddenly, she felt the crystal near her heart tremble slightly. A warm current flowed from it, traveling through her Magic Circuit to her fingertips.
The bright pink mana trail seemed to be infused with life, abruptly revealing an unfamiliar scene before her eyes—
A tall, thin boy stood before the dummy, his wand drawing a sharp arc. "Diffindo!"
The spell's light instantly left a vicious gash across the dummy's chest.
The scene vanished in a flash. Vera suddenly came back to herself, and the illusion dispersed along with it.
She began to pant lightly, fine sweat beading on her forehead.
"Is this... the ability to see memories from the past?" she murmured, her fingertips still resting on the dummy's gash as her heart pounded.
The crystal near her heart trembled again, and a line of text appeared across her retina:
[Magic Circuit Skill 3 Unlocked: Mana Tracing: Can read powerful magical fluctuations lingering on an object and recreate fragments of the caster's memories at the time.]
Vera lowered her head and stared at her fingertips, where a faint trace of magical fluctuation still remained.
"Mana Tracing..." she softly repeated the name of the newly unlocked skill, excitement gleaming in her eyes.
This ability meant that by touching magical objects, she could trace back the magical events they had experienced. She could even glimpse fragments of a caster's memories through residual magical fluctuations.
It was practically like gaining a key to peek into the past.
And she should not forget that Hogwarts Castle held quite a few objects left behind from the past.
Even setting aside the treasures Voldemort had turned into Horcruxes, the other things alone would be enough for her to investigate.
The only drawback was that Mana Tracing would place a considerable burden on both her mind and body.
"Looks like I'll need to control how often I use it in the future," she muttered. On the panel in her retina, her mana reserve had dropped to 20/30, while the recovery rate remained 6.5 per hour.
She still had 20 mana points left. Though she did not yet know how much mana casting spells would consume, she was already impatient to try.
After another brief rest, Vera slowly raised her wand. The mana trail of that Severing Charm was imprinted in her mind with perfect clarity, every detail vividly distinct.
Her wand tip traced the same arc through the air as she softly said, "Diffindo."
Golden light flashed beneath her skin. A faint ray shot from her wand tip, leaving a shallow cut on the dummy.
It worked!
Vera's eyes lit up. Though it was far less powerful than the spell cast by the boy in the memory, this was indeed the first spell she had successfully cast since coming to this world.
This was the strength of the Magic Circuit—it required no systematic learning. As long as she had seen a spell once, she could imitate its casting.
Checking her mana again, she found that it had consumed only one point.
In other words, ordinary spells alone would probably consume just one point of mana.
As for more aggressive hexes or curses, or even the Unforgivable Curses, that remained unknown for now.
Vera drew a deep breath and began focusing on practicing the spell by following its mana trail.
With every cast, she could feel mana circulating within her body, flowing along the Magic Circuit into her wand and helping her adjust her mana output and the angle of her movements.
The Magic Circuit granted her not only the ability to learn, but also a keen perception of mana flow. It allowed her to clearly "see" the path mana took when a spell was cast and precisely adjust the distribution of every bit of power.
Those golden threads began at the crystal near her heart, flowed along fixed paths to her fingertips, and were then released through her wand.
The sensation was wonderfully strange, as though she had suddenly mastered an inborn ability that she had always overlooked.
Gradually, the spell's effects became more and more obvious. At first, she could only leave shallow scratches, but later, she could carve deep cracks into the dummy.
"Diffindo!"
With the final casting, one of the dummy's arms snapped off and crashed to the floor with a bang.
Vera let out a long breath and leaned back against her wheelchair, a smile rising onto her sweat-dampened face.
At this point, she had gained an initial grasp of how the Magic Circuit could assist her.
What concerned her more now was the so-called Ancient Magic.
Ancient Magic
Vera stared at the dummy's severed arm, scenes from when her Magic Circuit had awakened surfacing in her mind.
She gently stroked the golden patterns on her wand, deep in thought. "If the Magic Circuit is an ability I already possessed, then how am I supposed to learn true Ancient Magic?"
The crystal near her heart trembled faintly, as though answering her question.
Vera closed her eyes and attempted to sink her consciousness into the core of the Magic Circuit.
In an instant, the golden patterns inside her body lit up, guiding her consciousness back to that previous Void Space—
But unlike the last time she had come here, the place now resembled a field of stars. Countless points of light formed intricate rune arrays, suspended in the void.
Most of the runes were dim and lifeless, while only a few emitted light of varying brightness.
Vera swept her gaze across them, only for one particularly bright rune to catch her attention. She subconsciously reached out, and the moment she touched it, countless pieces of information surged into her mind like a tide:
[Ancient Magic: Multicasting (Beginner)] [Effect 1: Consumes 5 mana points to stack multiple effects within the same spell. Current stacking limit: 2 layers] [Please continue increasing Magic Circuit level to unlock additional effects.]
Vera's breath caught slightly. The effect of Multicasting... was practically like a skill enhancement in a game!
She eagerly exited the consciousness space and raised her wand toward another dummy.
"Diffindo!"
This time, she deliberately guided mana through a specific circuit. At the instant the spell was released, the crystal near her heart suddenly grew scorching hot, and she clearly sensed the Multicast rune lighting up in her consciousness.
As the incantation left her lips, two nearly overlapping pink flashes burst from her wand tip and swept toward the dummy in a fan shape. The first severed its neck, while the second directly cut its waist in two.
The dummy's three pieces struck the floor almost simultaneously. Its upper body even exploded outright, scattering splinters everywhere.
Vera instinctively raised an arm to shield herself, but several fragments still cut her cheek.
Warm liquid slid down along her jawline, but a faint golden glow immediately spread across the wound, and it healed in the blink of an eye.
Vera's chest rose and fell violently. That attack had consumed six mana points outright—one for the basic spell and five for Multicasting.
But the effect was truly astonishing. If used in actual combat, it would be an unstoppable weapon.
Her mana reserve had only four points left, no longer enough to attempt Multicasting again.
Vera took a deep breath and calmed her racing heart for a while.
She wheeled herself closer to the completely destroyed dummy, lightly running her fingertips over the jagged cross-sections and sensing the lingering magical fluctuations.
This was the power of Ancient Magic.
The corners of her lips curled upward in a satisfied smile.
Then, she lightly pressed a hidden pattern on her wheelchair. It was specially designed to summon Kreacher, a form of elf magic.
As long as she was not somewhere like Hogwarts, which had specialized magical barriers, Kreacher could sense it and arrive immediately.
"Miss!" Kreacher appeared at the doorway almost instantly, his tennis-ball-sized eyes widening in horror. "There is blood on your face! Are you hurt?"
"It's nothing. It's already healed." Vera took out a handkerchief and casually wiped away the remaining blood on her face. There was no longer any sign of a wound.
Only then did Kreacher breathe a sigh of relief. He suspiciously surveyed the wreckage in the room, his gaze pausing on the broken dummy. "Did Miss cause these wounds...? Kreacher can feel a very powerful magical aura."
Vera did not respond to that assessment and merely said softly, "Can you help me clean this up?"
"Of course!" The house-elf immediately sprang into action. With a casual gesture, the dummy's remains and scattered wood chips swiftly gathered together and returned to their original state.
Behind him, Vera quietly observed, watching magical traces flow from Kreacher's fingertips—magic different from a wizard's, yet somewhat similar.
House-elves' magic was entirely different from wizards' magic. Their mana flow was more primal and direct. They needed neither wands nor incantations, requiring only a thought to accomplish complex magic.
Vera watched those mana trails thoughtfully.
Perhaps... house-elves' magic was closer to Ancient Magic?
It was just that her mana was currently exhausted, leaving her unable to test the idea.
Vera silently committed the thought to memory. Once everything had been tidied up, she quietly wheeled herself out of the training room.
Kreacher followed closely behind her, occasionally casting worried glances at her slightly pale face.
"Miss needs rest," the house-elf said stubbornly. "Kreacher prepared warm milk and blueberry muffins... and today's potion."
Vera's expression froze for a moment. In the end, she did not refuse, allowing Kreacher to push her back to the bedroom.
The sky outside had already darkened. The lingering glow of the setting sun shone through a gap in the heavy curtains, casting a golden streak of light across the floor.
Seeing her return, Nox immediately jumped down from the bookshelf and lightly leaped onto her lap.
"Miss is too tired today." Kreacher muttered as he placed the warm milk and muffins on the bedside table. Then he took a small crystal bottle from his pocket, filled with emerald-green potion. "This is today's potion. The apothecary just delivered it."
Vera accepted the bottle, her fingertips lightly rubbing across the cool glass surface.
With the Magic Circuit's assistance, she could even clearly see the faint mana flowing inside the potion, as well as the paths of interaction among its various ingredients.
"Thank you, Kreacher." She set the bottle aside, her voice gentle but leaving no room for argument. "I'd like to rest for a while before drinking it. Go attend to your work."
After the house-elf left with his head hanging low, Vera raised the potion bottle before her eyes and observed the mana flow within through the emerald-green liquid.
Those fine mana trails had nowhere to hide from her sight—there were herbal extracts that repaired muscle damage, along with several ingredients she could not identify for the time being...
To be honest, this little healing potion did have some effect, but it was more of a placebo than anything else.
After all, with her current physique, she could not take powerful potions like the one from before every day.
Vera set the potion bottle back on the bedside table, wheeled herself to the desk, and took out a piece of parchment and a quill.
Before you continue