Gringotts

"Welcome," Professor McGonagall said to Li Wei with a smile. "Welcome to Diagon Alley, Mr. Lee Wickens!"

Li Wei also looked around Diagon Alley with curious eyes.

Before him stretched a long cobblestone street.

All kinds of shops lined both sides of the street, their windows displaying strange and unusual goods: shops selling robes, stores selling telescopes and peculiar silver instruments, barrels piled with bat spleens and eel eyes, as well as teetering spellbooks, quills, rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon, brewing cauldrons, and more.

The wonders of magic were on full display here. Whether it was the lettering on the signs, the pictures in the advertisements, or the goods in the windows, everything seemed to have come alive and was constantly moving.

Li Wei walked beside Professor McGonagall along the main street of Diagon Alley, as though he had stepped into a gathering of wizards from a fantasy world—everyone wore pointed hats and wizarding robes, dressed in all manner of bizarre ways.

"Professor, do people use Pound Sterling to buy things here too? I wonder if the money I have is enough."

If he was going to act, he had to see it through. Li Wei voiced his concerns to Professor McGonagall at just the right time, making it seem as though he had never been here before.

Though he truly had never set foot in Diagon Alley.

"No, child. Wizards use Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts," Professor McGonagall explained, then reassured him:

"But you needn't worry. Fifteen hundred pounds can be exchanged for more than enough Galleons!"

"Besides, Hogwarts offers student loans for special cases like yours. Don't worry, there's no interest. You can repay it slowly after you graduate."

"Look, up ahead is the wizards' bank, Gringotts, run by goblins. We can exchange your Pound Sterling for Galleons there."

After hearing McGonagall's words, Li Wei looked even more astonished and could not help asking in surprise:

"Goblins? The kind from the legends?"

England had legends of goblins dating back to ancient times. Li Wei's reaction was well within Professor McGonagall's expectations, so she smiled and said:

"Yes, though these goblins are terribly greedy. Come on, you'll see when we get there!"

When they reached Gringotts, Li Wei looked up at its crooked architectural style and could not help smiling.

Only in the wizarding world could this exist. In any normal metropolis, it would definitely be condemned as an unsafe building!

Gringotts' bronze doors gleamed with a metallic sheen. A goblin in a scarlet-and-gold uniform stood guard at the entrance as a doorman.

Li Wei followed Professor McGonagall through the doors, and the goblin doorman bowed to both of them.

He gave the goblin a once-over. Just as he had expected, the goblin was truly ugly, and not very tall either. He was even a head shorter than Li Wei, who was still a child.

His skin was dark, his nose long, and his eyes gleamed with intelligence and cunning. Li Wei could not tell the fellow's age or gender, but since he had a beard, he was probably male... right?

What puzzled Li Wei was that he had originally thought encountering a legendary magical race like this would trigger a system MOD. Yet the goblin was already standing right in front of him, and the system's smoke still had not appeared.

Beyond the bronze doors stood a second set of doors, gleaming silver. Written across them in scarlet letters was a warning to customers:

Enter, stranger, but take care,

Of what awaits the sin of greed;

For those who take but do not earn,

Must pay the dearest price indeed;

So if you seek beneath our floors,

A treasure that was never yours;

Thief, you have been warned, beware,

For not treasure, but doom awaits you there!

"Good grief, they really aren't polite!"

Seeing the scarlet warning right in front of him, Li Wei could not help complaining.

A bank was in the financial services industry. It should welcome customers through its doors—what kind of bank greeted people with a warning? Gringotts' service in the wizarding world was terrible too!

Professor McGonagall was clearly used to it. As though she had not heard Li Wei's complaint, she led him to the towering Gringotts counter.

Did these goblins sit so high because they were shorter than wizards?

Even after straining to crane his neck, Li Wei still could not see the goblin behind the counter's face, and he could not help complaining again.

The service throughout Gringotts was simply dreadful. He really did not understand why wizards entrusted such an important financial institution to a group of greedy goblins.

In short, ever since stepping into Gringotts, he had constantly felt the goblins' arrogance, as well as their concealed hostility and wariness toward wizards.

"Pounds for Galleons," Professor McGonagall said to the goblin seated high above the counter. She took Li Wei's admission letter from his hand and showed it to the goblin.

The goblin, who had been writing and calculating behind the counter, pushed up his glasses and glanced at Professor McGonagall before speaking in sudden realization:

"Oh, it's Professor McGonagall. Good day!"

"It's time for new students to enroll again! Pounds for Galleons, correct?"

"The exchange rate is five to one: five pounds for one Galleon. One Galleon can also be exchanged for seventeen Sickles, and one Sickle for twenty-nine Knuts. How much would you like to exchange, young wizard?"

When the goblin addressed him, Li Wei looked up and realized that the goblin's ugly face had poked over the counter.

"All of it into Galleons, sir," he said to the goblin, taking out all fifteen hundred pounds he had for exchange.

He would likely spend most of his time in England's magical world from now on, so there was no point keeping Pound Sterling when he had nowhere to spend it.

Although there was still a month before school began, he planned to stay at the Leaky Cauldron during that time, remain in Diagon Alley, and familiarize himself with life in the wizarding world ahead of time.

As for getting to school, he had already asked Professor McGonagall about it. Charing Cross Road, where the Leaky Cauldron was located, was only about two kilometers from King's Cross Station.

It was close enough that he could even walk there. When school started, the few coins left in his pocket would also be enough to take the Underground to the station.

Still, the exchange rates for these magical currencies were truly bizarre, Li Wei grumbled inwardly.

But when he thought of the goblins' atrocious service, such an exchange rate no longer seemed strange. They wanted to confuse wizards so thoroughly that the goblins could control finance and manipulate currency.

Two hundred and ninety Galleons were placed by the goblin into a small money pouch enchanted with the Undetectable Extension Charm.

Though the pouch alone had cost Li Wei ten Galleons, having one would undoubtedly make trading and travel far more convenient.

The pouch enchanted with the Undetectable Extension Charm also had a weight-reducing effect. As a result, nearly three hundred Galleons became feather-light, and Li Wei did not find them heavy at all.

He declined the goblin's suggestion of opening a vault, then left Gringotts with Professor McGonagall.

Now that he had money, Li Wei and Professor McGonagall began a major shopping spree in Diagon Alley.