Avada Kedavra

However, that plan would have to wait until after Christmas. He had arranged to meet Penelope and Kate in Hogsmeade over Christmas.

Besides, after Christmas, most of the students would have left Hogwarts. It was precisely the time when people were most lax, perfect for scouting the place out.

"Jack."

"Young Master Ryan? Are you hungry?"

"Let's have noodles again for breakfast today. Improvise as you like." Ryan nodded slightly.

Before long, as he ate a bowl of fragrant beef noodles and looked at the slender chopsticks in his hand, Ryan thought of something interesting.

The Elder Wand—the last wand Voldemort held before his death—was a Deathly Hallow.

And the fated weapons that brought about Voldemort's death were all connected to the Deathly Hallows.

First was the Resurrection Stone. Because of the strange connection between the Resurrection Stone and Voldemort using Harry's blood to resurrect himself, Harry Potter survived Voldemort's Killing Curse once more, ultimately leading to Voldemort's own death.

Second was the Elder Wand. Dumbledore had planned to die undefeated, becoming the wand's final true master. If everything had gone according to plan,

the wand's power should have died with him, because no one had won the wand from his hand. The Elder Wand changed masters by its new owner defeating its previous master. Even if that had not succeeded, Snape could have become its master.

But by accident, Draco Malfoy briefly became the master of that most powerful wand. Through a strange twist of fate, Harry defeated Draco and became the Elder Wand's new master, while Voldemort used that wand to cast Avada Kedavra on Harry, only to be killed once again by the rebounding Killing Curse.

Ryan had also discovered that the Sword of Gryffindor could be considered another Elder Wand in a sense, or perhaps a replica of it. It could likewise grow stronger by absorbing magical substances.

According to Ryan's investigations and research, Gryffindor, the sword's owner, was also blood-related to the eldest brother from The Tale of the Three Brothers, who died young. He wondered whether that had anything to do with why Gryffindor got along so well with Slytherin, who was likewise related by blood to the second brother.

The Sword of Gryffindor was Gryffindor's wand in the truest sense. Historical records showed that Gryffindor had used it even more often than a wand.

And Neville had used it to cut off Nagini's head—a great snake, a pitiful witch who had lost her humanity and memories due to a Blood Curse, and Voldemort's final Horcrux to be truly destroyed.

And according to Ryan's deductions, if the first two children of prophecy both failed, then it would be "my" turn. By then, he should have Black Knight in his hand, a replica and variant of the Elder Wand made by his father, George Smith.

The Invisibility Cloak had allowed Harry to escape death many times. If Harry failed, Neville would surely inherit it and finish off the weakened Voldemort. If Neville also got game over, the original Ryan Smith would raise Black Knight. Didn't the Invisibility Cloak pair even better with a gun?

The three Deathly Hallows and their replicas, the bloodlines of the three brothers—all were tangled up in this prophecy.

After breakfast, Ryan headed to the kitchen and began an experiment he had prepared long ago.

"Avada Kedavra!" A flash of green light that could be called holy streaked through the room.

The fat pig that should have been sent to the kitchen long ago died silently and painlessly.

Ryan was attempting to use the Killing Curse according to his own ideas. Sure enough, unlike the original version, he no longer needed to fill his heart with an intense desire for killing and death. Ryan had taken on the role of Death itself, regarding life as a disease from the mindset of the lord of the land of the dead, bringing all living beings the medicine called death.

Avada Kedavra lv5?-lv6?

In that state of mind, the spell had already reached the limit of a wizard. Going one step further, to lv7, would be the domain of true gods.

Unfortunately, he had only reached that level of power temporarily. Ryan's Killing Curse skill itself had merely gone from lv4 to lv5. Though he could reproduce lv6 power again with the help of his extraordinary talent, that was cheating; his actual ability had not improved.

It was just like Phoenix Metamorphosis. He had gained a phoenix's talent through cheating, but the Phoenix Metamorphosis spell itself still needed him to grind proficiency before it could continue growing.

What he gained through cheating could only improve further once the skill itself truly approached the power obtained through cheating.

But with Ryan's talent of proving something once and proving it forever, gaining something once and gaining it forever, the power he obtained was itself a guiding light for his original skills. Reaching the same level was only a matter of time.

His guess had indeed been correct. Deciphering and mastering the Killing Curse was something Ryan had only dared to touch, master, and experiment with after using Phoenix Metamorphosis to break free of the wizarding collective mindset and gain eternal life.

The incantation for Avada Kedavra, "Avada Kedavra," meant "Let the thing be destroyed"—in other words, "Destroy it," destroy the disease.

With that guess, along with the help of the Thought skill, Ryan had truly changed his way of thinking at the instant he cast the spell. For a brief moment, he forgot who he was and completely assumed the role of Death.

After all, without the Thought skill, even if Ryan understood the principle, he could only rely on the panel's innate power to point him toward the correct path, grinding away at it over and over until he succeeded.

Lv4 Charmcraft allowed Ryan to easily level any spell from nothing up to lv4. Combined with this role-playing experience, perhaps the rarest since the dawn of the wizarding world, Ryan had raised the Killing Curse to lv5—the normal limit that even wizarding geniuses could only reach after striving for an entire lifetime.

He had even grasped the power to reproduce lv6. Lv6 was a realm one could only enter with study, talent, and luck, none of which could be lacking.

In the terms of a mobile game Ryan had played before crossing over, he had fully stacked the Killing Curse.

"Phew!" Ryan rubbed his head. That had been dangerous. If he did not have the system, he would not have dared to mess around like this. In Ryan's eyes, changing one's mode of thought was even more terrifying than having one's body possessed.

A personality was made up of every memory accumulated throughout a person's life. Every memory was indispensable and incomparably precious.

Ryan believed personality was even more precious than the soul. Perhaps that was the true reason why the Thought skill had developed toward perfect recall and excavating every memory.

This skill had helped Ryan greatly. Without it, even after reading the original work many times, he would surely have become arrogant, and he would very likely have stepped into a trap because of some detail he failed to remember.

Only by remembering every memory had Ryan truly come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Zhou Yi, or rather, Ryan Smith. He had faced and accepted every part of himself. Such insight was something no amount of money could buy.

When it came to learning magic, it allowed him to immerse himself more fully and understand magic better.

In short, this skill was the ultimate manifestation of Ryan's love for wild thoughts. With the panel's help, it had developed in a more complete direction, shedding its flaws. Under the panel's power to point toward the correct answer, it could even achieve the effect of knowing the answer to a question out of thin air.

For example, under the wizarding collective mindset, young wizards could not match adult wizards with the same spellcasting and magical power. But after thinking it through, Ryan realized that although this chain seemed so difficult to break free from, Voldemort in the original work had likely broken it ahead of time by slaughtering wizards.

Thanks to Unslumbering Waves for the two monthly tickets.