[Ding! Challenge triggered: consistently earn more points than Hermione Granger within one school year to receive the blessing: Top Student 2.0.] [Top Student 2.0: gain four hours of increased learning efficiency each day.]
"A challenge triggered?"
John was lost in thought when a flash of gold suddenly caught the corner of his eye, followed immediately by a broomstick speeding past him.
He had no time to think. A Bludger was flying straight toward them.
He instinctively raised his hand and caught the incoming Bludger. With a crack, his arm seemed to dislocate.
"Oh my God, John! Are you all right?" Hermione's scream came a moment too late.
The Gryffindor Quidditch players still practicing also realized something had happened. The Weasley Twins were the first to fly over.
The Bludger kept struggling to escape John's grip, but his seemingly unimpressive arm held it firmly in place.
Even Wood couldn't help exclaiming at the sight, "You caught a Bludger bare-handed! You're a born Beater."
George said, "John Wick, if only you were in Gryffindor."
Fred said, "Then we could retire."
The twins played off each other.
Angelina Johnson, whose long black hair was tied in a braided ponytail, interrupted their teasing. "Will you two shut up? I think his arm's broken."
Harry hurriedly climbed off his broomstick. The Bludger had been chasing him.
He had been so focused on the Golden Snitch that he hadn't noticed the two of them there. By the time he realized, John had already been hurt.
Harry felt terribly guilty. "It's all my fault."
John's face had gone a little pale. Even he couldn't shrug off the pain of a dislocated arm.
"Could you stop chatting and get this thing out of my hand first?"
The Bludger had been heading for Hermione. If he had let go, her face would already have kissed it.
Wood fumbled as he strapped the Bludger down. At full speed, these things could even snap a Beater's bat.
With the Bludger secured, John breathed a sigh of relief.
His lips slightly pale, he lowered himself onto one knee.
He braced the hand of his dislocated arm against the ground. Under Hermione's pale, worried gaze, he pushed hard and forced his arm back into place.
Crack.
"Oh-"
"Oh my God, that must hurt."
"John, you could've gone to the Hospital Wing."
The young lions all jumped in alarm. Even the Weasley Twins looked impressed.
How could two Slytherins be so different? That Malfoy kid would wail in the Hospital Wing for ages over a scraped finger.
Madam Pomfrey had wanted to throw Malfoy out more than once.
The young lions crowded around John. Anyone who didn't know better might have thought Gryffindor was ganging up on a Slytherin.
Among the crowd, Hermione couldn't stop herself from asking anxiously, "John, are you all right?"
"I still haven't trained enough."
John took a moment to recover, then gave Hermione a smile.
Turning to the equally worried Harry, he grinned. "Harry, this wasn't your fault."
"I still think you should get checked at the Hospital Wing." Harry stubbornly insisted on taking John there.
Unable to argue them out of it, John let them support him on the way. People who saw them must have wondered what had happened to him.
He hadn't been lying in the Hospital Wing long before Madam Pomfrey sent him out.
"See? I told you I was fine."
John shrugged, looking completely relaxed.
Harry finally felt reassured. He said to Hermione, "Sorry, Hermione. I was flying too low."
"It wasn't your fault, Harry. No one can predict where the Golden Snitch will go."
After this incident, the cold war between Harry and Hermione finally began to thaw.
Of the three, only Ron was still keeping up the cold war.
Harry felt Hermione was actually quite nice, nothing like what they had thought. He ought to help the two of them make up.
Studying by day, training by night.
After being struck that time, John had gained a profound understanding of how important physical fitness was to a wizard.
Following his last nighttime excursion, the Restricted Section had acquired a regular visitor.
Under the Disillusionment Charm, John took Advanced Charms from the Restricted Section and used the fifth-floor shortcut to reach the Room of Requirement.
"I need somewhere to train."
He walked back and forth in front of the tapestry three times, and a wooden door appeared on the blank wall.
Inside was the same training room as before. This time, John had brought the greatsword from the medieval suit of armor.
"I've more or less gotten used to this sword's weight."
Gripping the greatsword, John tried a different training method.
In the flickering candlelight of the training room, the sword flashed like a field of stars.
The greatsword swept out a swath of silver light toward a human-shaped target.
The instant it made contact, the target was shredded to pieces.
With that target destroyed, John moved on to the next.
He repeated this until the last target shattered, whereupon all the fragments reassembled themselves.
The targets had been enchanted with a restoration spell. Once they were all destroyed, they would return to their original state.
That saved John quite a bit of time.
[Ding! Blessing acquired: Sword Dance.] [Sword Dance: increases the visual appeal and destructive power of sword attacks.]
His hands aching slightly, John set down the greatsword.
With his current physique, he could clearly feel his magic increasing after a series of strenuous exercises.
In just one night, he had gained fifteen points of magic.
If he kept at it, he would level up again within a few days.
John didn't let up after finishing his workout. He began a second round of spell training.
Through efforts that pushed him almost to exhaustion, his spells improved significantly.
The most noticeable improvement was in his newly learned Disillusionment Charm.
He needed the Disillusionment Charm for his nighttime excursions every evening. By the time October arrived, it had reached level three.
[Magic: level 2 (450/500)] [Spells: Alohomora (level 3), Levitation Charm (level 4), Transfiguration spell (level 2), Disillusionment Charm (level 3), Lumos (level 2), Incendio (level 1), Reducto (level 1)] [Skills: Short Weapon Mastery (level 7), Greatsword Mastery (level 4), Firearm Mastery (level 1)] [Blessings: Strengthen the Body, Rapid Attack, Precision, Top Student, Pilot, Long-distance Running, Sword Dance]
Thanks to the Restricted Section, John had learned quite a few spells.
He had found Fiendfyre there, but after considering how notoriously difficult it was to control even among Dark Magic, he abandoned the idea of learning it in his first year.
He remembered that some idiot had apparently used Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement and ended up burning the entire room down.
He certainly didn't want to repeat that mistake.
With his Top Student time activated, he could learn even more.
Monday, Transfiguration class.
"Very well done, Wick. Five points to Slytherin."
Today's lesson was turning animals into goblets.
Tom sat on John's desk.
With his adorable big eyes, Tom stuck out his tongue ingratiatingly. John took out his wand and tapped him.
"Vera Verto."
Under his gaze, Tom turned into a goblet.
Professor McGonagall praised the result and added another contribution to Slytherin's no-longer-barren points hourglass.
Hermione felt a little dejected. The gap between her and John seemed to be growing wider and wider.
Only John knew that he was a relentless grinder with cheats.
To make enough time for nighttime excursions and training, he had stayed up so much that he earned a new achievement.
[Sleepless One: you need only two hours of sleep each day to maintain a full day's energy.]
With this blessing, he finally stopped dozing off under Snape's gloomy gaze.
Still, he heard that Snape had made several trips to the Hospital Wing, asking Madam Pomfrey to stop giving certain students Elixirs to Induce Euphoria to use as stimulants.
Well, that student probably wasn't a veiled reference to John.
The Room of Requirement.
John swung his greatsword, casting a sweep of silver light beneath the candles as he shattered the target in front of him. His left hand flicked his wand toward the target at seven o'clock.
"Reducto."
White light shot from the chopstick-like tip of his wand and struck the target, blasting it into a heap of fragments.
Compared with the tiny bit it had blown off at first, this was a qualitative leap.
After finishing his training, John rested for a while and prepared to leave.
The Halloween feast was tomorrow evening. He needed to be in good shape for it.
The day after that, his two-month punishment in the Trophy Room would finally end.
The Slytherin Common Room was underground, so he had to walk from the Seventh Floor back down to the first floor.
Fortunately, Hogwarts had no shortage of shortcuts. When he reached the first-floor corridor, he spotted the Bloody Baron.
The taciturn Slytherin ghost seemed to have been waiting specifically for him.
Before you continue