Why Flying a Broom Is Not as Cool as Flying on a Sword

Gerald watched the light pink liquid in the cauldron bubble and give off white gas.

He remembered that the finished boil-cure potion was not this color.

"Jordan, pour in the slug slime."

"Coming."

Lee Jordan quickly poured the liquid Gerald had prepared early that morning into the cauldron.

At that moment, a foul stench suddenly drifted over from the cauldrons of George and Fred next to them, throwing everyone around them into a flurry.

"Did you guys crap yourselves in there?" Lee Jordan could not help complaining.

Gerald covered his nose and mouth without getting distracted.

--Ten, nine, eight... one.

After counting down ten seconds in his head, he hurriedly picked up the cauldron, placed it on a shelf to the side, and then dropped in four porcupine quills.

The book said six, but Gerald chose to heed Snape's warning and reduced the amount by a third.

He stirred it clockwise three more times.

As he stirred, the color of the potion unexpectedly shifted from light pink to a vibrant emerald green.

The color was quite pretty, just like the green-tongue popsicles he often ate in his past life.

"Boss, did we succeed?"

"Probably."

Snape appeared silently behind him, lowered his head to look at the finished brew, and fell silent for three seconds.

"Is this your first time brewing this potion?"

"Yes, Professor."

"The quality is quite decent. Two points to each of you."

"!!!"

"Did I hear that right? Professor Snape actually gives points to people outside of Slytherin, and Gryffindor students at that!"

A Ravenclaw girl muttered softly.

"Shh, keep it down, watch out for losing points again."

Gerald was also bewildered by the awarded points.

What was going on here?

This Snape was somewhat different from the one in his impression.

After the Potions class, the four of them walked out of the dungeons, crossed the Entrance Hall, and headed toward the flying grounds outside the castle.

First-year schedules were much more relaxed than Gerald had imagined.

There were only two classes in the morning, Potions and Flying, leaving a large block of free time in the afternoon.

There were no evening study halls, nor were there mountains of after-school homework.

The homework a new Hogwarts first-year had to write in a week was probably less than what a primary schooler in his past life did in a single day.

So Gerald sometimes did not understand George and Fred's complaints about Hogwarts' academic pressure being suffocating.

Today, however, he finally understood a little.

Britain had only one magical school, Hogwarts, and the enrollment age at Hogwarts was eleven, with those born after September having to wait until they turned twelve to enter.

In other words, during the eleven or twelve years prior to this, wizarding children received their education entirely at home.

The drawbacks of homeschooling were self-evident.

Parents could not be as strict as school teachers, nor could they be as well-versed in all subjects as professional professors.

Over time, slackness became a habit.

Coupled with the lack of peer competition, the concept of internal competition simply did not exist in the magical world.

Before coming to Hogwarts, these children probably did not even know what previewing lessons meant.

"Such a happy childhood, they don't even know how to spell the word hustle."

Gerald muttered as he walked.

"Hustle? What hustle?" Fred poked his head over from the side.

"Nothing, let's keep moving."

"I'm telling you, I started riding brooms when I was three. My dad has an old Comet, and by the time I was five, I could fly it around the yard without crashing."

"Five? I didn't touch a broom until I was nine, and that was with my dad flying me on it." Lee Jordan looked skeptical.

"Then neither of you compares to me."

George chimed in, his tone even more arrogant than Fred's.

"I could fly a broom from one end of the woods to the other when I was four. Even though the height was only two or three meters, do you know how many obstacles were in that woods?"

"You crashed into a whole row of haystacks that time." Fred mercilessly exposed him.

"That wasn't crashing, that was a precise tactical landing."

"Your face buried deep in the haystack certainly looked precise."

"Didn't you also once ride your broom right into the clothesline and get hung out to dry by Mum?"

"You shut your trap."

"You cried so hard."

"Didn't you cry too."

"I was just laughing too hard."

"Hahahaha, you guys really are--"

Lee Jordan, listening to the Weasley twins expose each other, was already bent over with laughter.

Gerald walked at the very back, listening to the three of them bicker all the way, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly.

Flying class, to be honest, he was still looking forward to it.

After all, who didn't like to fly?

However.

Flying on a broom.

Gerald always felt something was a bit off.

The image of riding a broom in the movies was fine for girls, but wouldn't boys pinch certain parts of themselves?

Still, a witch riding a broom in a short skirt was quite worth seeing.

Gerald shook his head, shaking this improper thought out of his head.

Regardless, riding a broom was his first truly accessible method of flight in this world.

He still had to study it seriously.

However, this was ultimately just a temporary measure.

He had always kept a grander goal in mind.

Once he broke through to refining essence into qi, he might just be able to fly on a sword.

Why flying a broom is not as cool as flying on a sword?

The xianxia dramas and cultivation novels he watched in his past life featured those images of stepping on flying swords with robes fluttering in the wind.

Just thinking about it in his mind made his heart surge.

Looking cool is a lifelong commitment.

Gerald had even figured out the flying sword he would step on.

--The Sword of Gryffindor would do.

The flying class grounds were on the lawn on the south side of the castle, about a mile or two away from the Forbidden Forest.

A witch wearing brown robes was already standing in the middle of the field waiting for them.

Madam Hooch strode onto the grass, her short gray hair slightly ruffled by the wind.

"Welcome to flying class. Now, everyone stand beside a broomstick."

Dozens of brooms were neatly laid out along the side of the field, every single one looking as though it had endured the ravages of long years.

"These brooms are older than my grandfather." Lee Jordan picked one up, held it to his eyes to examine it, and then delivered a precise evaluation.

"Your grandfather probably doesn't fall halfway through the air," Fred replied.

"Piss off."

Gerald bent down and picked up a broom from the ground whose tail twigs were fairly neat.

Quite light.

He just wondered if it could take a beating.

"All right, now put the broom on the ground, put your right hand over the broomstick, and then say up loudly."

Madam Hooch watched the students who had already chosen their brooms and said.

Gerald took a deep breath, his right hand hovering over the broom.

"Up."

The broom snapped up sharply from the ground, landing steadily into his palm.

Beside him, Lee Jordan was still shouting "up" at his broom, but that battered broom merely rolled on the ground and then stayed still.

Like a fish playing dead.

"Up!" Lee Jordan shouted again, his voice pitching up an octave.

The broom trembled and finally drifted up sluggishly.

Before Lee Jordan could reach out to grab it, however, it dropped back to the ground.

"This broom has a grudge against me." Lee Jordan muttered under his breath.

Fred and George's brooms were also up and ready in short order, since these two future key players of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team had been in contact with flying brooms since childhood.

Furthermore, having been exposed to flying brooms since childhood, this was indeed extremely effortless for them.

"Now mount the broom, grip the front of the handle with both hands, and lean forward slightly."

Gerald wedged the broom between his legs and gripped the handle with both hands.

He suddenly felt this posture was somewhat like taking up a horse stance.

Inner thighs clamped tight, knees slightly bent, upper body leaning forward, center of gravity lowered.

This posture was far too familiar to him; ten years of standing stake was not for nothing.

"When I blow the whistle in a moment, everyone kick off gently from the ground with your feet, let the broom rise about three feet off the ground, and don't fly too high."

The whistle blew.

Gerald kicked off gently from the ground.

The broom rose steadily, about a meter off the ground, hovering motionless in mid-air.

He leaned his body forward slightly, and the broom shifted forward slightly in response to his moving center of gravity.

Very stable.

Much more stable than he had imagined.

The broom's control method was roughly what he anticipated.

Wherever you wanted to fly, your body leaned that way, and the broom would move in that direction.

In short, it was the integration of waist and horse.

No, the integration of human and broom.