Hello, D Teacher.

Gerald spread a sheet of parchment across the workbench. It was the design he had drawn over the past few days.

The alchemical item he had always wanted to make was a notebook similar to Tom Riddle's Diary.

But the first-generation version he planned to make would differ somewhat from Riddle's Diary.

When Riddle's Diary had been made, it had been infused with some of Voldemort's memories and personality.

That was why it knew certain things and had a consciousness of its own.

Gerald's notebook had no consciousness. It was merely a passive tool for storing and retrieving information.

It could communicate with you through the questions you asked, providing precise answers that took context into account.

But that depended entirely on how much you stored in it. It could only answer questions about what you had put into it.

Whatever you had not stored in it, it would never know.

Even so, with enough information stored inside, it would effectively be a portable library.

Gerald was certain that, if he could make it, it would take the entire Wizarding World by storm.

And that was exactly what he was about to do.

All the materials he needed were already laid out on the workbench before him.

There was a bottle of mercury bought from an alchemical materials shop in Hogsmeade, a small bag of memory metal powder ground to micron-sized particles, three energy-storage crystals, a miniature trigger rune chain, three blank rune plates, a rune-engraving knife, and the pair of high-magnification glasses.

He had been thinking about making a magical Question-and-Answer Device for over a month. Ever since the evening Fred and George had first told him that "a Question-and-Answer Device falls under intermediate alchemy," he had been gathering materials, poring over theory, and drawing sketches with that goal in mind.

"Every alchemical item relies on magical runes." Gerald settled the high-magnification glasses from the workbench onto the bridge of his nose, picked up the rune-engraving knife, and spun it between his fingers. "Magical runes with different functions combine and influence one another, ultimately producing magical items with a wide range of uses."

That passage from the preface to An Introduction to Alchemy was the key to making any alchemical item.

The design was divided into three sections.

The information-storage section was on the left, the information-reading section on the right, and the information-feedback section in the middle, connecting the two sides.

He had derived this structure from the runic array theory in chapter four of Advanced Alchemy, incorporating the multilayer rune-nesting techniques Fred and George had previously told him about. He had worked through it several times in his head before committing it to paper.

The three rune plates each had a clearly defined role.

The first handled information storage and required high-capacity energy-storage crystals as data carriers.

He had shown this design to George and Fred before. Both had been astonished, and they had even helped Gerald engrave the information-storage runes inside the three energy-storage crystals.

Each energy-storage crystal contained twenty to thirty independent information-storage runes. These interlocked in nested rings, forming a concentric array.

The runes had to interlock with a precision of within one-thousandth of an inch. If the position of any ring deviated by more than a tenth of a millimeter, the storage density of the entire array would plummet.

Thanks to Fred and George's efforts, the three energy-storage crystals in his possession contained the contents of over a hundred books on spells, herbology, potions, and alchemy.

The second plate handled information reading. It needed a highly sensitive sensing rune chain to detect text, then convert the user's handwritten words into commands and transmit them through an energy circuit to the indexing and information-storage runes.

The third plate handled information feedback. It needed a stable energy-output circuit to translate the retrieved results back into written words in ink.

In addition, the entire assembly needed erasure runes, linking runes, indexing runes, and conditional trigger runes engraved into it.

Gerald picked up the first rune plate and began engraving.

The storage array was the most crucial and time-consuming part. Fortunately, George and Fred had already completed the most troublesome information-storage runes inside the energy-storage crystals.

Aside from those, he still needed to engrave three erasure runes, three memory runes, and three indexing runes onto the plate.

He secured the rune plate in the workbench's clamp, adjusted the focus of his magnifying glasses, held his breath, and made the first cut.

Through the lenses, the depth of every cut was magnified twentyfold. Even the slightest movement from breathing could send the knife tip off course.

His spiritual awareness played a crucial role at that moment. Before his fingers could sense the knife tip straying, his spiritual awareness had already detected the minute deviation at a microscopic scale, allowing him to correct it immediately.

The knife tip advanced steadily along the rune lines, and extremely fine grooves gradually emerged on the plate.

The erasure, memory, and indexing runes were engraved one by one, followed by the sockets for the three energy-storage crystals.

Gerald mixed the mercury and memory metal powder in the proper proportions to create a silver-gray filler, carefully poured it into the rune grooves, and finally set the three mung-bean-sized energy-storage crystals into place.

After finishing the first plate, he checked his wristwatch.

It was just past five in the afternoon. This plate alone had taken nearly two hours.

He set the first plate aside on a velvet cloth and flexed the joints of his right hand. Primordial qi automatically flowed into his fatigued tendons, dispelling most of the soreness.

The second plate was the information-reading section and needed sensing and linking runes engraved into it.

The sensing and linking runes demanded even greater precision. Their sensitivity directly determined how quickly the notebook responded to questions.

But the sensing rune chain and trigger on this plate were relatively easy to handle, making it somewhat simpler than the first.

As for the information-feedback plate, it was the simplest of the three. It only needed a stable energy-output circuit and a few display and erasure runes.

The display runes presented the retrieved information as text on the page, serving as the notebook's final output.

The erasure runes deleted the questions and answers.

The second and third plates together took a little over two hours.

By the time all three plates had been engraved, the hour hand had reached eight in the evening.

Including the time spent drawing talismans, he had sat at the workbench for nearly eight hours in total, without eating a single bite since the afternoon.

With all three plates finished, Gerald let out a small breath of relief.

He laid the three plates side by side on the workbench and connected their energy circuits with copper wire. The instant he connected the wire to the energy-storage crystals, every rune on the plates' surfaces glimmered faintly.

Pale blue light flowed along the rune patterns from the first plate to the second and third, then returned to the first.

The energy circuit was complete.

Gerald picked up his wand and fused the three plates into the notebook. He had bought this thick, leather-bound notebook from Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop for five Sickles.

It had a black cowhide cover and a hundred and twenty blank parchment pages inside. Its sturdy construction made it just right as a casing for an alchemical item.

Gerald opened the notebook's cover. Under the magical lamp, the first blank parchment page glowed a soft ivory.

He picked up an ink-dipped quill from the desk and wrote the first line on the page.

"Hello, D Teacher."