Undying Flame

Undying Flame

Before he knew it, half a month had passed.

Over the past half month, Bell had spent several hours every day practicing the Fiendfyre Curse. Hard work paid off. Not only had he found the minimum level of anger required to cast Fiendfyre—though its power also increased with greater fury—but he had also successfully improved his Occlumency.

Bell could now reduce the casting time of the Fiendfyre Curse to under a minute. Though it was still nowhere near practical combat use, progress was always a good thing.

For the time being, this was as far as he could take the Fiendfyre Curse. Besides, the Fiendfyre Curse itself was not Bell's goal. His goal was to improve it.

Fiendfyre's advantage was that it burned everything to ash. Its disadvantage was the very same: it burned everything to ash. Because of this nature, it consumed everything around it as fuel to strengthen itself. Once Fiendfyre grew powerful enough, even the Magic Power the caster used to control it would be rapidly burned away, causing Fiendfyre to spiral out of control.

Bell intended to give Fiendfyre a clear target, so that objects other than the target would not become fuel for it.

"Ke Ersha, replace the target with an ordinary one. It'll all be burned to ashes anyway, so there's no need to use premium goods."

Although Bell did not care much about money, there was no reason to waste it on purpose. Besides, if Bell dared to use Fiendfyre to burn anti-magic targets for fun, his father would probably go mad and start relentlessly pestering him within a week. Just thinking about it was annoying.

Bell stared fixedly at the target in the distance, skillfully guiding his emotions toward anger. He tried to gather that fury within himself and direct it squarely at the target, ensuring that nothing around it would be affected.

"Undying Flame!"

Black-and-red flames shot forth, burning the target into ashes before rapidly spreading outward.

The first experiment had failed.

Once the flames had been extinguished, Bell took a deep breath and tried again. Being consumed by anger did not feel good, and staring at the target constantly had filled his eyes with bloodshot veins. So every so often, he had to stop and rest, giving the House-elves a breather as well.

Days passed one by one, and Bell's improvement experiments progressed steadily. He had further confirmed the feasibility of his idea. According to the House-elves' feedback, over the past two days, the Magic Power they needed to extinguish Fiendfyre had dropped significantly.

This good news encouraged Bell, making him throw himself into the improvement work with one hundred and twenty percent enthusiasm.

At the same time, there was another piece of good news.

As mentioned before, Bell had discovered that after being seriously injured, his body's transformation had accelerated even further, turning misfortune into a blessing. And after nearly a month, an astonishing change had indeed taken place within him.

Though Bell looked almost unchanged compared to a month ago, the amount of Magic Power in his body had increased by nearly half, while the power of his Wandless Magic had risen by almost thirty percent.

Moreover, there was still no sign of this change stopping. On the contrary, because Bell had recently been casting magic at high intensity, it seemed to be growing increasingly intense.

Thanks to his body's transformation, the improvement progressed far faster than Bell had expected. He had originally estimated it would take between three months and half a year. Yet only a little over a month had passed, and the improvement was already nearing completion.

Of course, that did not mean no problems had arisen during the process.

Bell discovered that his initial concept had a major flaw. It could indeed prevent Fiendfyre from burning anything other than the target, and Fiendfyre's power would not weaken. However, during one experiment, Bell accidentally discovered that if a third party intervened, they could easily extinguish the Fiendfyre on the target.

Bell would never allow a Curse he had improved to have such a huge flaw. In the end, he could only sacrifice a measure of safety and set the burning condition of Undying Flame as follows: "As long as the target has not been completely burned away, Fiendfyre will devour everything it comes into contact with."

This change greatly increased the difficulty of controlling Undying Flame. At least with Bell's current magical ability and amount of Magic Power, he would not cast Undying Flame unless absolutely necessary. Of course, considering that he still needed to build up his emotions for a while before successfully casting it, even if he wanted to use it in battle, it would be no different from courting death.

"Undying Flame!"

A black-and-red fireball shot from the Wand Tip of Bell's Wand, striking the target in the distance in the blink of an eye.

Incidentally, due to the changed circumstances, Bell had switched back to the expensive anti-magic targets so he could better observe Fiendfyre's burning state.

As for his father's complaints? If he dared bother Bell, Bell would just block him!

The fireball exploded, scattering flames across the ground. The roaring Fiendfyre swiftly devoured everything, while the target gradually vanished at a visible rate. The House-elves had already activated the All Spells End Barrier, watching the flames burning in the field nervously and ready at any moment to control the barrier and extinguish the Fiendfyre.

At last, the target was burned into ashes. Under Bell's tense, expectant gaze, the black-and-red flames scattered across the ground stopped spreading outward and slowly dissipated into the air.

"Ah—! It worked—! Young Master succeeded—!"

The cheers had just reached his throat and had not yet escaped when they were shoved back down by the sudden screams from beside him.

Bell looked speechlessly at the three House-elves, who were hugging each other in excitement, crying and shouting. He truly had no desire to join their celebration, so he could only force himself to put on an air of calm indifference, nearly suffering internal injuries from holding it in.

The busy work of improving the Curse had finally come to an end. All that remained was to keep practicing it and speed up the casting time. This period had truly exhausted Bell, and he decided to give himself a small vacation and rest properly for a few days.

It was worth mentioning that Lim had finally returned a few days ago. She had taken an undisputed first place, far surpassing second place. As a result, every House-elf who had trained alongside Lim was so devastated they nearly fell apart.

What a wonderful opportunity! If they had surpassed Lim, perhaps they could have replaced her and become Young Master Bell's personal House-elf! What a terrible regret!

After the results came out, Lim had also wept with excitement. The moment she saw Bell, she threw herself around his leg and refused to let go no matter what. One of Bell's pant legs had been soaked through with tears.

It was not until Lim cried herself unconscious from excitement that Bell finally managed to escape her clutches.

House-elves were good in every way, but their personalities were a little too emotional. Sometimes, they really left people not knowing whether to laugh or cry.