Allen stood in front of the mirror in the basement apartment on Baker Street, took off the crooked purple-striped fox mask, and threw it on the table.
He rubbed his temples, which were throbbing slightly from the exhaustion of his magic, feeling like a rag that had been wrung out and could be folded up and stuffed into a drawer at any moment.
He slumped into the creaking old armchair, breaking the silence with a serious expression. "System."
There was no response.
"System, I know you're here. You'd better explain to me what 'visit' means."
The system screen popped up silently, displaying only one line of text: [ Fawley mission completed. Basic reward issued: Magic Power Boost (Tier 4)].
"Fourth tier?" Allen paused, raising his hand to feel the magic power slowly recovering within him; it was indeed much stronger than before. "That's not bad... but you haven't answered my question yet."
The words on the screen flickered and changed to another line: [Bonus rewards are being calculated, please wait.]
"You're playing dead again." Allen rolled his eyes, but didn't press the matter further. "Do you think giving me a reward will calm me down?"
His gaze fell on the fox mask on the table, and images of Hogwarts Great Hall flashed through his mind again—
Broken porcelain, an overturned table, children huddled under the table trembling, and Quirrell's last words before his phantom disappeared.
He suddenly felt a sense of relief that he had arrived in time.
Because of his own tiny flapping of wings, he almost caused a catastrophic disaster.
He picked up the mask, examined it, and muttered, "Fine, it's all in the past anyway."
The system screen flashed again: [Extra reward issued: [ Ravenclaw's Blessing ] (Increases efficiency by 100% when learning any knowledge related to magic. The more knowledge you acquire, the higher your magical quality will be, with no upper limit to this increase)]
Wow, that's amazing!
Allen instinctively stood up, sensing the magic within his body.
Unfortunately, he only felt that his magic power had increased by a negligible amount.
"Well, it seems I still don't know enough about magic," he muttered.
"However, I can use this increased learning efficiency to learn magical knowledge, so that if I encounter similar tasks in the future, at least I can guarantee that I won't die."
Allen stroked his chin, deciding to change his mask first and then go to Diagon Alley to buy some books.
Meanwhile, the commotion in the Ministry Atrium was just beginning.
The tall wizard's protective aura gradually dissipated after Dumbledore appeared, as maintaining it any longer would only consume more magic power, and he had already seen everything he needed to see.
The crowd surged toward the entrance like a receding tide, but much more slowly than before, because everyone was talking to the person next to them.
The Quick-Quotes Quill danced and weaved through the air, filling new sheets of paper almost every second, and throwing out new ideas every minute.
"Did you see that eagle? The Ravenclaw mark! So clear! It just flew out from behind him!"
"His last spell was truly terrifying. Did you hear what the tall wizard said? Composite Spell!"
"I heard that the last time Dumbledore used Composite Spell was twenty years ago."
"But who is he really? He wears that fox mask to cover his face, which means he doesn't want to be recognized."
"Perhaps he is a descendant of some ancient family? Or a member of some reclusive organization?"
That night, the publishing industry in the Wizarding World experienced an unprecedented frenzy.
Reporters returning to their respective newspapers from the Ministry Atrium seemed to have been given a super-energizing potion. Owls flitted back and forth between the attics of the various newspaper offices, and the scratching of quills on parchment went on almost all night.
The next morning, as the owls flapped their wings and flew into the windows of every house as usual, the entire Wizarding World discovered that their newspaper supplements were more than twice as thick as usual.
The Daily Prophet's front-page headline was so large it almost burst the page. " Hogwarts Attacked! Masked You-Know-Who Single-handedly Resists Death Eaters!"
The subtitle reads, "The Spirit of Ravenclaw Reappears! Where Did the Founders's Mark Land a Thousand Years Ago?"
The entire article was written by Rita Skeeter herself, and this time her tone was surprisingly restrained, even carrying an almost honest reporting feel.
Instead of including her usual extensive personal speculation, she devoted considerable space to describing the details of the battle:
How did the man in the fox mask descend from the sky, how did he block more than a dozen spells, and how did he hover in the air to fight against the entire Death Eaters squad?
She even quoted the masked man himself at the end of the article. "A champion of justice driven by interest."
She wrote, "He calls himself a 'justice driven by interest,' which sounds like a joke, but considering what he's done, it might just be the most truthful answer."
"There are indeed some people in this world whose strength comes from their own beliefs, not from status or fame."
"Whoever this person is, we are fortunate that such a righteous and You-Know-Who has appeared."
The Witch Weekly, on the other hand, simply turned the entire publication into a special issue.
The cover features a hastily sketched outline of a fox mask by a reporter, with a line of large, gold-embossed text below. "Who is he?"
The interior pages consisted of three full pages detailing the battle, from the Composite Spell that lifted the Black Lake to the dazzling, fiery blue eagle, each section accompanied by interviews and eyewitness accounts.
One of the fifth-grade girls said excitedly during the interview, "I was sitting not far from him at the time. When the blue eagle behind him took flight, I was completely stunned. I felt like it was not a scene I should have been able to see."
" The Witch's Home " took a different approach.
Taking " Hogwarts ' Vulnerable Moments" as a starting point, they conducted a detailed analysis of the school's response speed and defensive gaps when faced with an attack while Dumbledore and several key professors were away.
The article was relatively restrained in its wording, but the phrase "this school needs more protection than we thought" made the Ministry of Magic feel uneasy.
On the streets and in alleys, in bars and teahouses, people's conversations almost entirely revolved around what happened that day.
The number of patrons at the Leaky Cauldron was more than double the usual amount.
Several layers of people were gathered in front of the bar, Tom had to take out his well-worn copy of " Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone " and place it on the bar as a decoration in order to prove that he was indeed qualified to participate in the discussion.
"Let me tell you, I was there the whole time." A middle-aged wizard wearing a top hat held up a newspaper, looking very proud.
"My wife works at the Ministry of Magic. She happened to be looking at that light screen in the main hall that day, and she told me all about it in great detail when she got back. That person wearing the fox mask didn't even chant a spell!"
An old wizard in a worn gray robe shook his head. "To cast a spell without chanting is Nonverbal Spell, which has a very high barrier to entry. There are probably no more than a handful of wizards in the entire Wizarding World who can cast Nonverbal Spellcasting."
"But he used Composite Spell!" the top-hatted wizard retorted.
"My wife said that the tall guy from the International Confederation of Wizards admitted it himself—it was Composite Spell! He used Composite Spell to lift the entire Black Lake!"
"A lake?" a young witch interjected, clutching a copy of the Daily Prophet, her expression skeptical. "How much magic would that take?"
"Who knows? Before this happened, who knew about Composite Spell?"