151- The Greengrass Sisters
151- The Greengrass Sisters
"If two wizards face off, and one has a domain while the other doesn't, the wizard without the domain has no chance of winning. If they manage to escape with their life, they are already outstanding," Rhys advised Daphne.
He warned her that if she ever encountered a wizard with a domain, and she hadn't unlocked hers yet, his only suggestion would be to run—or call for a wizard who has a domain.
The power boost a domain provides to a wizard is terrifying.
A wizard with a domain is essentially unbeatable unless they lose their sanity.
When Rhys had previously fought Voldemort, although Voldemort's spellcasting skills were quite decent, the lack of a domain made him as easy to handle as a toy in Rhys' hands.
If Voldemort had possessed a domain back then, Rhys wouldn't have been able to defeat him so easily, and Voldemort would likely have escaped.
It was the same when Rhys faced off against Rowena Ravenclaw.
Activating his domain was what allowed him to level the playing field despite the difference in their magical power, leading to a fierce and evenly matched battle.
Without his domain, Rhys would have been sliced into pieces by Ravenclaw in no time.
Domains are crucial for a wizard, but unfortunately, the unlocking of a domain requires a special opportunity, and no one can guarantee they will ever unlock theirs.
So, Rhys felt it necessary to prepare Daphne and Astoria, to avoid a future where one of them—without a domain—foolishly tries to duel a wizard who has one.
Of course, Rhys had confidence in his two students.
After all, he knew a 'bit' about potion-making, and if he could gather the right materials in the future, he could brew potions that would assist them in unlocking their domains.
After giving the Greengrass sisters this warning, Rhys began his lesson.
"Focus your mana into the soles of your feet, and try to stabilize the output..." Rhys repeated the instructions he had given to Daphne earlier, adding at the end that if Astoria had any questions, she could ask Daphne—who had a real talent for this.
Rhys' words immediately made Daphne blush. She waved her hands repeatedly, insisting that she wasn't particularly talented.
Daphne was being sincere, as she believed her sister's talents far surpassed her own. When it came to magical control, she figured Astoria would probably master it in less than three minutes.
But the outcome was quite unexpected. Astoria struggled for several hours and still couldn't manage to float off the ground. In fact, many times, she would lose control due to an excess of magical output and end up falling flat on her backside.
Daphne: "?"
Rhys: "..."
Rhys had a faint feeling that something was off. Could Astoria and Daphne be complete opposites?
One might excel in spellcasting but struggle with magic control, while the other might be skilled in magical control but less adept at grasping spells.
If only he could combine Astoria and Daphne into one person, the result would probably be a little witch with the greatest talent in a thousand years!
However, even if Rhys had the power to do that, he wouldn't. To him, such magic crossed a moral line.
Daphne, not overthinking things like Rhys, earnestly shared her experience with her sister: "Take off your shoes and let your feet touch the ground directly. It'll help a lot. And don't be afraid to fall. Just go for it—"
"Ahh!" Astoria let out a burst of magic and fell hard, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Rhys sighed and covered his forehead.
If things continued like this, he might have to start preparing potions for treating fractures.
He stomped his foot lightly, and the marble floor of the chamber softened, becoming as comfortable to walk on as a beach.
While Rhys couldn't directly help Astoria control her magical output, at least he could ensure her falls wouldn't hurt as much.
Despite removing her shoes and carefully following the advice Daphne had given her, Astoria still couldn't manage to float like her sister.
With the same amount of practice time in her 1st year, Daphne was already soaring gracefully through the chamber, while Astoria couldn't even manage to lift herself off the ground.
Daphne began to feel a bit helpless. She couldn't understand why her sister was struggling, as flying came as naturally to her as breathing. Rhys, who had been observing from the sidelines, noticed something deeper. He suspected it was the impurities in Astoria's soul that were hindering her.
These "impurities" were interfering with her ability to output and sense magic.
At this point, there wasn't much Rhys could do. Until Astoria's soul was cleansed, controlling her magical output would require more than ten times the effort of an ordinary person.
Rhys did his best to explain the reason for Astoria's slow progress in simple terms to the sisters. After hearing his explanation, Astoria didn't appear saddened at all; in fact, she looked a little excited.
On the other hand, Daphne seemed somewhat disheartened.
"This is great! I thought I didn't have any talent, and that would have been the real problem!" Astoria said optimistically. "Once my illness is cured in the future, there won't be anything holding me back!"
Rhys patted Astoria on the head, reassuring her that her illness would definitely be cured.
After figuring out the reason behind her struggles, Rhys left Astoria to practice on her own. Neither he nor Daphne could help her now; softening the floor was the only thing he could do. As for Daphne, Rhys assigned her to practice the Stasis Field on the side.
Rhys himself found a quiet spot to tinker with the Philosopher's Stone. After months of effort, he had made some progress in his research on it.
He felt that the Philosopher's Stone must involve highly advanced magical transformations, and it was likely that a specific magic circle was required to create it.
However, reverse-engineering the magic circle used to craft the Philosopher's Stone was an incredibly difficult task.
Rhys had reached a bottleneck in his research, and to make further progress, he needed to actually ingest a small amount of the Stone.
He chipped off a small fragment from the Philosopher's Stone and began brewing the Elixir of Life using that piece.
With the Philosopher's Stone as the key ingredient, the remaining steps weren't too complicated.
In fact, they were surprisingly simple, not much harder than the Scouring Solution first-year students learned in their initial Potions class.
Soon enough, the Elixir of Life was ready. Looking at the potion, which was as vividly red as blood, Rhys couldn't help but marvel at it.
After some thought, he didn't drink it right away.
Instead, he dropped a small pebble into the cauldron. Instantly, white steam billowed up, and after a short while, nearly half the liquid had evaporated. The small stone had turned into a piece of solid gold.
Rhys fished it out of the cauldron and split it open. Upon inspection, he found that the stone had been completely and thoroughly transformed into pure gold.
After roughly calculating the conversion rate using this small stone, Rhys understood why Nicolas Flamel was so wealthy.
His fortune was so immense that Beauxbatons could become the richest magical school in Europe, sustained by his donations alone.
People who don't know the truth would think that the Philosopher's Stone's ability to turn stone into gold is a one-to-one conversion of the Stone and gold, but in fact it is not. Rhys looked at the little gold beans in his hand and felt that the conversion ratio was close to one to one thousand.
But this is not the core function of the Philosopher's Stone...
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