At some point in time, 4 people came flying into the room like the death reaper himself was after them. They were panting and sweating.
'Wait a sec… 4 people? Neville?'
I got up, but apparently exhausted kids did not notice me, yet. They were just trying to catch their breath.
"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."
"What dog?" I asked.
"Three headed one, of cour… Wait, who are you? What are you doing here?"
"Name's Magnus. Couldn't fall asleep. Decided to read a book and sit by a fireplace, but I think your story for going out after curfew is much more interesting. Also, Hermione? Neville? Never thought of you as an adventurous type." I smiled.
Neville was too scared or tired to speak anything. As for Granger.
"It was an accident!" Hermione tried to prove her innocence "I tried to persuade not to duel, but painting… and Fat Lady left, so I…" She got really flustered.
"Don't worry Hermione. It is okay. But duel, really? We don't even wield battle spells currently. And I assume it should have been duel between Draco and Potter? You two really don't waste your time, ha-ha." I laughed.
I had no idea there was a duel between the two of them. I only knew about them finding a dog. What the heck is going with this world. Was it in a film as well? I mentally sighed due to my memory being so hazy about the details of a film.
"There was no duel. Hmph, Malfoy chickened out!" Ron answered.
"More like he tricked you two into going out of curfew! Otherwise, Filch wouldn't be looking for students in that exact room. I told you both! We could all have been killed— or worse, expelled." Hermione was insistent on proving her point and pointing out boys, recklessness.
"Why are you behaving like we dragged you with us?" Ron was annoyed at her.
Just when Granger wanted to answer back, I put a hand on her shoulder and said:
"So what dog were you talking about? And what dog is doing in Hogwarts?"
"It was some kind of a magical beast. And it was guarding something!"
"Guarding?" Harry asked.
"Didn't you see what he was standing on?"
"The floor?" Harry assumed "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."
"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. Therefore, guarding."
"Sounds, great, but it's very late, now. Tomorrow we have potions, so it will be a good idea if we all go to bed. Look at Neville. He looks like he will fall asleep any moment. See you tomorrow."
Harry was thinking hard about something. Apparently, he caught a plot and got interested in unraveling it. Great, main story can progress now. What's important now, is not to push it too much and give in to a natural flow.
We all went to our respective dormitories and rooms.
It went pretty well. Now let's sleep.
*Morning next day*
During breakfast, Ron and Harry were busy discussing something. Granger was refusing to speak with those 2 and Neville did not care about a thing.
Also, Harry got a very big and long package with a letter and I was thinking who might send him something so big. Then something came to my mind.
'Is that a… broomstick. But wasn't it gifted to him after troll attack, right before quidditch match? Was it something appearing only in a film?'
I got another mental sigh. Information from a film feels less and less reliable. Also, brooms are against the rules for first years. How would he deal with that?
Harry took the letter, read it and happily took Ron and package outside the hall. However, they were barred by Malfoy and the gang. He took away package and after finding out it was broom, throwed it back at him. They started bickering and Malfoy tried to sell Potter out, but utterly failed.
Honestly, watching them bicker is quite amusing. Me and Hermione were going to common room to take our things before the class and heard Ron and Harry laughter on stairs. And obviously she started berating Harry for his behavior and broomstick. Harry answered back and Ron backed him.
They were so childish, that I wanted to laugh, but couldn't. Hermione walked away, while I smiled to the boys and showed them thumbs up.
"Congrats with the broom." I whispered to them and ran after Hermione.
After days were filled with nothing but memorizing and studying. Hermione already memorized most of the mandatory books if not all, but lessons were not only in books. There was a lot more things we had to read than just one book per subject. We also had to research on our own and stuff like that. Anyway, it was boring and annoying honestly.
After the end of the first month I was completely ready thanks to all my studying skills. I also learned all spells but wasn't quite good at using them yet. I also got better with transfiguration and overall my skills experienced a huge raise. I got a level up closer to the end of the month.
But no matter what, it was undeniable that memorizing same things from same books for prolonged amounts of time does not really increase my skills as fast as grinding in library for new knowledge.
That is understandable, because reading a new book is similar to delving into a new pond of knowledge, where you can easily consume it, while memorizing is like coming to dried out pond where you need find all these scraps of water to consume. It helps in consolidating the knowledge, but not acquiring it.
Moreover, level gaps became huge. I even felt it was exponential at some point. Despite memorizing, I improved skills plenty of times, but got enough experience to level up only after 2 weeks since previous level up.
I have raised all skills that started with 0 to at least 13 except for Magic Channeling. I was able to raise only to 4. But it felt like a drop in the ocean.
So, I asked if system can show me how much experience each skill raise provide in percentage. System agreed and the provided info shocked me silly.
Raise in study skill from 20 to 22 gave me more experience than raise in all magic skills I achieved so far. Earlier I thought it was easy way to level up, but now I know that raising them is easy cause they are worthless to my progression until they reach 15. And that lower border will only increase in the future.
Currently, I am only level 6. Can't and honestly don't want to imagine how much experience will be needed to reach level 10 or 20.
I mentally sighed once more.
Anyway, I was more or less ready to exams. I will just go through information before exams and will continue training my spells. Plus, training helps improving magic channeling, so it's kind of a grinding as well.
Library, dear, I am back!
For the next month, I was grinding and keeping an eye out for main story progression, but everything was quiet there.
I did not discover any new skills but have improved many skills that I already have, and consecutively got 2 more levels thanks to that. Although, I leveled up whenever I had enough experience and improved Magicka, I still did not spend any skill points, because there was nothing interesting to spend on.
My research into magic was going very slowly because it was not the main focus right now. But nonetheless I was able to raise all my magic skills at or even above 15, except for channeling. It was at level 14.
I was also able to raise speech by 2 levels due to being active on lesson and answering questions from teachers.
Even sneak was raised in the last month due to me being staying late in libraries and sneaking to common room after the curfew. First few times it was an accident, but after I leveled up my sneak skill once, I decide to do this every day to grind that skill as well.
Finally, a few days before Halloween I reached the mark, where I decided to spend some skill points. My studying skill was 25 at last. I can upgrade the tier 1 ability now.
As soon as I got to my room, I changed clothes, lied in bed and mentally said.
'Save progress'
〖Save ⟳〗
And then…
'Skills progress'
〖Skills〗
『 Studying 25 | Speech 21 | Herbology 20 | Alchemy 20 』
『 Wand Making 19 | Astronomy 19 | Sneak 18 | Riding Expertise 18 』
『 Magic Theory 18 | Magic Chanting 15 』
『 Magic Gesturing 15 | Magic Channeling 14 』
Lower below skills, personal information.
『 Level 8 ➣ Not enough experience 』
『 Health ➣ Improvement : 0 』
『 Magicka ➣ Improvement : 7 』
『 Stamina ➣ Improvement : 0 』
『 Number of skill points: 3 』
'Now, stop! Hammer… Um, I mean skill time!'