Christmas came. Snow, trees, and gifts were coming all around. Same as last year I made a few gifts for the trio via crafting. Thankfully with all the magic, I learned recently and so much more knowledge I was able to make quite good amulets. Moreover, I enchanted them to be trackable with magic, so if they wear them, I can track their location.
But then that's a big if. Mostly I made enchantments just for the sake of improving enchanting.
The trio and Granger's parents gifted me some nice trinkets and clothes. It's a small gesture, but still, I felt warm inside.
Anyway, all soppy things aside. Due to my free time I was finally able to finish my artifact. What I made is a new bracelet. Although there was a problem that whenever I used it, I need to raise the hand to the level of eyes. The reason being vision is a part of the system brain uses to locate the body in space.
Another problem was that the bracelet had to be visible to absorb light.
That's when the realization struck me. I was researching an artifact to stop worrying about my safety and walk safely, but in the process, I had to make so many modifications, that I forgot about this. In the end, the artifact doesn't help with this in any way. The only way it can help me if I fight basilisk (with eyes intact) and this artifact will help me see.
Moreover, the quality of a picture I see via the bracelet is something in a heavy need for improvement.
Now I understand why nobody researches artifacts seriously. I spend so much time, yet I achieved practically nothing. Damn.
'Well, at least I got a ton of skills improved and a level-up. Time is entirely wasted… I really hope this artifact will become useful. But I highly doubt it. After all, there is no reason for me to fight the basilisk and …'
[New quest is created.]
[Deal with the monster in the chamber of secrets.]
[Reward depends on how exactly you will deal with it.]
'Interesting. I got a quest, right when I needed it. You are a really considerate system.'
[Indeed.]
'Also, I assume I can't know what the reward is before finishing the quest?'
[Indeed.]
'Okay. At least, now there is some meaning to the artifact. But I think there is a lot of potential in the artifact made. Especially filtering magic…'
After finishing the artifact, I spent the rest time just resting my mind. In the meantime, the trio was busy making a potion. I tried advising them on the fact that Malfoys have no connection with the Slytherin, but they are a pretty biased bunch.
Well, I don't care much about them anyway. All I need for them is to be around me and be my plot armor until I become strong enough.
I busied myself with researching new magic, especially attacking magic. Moreover, I tried to go from the most diverse type of magic, Charms. They are incredibly strong, however, most strong creatures have a resistance to them, while modern wizards have come up with ways to defend against them.
Anyway, I concentrated on 2 ideas. One was gravity manipulation. If I can learn how to manipulate gravity, I will crush any enemy. Especially, it will effective against groups of enemies. Second, was electromagnetism. Or to be precise a way to one-shot any being in this world and rail gun was the first thing that comes to my mind.
Overall, nothing interesting happened. Everything was progressing according to the script from a film. Except when those 2 went after spiders, I went with them. Thankfully, by that time I have already learned the spell against spiders, so it was a walk in the park.
Although, I have no arachnophobia, but giant spiders don't exactly inspire you to love them either. So, it was a bit trippy trip…
By the way, it was really satisfying to send spiders flying left and right. The spell works perfectly fine on the small spiders. Although, I bet it won't work on Aragog. After all, due to age, he should have developed some charm resistance.
Everything else was progressing the same way. Time for the final showdown was approaching and I had good progress with a rail gun spell (coil gun to be precise).
Somewhen along the way, I increased a level once, despite the fact I lost proficiency in so many skills. After all, more than 7 months passed, so even the best skills started dropping in level. Especially, cooking skills.
Potter and Weasley have reached the secret room, chamber or whatnot, after which Lockhart has obliviated himself with Ron's broken wand.
However, Ron and Potter were divided by the collapse and I ended up on the Ron side.
'System return me to the auto-save.'
This time I kept closer to Harry. After Harry talked with Ron, we proceeded to meet Voldemort. Potter and Riddle had a very good talk. As for me, I was just waiting for basilisk to be called. After that, I have no need for either of them.
At some point, Potter somehow summoned the phoenix with the sorting hat.
At that point, I put my wand back in inventory. And got ready to cast spells from both hands.
I used a sleep charm on bird and Potter. For Harry, I used a normal spell, but for phoenix, I used an empowered and concentrated version, in case it has resistance to charms. I checked information on them before coming here and found out only about their absolute immortality and nothing about charm resistance.
Fortunately, either it has a very weak resistance to charms, or I was too strong, so the bird fell asleep as well. From the sound around me, I already understood that basilisk has finished crawling from the water and will soon attack me. As for the dark lord, I decided to ignore him for now. Not like he is dangerous before he kills Ginny.
In preparation for this battle, I made a simple mask with no holes to make sure I won't accidentally into the eyes of the snake. Bracelet was already on my right hand, so all I needed to do, is to equip mask and unequip the robe.
'Who fights in robes anyway? Just walking in them is a hassle.'
Finally, I was ready.
"Who the heck are you? And what is that mask on your face? Hmpf, do you really think you can fight a basilisk without sight?" Tom said.
'What a moron, how else would you fight it? Either this Voldemort is stupid, or he intentionally tries to demoralize me. Plus, as long as I am not one-shot, I will remain immortal. Save progress.'
〖Save ⟳〗
'Let's go!'
I put my hand up and activated the bracelet. I started seeing, albeit vaguely. It felt somewhat like this – if normal eyesight is HD, then bracelet shows the world in 360p quality. However, for me, it was more than enough because I was fighting a humongous snake.
The first thing I did was to attack it with a few charms to see its resistance and as expected its skin is near impenetrable to charms on my level. I need something on Dumbledore level to penetrate it. Obviously, I didn't have any experience fighting, so I had to return to the save I made more than a few times, when the snake got me with venom.
*After 5th return*
'I feel like a complete newbie. In novels, everything is so simple. MC just survives and becomes OP through fighting… How the heck does he do that? I was a normal average person. Evading snakes wasn't exactly my hobby *Sigh*'
*After 7th return*
'Okay, I was able somehow to get some distance between me and snake. Now I can start conjuring my magic and…'
*After 10th return*
'Okay, now I know why charms are the best. Casting complicated magic in the middle of the fight is just a dream of the insane person. Plus, that one time when I was able to cast it, I missed that stupid ass snake.'
*After 12th return*
'I more or less learned how snake fights. This feels like Souls game. To kill a hard boss, you have to die a few times and if your skills are garbage then… more than a few times.'
Once more I heard how snake slithered out of the water, but this time I quickly started walk backward, without taking out my wand. The wand doesn't help much to the current me, because I don't know immensely powerful spells that will require me to use it. Moreover, spells used with it can be tracked, so one more demerit from wand usage.
As for why I started walking back. I need to make some distance to cast magic I recently came up with. However, I can't run, because the snake will only slither faster and bite me in the back. How do I know? Personal experience.
After having around 7 meters between me and snake. I deemed this enough and cast 'Empowered Concentrated Lumos' on the ground around me. Why around me? Lumos is a charm, that makes the charmed object to release light.
In normal cases it is a wand, however, after some modifications and tweaks, I was able to charm any object to light up. However, heat and light immitted in the process are hard to control, that's why wand as a channeling tool is the usual target of this charm.
But now this uncontrolled surge of light will be quite useful to temporarily blind basilisk. After casting the Lumos I turned off bracelet for a half a second to not get blinded myself and turned it back on. Although it won't get me blinded, because I perceive light through an instrument, but I will lose some time due to the overabsorption of light in the bracelet.
Finally, I took out a heap of small stones(ammo) and coiled metal wires connected by a straight pipe (coil gun) out of my inventory and threw it on the floor. Then with my right hand, I made gun parts and one stone float in a straight line, pointing at the still dazed snake. After which, with the left hand, I started to get ready to cast electricity magic.
Thankfully, I mastered levitation charms, so I don't need to do any gestures and can cast it without moving the hand too much. This way, my vision didn't disappear.
That is the hardest part and the only one where I failed 3 times in a row. The problem here is that I need to stop giving charge to coils after ammo passed halfway through. I trained it before coming here and even automated the process a little bit by creating a spell structure with appointed chants and gestures, but … I didn't have enough time to properly master it.
But now I am sure I can manage to shoot properly. The only question is how much energy I will need to break through the skin. Just in case I inputted half the energy I currently had into the spell.
"Empowered Kinetic Strike!" (Empowered because I manually control magic input.)
While chanting I started gesturing. My left hand opened in a palm before thrusting forward, while squeezing to a fist. That was a gesture I came up with for controlling the electric discharge.
There were no sparks flying or some beautiful effects. However, as soon as my hand finished moving, I heard air exploding and soon after ringing sound.
I was instantly dazed and stunned, due to my eardrums rupturing from such a loud sound. After I concentrated, I saw the dark lord screaming and then I looked at where snake should have been.
I saw a giant basilisk with a small hole in the middle of the head, that was pinned to the wall I was facing. There were cracks around its body. Due to so much kinetic force, it went flying for a bit before embedding itself into the wall.
Only later I understood, that this snake contained a ton of magic inside of its body, that made all of its organs exceptionally sturdy. Otherwise, my shot wouldn't just make a hole only 5cm(2inches) in diameter, it would blow the whole head off. Moreover, it was quite lightweight for a giant snake, so it went flying quite nicely.
Anyway, I knew that I shouldn't lose my consciousness, so I cast an "Empowered Concentrated Diffundo" on one of the teeth in the basilisk now opened mouth. Then I levitated it to myself while running to Ginny. On the way, I put away the mask, bracelet and put the robe back on.
By the time I reached her, or diary to be precise, fang was already flying to me, so I took a diary in my hands and skewered it on the tooth. I am not Harry Potter, so I won't prick it for no reason when I can just straight up one-shot this Horcrux.
Then I need to act quick because I was too close to fainting with all those ear bursts and magic drains. I made sure Horcrux is destroyed and put the diary near Potter. Then I somehow crawled to the position I was at, before putting them to sleep and finally dropped on the floor dead tired.
'I will faint in a few seconds, I think…'
[Quest is complete!]
[You have killed the monster in the chamber of secrets, the legendary basilisk. You have accomplished this feat with hard work and great magic.]
[Rewa…]
That's when I lost consciousness.
*Progress*
『 Level 17 ➣ Not enough experience 』
『 Magicka ➣ Improvement : 15 ➔ 16 (talent = 2.1828) 』
*Skills progress*
『 Alchemy 30 ➔ 31 | Sneak 25 』
『 Speech 28 ➔ 29 | Studying 33 ➔ 35 』
『 Wand Making 26 | Herbology 28 ➔ 29 』
『 Magic Channeling 29 ➔ 34 | Magic Chanting 27 ➔ 29 』
『 Magic Gesturing 27 ➔ 29 | Magic Theory 36 ➔ 40 』
『 Astronomy 26 ➔ 27 | Riding Expertise 21 』
『 Crafting 21 ➔ 23 | Playing Games 17 ➔ 16 』
『 Enchanting 26 ➔ 28 | Cooking 27 ➔ 24 』
『 Training 22 | Physical Activities 17 』
『 Programming 28 ➔ 26 | Dancing 0 』