Ideally Nick wanted a part from a north american horned water serpent but not only were they highly illegal to hunt but were the house animal of one of the Ilvermorny houses. Considering that that was the only magical school in north America being even remotely related to the hunting of the things was a fast way to get on the whole populations bad side. It also didn't help that the huge serpents also had powerful divination abilities that made it impossible to hunt them unless they allow it. At that point though it becomes a matter of hoping that whatever they saw in the future was solved by their sacrifice or you were in for a rough time.-
That reminded Nick for whatever reason of the magical family that existed over in the united states that was the descendants of Slytherin , the Sayre. It was rather funny in a way that the only remaining members of Slytherins bloodline in the world had entirely abandoned the mans institution and country. In fact unlike the Gaunts the Sayre were very noble as they truly sought the betterment of wizards both muggleborn and pureblood alike.-
'I should probably get to work on that soul devouring spell for Harry now that he has that dagger suppressing the soul shard.' Nick thought offhandedly as he pondered how to get what he needed for the ritual. There was a very long list of magical creatures to choose from and while most were illegal there were a few that he might be able to get his hands on in short order. 'I suppose I need to take a trip to the black market in knockturn alley to test my luck.' he decided finally before pulling out a textbook to study.-
He wasn't on a very tight deadline anymore and thus felt it a good idea to focus on increasing his magical skill to the seventh year at minimum as fast as possible. Thankfully he could mostly ignore potions , herbology , history and transfiguration since he was either very good at those subjects or they were mostly just memorization subjects. This left him with DADA , charms , astrology and his extra classes which in his case is arithmancy , care of magical beasts and runes. Runes he had mostly covered but was filling in his basic knowledge that he sort of skipped thanks to his ability.-
Arithmancy and care of magical beasts though were absolute slogs to go through because one was mind meltingly complex while the other required a lot of memorization as well as a good affinity for magical creatures. The first topic required time to figure out while the second required experience which was also a form of time. Nick was sort of in a hurry to improve though so those two subjects were mostly on the back burner for the moment. Learning the information in his textbooks on charms and DADA was a matter of memorization but actually mastering the information was an entirely different matter.-
It should be understood that the complexity and power of the magics taught in the later years grew with each year. Nick as a result thought that the wizarding society was really pathetic as they accepted a mere surface level understanding in order to pass with a good grade. As a result of this once the students left that information behind they tended to forget it entirely which means they were all usually failures when they graduated. Thankfully there was enough people graduating that truly understood the information to keep the society afloat but it was without any doubt slowly and painfully decaying from all the rest dragging those few down with them.-
In a manner of speaking the upcoming turmoil of Grindelwalds recovery of the world might just be the kick in the backside that wizarding kind needed to truly prosper. Many will die undoubtedly in the process but the final result would be pretty worth it all things considered. Nick was fairly certain that this was actually the reason none of the really powerful people are doing much to stop the man save just going through the motions or hiding away.-
Anyways Nick was currently up to the middle of the fifth year in terms of understanding the magic in the textbooks. This was actually quite good considering everything he has been busy with since getting his exemption. Thanks to that exemption he actually had much more time to cover the textbooks so even while splitting his time with other things he has made good progress. He spent the next few days making rings of protection and pushing his skill ever forward while he waited for his house elf to return to him.