Rhys took out a piece of wiping cloth and gently wiped off the remaining red liquid on the surface of the stone, revealing a blood-red stone.
Visually, it was no different from the Philosopher's Stone Rhys had obtained that day, but it was far from enough to just look the same. He had to make a replica that could deceive Dumbledore's eyes.
As the strongest wizard he had met after waking up, Rhys would not take Dumbledore lightly.
He was willing to treat this junior who was born nearly a thousand years later than him as an equal. In other words, he needed to make a replica that even he himself could hardly distinguish.
There are many counterfeiting methods popular in the Muggle antique world. For example, making a plate of ancient style and putting a mark of the corresponding era on the bottom is the most crude imitation method; a slightly more advanced method is to use physical or chemical methods to make it look old; the most powerful method is to combine and splice antiques from different eras to create a counterfeit with a longer historical background and high value, or simply split an antique into two pieces.
Rhys is going to use the most advanced counterfeiting methods.
The reason why he took such great pains to imitate the Philosopher's Stone was naturally because Rhys wanted to get the real Philosopher's Stone for research but did not want Dumbledore to find out.
He had previously obtained some fragments from the Philosopher's Stone, and although the sample was not large enough for research, it was enough for him to make a sufficiently realistic imitation.
Rhys used his magic power and found nothing unusual about the fake in his hand. After failing several times, he finally made a fake that was good enough to deceive his own eyes.
After selecting the magic stone in his hand, Rhys began to make further imitations.
He evaporated the liquid in the crucible until only a lump the size of a fingernail remained. He then used magic to control the gummy substance and evenly spread it on the surface of the fake Philosopher's Stone. Finally, he waited for it to dry naturally and the job was done.
The fake in Rhys's hand was so good that even he couldn't tell it apart: the real Philosopher's Stone powder was evenly dispersed inside the stone, and even if he used magic to detect it, he would never find anything unusual.
What's even better is that Rhys used the real Philosopher's Stone as the raw material and coated the fake with a very thin film, which made the fake even have some of the functions of the real Philosopher's Stone - if the real Philosopher's Stone can extend life for a year, then this one can probably extend life for a few hours.
This operation ensures that even if the counterfeit is really used to make the elixir of life, it can still pass for sale.
Putting the fake in his arms, Rhys left the secret room and headed straight for the corridor on the fourth floor.
It was still a puzzle game, but along the way, Rhys had made some changes to the game levels. These were the tests he prepared for Daphne - how could the same test paper be used for students of different levels?
As for whether his changes would be discovered, Rhys had his own plan.
When he arrived at the last level, he found that it had changed a little from before: the Mirror of Erised that he saw that night had been placed here.
Rhys used the same method to take the Philosopher's Stone out of the mirror, then changed the shape of the one he made so that the two Philosopher's Stones were exactly the same in appearance before putting the fake one in.
After putting the imitation Philosopher's Stone in, Rhys thought for a moment and added one more thing in. After doing this, Rhys left the examination room that Dumbledore had prepared for Harry.
…
As the days passed and the final exams approached, Harry, Quirrell, Daphne, Rhys, and Dumbledore all began to get busy with their own affairs.
The Voldemort behind Quirrell's mind finally accumulated enough power, prompting Quirrell to break into the closed corridor on the fourth floor, and the candidate Harry finally realized that something was wrong.
It was a sunny afternoon, and as the end of the semester was approaching, the professors no longer taught classes but allowed students to review freely. If they had any questions, they could go to their offices.
Harry threw the notes aside in annoyance and rubbed his forehead hard.
Ron, who was sitting next to him, sighed. He knew that Harry had been in poor condition since he came back from the Forbidden Forest last time, and the approaching final exams in recent days seemed to have exacerbated his symptoms.
"Why don't you go to the infirmary? Maybe Madam Pomfrey can prepare a painkilling potion for you, or talk to Rhys? He really knows potions."
Harry waved his hands. His intuition told him that the painkilling potion would not work. What Ron didn't know was that he had been awakened by a nightmare recently. In the dream, a hooded figure with blood dripping from the corner of his mouth kept approaching him.
Harry thought it was a warning, meaning that some danger was coming. At the same time, he had a vague feeling in his heart that Ron's second half of the sentence made sense, and it might be a good idea to find Rhys.
"Perhaps I forgot to do something, something very important," Harry said to Ron.
"It's probably the exam that's to blame. I really don't understand. The professors taught us the knowledge, and we studied it seriously. But why do we still have to take an exam? This is simply a lack of trust in us!" Ron had great complaints about the final exam.
Harry didn't want to talk to Ron for the time being, so he stood up and decided to go find Rhys and Daphne and have a good chat with them. To Harry's surprise, when he found Daphne, he discovered that Rhys, who always stayed with Daphne in Library, was gone.
"Where's Rhys?"
"I don't know, he said he had something to do, so he asked me to review here alone." Daphne pouted. Of course she knew that Rhys was going to tinker with his extremely complicated potion, but what obligation did she have to tell Potter?
You can't take him to the Chamber of Secrets to find Rhys. That's the territory left by Slytherin for his heir. What does it have to do with him, a Gryffindor?
Harry was getting more and more upset because he didn't see him. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration came to Harry, and he felt that he had grasped the truth.
He pressed his palm against Daphne's notebook and took it away from her.
Faced with Daphne's shocked and angry eyes, Harry just begged her to go with him to see Hagrid.
Calling the bored Ron, the three of them went straight to Hagrid's hut.
"You'd better give me an explanation." Daphne followed the two men with a dark face. She swore that if Harry couldn't give a reasonable explanation, she would definitely teach him a lesson.
"Don't you think some things are too coincidental?" Harry counted on his fingers and told Daphne the doubts he was aware of one by one.
"Hagrid is the owner of the three-headed dog on the third floor. Then, when he was playing cards, he met a wizard with a dragon egg. What kind of wizard would bring a dragon egg to play cards?! The key is that he lost the dragon egg to Hagrid in the end! Add to that the Halloween trolls and the monsters in the Forbidden Forest. No, I have to go find Hagrid to verify some things."
Harry's face turned pale: "If it's consistent with my guess... that's terrible!"
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Rhys Vs Voldy is going on!