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The Sorting Hat, which had been sitting atop a bookshelf, flew into Dumbledore's hand. Without hesitation, he reached into it and pulled out a gleaming, coldly radiant weapon—a folding hand crossbow adorned with magical gemstones. If Harry wasn't mistaken, the contraption appeared to be capable of rapid fire. A quiver atop the crossbow was loaded with seven crystal-clear bolts, each shimmering like glass.
"The Crossbow of Gryffindor," Harry muttered as he stroked his chin, a tone of mild amusement in his voice. "Makes sense."
Having witnessed various oddities by now, Harry wasn't at all surprised to see Gryffindor's sword replaced by a crossbow. Truth be told, ancient wizards using bows wasn't far-fetched, so the existence of crossbows seemed equally plausible. Harry had yet to see a wizard wielding a greatsword for close combat since arriving in this world.
"You recognize it?" Dumbledore asked, a hint of surprise in his expression. "The Crossbow of Gryffindor is rarely mentioned. Even among Hogwarts headmasters, few know of its existence. Only a true Gryffindor can retrieve it from the Sorting Hat. The quiver contains seven bolts, each imbued with a unique and formidable power. Even an adult dragon could be felled with a single shot."
"Historically, the Crossbow of Gryffindor has been used only four times, each instance to eliminate a significant threat. Of the seven bolts, only three remain functional. I've studied it for years but haven't been able to uncover a method to recharge the bolts."
Dumbledore pressed a switch on the crossbow, and with a series of mechanical clicks, the folded limbs extended. Oddly, the crossbow lacked a traditional bowstring. Instead, a single crystal bolt, brimming with magical energy, rested in the groove. Intricate, ancient magical runes flickered across its surface, glowing faintly.
"Ven-gaar-nos," Harry murmured.
"What did you say?" Dumbledore asked curiously. For someone fluent in over a hundred languages, he found Harry's words unfamiliar.
"The runes on the bolt," Harry explained. "Roughly, they translate to 'Storm Strike.' I'm not entirely sure of its effect—perhaps it fires a ferocious tornado or something similar."
"These are Awakener runes," Harry continued. "A century ago, a Hufflepuff Awakener traveled the world after graduating, collecting different runes left behind by others like him."
"The three on this bolt belong to Godric Gryffindor."
Harry's gaze shifted to the other bolts. If each bolt had a unique combination of runes, this crossbow contained 21 distinct rune words. Just this discovery alone was more valuable than all the runes Harry had gathered from Seti.
"May I take a closer look?"
"Of course."
Dumbledore pressed another switch, retracting the bolt into the quiver and folding the crossbow back into its compact form before handing it to Harry.
Three of the bolts radiated a fiery red magical light, while the remaining four had been depleted of their power. Despite this, the ancient runes engraved on them were still visible.
Without exception, each bolt featured a spell sequence formed by three distinct runes. From his limited understanding, Harry knew that Awakeners rarely used two-word or multi-word rune combinations in their spells. Typically, they either used a single rune or a triad. Unfortunately, lacking the inherited knowledge of Awakener bloodlines, Harry had yet to fully grasp how to use these rune sequences effectively.
"Storm, fire, thunder, frost…" Harry mused. "Are Gryffindor's runes all elemental in nature? Or was there knowledge exchange among Awakeners of that era? If the Four Founders were all Awakeners, sharing knowledge would have been entirely natural."
"A glorious age a thousand years ago," Harry sighed. Back then, Awakeners must have been far more numerous than today. Sadly, in the present day, Harry had yet to encounter another living Awakener. Perhaps Seti was still alive—at a century old, he wouldn't be considered particularly aged by wizard standards. Dumbledore and Grindelwald were both over a hundred and still in excellent physical and mental condition, showing little decline from their prime. For powerful wizards of their caliber, reaching 200 years of age wasn't out of the question.
Harry doubted that a powerful Awakener wizard like Seti, someone practically bursting with power, would have simply dropped dead at the age of one hundred. For all Harry knew, Seti could very well be squatting in some ancient ruin somewhere, tirelessly digging away.
"Sorry, I can't recharge the bolts either," Harry admitted. "Gryffindor's magic is fundamentally different from mine. The biggest distinction between Awakeners is the nature of their magic. Our magic is deeply imbued with personal will, far beyond that of ordinary wizards. My affinity is chaos, while Gryffindor's is order."
"Forcing my magic into the bolts might just make them explode," he added with a wry smile.
"What a pity," Dumbledore said with a note of regret. "I had hoped that cracking the technology behind this construct could help solve some of our other problems."
"Still, this isn't a total loss," Harry replied. "At least I've learned over twenty new Awakener runes I'd never seen before. Seti spent seventeen years exploring ruins and didn't find even this many."
"By the way, Professor, what's troubling you so much that you've resorted to 'advancing magic through archaeology'?" Harry quipped.
"Have you ever heard the phrase 'magic and technology are incompatible'?" Dumbledore asked, waving his hand to summon a set of cups. He poured steaming hot tea for everyone, then added a tray piled high with sugar cubes. Without hesitation, Dumbledore scooped seven or eight cubes into his own cup, nearly causing the tea to spill over.
"Fred and George mentioned it once," Harry replied.
"Good," Dumbledore said, taking a sip of his absurdly sweet tea and nodding slightly. "Magic disrupts the natural order—it interferes with the physical rules of reality. It turns order into chaos. Technology, on the other hand, relies on a consistent, orderly world to function."
"In the magical world, fire can freeze a lake, and ice can burn with temperatures hotter than a forge. The laws of physics are not fixed truths here—they are subject to the wizard's will, to the intent of the one wielding magic. If the world were fundamentally orderly, magic that overturns that order wouldn't exist. The ideal environment for magic is an inherently chaotic world, one unbound by immutable rules. That's the root of why magical fields interfere with technological creations."
"But this is just a crossbow," Harry pointed out, puzzled. "Mechanical structures aren't affected by magical fields. Even mechanical transmissions, like the ones in Mr. Weasley's modified car, are more complex than the construction of this crossbow."
"What if I told you this crossbow doesn't rely on mechanical force to fire its bolts, but instead uses electromagnetic acceleration to launch them at fifteen times the speed of sound?" Dumbledore asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You're saying this thing is actually a portable railgun?" Harry's eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the crossbow, dumbfounded. At home, he had a state-of-the-art Arc-AK47 electromagnetic rifle—a marvel of modern technology. And now he was being told that over a thousand years ago, Godric Gryffindor had already built himself an electromagnetic crossbow?
"As real as it gets," Dumbledore confirmed with a slight smile.
(End of Chapter)