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**[Achievement]: Rebuke of a Foolish Subordinate**
**[Description]: Although the Malfoy family isn't your subordinate yet—rest assured, they will be—you've fully embodied the majesty of a dark lord, scolding them into utter disgrace.**
**[Requirement]: Unleash a verbal tirade on Lucius.**
**[Reward]: One random max-level dark spell**
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"Another dark spell, huh?"
Compared to the panic he felt when he first received the system and instantly mastered the three Unforgivable Curses, Dylan now faced the reward of a max-level dark spell with calm composure.
He even felt a flicker of excitement.
"I wonder what spell I'll get this time. Maybe I can test it out the next time I rob some dark wizards."
He claimed the reward.
In an instant, everything around him blurred, as if his consciousness had been sucked into the vast, boundless depths of a cosmic void.
A pitch-black star hung high above his head. With just a glance upward, Dylan could feel a thick, malevolent aura radiating endlessly from it.
"Come on, hit me with your best shot."
Dylan crooked a finger at the dark star above.
The next moment—
*Whoosh!*
The black star plummeted down.
It crashed into Dylan with overwhelming force.
Suddenly, he found himself standing in a desolate, lifeless wasteland.
All around him were layers upon layers of corpses, each in a different grotesque state.
Some had faces twisted in agony, mouths gaping wide as if they'd let out a desperate scream before death.
Others had limbs bent at unnatural angles, stiffly protruding into the air.
Still others were incomplete, with severed arms and legs scattered carelessly nearby, organs spilling out, the ground stained with dark red blood that had dried into blackish-brown clumps.
Dylan ignored the pungent stench of decay and raised his wand slowly.
"Foul earth awakens souls, decayed bones birth flowers—from the rot of death, the magic of life takes root!"
With a low, resonant chant—
*Swish, swish, swish!*
Blood-red beams shot from the tip of his wand, slithering like venomous snakes toward the corpses.
Where the light touched, the bodies began to tremble violently.
Then, from the eye sockets, nostrils, mouths, and every gash on their forms, twisted black flower buds burst forth.
The buds emerged and grew at a near-frenzied pace, swelling rapidly.
Their petals, edged with faint white veins, unfurled slowly, revealing crimson stamens that glowed with a bloody light.
As the flowers bloomed, the corpses' decay accelerated dramatically.
Skin cracked and peeled away in seconds, exposing the blackened muscles beneath, which then dissolved into pus, trickling down the bones.
Even the bones succumbed to the spell's corrosive power, crumbling into dust with a faint *rustle* as they fell.
In the blink of an eye, every corpse had rotted away completely, reduced to pools of black soil that no longer even carried a scent.
Only tattered scraps of clothing and stray bone fragments remained, hinting at what the soil once was.
And now, those patches of earth served as the roots for a field of blooming black flowers.
The blossoms swayed, eerie and haunting, a chilling blend of death and rebirth.
Dylan stood amid this sea of flowers, his black robes billowing in the breeze. From a distance, there was an oddly captivating beauty to the scene.
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**[Notification]: Congratulations! You've mastered the max-level spell—Putreflorifera (Blossoming Decay)!**
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Dylan snapped out of the system interface.
After experiencing the effects of the spell he'd just acquired, his eyes lit up.
"This spell—it's like Fiendfyre, capable of disposing of bodies?"
Of course, if the goal was simply to dispose of corpses cleanly, Fiendfyre would be the go-to choice.
But this *Blossoming Decay* had its own unique flair.
"The black flowers it produces—could they be used as potion ingredients?"
Dylan rubbed his chin, intrigued by the potential properties of these flowers.
With that thought, he glanced at a penned-up pile of cockroaches.
The insects crawled over each other, their rustling movements filling the air, their glossy shells glinting coldly in the dim light.
"*Crucio!* (Cruciatus Curse)"
A white beam shot out.
—Dylan had recently upgraded his wand with random colorful attack effects, which had cost him a hefty thousand Galleons.
Still, he was pretty well-off now. While he was saving up for big investments like his suitcase, he didn't mind splurging on little enhancements like this when tinkering with aesthetic features.
As the Cruciatus Curse struck the cockroach pile, the once-frantic critters erupted into chaotic thrashing.
Their antennae flailed wildly, and their spiky legs kicked in all directions.
—Since cockroaches have hearts with multiple chambers, they seemed to endure the pain even more intensely.
Within moments, nearly half the group had their life force drained, collapsing stiffly to the ground.
"*Putreflorifera!* (Blossoming Decay)"
Dylan waved his wand again.
A strange purplish-black light flickered.
In an instant, tiny yet vividly striking black flowers began sprouting from the cockroach corpses.
Dylan leaned in and took a light sniff, catching a faint, sweet scent.
It was subtle, but definitely there.
The surviving cockroaches nearby seemed drawn to the fragrance as well. Though they'd been scurrying in panic moments ago, they now turned and crawled toward the newly bloomed flowers.
"Oh?"
This discovery piqued Dylan's curiosity.
He didn't stop the cockroaches from nibbling at the flowers. Instead, he wanted to observe what would happen after they consumed them.
*Rustle, rustle.*
With so many cockroaches, the sound grew even denser.
Their antennae twitched frantically, mandibles opening and closing. Some even began fighting each other to get closer to the flowers.
Dylan watched with interest as a slightly larger cockroach reached a black flower first. It probed the petals repeatedly with its antennae before digging in, munching eagerly with its mouthparts.
---
---
As it continued to swallow, strange changes began to take place.
The cockroach's body visibly swelled before Dylan's eyes!
What had once been the size of a thumb was now growing closer to the length of a middle finger. Even its shell seemed to harden, looking noticeably thicker.
The creature's movements and reaction speed increased dramatically, and the smaller cockroaches around it were sent flying by its reckless charging.
"This…"
Dylan raised an eyebrow.
"So, these flowers contain some sort of special factor that stimulates biological growth?"
Dylan's curiosity about the black flowers surged.
He leaned in closer, carefully observing the smaller insects still trying to approach the flowers, his eyes filled with intrigue and questions.
"If these flowers really do have something that causes growth in living things, I might be able to use them to develop a new potion!"
But Dylan wasn't yet sure whether the effects of these black flowers were instantaneous or long-lasting.
"Beyond that, I can't tell if the flowers are all the same—if black flowers from any source have identical effects."
"Or is it that flowers grown from a specific creature's corpse only work on that same type of creature, and not others?"
Dylan couldn't help but ponder.
"If I can actually develop this potion, it might just sell like crazy…"
Forgetting about his spell-refinement tasks for the moment, Dylan straightened up and waved his wand, shattering the small critters trying to approach the black flowers.
The surrounding cockroaches jolted in fright, scurrying far away.
"Huh? Wait, I think I used the wrong spell."
He shouldn't have just smashed those little cuties to bits.
"But can the crushed bodies still grow flowers?"
With a curious thought, Dylan twirled his wand again.
To his delight, tiny flower buds began sprouting from the pile of powdered remains.
"Not bad!"
Pleased with the result, Dylan flicked his wand, and all the black flowers floated up, drifting to his side.
He also pulled the cockroaches that had eaten the flowers out of their enclosure, placing them in a separate petri dish for isolated storage.
"Looks like I've got my work cut out for me."
Spell refinement, magical practice, potion research…
He also had to keep up with his daily reading—no slacking off on books, not even for a day.
"Ah, the troubles of being blessed."
Feeling his knowledge steadily grow and his magic strengthen bit by bit, Dylan savored a satisfaction that was hard to put into words.
Days passed one after another.
It wasn't until the start of the school year drew near that Dylan finally climbed out of his suitcase.
"I didn't expect the *Inferi Return* spell could be used on these little bugs too."
*Inferi Return* allowed Dylan to control corpses.
*Foul Bloom* turned bodies into magical materials.
Both were deeply sinister dark magic spells, yet lately, Dylan had thrown himself entirely into mastering them.
After dinner and a chat with his family, Dylan returned to his bedroom and climbed back into the suitcase.
By now, the suitcase's 100,000 cubic feet of space had transformed dramatically.
A large portion was filled with towering bookshelves.
A smaller section had been carved out by Dylan to serve as his research lab.
That area was now further divided into several zones.
In the first zone, a dense swarm of cockroaches huddled together.
In the second, a group of spiders dangled from webs or scurried between them.
The third zone held a rack—Dylan's workbench—laden with petri dishes containing oversized cockroaches and spiders kept in isolation, alongside a collection of black flowers.
The fourth zone was the most striking: a massive transparent tank filled with murky, shadowy water, wisps of cold vapor rising from its surface.
The tank was conjured with a Transfiguration spell. Lately, Dylan had also been studying how to inscribe spells onto objects—like how flying broomsticks were made.
This tank was the fruit of that research.
It was etched with a stable Transfiguration spell, ensuring it maintained its current form indefinitely.
The water inside was created using the *Inferi Return* spell.
*Inferi Return* didn't simply bring corpses back to life.
Instead, it required shadowy water for the remains to soak in, granting them new life as Inferi.
So, inside the tank, numerous insect carcasses twitched and moved.
But after days of soaking, they'd become bloated, their shells dulled to a mottled gray, devoid of luster.
Though they swam through the water, their movements were stiff and awkward.
Dylan stepped closer, observing for a moment before casually tossing in a few live cockroaches.
The moment those live ones splashed in, the spider Inferi—soaked for days—snapped open their compound eyes. A scarlet glow, matching the black flowers' stamens, flickered in their pupils.
At the same time, their former kin swarmed over, pinning the live cockroaches to the tank's bottom.
Soon, they died too.
But not long after, those newly dead bugs twitched again under the shadowy water's influence.
They'd revived.
Now part of the growing army of Inferi cockroaches and spiders.
"The shadowy water needs a constant supply of living things to sustain it, or it'll slowly evaporate and fade away."
Dylan glanced at the giant tank.
He'd put a lot of effort into producing this much shadowy water recently, but he'd hit a ceiling. For now, he couldn't increase the yield any further.
To make more shadowy water, he'd need more corpses, but his supply of bugs was limited.
Though he could toss them into the tank after using them for spell-refinement tasks, he also needed to keep some alive to grow more black flowers.
Dylan had discovered that the black flowers had a limited lifespan.
Unlike epiphyllum, which bloomed and withered in an instant, they lasted only a day.
After that, they wilted rapidly.
When he first realized this, it cost him a lot of research materials.
To keep up with his research progress lately, Dylan had to set aside a portion of corpses each day to cast *Putreflorifera*.
Fortunately, for now, he didn't need a large supply of shadow water.
Though creating an Inferius required fully submerging a corpse in shadow water—like the great lake Harry had once fallen into.
If he'd truly been dragged to the bottom by Inferi and drowned, Harry would've become a mindless, manipulated corpse himself.
But Dylan wasn't in a rush to make Inferi. To him, they offered little practical value.
Rather than crafting Inferi, he was far more interested in whether shadow water could be refined into a potion—or if it had other potential uses.
"Though I haven't been researching for long, I'm almost certain these flowers contain an incredibly potent energy!"
Dylan plucked one of the black flowers, examining the intricate patterns on its petals as he turned it over in his hand.
The designs on the petals resembled ancient runes, but they were too faint for him to discern their exact form.
Through his recent tests and studies, he'd confirmed the presence of energy within the flowers. However, after a day, the flowers withered, and their energy dissipated along with them.
Even the cockroaches that ate the flowers—whose bodies initially swelled—shrank back down. They didn't fully revert to their original size, but it was clear that the energy they'd absorbed faded alongside the flowers' decay.
Dylan stared at a cockroach in a petri dish, now swollen to the size of a palm, and used tweezers to pick up its molting shell mid-transformation.
What should've been a fragile, translucent husk now shimmered under the light with a silvery, mithril-like sheen.
When he dipped the shell into shadow water, the surface suddenly crystallized with ice-like magical runes.
"What a fascinating phenomenon."
After weeks of experimentation, Dylan had noticed that the energy in the black flowers carried a slight corrosive property. Cockroaches shrank back lethargically after their initial growth spurt.
And right after consuming the petals, they'd act frenzied, as if some primal instinct had been triggered.
These were issues—flaws Dylan needed to eliminate if he wanted to develop a potion that could dominate the market.
Ideally, he'd isolate the positive effects of eating the flowers to create something truly profitable.
Otherwise, a potion with negative side effects might find a niche buyer or two, but it'd never gain widespread appeal.
"But that's not the most important part. What matters is that I've sensed a genuine *life force* in these flowers!"
After reading the Jewish *Book of Abraham*, Dylan hadn't figured out how to craft a Philosopher's Stone directly, but he'd gained plenty of insights into the process.
And since the Philosopher's Stone symbolized immortality, the knowledge he'd accumulated often resurfaced in his mind while studying the black flowers.
This had fueled a string of breakthroughs in his recent research, with new discoveries popping up regularly.
"Maybe if I keep refining this energy, it could rival unicorn blood in its potential for immortality studies!"
After another round of research, Dylan tidied up his workbench, took a moment to relax, and lifted his head. He glanced around the dim environment, his gaze shifting thoughtfully.
"Hmm… it's starting to feel the part."
—A sinister wizard, toiling day and night in a lab, conducting eerie, malevolent, deranged, nauseating, and utterly inhumane experiments.
"But if I can uncover new substances—and through the process, apply, master, or even generate new knowledge—it's honestly thrilling!"
Dylan smacked his lips.
Despite handling so many corpses and dark magic, his mind remained untainted.
Corpses were just corpses.
Dark magic was just magic.
Beyond his research, not a shred of darker intent crept into his thoughts.
—This kept his demeanor untouched by the experiments.
"School starts tomorrow. I'll need to ask Mom and Dad for more money—and get them to send me a regular allowance once the term begins."
Dylan stepped out of his suitcase, cleaned up, and flopped onto his bed.
He planned to invest some cash after school started to transform his pet-space suitcase into a proper natural habitat.
—Or maybe two habitats.
One to serve as a necromancy research lab.
Another for his pets and magical creatures to live in.
"That means the pet space needs to expand again. I'll be capturing a bunch of magical creatures, and Coalball and Beta need more room to roam too."
Lying in bed, Dylan sighed.
It all came down to money—always money!
Poor, still too poor!
*Tap, tap—*
The crescent moon outside the window cast silvery light across his bed.
As the attic's grandfather clock struck ten, Dylan's potion-stained fingers traced a silver-green rune in the air.
Ripples spread through the space, and Coalball leapt gracefully from a twisting curtain of light. Its sleek black fur glistened, tail held high, amber eyes shimmering like ancient Gobletfire in the room's glow.
"How've you and Beta been lately?" Dylan hadn't paid much attention to his pets recently, too absorbed in his research.
With school starting tomorrow, he figured he'd spend some quality time with Coalball today.
"Mrrrow!"
Coalball shot him a haughty side-eye, holding its aloof pose for a moment. But when it saw Dylan just smiling silently at it, the cat relented, sauntering over to curl up into a fluffy ball on his lap.
Dylan chuckled softly, patted Coalball's head, and settled in to sleep.
The scent of pine wafted through the window crack. As his consciousness faded into darkness, Dylan vaguely felt Coalball rest its fuzzy head on the "Draught of Living Death" chapter of his *Advanced Potion-Making* book.
On that page, an illustration of a moonlight flower bloomed quietly under the lunar glow.
*(End of Chapter)*