Wade agreed to Senior's proposal without hesitation.
Truthfully, even though Wade wasn't really just an eleven-year-old kid, the magical knowledge he possessed still didn't seem significantly stronger than that of an average first-year wizard in Senior's eyes.
"I should've told you everything I knew much earlier. I should've been more humble…"
Having come to his senses, Wade felt deeply ashamed.
His experiences before transmigrating had left him with a kind of misplaced arrogance.
Because of that, he often overlooked the most important point—that everything he had learned in his previous life wasn't actually as helpful in the magical world as he had imagined.
So, with his current capabilities, what he should be doing wasn't locking himself in the wizard tower's lab and painstakingly applying his still extremely shallow magical knowledge to research things on his own.
Instead, he should be using his previous life's perspective to come up with fresh and creative ideas, then entrusting the actual experimental and research work to the Senior, who was far more knowledgeable.
That way, not only could he save a huge amount of time, but the success rate of the experiments would also be much higher than if he did them himself.
For example, just this afternoon, he had spent hours trying to separate the emotional forces within the "residue," failing many times along the way…
But in reality, that step only took Senior a few seconds…
…
When Wade woke from the dream, the sky was still dark.
Tom the cat was curled up under Wade's blanket, sleeping soundly.
The other Tom, however, seemed to have been awake for a while. He was sitting on his bed, holding his wand and reading by the light of a Lumos spell.
"Did you just wake up, or didn't sleep at all?" Wade asked.
"Didn't sleep," Tom replied curtly.
"Why are you being so diligent? Wouldn't it be the same if you just read after getting some sleep?"
"I just want to become stronger faster… that way, I won't be so easily bullied."
"Tom, are you trying to imply something about me?"
"No. If you're looking for a fight, just go ahead and hit me. No need to beat around the bush," Tom said coldly.
This damn bastard had just woken up and was already asking a bunch of pointless questions.
Based on past experience, what else could it be besides wanting to pick a fight and beat me up?
Tom had no idea what had set him off this time.
Surely he couldn't be taking out his frustrations over a bad dream by beating him up, right?
"If you're gonna hit me, get it over with. Don't block my reading."
Tom tossed the book aside and sprawled out dramatically, looking like he was offering himself up for sacrifice.
"Tom… how could you misunderstand me like this?"
Wade sat up and, to Tom's surprise, pulled out a book from beside him and started reading too.
With the aid of Eagle Eye, he didn't even need Lumos to see clearly.
"You… you're actually reading in the middle of the night?" Tom was genuinely stunned.
He had never seen Wade get up to read in the dead of night before.
"I realized how shallow I really am… so I urgently need to arm myself with knowledge," Wade said with a sigh.
Wade had come to a full realization: his current mission was to quickly turn his shallow magical knowledge into something truly substantial.
All his past glory—that was in another life.
Now that he was in this world, everything had to start from scratch…
"Your knowledge is shallow? Hiss… Don't tell me something nasty possessed you? You're actually becoming humble? Was it that cat? If that's the case, we might as well toss the cat out!"
"No! How could you even think about throwing away my Tom!"
"Shut up! Why does that sound so wrong no matter how you say it?!"
…
The next day.
During a break between classes, Wade made time to return to the hidden passage that led to the site of the battle between the senior and Ranrok.
At the spot, Toby was already waiting for him.
"Toby, can you take me inside? This is what it looks like inside," Wade said, raising his wand.
From the tip of the wand, a thick white mist sprayed out.
The mist gradually formed a broken, ruined chamber in midair.
"I'm very sorry, Master Wade. If it were anywhere else, Toby could take you in. But this is underground Hogwarts… Apparition magic is restricted here. If it's just Toby alone, I can barely manage to Apparate within Hogwarts, but if I'm bringing you along… Wuwuwu, Toby is useless, I've let Master Wade down!"
Wade stopped Toby just as he was about to bang his head against the wall.
"It's alright. If I can't go in myself… maybe that's even more reasonable."
After pondering for a moment, Wade pulled out a floor plan.
"Toby, can you understand this diagram? It's a floor plan of the chamber inside."
Toby nodded. "If Toby goes in for a look, I should be able to recognize it…"
"Alright… then go have a look first, memorize the layout, and then come back," Wade instructed.
"Yes, sir!" Toby said and vanished on the spot.
Roughly five minutes later, Toby reappeared in the tunnel.
"Toby has memorized the layout inside. Umm… sorry, Master Wade, Toby feels a bit dizzy because it's too stuffy in there."
"No problem, this is a good time for you to rest…" Wade said, snapping his fingers.
Toby immediately collapsed onto the ground and fell into a deep sleep.
Heh~ No let's use the cheatcode!
Next, Wade directly used Nightmare Magic to enter Toby's dream.
...
"Ah! Toby was sleeping!… Where is Toby? Oh… Master Wade!"
It was the first time the house-elf had been pulled into a dream, and he looked a bit flustered.
"Relax, Toby. It's best if you calm your mind as well. Don't let your thoughts run wild."
"O-okay!"
Once Toby settled down, Wade activated the nightmare magic.
Then, the scene of the chamber Toby had memorized was directly recreated!
The surroundings around Wade and Toby rapidly shifted.
They transformed into a dimly lit, gloomy chamber.
This was lit up only because Toby had deliberately used a house-elf lighting charm earlier to see more clearly.
"Alright… Toby, is this what you saw just now?"
"Yes!"
Wade began examining the chamber again.
The chamber was filled with rubble and broken remains.
It was clear how fierce the battle had been.
Wade walked through the mess scattered across the floor.
At the very center of the chamber, he found a half-shattered metal sphere.
Clearly, this was the goblin-metal container once used by the Keepers to seal the "residue" Morganach had collected.
But the container was now broken, and the "residue" inside had long since vanished without a trace.
Wade's eyes lit up—there was so much goblin metal!
"Toby, can you bring this goblin metal out?"
"If it's just objects, Toby can!"
"That's great!"
Next, Wade pulled out the blueprint and placed it in front of Toby.
"Before you take those goblin metals out, I need you to help me with something—install these devices… in these positions..."
…
After waking from the dream, Toby immediately followed Wade's instructions and installed the sensory traps one by one.
The installation was actually quite simple. Toby just had to stick the devices onto corners of the walls and other spots.
After that, Toby began collecting the scattered goblin metal pieces from the floor.
Wade placed all the goblin metals into the same suitcase he had used for the traps.
Then he had Toby take the suitcase back to the wizard's tower.
Afterward, Wade slipped out of the secret passage.
He silently blended into the stream of students heading to the Great Hall for dinner…
After eating, Wade even found a spot to take a nap. In his dream, he informed the senior of all the preparations he had completed.
"Good. When you go to catch that goblin tonight, take your cat with you," she said.
"Take the cat? Why?" Wade was quite puzzled.
"Don't ask, just do it."
Before Wade could press further, the senior kicked him out of the dream.
Since taking over Wade's research responsibilities, she had become much busier than before.
Wade didn't know the reason she wanted him to do this, but since it was her instruction, he'd just follow it.
That evening, Wade only returned briefly to the dormitory to pick up his cat, and then didn't come back again.
The others in the dorm were long used to Wade's late-night outings; even Tom didn't comment on it.
Wade carried Tom the cat and waited in the hidden passage until nine o'clock.
"It's time to move…" he said, lifting the kneazle in his arms and slipping out of the Hogwarts castle through the passageway, heading straight into the Forbidden Forest.
After entering the forest, Wade settled under a large tree.
Although he was supposed to catch the goblin craftsman tonight, the senior still hadn't told him the exact location!
"Maybe… I should take a quick nap and ask her now?" Wade muttered to himself.
"No need, just follow me," the senior's voice suddenly echoed in Wade's mind.
"Huh?" Wade looked around in surprise.
_________
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