Chapter 379 The Internet and Homework

The Encyclopedia Britannica was a Christmas gift from Hermione to Rice. This was no small feat. The whole set of books had a total of twenty volumes. The little girl must have taken a lot of effort to bring them from the non-magical world to Hogwarts.

However, considering that Ravenclaw should have taught her how to control magic, Rice believed that Hermione would not be stupid enough to carry them, right? It would be much easier to lift them with magic, and it would not violate the Statute of Secrecy.

The content introduced in the encyclopedia sent by Hermione was really too rich - strictly speaking, it was too rich, so rich that Rice even felt that he had no idea what to eat when he first got it.

Fortunately, she sent the latest edition. Under the strong recommendation of many readers, the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica added two index volumes. Although even the index volume has a million words, it can help Rice quickly understand the content of the whole book.

After quickly flipping through the two volumes of the "Index", Rice determined the order of reading the book in a very short time.

Rice thought that philosophy, religion, humanities and arts could be put aside for a while. He was more interested in the technology of Muggles. He was eager to know how far the technology of Muggles had developed.

Then, while flipping through the Index, a word caught Rice's attention. That word was "Internet".

"Internal network? What a strange name." Rice was curious about this strange word.

Driven by curiosity, he looked it up through the index.

"TCP/IP? What is this? What is ARPANET?" Rice felt that he knew most of the words that introduced the Internet in the book, but after these words were connected and two abbreviations were added, he was completely confused.

He only knew that the Internet seemed to be a new gadget invented by the United States. In recent years, it has developed very rapidly. Muggles can quickly and conveniently obtain various types of information through the Internet, such as news, academic materials, entertainment content, etc., and can also use the Internet to send emails to each other, transfer files, and log in remotely.

It was difficult for Rice to understand the meaning of the phrases in these paragraphs.

According to his understanding, the Internet seems to be a wonderful medium through which Muggles can learn about what is happening in other parts of the world - provided that the place is also connected to the Internet. For places like Hogwarts that are not connected to the Internet, other people cannot learn about the situation in Hogwarts from the Internet.

This makes Les feel at ease and worried. What makes him feel at ease is that the magic world has not been exposed to the Muggles' vision, and what worries him is that he does not know how the Internet is connected. If it can be connected without the approval of the authority of Hogwarts, then it is only a matter of time before the magic world is exposed.

"Muggles are developing too rapidly..." After imagining several uses of the Internet, Les could not help but sigh at the power of Muggles.

Think about it, the editor of the Daily Prophet does not need to print newspapers. He can let the little wizards of Hogwarts see today's news with just a flick of his finger in the editorial department. Not only the little wizards of Hogwarts can see it, but also foreign schools such as Durmstrang and Beauxbatons can see it at the first time - according to the encyclopedia, the speed of transmission of this information is the speed of light.

The same is true for file transfer. With this network, professors at Durmstrang can teach Defense Against the Dark Arts to students at Hogwarts, and most of the books in the Hogwarts library can be copied and uploaded to the Internet. One can carry away the knowledge accumulated by Hogwarts for thousands of years in a schoolbag.

And this is just a simple application of the Muggle creation called "Internet". Muggles are really amazing.

Rice tried to learn more about it, but was shocked to find that behind it, like a mandrake pulled out of the ground, it brought out a lot of concepts that he had never heard of.

He read it for half an hour, but he didn't fully understand the principle of the Internet and what it is.

The encyclopedia sent by Hermione was of great help to Rice's in-depth understanding of Muggle society, but the deeper he understood, the more frightened Rice was.

He knew that many pure-blood wizards had a contemptuous attitude towards Muggles, and believed that as long as wizards wanted, they could trample Muggles under their feet and enslave them at any time. The current clear distinction between Muggles and wizards is entirely a gift from wizards.

Rice felt that this cognition was wrong.

Muggle society has formed a crushing advantage over wizards in terms of size and technology. It is definitely not a broken house that will collapse if kicked in the minds of those people.

Of course, wizards are not fish on the chopping board. Their ability to hide is unique. If they want to hide, Rice thinks that Muggles will not find them. More importantly, wizards are not powerless to fight back. If a full-scale war really breaks out, spells such as the Imperius Curse, Apparition, Killing Curse, and Explosive Curse will have a very eye-catching performance.

Not to mention that these old people of the old times are still alive. Rice can ensure that his magic can leave a very deep impression on Muggles, but he hopes that day will never come, because once those spells are used, wizards will have no way back.

After gathering his scattered thoughts, Rice decided to wait until the end of the holiday to have a good chat with those young wizards from Muggle families and learn about the Internet from them.

Rice felt that although connecting the wizarding world to the Internet was extremely dangerous, this technology was worth trying to learn. Perhaps he could successfully replicate it and build such a system on the Hogwarts campus.

But there is no rush. Anyway, there is still a long time before the Christmas holiday. He can take a good look at the encyclopedia that Hermione gave him during this period.

As promised, during the following Christmas holiday, Rice's daily routine became very regular. After getting up early in the morning, he had a quick breakfast and took Daphne and Astoria to Helga to make parts. After Cedric joined in, Helga's progress was much faster.

When he saw Rice and the other two, Cedric's expression was very wonderful: he never expected that there were three heirs of Slytherin, and why would the three of them come to help his teacher?

Later, when he learned that it was to learn knowledge, Cedric had a little respect for these three juniors in his heart.

They are different from other Slytherin students! These three people are still good.

According to him, Rice and the other two are students who "truly inherited the spirit of Slytherin".

Being evaluated by Cedric, Rice and Helga's expressions became quite strange, but Daphne and Astoria were really happy. For this reason, the two of them directly wished Cedric to defeat the Slytherin Quidditch team and win the Quidditch Cup.

This blessing also made Cedric confused.

This conversation was really strange. A Hufflepuff said that the other two Slytherins inherited the Slytherin spirit, and the two Slytherins wished the Hufflepuff Quidditch team to defeat the Slytherin team in the game. It was really strange everywhere.

"Why? Aren't you students of Slytherin College?" Cedric was completely confused. In his opinion, the three people on the opposite side were the heirs of Slytherin. Shouldn't they be the most loyal supporters of Slytherin? How could they support other colleges in the Quidditch game?

"It is the heirs of Slytherin who will oppose those guys." Daphne quickly complained about the weird students of Slytherin College, and made it clear that a real Slytherin would not spend time and energy on the technology of flying.

Rice wanted to stop her from exposing her family's shame, but considering that Malfoy and his gang had almost completely exposed the situation of the college, he did not stop her.

How could someone who had studied at Hogwarts for five years not know what Slytherin College is like now? !

Helga was a little overwhelmed just by glancing at Rice's expression. She knew the old venomous snake's current state of mind too well. With such a group of people staying in his college to ruin his reputation, he must rely on potions to fall asleep now, right?

Cedric was silent.

After a while, he squeezed out a dry "OK" and continued to make parts.

At noon, several people would put down their work, have a hearty lunch, and then rest for a while before starting to make puppet parts until the sun sets and dinner time comes - in the evening, when they return to the lounge, Rice will also take some time to read the encyclopedia.

After getting three half-hearted helpers, Helga's progress was rapid, and she completed nearly one-third of the orders in one holiday.

By the night before school started, she still had a lot of unfinished orders, but they were not so urgent.

However, the four people, Rice, who were immersed in the world of puppets, forgot a very important thing.

"I'll send the finished puppets out, and I hope they can be sent before school starts." After assembling a puppet, Helga walked out of the office with it.

She wanted to send the puppets out before the sun set.

After Hufflepuff left, Rice frowned: Helga's words just now stirred his memory, and made him vaguely remember something he had not completed.

"Hey, Daphne, have you done your homework?" Rice's question was like a thunder, freezing the three people in the room at the same time.

Daphne:!

Astoria:!

Cedric:!

"It's over, I forgot!" The three shouted in unison.

Life these days was so full that they completely forgot that they had homework to do.

A dangerous gleam flashed in Les's eyes: "It's too late anyway, why not..."

"It looks like we have to stay up all night tonight." Cedric said solemnly - unlike the three juniors, he is a fifth-year student preparing for the O.W.L. exam. The academic pressure is not ordinary, and the professors leave a lot of homework.

Daphne looked at Les pitifully: time is tight and the task is heavy. Now there is really no time to help Les with his homework.

In such a short time, if you want to finish two holiday homework, you may have to use time magic to borrow more than ten hours.

Looking at the pitiful Daphne, Les sighed: Daphne can't be counted on now. But he will definitely not do the homework himself...

Les took out the automatic writing feather pen that he had made with great effort before, threw it on the parchment, and the feather pen automatically wrote the paper.

Sitting on the side, Cedric, who had just summoned his schoolbag with the flying spell, was dumbfounded - is it really okay for Junior Rice to do this?

But after seeing that the pen took less than five minutes to generate a two-foot-long magical history paper, Cedric was moved.

With the help of such a pen, not only does he not have to stay up late tonight, he can also go to bed early... Thinking of this, Cedric's breathing became heavier.

Rice saw all of this, and his mind was calculating.

"I feel that there is no need to write the Defense Against the Dark Arts homework." Rice's speech was approved by Daphne and Astoria. Although Cedric didn't say it, he also agreed in his heart from his expression.

We have been working hard for three weeks, can we be exempted from homework? !

The four of them tacitly put the Defense Against the Dark Arts homework at the bottom and decided to wait for Professor White to come back to see the situation.

While the few people were chatting, Rice's quill pen had already finished the homework for the Divination class.

Daphne couldn't sit still anymore, and she came out and asked Rice to give her the magic pen to help her finish the pile of homework.

Rice had no objection, but everything has a price, and the price of using this pen is to be responsible for polishing the article written by the quill pen.

Daphne naturally had no objection, and after promising, she got the right to use the quill pen. The most important point is that Rice completely opened up the scope of use of the quill this time, and any subject homework can be completed with it.

He didn't want his students to waste too much time on these homework, even important courses such as Transfiguration and Charms.

Seeing Rice and the other two finish such a large pile of homework in one breath with this magical prop, Cedric couldn't sit still.

"Well... Rice, this quill--"

The door of the office was pushed open, and Professor White strode in, smiling and said to Rice: "It's really hard for you, it's late, go back to the lounge and rest-by the way, considering that you have been doing research on Defense Against the Dark Arts here during the Christmas holiday, your Defense Against the Dark Arts homework will be waived."

Looking at Helga's expression, Rice felt that this guy probably stood at the door for a while, and now he broke in just because he didn't want him to lend the quill to Cedric.

Rice, who understood, did not hesitate, and took the Greengrass sisters out of Helga's office directly, leaving Cedric alone there, hesitating to speak.

The Christmas holiday ended in a turmoil.

The next day was the day when students returned to school. Rice didn't know what time Cedric had written yesterday, but it was not difficult to see from his dark circles that Cedric had probably completed a miracle last night with a pen and a lamp.

Daphne and Astoria on the side couldn't help but take a breath when they met Cedric: Fortunately, they borrowed Rice's automatic writing quill, otherwise Cedric would have ended up like them, and they would have been even worse.

Rice wanted to walk over and say a few words to Cedric and give him a bottle of energy potion, but he stopped as soon as he took a step because Hermione appeared.

————

Update is here, remember to give me a heart~

4,200 words in two chapters~