#142 - Section 142
This was also a compromise made out of necessity.
Over twenty pure-blood families, every wizarding family, had expressed their dissatisfaction in various ways.
If he didn't handle it properly, he wouldn't be able to hold onto his position as Minister for Magic.
For the sake of his future, what did an apology matter at this moment?
As for rescinding the Dementor patrol of Hogwarts, an action he had strongly promoted, Fudge didn't care anymore.
Wasn't it just a slap in the face?
If he had known that Dementors would cause such a mess, he wouldn't have let them come in the first place.
The young wizards below, hearing Fudge's words, neither applauded nor offered any opinions.
Anyone with a sane mind could hear the excuses and insincerity in Fudge's words.
But Fudge was, after all, the Minister for Magic, not someone they could casually criticize.
Fudge wasn't surprised by this; what he needed now was to provide a step down that both sides could accept.
"In addition, due to Ethan Adair's heroic act of saving many Hogwarts students, we have decided to award him the Order of Merlin, First Class!"
"Now, please welcome Ethan Adair to the stage!"
To be honest, Fudge really didn't want to award this medal.
Ethan's two large-scale slaughters of Dementors were undoubtedly a challenge to his authority, but to admit his mistake, he had to acknowledge Ethan's achievements.
Otherwise, how would Ethan's saving of the Hogwarts students be accounted for?
He couldn't just turn a blind eye!
Instantly, the entire hall erupted in enthusiastic applause, and Ethan walked onto the stage amidst the applause.
Fudge received the Order of Merlin medal brought by a member of the Ministry of Magic behind him and personally placed it on Ethan.
Compared to last time, although this award ceremony was quite informal, it was still acceptable with so many young wizards witnessing it, but Ethan didn't receive any achievement prompts until he stepped down.
It seemed that this reward wasn't progressive and could only be obtained once.
After awarding the medal, Fudge stepped down, and Dumbledore took over to speak.
First was Ravenclaw gaining two hundred points, and then some arrangements regarding the withdrawal of Dementors from Hogwarts, and so on.
Chapter 180: Dementor Experiment and Successful Potion Brewing
Time came to December.
The Dementors left the Hogwarts grounds, which Ethan felt was a great pity.
With no temporary source of replenishment, the Dementors in his possession were dwindling with each use, unless he one day pulled off a big heist at Azkaban.
This also made Ethan cautious when conducting research, afraid of wasting a single Dementor; experiments that could threaten life were basically done with Boggarts.
They were cheap, plentiful, and therefore expendable!
Dementors can actually reproduce, but not through biological reproduction like male and female mating.
It requires a special environment, as well as the assistance of negative emotions and other Dementors, to give birth to new Dementors; Azkaban is a place that can meet these conditions.
Ethan's side naturally couldn't meet these conditions and couldn't reproduce on its own, so he could only keep an eye on the Dementors of Azkaban to obtain them.
Other young wizards, however, were overjoyed by this news, especially Harry, who, after coming out of the hospital, was happy for days after learning that the Dementors had been removed from the Hogwarts grounds.
He just didn't know if he could still learn the Patronus Charm without the pressure.
Or rather, with no Dementors at Hogwarts, he might not even learn this spell, of course, this spell was also useless against Voldemort.
Ravenclaw Secret Chamber, small compartment of the workbench.
Ethan used a goblin soul knife to carefully cut the Boggart on the table; the Boggart's body remaining on the table was now less than a third.
Whether it was a Boggart or a Dementor, Ethan had tried several times, testing all kinds of ideas.
The soul and body absolutely cannot be separated 073; if forcibly separated, there would only be one path: the soul would be scattered, blocking Ethan's idea of stripping pure souls.
So Ethan later stopped dwelling on the separation of soul and body, and instead tried to preserve its core, that is, the heart and brain, removing the excess parts.
Today, he was finally close to success, and Ethan's speed of cutting was also getting slower and slower.
Until there were only two dark lumps left on the workbench, Ethan put away the knife.
Only to see that these remaining two things were still constantly beating, just like real hearts and brains.
But as time passed, the frequency of these two things beating was also getting lower and lower.
If Ethan guessed correctly, they were losing activity.
It seemed that they still needed a body to support them; after seven minutes, when the beating frequency was about to stop, Ethan acted.
Immediately, he sacrificed a spiritual body made with Helheim magic; this was not the werewolf spiritual body that Ethan had harvested in the beginning, but a goblin spiritual body.
This little thing also contained magic power and was qualified as a spiritual body, and there were extremely large numbers of them.
Not to mention that they were all over the world, in many places goblins were rampant; as long as you spent a little Galleon, you could receive a large pile.
They really couldn't be used up no matter how much you consumed; Ethan had already sacrificed hundreds of them to Nibelungen to improve its stability and range.
As blue light spots merged into the two dark lumps, these two things immediately beat like they had been injected with adrenaline, and the frequency was even more intense than before.
It seemed that his idea was correct; pure magic power and vitality could also keep these things alive, without relying on a body made of miscellaneous things.
After sacrificing two more goblin spiritual bodies, Ethan put them away.
Judging from the degree of vitality just now, there would definitely be no problem in a short time.
Then Ethan pulled a Dementor out of Nibelungen.
Before Ethan could use the Banishment Charm, this Dementor trembled and prostrated on the ground.
It was afraid!
During this time, any Dementors that Ethan dragged out never reappeared. They certainly knew what that meant.
But they were helpless; their lives were in his hands.
Ethan glanced at it, cast a spell, and the Dementor obediently lay down on the workbench.
Since Fudge took the Dementors away, this was the first time Ethan had used a Dementor. Previously, he had used Boggarts.
Now that he had some progress, it was the Dementors' turn.
He tossed aside the tool in his hand, its durability almost exhausted, and took out another goblin from the Extension Charm trunk. Then, using the Killing Curse to reap life, he used the soul as a tool.
Ethan was quite familiar with this process. After completing everything, a cloak on the nearby shelf floated over the goblin's corpse, cleaning up the scene.
Inferi, Boggarts, and Dementors were all similar.
However, Inferi were even rarer in number.
Dementors at least had a habitat with several hundred, but Inferi lived in tropical rainforests, making them even scarcer and solitary.
Ethan had also asked Slughorn's people to collect them. Currently, the American headquarters held five, most of which were captured in the South American Amazon, but that number was far from enough.
Part of the poacher team was still capturing them, and Ethan was paying for this part out of his own pocket.
Of course, this cost was much cheaper than buying them outside.
The reason for this was that even as a boss, you couldn't expect your subordinates to work for you for free!
Otherwise, who would follow you?
Even with the Thrall Mark, if the people below were not convinced, they would slack off, and things would still not be resolved.
Anyway, he had plundered the former leader of Slughorn's organization's savings of several decades, and Slughorn's organization was constantly providing money. The cooperation with the Voray family had income every quarter, but Little Tom's Knockturn Alley was not yet profitable; the protection fees collected could only maintain some expenses.
In short, Ethan was really not short of money now.
It was just that this Dementor had been with him for so long that he didn't want to experiment on it.
Otherwise, he would have used it for experiments long ago.
Ethan held the azure blue tool, composed of magic and soul, and continuously sliced across the Dementor's body.
Ethan had long been familiar with the various parts of the Dementor's body. In a short time, he had removed most of its tissues.
These tissues, after being removed, would turn into black smoke and dissipate in just thirty to fifty seconds.
As Ethan's movements slowed down, the Dementor's body tissue became smaller and smaller.
Unfortunately, in the end, he didn't know which step went wrong, and the separation failed!
This caused the remaining part of the Dementor's body to directly turn into black smoke and dissipate.
Helpless, Ethan pulled out another Dementor and repeated the previous actions.
It wasn't until the fourth Dementor that he succeeded.
Like the previous Boggart, only two pulsating things were left, but the individuals left behind by the Dementor were larger, and the color was a bit grayish.
Similarly, before long, whether it was the Dementor's brain or heart, the rate of pulsation began to slow down. To maintain its vitality, Ethan could only sacrifice a Helheim spiritual body again.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Knocking sounds came. Ethan directly put away all the items on the workbench.
He was currently in Ravenclaw's secret room, and the only ones who could knock on the door were Cassandra and the others.
Today, besides doing experiments, was also the day the Blood of Magic was successfully brewed.
Since the final steps were not that troublesome, it only required someone to watch by the side and extinguish the flames to cool the potion at the most appropriate time.
Anyone with a little potion-making knowledge could do this step well.
Because Ethan had deliberately staggered the brewing time of each potion.
This was also for easier operation, as adding blood and stirring all took time.
Therefore, there was a gap of nearly three hours between the first and last potion.
With such a long time, Ethan naturally couldn't just wait idly by, so he entrusted the final steps to Cassandra and the others.
And Ethan came here to do experiments, telling them to call him after they succeeded.
"The potion is complete?"
Ethan opened the door and asked Penelope who was outside.
"It's already done, every single one!"
If they couldn't do such a small thing well, then they wouldn't be worthy of being seventh-year students.
But even so, the girls were very nervous just now. In the three hours or so from arriving at Ravenclaw's secret room to now, they had been staring at the potion-brewing cauldron, fearing that something would go wrong.
They knew how difficult it was to brew this, and how high the cost was.
"Okay, I'll go take a look!"
Saying that, Ethan walked towards the place where the potion was brewed.
At this moment, the alcohol lamps that had been burning for several months had been extinguished, and several cauldrons had been magically cleaned and placed aside.
On the table were several potions as red as blood. Ethan, who had already taken it once, could tell at a glance that they were successful.
And each potion bottle had a small label on it.
[Cassandra Voray, Dragon/Blood of Magic!]
[Penelope Clearwater, Thunderbird/Blood of Magic]
[Cho Chang, Kneazle/Blood of Magic]
[Hermione Granger, Unicorn/Blood of Magic]
[Nagini, Basilisk/Blood of Magic]
[Luna Lovegood, Cat豹/Blood of Magic]
These labels and containers for the Blood of Magic potions were prepared by them in advance.
And at the moment, everyone was here except for Luna.
Luna was currently not suitable for taking this potion, and the reasons had been explained before.
"Bring all the potions, we'll go to the Room of Requirement. The commotion later will be quite big, this place can't withstand it!"
