Chapter 379 The Internet and Homework

The Encyclopedia Britannica was a Christmas gift from Hermione to Rice. It was no small feat, with a total of twenty volumes, and the little girl must have put a lot of effort into bringing them from the non-magical world to Hogwarts.

But considering that Ravenclaw should have taught her how to control magic, Les 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 of the encyclopedia that Hermione sent was so rich - strictly speaking, too rich, that when Rice first got it, he even felt like he had no idea where to start.

Fortunately, she sent the latest edition. Under the strong recommendation of many readers, the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica added two new index volumes. Although 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 in which to read 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: "Internet."

"Internal network? What a strange name." Les was aroused by this strange word.

Driven by curiosity, he looked up the index.

"TCP/IP? What is that? What is ARPANET?" Rice felt that he knew most of the words used in the book to introduce the Internet, but when he put these words together and added two abbreviations, he was completely confused.

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

There are phrases in these passages whose meaning Rice has a hard time understanding.

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 made Les feel relieved and worried. He felt relieved that the wizarding world had not yet been exposed to the Muggles, but he was worried that he didn't know how the Internet was connected. If it could be connected without the permission of Hogwarts, then it was only a matter of time before the wizarding world was exposed.

"Muggles are developing so rapidly..." After imagining several uses of the Internet, Rice couldn't help but sigh at the power of Muggles.

Just 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 click of his fingers in the editorial office. And not only the little wizards of Hogwarts can see it, but also foreign schools such as Durmstrang and Beauxbatons can see it first - according to the encyclopedia, the speed of transmission of this information is the speed of light.

The same goes for file transfer. With this kind of 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 network. The knowledge accumulated by Hogwarts for thousands of years can be carried away in a schoolbag.

And this is just a simple application of the Muggle creation called the Internet. Muggles, it's amazing.

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

He looked at it for half an hour but still didn't fully understand the principles of the Internet or what it was.

The encyclopedia sent by Hermione was of great help to Rice in gaining a deeper understanding of Muggle society, but the more he understood, the more frightened Rice became.

He knew that many pure-blood wizards looked down on Muggles, believing that they could enslave them at any time if they wanted to. The current clear distinction between Muggles and wizards was entirely a gift from wizards.

Rice thinks this perception is completely wrong.

The Muggle society has already formed an overwhelming advantage over wizards in terms of size and technology. It is definitely not the broken house that will collapse with a kick in those people's minds.

Of course, wizards are not fish on the chopping block. They have excellent concealment skills. If they want to hide, Rice thinks that Muggles will not be able to 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 be very effective.

Not to mention that these old folks from the old times were still alive. Les could ensure that his magic would leave a deep impression on the Muggles, but he hoped that day would never come, because once those spells were used, there would be no turning back.

After gathering his scattered thoughts, Rice decided to wait until the holiday was over 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 an attempt to learn. Perhaps he could successfully replicate it and build such a system on the Hogwarts campus.

But there was no rush. The Christmas holidays were still a long time away, and he could take a good look at the encyclopedia that Hermione gave him during that time.

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 accelerated a lot.

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

Later, when he learned that they were there to learn knowledge, Cedric began to respect these three younger students.

They are different from other Slytherin students! These three have good personalities.

According to his own words, Rice and his two companions are students who "truly inherited the spirit of Slytherin".

After being evaluated by Cedric, Rice and Helga looked quite strange, but Daphne and Astoria were really happy. For this reason, they directly wished Cedric to defeat the Slytherin Quidditch team and win the Quidditch Cup.

This blessing also made Cedric feel helpless.

This conversation is really strange. A Hufflepuff said that the other two Slytherins inherited the Slytherin spirit, and these 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?" Cedric was completely confused. In his opinion, the three people opposite were the heirs of Slytherin, so shouldn't they be the most loyal supporters of Slytherin? How could they support other houses in Quidditch?

"It is the heir of Slytherin who would oppose those guys." Daphne quickly complained about the weird students in Slytherin House, making it clear that a true Slytherin would not spend time and energy on the technology of flying.

Les on the side wanted to stop her from exposing her family's dirty laundry, but considering that Malfoy and his gang had almost completely exposed the situation in the academy, he did not stop her.

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

Helga was already a little nervous when she saw Rice's expression. She knew too well how the old venomous snake felt at the moment. With a bunch of people staying in his academy to ruin his reputation, he probably needs potions to fall asleep now, right?

Cedric was silent.

After a while, he finally managed a dry "OK" and continued to work on making parts.

At noon, they would put down their work, have a hearty lunch, and then take a short break before starting to make puppet parts again until the sun went down and it was time for dinner. In the evening, when they returned to the lounge, Rice would also take some time to read the encyclopedia.

With three and a half devoted helpers, Helga's progress improved by leaps and bounds, and she completed nearly one-third of the orders during one holiday.

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

However, Les and the other three, who were immersed in the world of puppets, forgot one very important thing.

"I'll go mail the finished dolls. I hope they'll arrive before school starts." After assembling a doll, Helga walked out of the office with it.

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

After Hufflepuff left, Les frowned: what Helga had just said stirred his memory, making him vaguely remember something he had not completed.

"Hey, Daphne, have you finished your homework?" Les' question was like a thunderbolt, causing the three people in the room to freeze in place at the same time.

Daphne:!

Astoria:!

Cedric:!

"It's over, forget it!" the three shouted in unison.

Life is so full these days that they completely forget they have homework to do.

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

"Looks like we'll have to stay up all night tonight." Cedric said solemnly - unlike his three younger classmates, he is a fifth-year student preparing for the OWL exam. The academic pressure is extremely high, and the homework assigned by the professors is also very large.

Daphne looked at Les pitifully: time was tight and the task was heavy, and now she really had no time to help Les with his homework.

If I want to finish two holiday assignments in such a short time, I might have to use the magic of time and borrow more than ten hours of time.

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

Rice took out the automatic writing feather pen that he had spent a lot of effort to make from his arms, threw it on the parchment, and the feather pen started writing the paper automatically.

Cedric, who was sitting on the side and had just summoned his schoolbag with the Flying Spell, was dumbfounded - was it really okay for Junior Rice to do this?

But after seeing that pen generate a two-foot-long History of Magic paper in less than five minutes, Cedric was tempted.

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

Rice took it all in, and his mind was busy calculating.

"I feel like there's no need to do the Defense Against the Dark Arts homework." Rice's statement was agreed by Daphne and Astoria. Although Cedric didn't say it, judging by his expression, he also agreed in his heart.

I've been working hard for three weeks, can I be exempted from the 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 and see what was going on.

While the few of them were chatting, Rice had already finished the homework for the divination class using his quill pen.

Daphne could no longer sit still, and she came out and asked Les to give her the magic pen to help her finish the mountain 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 articles written with the quill pen.

Daphne naturally had no objection, and after making the promise, she got the right to use the quill pen. The most important point was that Rice completely opened up the scope of use of the quill pen this time, and it could be used to complete homework in any subject.

He didn't want his students to spend too much time on these assignments, even for important courses like Transfiguration and Charms.

Seeing Rice and the other two finishing such a large amount of homework in one go using this magical prop, Cedric couldn't sit still anymore.

"Um... Les, this quill--"

The door of the office was pushed open, and Professor White strode in. He said to Rice with a smile, "Thank you for your hard work. It's getting late. Go back to the lounge and have a rest. By the way, considering that you have been studying 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, Les felt that this guy had probably been standing at the door for a while, and now he broke in just because he didn't want him to lend the quill to Cedric.

Les understood what she meant and without hesitation, he took the Greengrass sisters out of Helga's office, leaving Cedric alone there, hesitating to speak.

The Christmas holiday ended in chaos.

The next day was the day for students to return to school. Rice didn't know what time Cedric had written yesterday, but from his dark circles, it was not difficult to tell that Cedric might have accomplished a miracle last night with just a pen and a lamp.

Daphne and Astoria on the side couldn't help but gasp 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 more miserable.

Les wanted to walk over and say a few words to Cedric and give him a bottle of energy potion, but he stopped just after taking a step because Hermione appeared.

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4,200 words in one chapter~