#700 - Observation (seeking monthly ticket recommendation ticket)

After concluding his meeting with Dumbledore, Anduin returned to his manor in Godric's Hollow via the Doorway Charm. After all, it was Christmas Day, and he had no intention of staying at Hogwarts the entire time.

Although it was already late at night, the manor was still a hive of activity.

There was no helping it; the non-human creatures in his home were simply too boisterous. Eileen, the phoenix, was alright; her favorite thing to do was simply and purely devour food.

Ever since Anduin rescued her from Silver Spear, she seemed to have awakened a gluttonous talent, consuming vast amounts of food every day. Although she was the smallest creature in Anduin's home, she had the largest appetite.

At this moment, Eileen was waddling around with her slightly plump body, feasting on a roast juvenile warted boars, looking like a starving ghost reincarnated, even though she had just had dinner.

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Hogg and Xia Tiya, on the other hand, were still their usual selves, chasing each other up and down the manor.

And since Anduin's [Colorful Balls] were launched on the Silver Shimmering Exchange, they immediately became the hottest Christmas item, and the two of them had been addicted to them recently.

As a result, Qiqi in the manor suffered. Every time they fought, they would always paint the house in various colors, forcing Qiqi to chase after them and clean up the mess.

It was the same now. Hogg and Xia Tiya were shouting at each other, using colorful balls for a duel in the hall, while Qiqi was miserably using cleaning spells to deal with the marks.

In comparison, Thor was the quietest, which was also related to his laziness. This guy wanted to sleep at night and doze off during the day, and at this moment, he was leisurely lying on the side, watching the two fighting with interest, as if he were watching some kind of after-dinner entertainment.

Even when Anduin returned to the manor, these guys were still making a ruckus, completely ignoring him.

But Anduin was too lazy to bother with these idle fellows. Since it was Christmas, he would let them indulge a little.

After peeking at the lively scene in the living room, Anduin turned and returned to his study, preparing to study the Philosopher's Stone he had just acquired as soon as possible.

After settling down at the research table in the study, Anduin couldn't wait to take out the alchemical treasure he had just obtained.

After carefully taking the Philosopher's Stone out of the leather bag, Anduin found that this stone looked… quite ordinary.

That's right, ordinary.

The irregular structure, coupled with a slightly translucent body, gave the impression of a crimson glass block that could be seen everywhere.

Even when held in hand at close range, no magical fluctuations could be felt at all, and there were no magical inscriptions whatsoever.

For a moment, Anduin suspected that Dumbledore had taken the wrong one, or that he was giving him a fake one to swindle him.

However, Anduin did not rashly define this stone. He first tried to inject some magic power into the Philosopher's Stone.

But his magic power, after coming into contact with the Philosopher's Stone, was like a clay ox entering the sea, or like seeping into a certain abyss, almost disappearing out of thin air.

And the Philosopher's Stone, whether from a visual perspective or a magical perception perspective, did not show any changes.

However, the appearance of this situation at least told Anduin that this Philosopher's Stone was a real one. If it were an ordinary Muggle item like glass or gemstone, it would either explode directly or show anomalies on the surface.

After initially noticing the Philosopher's Stone's strangeness, Anduin did not continue to act without authorization. Instead, he pulled over a prop similar to a tray from beside the research table, which was connected to several movable mechanical tentacles.

The end of each tentacle was connected to a tool, such as a ring-shaped hollow lamp, various magnifying glasses of different magnifications, and small pliers that could be moved and operated, etc.

After placing the Philosopher's Stone flat and fixing it on the stage, Anduin immediately operated these support tentacles to carefully observe the physical and magical properties of the Philosopher's Stone.

“The translucency is medium. The surface can easily transmit light, but no matter how bright the light source is, the structure inside the central part cannot be seen clearly, and the core part does not reflect light at all. When light shines on it, it is like a black hole that will absorb the approaching light.”

“However, from the light that is absorbed, it can be roughly determined that the core part should be a circular area of 5-15 millimeters.”

“At the same time, during the observation, no magical inscriptions were found on the surface. Even if a [Non-damaging Hammer] is used to strike it, the inscriptions cannot be made to appear. It is neither an engraved inscription nor a hidden inscription. This Philosopher's Stone is simply like a natural formation, and no traces of artificial creation can be seen at all.”

“And the performance in terms of magic power is unusually amazing. In the Philosopher's Stone, magic power is almost everywhere. The entire crystal structure of the Philosopher's Stone is like a solid completely condensed from magic power.”

“But the magic power on it shows extremely strong inertia and has a very unified integrity. Because of this, it is difficult to directly perceive the magic power that exists on it, and the injected magic power will be quickly absorbed and assimilated into a similar structure.”

“However, the Philosopher's Stone does not actively absorb magic power from the outside world, so its energy source is not like ordinary magic circles, which supply energy by absorbing free magic power?”

Anduin looked at the stage and marveled. After only observing for a while, the Philosopher's Stone's performance had already exceeded his understanding. Was this really an alchemical product? Did it not need to be powered? Or was it like a battery, needing to be charged periodically?

With all kinds of doubts, Anduin began to try to extract magic power from the Philosopher's Stone. Since injecting magic power was like a stone sinking into the sea, what about sucking out magic power?

Thinking of this, Anduin took out his wand, then gently tapped the red gemstone, and then a faint milky white silk thread was sucked into the wand like green smoke, flowing backwards.

“This…” Anduin felt the magic power extracted from it and couldn't help but widen his eyes.

“What a pure magic power, no, it can't even be described as pure, it's simply primitive!”

Anduin found that the magic power extracted from the Philosopher's Stone was different from the free magic power he used the Energy Absorption Curse to extract from other wizards, magical creatures, magical items, or even the magic power.

No matter what way the magic power is absorbed or extracted, it will carry some impurities more or less. Even the relatively pure free magic power will retain some traces of having been used.

It is precisely because of this that Anduin basically does not consider directly absorbing magic power from the outside world for use. He had previously invented an external magic power source, trying to indirectly increase his magic power storage through this method.

However, after many attempts, Anduin found that as long as the magic power was not produced by the wizard's own body, it needed to go through a period of assimilation when absorbed into the body. If there were more impurities, it would even harm himself.

Therefore, although Anduin has a large number of magical items enchanted with the [Energy Absorption Curse] and [Energy Loss Curse], he rarely uses them directly through his wand when fighting enemies, because allowing external magic power to enter his own energy system is not only not beneficial, but also has negative effects similar to interfering with magic power output.

When fighting the 'Rune Serpent' at the beginning, the reason why he dared to absorb more than a thousand points of magic power from high altitude at the end was because they were transformed from the lightning summoned by Thor.

Thor's mental connection with him was extremely close, and the magic power related to Thor had a relatively high affinity. In addition, Anduin's own level 5 Desolate Lightning could transform natural lightning into magic power to feed back to himself.

But even so, rashly using this magic power produced by himself still caused great damage to his body.

At the same time, precisely because of this, the permanent Energy Absorption Curse that Anduin engraved on Annihilation only supplied the absorbed magic power to Annihilation itself. He never thought of using those magic power on himself.

And the ability of [Annihilation], which has been promoted to a Sacred Artifact, to absorb life from creatures and purify it is very rare.

But the magic power on the Philosopher's Stone is like it was just born from the world, without any impurities. Anduin can even absorb these magic power into his body and use it directly without any transformation.

“For this alone, the Philosopher's Stone is worthy of being an alchemical treasure. The magic power extracted from it is even cleaner than that converted by Annihilation. The magic power absorbed and converted by Annihilation still carries some traces of Desolate Lightning, although it will not have any side effects on me, but if you are not proficient in Desolate Lightning and are not its master, it will also cause harm.”

“But the magic power in the Philosopher's Stone is a bit exaggerated. This primitive magic power can be absorbed by anyone at will, and you don't have to worry about causing harm to yourself at all.”

Anduin took a long breath, then gently picked up the Philosopher's Stone and carefully looked at it in front of his eyes. The more proficient alchemists and magicians are, the more they can feel the strangeness of the Philosopher's Stone.

If he didn't know about Nicolas Flamel, he would never believe that this was an alchemical product.

“With this pure primitive magic power, it is not too magical to be able to turn stones into gold and make elixirs of immortality.”

“Since I can't see the magic runes in your body, then let me see how much magic power you have. Perhaps by finding your energy source, I can take the opportunity to peek into the source of this primitive magic power.” Anduin murmured to the Philosopher's Stone.

Then, Anduin put away his wand, directly held the Philosopher's Stone in his hand, and continuously extracted the magic power from it using the Energy Absorption Curse.

At the same time, after each extraction of a certain amount of magic power, Anduin would re-measure the weight, size, and properties of the Philosopher's Stone, trying to find its changes.

But after several hours of tossing around, Anduin discovered a terrifying fact!

He had extracted at least 3,000 points of magic power from the Philosopher's Stone, which was equivalent to the magic power storage of 6 ordinary adult wizards, but the Philosopher's Stone did not show any signs of mass decrease, and he couldn't even feel that the magic power in it had decreased.