#807 - 【Magic Mist】

Over the next hour, Anduin began a systematic study of the Basilisk before him.

This book is first published on the entire network by 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞

In addition to collecting basic data such as length, weight, girth, and magic reserve, he also collected materials such as Basilisk blood, bodily fluids, teeth, scales, and venom.

This Basilisk was 28 meters long and weighed over 17 tons, a veritable behemoth, larger and older than any Basilisk in historical records.

Its venom had unimaginable corrosive power, its scales were equally strong, and its blood components were also of great research value.

The more Anduin understood the Basilisk, the more reluctant he became to kill it; even from a biological point of view, it was an animal of great research value.

Not to mention that it was a rare species that had lived for over a thousand years, and without it, Anduin would probably have a hard time getting another Basilisk.

Moreover, the Basilisk, coupled with the elements of the Chamber of Secrets, gave him many rather wicked ideas.

After making up his mind, Anduin cast a spell to shrink the Basilisk and carefully put it away, preparing to raise it in the future, but he had to first solve its indiscriminate lethal gaze.

After properly handling the Basilisk, Anduin once again focused on the Chamber of Secrets in front of him. As Salazar Slytherin's carefully crafted chamber, there should be more secrets than just a Basilisk.

However, after a careful search, he found that there were no other mechanisms or secret rooms in this stone room filled with stone pillars.

In the end, Anduin focused his gaze on the open mouth of the statue.

Anduin took out a magic lantern, then cast a spell, controlling himself to float up slowly, and then plunged in without looking back.

The cave was an extremely dark, deep, and silent passage, initially ascending for a while, followed by a rapidly descending slope, winding and very long.

But because it was too quiet, even the slightest movement in the Chamber of Secrets could be heard clearly from a distance, so it was no wonder the Basilisk could discover Anduin's whereabouts so quickly.

After traveling hundreds of meters along the slope, he finally reached a larger space, filled with stench, as well as a large amount of excrement, animal bones, and shed snakeskin.

The space was divided into two passages, from one of which he could hear the sound of rushing water.

Anduin guessed that this should be the passage to Hogwarts' Black Lake. A Basilisk would not be able to survive for thousands of years without food, so it must have used this passage to enter and exit the Chamber of Secrets to find food.

However, after so many years, no one at the school had discovered this Basilisk, so it seemed that the passage exit should be located far from the castle.

After a brief consideration, Anduin decided to see where the other cave led first.

After traveling a distance along the unknown passage, he reached the end, where a stone wall carved with snake patterns appeared again.

Upon seeing this, Anduin naturally repeated his old trick and easily opened the door. By this point, he was a little speechless, he had only learned one sentence of Parseltongue, yet he could come and go freely in the Chamber of Secrets.

It could be seen that Salazar Slytherin, when building the Chamber of Secrets, was not simply trying to ensure secrecy, but to ensure that it could only be opened by his descendants.

On the other side of the stone wall was a room similar to a laboratory, about the size of a classroom. Inside, in addition to two workbenches and a desk, were rows of wooden bookshelves.

But perhaps because of the long time, most of the objects were decayed, and some bookshelves were even broken and scattered, and the parchment and books on them had also been broken into fragments.

"It seems that this is Slytherin's former secret laboratory, I wonder if I can gain anything here."

Anduin muttered while covering his nose. The environment here was extremely fragile, and he didn't even dare to use magic to ventilate it, for fear of making the things inside shatter with a little movement.

And even though Anduin was extremely careful when sorting, he still couldn't salvage much useful information from the desk and bookshelves.

These poorly maintained books, even if they were not completely broken and rotten, the ink on them had faded completely over time, making the contents illegible.

This may be related to the underground location of the Chamber of Secrets. In a dark and humid environment, items decay too quickly.

In the end, Anduin spent nearly two hours clearing out two entire piles of rotten and useless garbage, as well as three relatively well-preserved pieces of information.

Among these three pieces of information, there was a diary, a magic book, and a piece of enchanted parchment.

The diary was preserved quite well, using the very precious dragon belly skin as material, which was why it could withstand the test of time.

The contents were some of Slytherin's records of his experiences and thoughts back then. Anduin flipped through two pages and found that there was nothing academically related, so he put it aside for the time being.

As for the magic book, it was also well preserved due to being enchanted with a spell that automatically absorbed magic power, but the contents were a bit disappointing.

The book recorded a large number of black magic spells that were quite rare and complex back then, and even the method of making a Basilisk was recorded.

But from today's perspective, most of the magic in it is somewhat outdated or obsolete.

After all, the wizarding world has been constantly developing over the millennia, and the same is true for black magic.

This magic book may have been very precious back then, but now any black magic theory book can leave it far behind, so its collection value may be greater than its research value.

Somewhat regretfully putting away the magic book, Anduin picked up the last page of parchment. To be honest, he didn't have much expectation now.

Or rather, how could he think that the magical theories of a thousand years ago could surpass today's wizarding world?

However, after gradually seeing the contents of the parchment clearly, Anduin couldn't help but gasp.

The style of the parchment in front of him was the same as the Slytherin manuscript that Anduin obtained in the Travers family vault, and what was recorded on it was a special magic called [Magic Mist].

The reason why it is said to be special is because [Magic Mist] is not a spell that can be used by chanting, but a unique method of casting spells or a magic theory, and forms a complete system. As long as the rune structure is slightly adjusted when casting spells, different effects can be achieved.

Simply put, [Magic Mist] is a magic similar to the [Misty Cloud] spell, which can release a large cloud of mist at will after casting.

By using the spellcasting methods recorded in the manuscript, you can freely change the attributes and properties of this cloud of mist.

Turning it into a corrosive poisonous mist, a fire mist that can be ignited with a little spark, an ice mist similar to the one Anduin learned from the Silver Spear, and so on.

At the same time, according to this system, adding the effects of different magic runes to [Magic Mist] can produce different effects of mist, such as adding a sleeping spell to get a hypnotic mist, adding a curse to get a cursed cloud of mist.

Therefore, the danger of [Magic Mist] fluctuates greatly. If it is just the simplest spellcasting, then it is no different from the Misty Cloud spell, but if you add a strong curse or virus to it, it can cause a disaster.

Of course, if the function of [Magic Mist] is only to release [Misty Cloud] with different characteristics, then it is not very special, after all, through rune combinations, you can create similar spells without using this method.

The most special thing about [Magic Mist] is that it has extremely high magic power conversion efficiency. The conversion rate of several [Magic Mist] recorded on the manuscript is at least 80% or more.

The specific effect is that it only consumes very little magic power when casting a spell, and can create a cloud of mist with a very wide area, and it becomes very easy to control the concentration of its characteristics.

You must know that if ordinary spells reach this efficiency, they can be called fourth-level spells.

It can be said that the most valuable thing about [Magic Mist] in Anduin's eyes is not its power and effect itself, but this set of efficient rune system.

If this system can be deconstructed, then inventing new spells in the future will be as simple as drinking water.

Of course, even the current [Magic Mist] shows extremely high development potential. Using it, Anduin can create several or a dozen new cloud magic spells in just a few months.

"But the several rune formulas recorded below have obvious traces of derivation, and seem to be trying to develop new spells by applying the [Magic Mist] theory."

Anduin could clearly perceive the sense of disharmony in it. After thinking for a while, he thought of a possibility.

"Could it be that this [Magic Mist] was not developed by Slytherin himself, but learned from somewhere else? Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain this content, which seems to be written by two different people."

After thinking about it, Anduin felt that this was the only possibility, otherwise why would a wizard who could develop [Magic Mist] seem so inexperienced when using it to develop new spells.

"But if [Magic Mist] is not a theory invented by Slytherin, then who could it be? This is obviously a quite mature and superb magic theory, and it shouldn't be unknown in the wizarding world."

"The inventor must be a wizard with extremely high magical attainments, could it be Ms. Ravenclaw?"

Anduin frowned in confusion, "No, Ms. Ravenclaw is not a person who keeps her knowledge to herself. The library and Ravenclaw Tower contain her works, and I haven't heard that she knows this strange cloud magic."

"Could it be?"

Anduin recalled the records in [Magic Mist] and suddenly raised his head sharply, "Could it be... Herpo the Foul?"

"There's no mistake!" Anduin reaffirmed his guess, "Injecting curses and viruses into [Magic Mist], turning it into a widespread natural disaster, is simply a means tailored for Herpo's plague."

"Moreover, the logical structure of this magic is so rigorous that it cannot be researched in just a few decades or hundreds of years. I'm afraid only Herpo would put his energy into developing magic like [Magic Mist] that focuses on diffusion and adaptability."

Anduin didn't expect to see something related to Herpo here. He thought it would take at least a few years to decades to hear from him.

However, just getting a spell that is suspected to be developed by Herpo doesn't seem to be of much use, but soon he focused his attention on the diary.

Maybe... in Slytherin's diary, there will be clues related to Herpo?

Thinking of this, Anduin opened the diary again, but this time he did not browse it hastily, but read it carefully.

This diary of Slytherin records the 7th year after he and the other three founders of Hogwarts built the school, which is also before he secretly built the Chamber of Secrets and was about to leave the school.

At the beginning of the diary, a large part of the content is Salazar Slytherin's complaints about the Muggle students in the school, as well as his complaints about unpleasantness with the other founders.

Even in the diary, Slytherin would occasionally recall the past while complaining about himself.

In the beginning, Slytherin, like the other founders, personally witnessed the oppression and persecution of the wizarding world by the church, and in order to change this situation, these four like-minded wizards joined hands to create Hogwarts.

And at the very beginning, Slytherin was not very repulsive to Muggles and Muggle students, after all, the purpose of their establishment of the magic school.

Essentially, it was to allow more Muggles with wizarding talents to integrate into the wizarding world and become a true wizard, rather than the fools and imposters in the church, at least that's how Slytherin described them in his diary.

But soon, Slytherin felt the arduousness of this project. In that era, Muggle children, except for a few noble children, didn't even know how to read!

So at the beginning of the school's establishment, they even had to specially open a literacy class to teach Muggle students the most basic reading and writing.

But those Muggle students were the kind of extremely pure illiterates. Not to mention words, students who could correctly write letters and spell their names after a class could be called geniuses.

To eliminate illiteracy for a student is not a small project, they may have to spend several years of energy on it.

So in Hogwarts in those years, you may see a student who is already in the fourth or even fifth grade can barely cast a levitation charm.

Who can imagine that the legendary wizard Salazar Slytherin's daily job was actually teaching a group of children ABC.

Such work experience would be fine for only one or two days, but after several years of hard work, Slytherin was a little broken down.

In his eyes, this was completely wasting his precious time. Wouldn't it be better for him to study a few new magic spells with that effort?

So on every page of the diary, you can see Slytherin complaining about the dullness of those Muggle students. He really couldn't understand why a wizard would be complacent about being able to smoothly recite a short article?