His resolve settled, Theodore's gaze turned sharp as a drawn sword, and all hesitation vanished.
Even the talent Sword Heart Unclouded gleamed brilliantly now in the System's reward panel.
Within the Origin Sea, the Abi Hellscape Sword burst forth, cutting through the great tidal force within, and the sharpness on its edge rose yet another step.
A flash of joy appeared in Theodore's heart.
"Sword cultivators truly are worthy of being the path in the primordial world best suited for battle and slaughter."
"They grow amidst conflict and killing. Battle intent itself becomes fuel for the sword path. The stronger it grows, the faster the sword advances."
"Now I've comprehended the Sword of Slaughter, possess the Abi Hellscape Sword, and have the support of Sword Heart Unclouded, Flashing Sword Art, and my other talents."
"Even if I were placed in the true Jade Void Palace of the primordial world, I would still count as a gifted talent in the sword."
But after that brief pleasure, Theodore's expression remained grave.
Whether from his own divinations or from the warnings on the System screen, one thing was clear:
if he truly began healing the madness caused by magical power in the magical world, the horrors would not let it pass quietly.
Even if their true bodies still could not descend, there would certainly be more of those twisted manifestations like the grey mist, the black mist, and other maddening forces he had already encountered.
And this time they would likely come in even greater force.
The Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds and the Abi Hellscape Sword were indeed formidable and need not fear such corruptive powers.
But the safest course was still to finish the Grand Celestial Constellation Formation flag.
With the cultivation gained from the spiritual feedback during its refinement, and with the flag's own might once complete, then it would not matter whether Heaven generated killing intent or Earth generated killing intent—
all of it would be as harmless as a passing breeze.
One shake of the flag, and every current horror would be reduced to dust.
"Only the dragon hide remains now."
"At Voldemort's current rate of efficiency, it should take no more than a day or two."
"There's nothing to do but wait."
With that, Theodore let the thought rest and, just as on every other day, made his way once more toward the Restricted Section of the library.
The System indicated that he now lacked only the final two hundred or so demons before reaching life-and-death friendship with Madam Pince and obtaining the Myriad-Demon Golden Pill formula.
If he pushed straight through, today would be enough.
And so Theodore stepped forward once more into the Restricted Section.
After so many days of cleaning, he had now reached very deep within it—its innermost region.
Earlier parts of the Restricted Section had been thick with dust, but every now and then one could still see shallow footprints on the ground, proof that professors or specially permitted students had passed through within recent years.
But here, in the deepest part Theodore had now reached, there were no footprints at all.
No one had likely come this way in many years.
As he lightly swept the feather duster across the shelves, clouds of dust rose from old volumes, slowly revealing one ancient title after another.
Only then did Theodore understand.
So that was why this place had been left untouched.
These were almost all books from eight or nine hundred years ago—or even a full thousand.
And rather than containing practical spells, almost all of them were discussions from that era about magical theory, or the question of how witches and wizards ought to exist within the world.
Compared to the present age, their content had long since become outdated.
Theodore did not care. He was only here to clean books and to obtain the Myriad-Demon Golden Pill formula from Madam Pince.
"Fifty… one hundred… one hundred and fifty… two hundred…"
As he went deeper and deeper, and finally completed the required amount, Theodore prepared to leave with the cleaned catalogue in hand.
But then, suddenly, his eyes swept across a book titled On Bloodline Theory, and his steps halted.
"Hm?"
Naturally, Theodore had little interest in the book itself.
What stopped him was something else entirely.
A faint trace of madness lingered upon it—
so weak that only his Microscopic Heavenly Eye could ever have found it. It was the residue of some being once steeped in madness, someone who had clearly read and annotated this book more than once.
And more than that, Theodore could vaguely sense that there was not just one strand of madness lingering there.
One of them felt extremely similar to the madness clinging to the giant squid in the Black Lake.
"This is…"
"Did all Four Founders repeatedly read this book?"
Had Theodore not possessed the Microscopic Heavenly Eye and its ability to perceive the subtlest traces, then no one in the ocean of books that was the Restricted Section would ever have discovered the anomaly hidden in this volume.
Curiosity rose in Theodore's eyes.
At once, the System screen flashed with a line of chaotic text.
[You descend deep into the Cavern of Demons, slaying demons and exterminating evil all the while, tempering yourself without pause.]
[There, by chance, you discover a jade slip wrapped in a faint thread of chaotic aura. It turns out to be a copy of the Yellow Court Scripture, casually annotated by a Saint. It contains traces of the Saint's understanding of Heavenly Dao, left here to await one destined to find it!]
Carefully, Theodore removed On Bloodline Theory from the shelf and opened its ancient pages.
At first glance, what greeted him was exactly the sort of thing one would expect from that title—
the old familiar arguments of the magical world's pure-blood supremacists and Muggle-haters: that magic was power, bloodline was nobility.
There were also many old annotations left in the margins from different eras.
Some supported the argument. Some opposed it. Some consisted of furious abuse directed at a previous annotation written a century earlier.
The most recent of these carried the signature of Albus Dumbledore.
Beside the line "Magic grants us abilities beyond those of Muggles, and therefore also grants us the duty to lead Muggles," he had written his own annotation:
The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility.
Clearly, this had been something the younger Dumbledore had written.
But none of that was what Theodore was looking for.
Those annotations carried none of the maddening aura. So they were clearly not the work of the Four Founders.
A moment later, Theodore's heart stirred.
"Hidden by some means?"
He opened the Microscopic Heavenly Eye. Golden light flashed within.
In the next instant, annotations left behind by the Four Founders a thousand years ago—annotations which even the young Dumbledore had failed to discover—appeared before him.
At the same time, some of the printed lines in On Bloodline Theory blurred and quietly changed.
Theodore turned the pages following the trail of maddening aura and soon arrived at the chapter titled The Origin of Wizarding Bloodlines.
The moment he saw a certain line there, his brows rose and surprise filled his face.
He distinctly remembered that, before the hidden content was revealed, this passage had stated that magical bloodlines originated from certain magical creatures.
And that, in fact, was the explanation generally accepted throughout the magical world today.
But now, once the concealment had been broken, the passage had changed into something entirely different:
Humanity originally possessed no magic. There was no division between wizard and Muggle.
It was only when certain men and women grew reckless beyond measure—whether through ritual offerings or through union—that they gained the blood of those beings. Thus, the origin of magical bloodlines in wizards points without question toward the indescribable entities of the remote ancient age.
From then onward, the bloodline of magic was passed down through wizardkind generation after generation. Magic is authority stolen by humanity from the indescribable beings. It is the only path by which humanity may approach—or even resist—those beings.
Otherwise, when the Old Rulers awaken and the ancient age returns, how could humanity in its mere mortal flesh possibly stand against the indescribable?
Therefore—magic is power.— Salazar Slytherin
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