February arrived. The weather remained bitterly cold, though the heavy snowfall had noticeably lessened, replaced by frequent, dreary freezing rain.
Hagrid had finally recovered his spirits and returned to teach Care of Magical Creatures. The good news was that he had seemingly abandoned his horrific Blast-Ended Skrewt project. Following Professor Grubbly-Plank's lead, he began introducing the students to unicorns. This single change drastically improved his popularity among the student body.
Incidentally, Maurise could now safely approach the unicorns as well—provided he had his undead unicorn cast an illusion over him to mask his aura.
The second Sunday of February.
After breakfast, Maurise headed toward the Black Lake as usual.
Once again, he spotted Krum on the shore.
"Good morning, Krum."
"Hello."
After a brief greeting, Krum dove headfirst into the freezing lake without a shred of hesitation to begin his winter swimming regimen.
Maurise, meanwhile, boarded his Ship in a Bottle.
The moment he stepped into the living room, Champion the skeleton strode forward to greet him. The skeleton was now dressed in a tailored, elegant black robe, with several decorative silver chains draped across its ribcage. This was Maurise's latest stylistic choice for it; it certainly looked more distinguished than a bare skeleton.
Currently, Champion's primary duties were acting as the ship's head of security and butler.
Maurise completed his daily meditation on the sofa, grabbed a can of Coke from the refrigerator, popped the tab, and headed toward the large room he previously used for evolution rituals.
Fzzzt—
He took a large gulp of the carbonated drink and pushed the door open.
The previously empty room was now bustling with activity.
Twelve magic circles were drawn meticulously across the floor in a perfect grid. In the center of each array, a miniature black hole steadily spewed thick white mist.
Beside each circle stood a skeletal worker. They were all systematically casting Energy Convergence, drawing the mist into their bony palms and compressing it into Gap Energy Crystals.
Maurise leaned against the doorframe, sipping his Coke, and watched the automated assembly line with immense satisfaction.
This was what he had been working on tirelessly for the past while.
Through extensive trial and error, he had discovered that only skeletons who had successfully evolved to Tier 3 possessed the mental capacity to comprehend and execute the Energy Convergence spell model.
Out of his original army of fifty skeletons, only these twelve had successfully reached Tier 3.
The others had all crumbled into useless bone dust during the intense evolution rituals, likely due to the poor quality of their original base materials. Maurise still felt a pang of regret when he thought of those failures; he had invested a considerable amount of time and mana into creating those skeletons.
But it couldn't be helped. At least he had confirmed one crucial point: evolution rituals did not have a one-hundred percent success rate.
At that moment, one of the skeletal workers finished condensing a jar's worth of Gap Energy Crystals. It turned and carried the full jar to the corner of the room, placing it neatly beside the others.
Several long rows of full jars were already stacked against the wall.
"Excellent."
Maurise took a slow lap around the room, nodding in deep approval.
After depositing the jar, the skeletal worker turned around. The blue soul fire in its eye sockets flickered as it walked up to Maurise, awaiting its next command.
"Don't mind me. Keep working," Maurise waved a dismissive hand.
The skeletal worker immediately returned to its station and resumed manufacturing crystals. It had been working continuously for two hundred and forty hours without a single break.
Maurise stepped forward and began loading the full jars of Gap Energy Crystals into his magically expanded robes.
Once he had collected the entire stockpile, he turned and left the workshop, heading back to the living room.
Cinder flew in through the window just then, dropping the day's Daily Prophet onto the coffee table. Tin, meanwhile, was sprawled lazily on the sofa, thoroughly engrossed in a book.
At some point recently, Tin had developed a bizarre habit of reading. This surprised Maurise immensely. Normally, at this time of day, the cat would be doing something incredibly foolish, like trying to pluck Cinder's feathers and consequently getting beaten up. Wasn't that its defining character trait?
Maurise walked over and looked down at the book. Tin was currently studying 'The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Household Charms', which it must have pulled from his bookshelf.
"Can you even understand that?" Maurise asked, amused.
Tin snapped the book shut and shot him a look of utter disdain. The small pouch tied around its neck flashed briefly, and its tiny wand flew out, landing perfectly in its mouth.
The cat then pointed the wand directly at a muddy footprint Maurise had just tracked in near the door.
"Meow~"
A flash of light shot from the wand tip. The muddy footprint vanished instantly, leaving the floorboards sparkling clean.
"...Impressive."
Maurise finally understood why the living room had remained immaculate lately, despite him not having cleaned it in weeks.
Tin puffed out its chest and gave a smug little head bob.
Maurise chuckled.
"Alright, you two. Time to get to business." He beckoned to his two pets. "It is time for your evolution rituals."
"Meow—!"
Tin bounded happily over to Maurise's feet, practically vibrating with excitement. It had been waiting for this day for a very long time.
Since the original large room had been converted into the skeletal workers' manufacturing plant, Maurise had used the Undetectable Extension Charm to carve out a brand-new, empty room specifically designated as his ritual chamber. It was slightly smaller than the workshop, but more than sufficient for his needs.
Maurise pushed open the door to the ritual chamber. Tin pranced in eagerly, while Cinder remained perched silently on Maurise's shoulder.
After drawing the intricate evolution magic circle, Maurise turned to them. "Which one of you wants to go first?"
Cinder gave a soft hoot, took flight, and landed gracefully in the exact center of the array.
The ritual began.
"The world of the living has not yet forgotten you. The slumber of death is not your final chapter."
After Maurise had tossed in nearly two hundred Gap Energy Crystals, Cinder's absorption of the grayish-black mist noticeably slowed down.
And then.
Bang!
With a muffled explosion, Cinder's body shattered without any warning, violently disintegrating into a cloud of fine, glittering black dust.
"!"
Tin flinched violently, freezing in place and staring at the center of the magic circle in sheer, unadulterated terror.
Had its feathered nemesis really just detonated into thin air?!
Maurise, however, merely frowned slightly. He was tense, but not panicked.
He could still feel the distinct magical link anchoring him to Cinder. This meant the owl was highly likely still there.
Sure enough, in the next second, the glittering black dust began to swirl rapidly, mixing with the remaining mist to form a tight, violent vortex.
Wings, a head, a tail... Cinder's new body began to slowly coalesce within the eye of the storm.
Finally, the vortex dissipated, and Cinder reappeared in the center of the magic circle.
It had undergone a radical transformation. It no longer looked anything like a normal owl, skeletal or otherwise.
Every single feather on its body was a shade of pure, abyssal black that seemed to devour all surrounding light. Even the soul fire burning within its eye sockets had deepened from a bright, spectral blue into a dark, swirling indigo.
'I see!' Maurise suddenly understood.
He had finally deduced the fundamental principle governing Tier 4 Undead evolutions: Body Reconstruction.
This applied to both the undead unicorn and Cinder. The undead unicorn had manifested flesh and blood over its bones, while Cinder had taken it a step further—completely abandoning its original physical form and forging a brand-new body out of pure, condensed shadow and magic.
Maurise extended his arm. Cinder immediately understood the gesture, gave a powerful flap of its wings, and landed securely on his forearm.
"So, what has changed?" Maurise asked, his voice tinged with surprise.
He realized he could barely feel Cinder's weight at all; the bird was lighter than a feather.