Hissing sounds emerged from Ciel's mouth as he recited the Sectumsempra incantation in Parseltongue. Based on Harry's earlier demonstration, he estimated this should significantly increase the power of dark magic like Sectumsempra.
But now, sensing the invisible blade shooting from his wand tip, he shook his head slightly. Compared to casting Sectumsempra normally, not only was there no enhancement, but it was actually weaker.
The reason seemed to be that his Parseltongue failed to trigger the gathering of dark magic-natured magical particles. So using insufficiently proficient Parseltongue for spellcasting naturally had less power than usual.
"Parseltongue didn't work?" He recalled the scene of Harry using Parseltongue.
With his Occlumency mastery, his mental utilisation had improved dramatically, meaning greatly enhanced learning ability and memory. He could confirm his mouth shape, breathing, and everything else perfectly matched Harry's Parseltongue.
But obviously, their Parseltongue differed vastly. What caused this difference?
"An imagination problem? Because I don't sufficiently think of myself as a snake?" He frowned, beginning another attempt.
This time, he imagined the slippery, cold, crawling sensation in his mind, as if he'd truly become a snake. He also changed the spell he chose to cast: "Serpensortia!"
From the smoke, the seven-headed black snake materialised again, raising its heads in a long hiss. But after just moments, he dispelled it.
"Some effect, but not even worth mentioning. If I hadn't been paying close attention, I probably wouldn't have noticed the Parseltongue enhancement. And just now, though some dark magic-natured particles did gather, compared to Harry's Parseltongue casting, it was completely incomparable."
His brow furrowed deeply as he pondered. Harry didn't seem to use any magic power when employing Parseltongue, so it shouldn't be magic-related.
Perhaps it involved aspects he hadn't yet touched, or simply because Parseltongue required special innate qualifications. Imitated Parseltongue only had the form without the essence?
Many uncertain speculations flashed through his mind. He shook his head, no longer dwelling on it.
Though Parseltongue-assisted spellcasting was quite good, for him it was icing on the cake rather than timely assistance. Mastering it would naturally be better, but he wouldn't force it if he couldn't.
He held the same attitude toward Demeter's Oracle. If learning some ancient languages like Parseltongue could help interpret information during the next oracle, he naturally wouldn't refuse.
But he definitely wouldn't invest excessive time and energy in this area. Oracles were illusory things. Even if interpreted, he didn't know if they'd be useful or when they might be needed.
At least in the original Harry Potter story, the next few years had nothing to do with oracles. If he invested too much time and energy in these mysteries and delayed important matters, that would be counterproductive.
Taking a deep breath, he shifted his attention from elsewhere back to his system panel. Compared to when he first enrolled, after this year his system panel was undoubtedly much more impressive, even far exceeding his own estimates.
Originally, he'd estimated that by year's end, having one or two magical abilities reach Platinum level would meet expectations. Now, except for exceptionally profound fields like Transfiguration and Dark Arts Transfiguration, his magical abilities had basically all reached Platinum level.
Individual spells had even reached Diamond level. His current magical standard far exceeded what a first-year student should have, and even among seventh-year graduates, those exceeding him in magical mastery were as rare as phoenix feathers.
In actual combat, the gap would be even larger. But he wasn't particularly excited. With the system, such achievements were natural. It was far from time for complacency.
After all, the previous Forbidden Forest trial battles had given him a clear understanding of his magical strength. Relying purely on magical combat, he could barely reach Auror level using all his methods.
For one year of enrolment, this progress was extremely fast, even genius level. But in the magical world, that was still far off.
Not to mention wizards at Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Voldemort, and Nicolas Flamel's level. Even elite Aurors, Phoenix Order elites, and elite Death Eaters could easily suppress or defeat him with magic alone, without using Legendary Strength or Legendary Life.
Even encountering Snape's generation during enrolment, he might not dominate Hogwarts. In magical mastery, that generation's quality truly couldn't compare to Harry's.
Thinking of Snape's generation's abnormal academic performance, he shook his head. Those top magical geniuses were simply unreasonable.
"Talent, ah." He sighed softly. If he had Dumbledore's talent, or even Snape's, the planting system's strength amplification would be far more dramatic. He wouldn't struggle so much with every upward step.
"But there's no helping it. Rather than complain, better accept reality and honestly plant trees while developing quietly. The initial bonus period for magical abilities is basically over."
"Continuing to improve these magical abilities, especially Diamond level and above, will probably require calculations in terms of semesters or even years. Future strength growth won't be as fast as this year. I need patience."
Fortunately, he had experienced this during Muggle world planting. The first few levels could be quickly improved through harvest rewards, but later progress slowed.
For instance, advancing from Epic to Legendary Life had kept him stuck at the advancement threshold for nearly two whole years. Even if his current magical abilities improved more slowly later, at least they used Silver-level and above reward orbs for accumulation.
This would still be smoother than previous Muggle plant cultivation and much easier than most wizards' magical improvement. At least before the Legendary level, he could rely on reward orbs.
"No point thinking about all this. Plant trees! Planting is the hard truth!"
Then his gaze fell on the greenhouse. Unknowingly, it had become completely full. The previously rather simple varieties from enrolment had become quite diverse through this year's exploration, even overflowing.
Taking this opportunity, it was necessary to reorganise the greenhouse. Some plants no longer needed greenhouse cultivation.
For instance, the large water tanks in the greenhouse were originally for cultivating carnivorous algae. The rewards from carnivorous algae had indeed helped him greatly.
But now, with water-based Enhancement and Cutting spell masteries reaching high levels, relying on these dozen tanks for carnivorous algae obviously couldn't meet his needs. Who knew how many harvest cycles would be needed to accumulate these abilities to Diamond level?
Better to free up the space these tanks occupied for developing a substantial new planting area. As for carnivorous algae, he planned to designate an area in Sprout Island's coastal waters specifically for large-scale cultivation.
He'd had this plan before but felt his Herbology mastery wasn't sufficient, so he'd delayed action. Now he felt ready to try. If successful, carnivorous algae production might surge dramatically, all benefit, no harm.
Next, he looked at the various blood jade plants occupying nearly a third of the greenhouse. He also planned to move these outside the greenhouse.
Whether using three magical creature blood types for preparation or the subsequent seven-type mixing, these belonged to Dark Arts Transfiguration territory. In Ministry law, Dark Arts Transfiguration involvement, while not as serious as Unforgivable Curses, was still enough for life imprisonment in Azkaban.
Growing such plants at Hogwarts hadn't caused trouble yet, but considering the next few years would be turbulent, especially next year when Ministry Dementors would enter the school, the greenhouse would likely face inspection.
Rather than relocate then, better plan ahead. For safety, it's better to move to Sprout Island.
Leaving the greenhouse would certainly affect blood jade maturation time, but not significantly. For blood jade, the most time-consuming part was transformation nodes, which his blood could quickly bypass.
Comparatively, greenhouse environmental effects were less important. After leaving the greenhouse, Blood Jade could expand cultivation and increase production, bringing him greater benefits than greenhouse growing.
It might even become his main growth point for quite some time.
"This frees up nearly half the greenhouse space." He exhaled softly.
The previously cramped greenhouse land resources would become much more spacious, allowing expanded cultivation of environmentally demanding but higher-reward plants.
Like variant Devil's Snare and variant Shadowthorn. After this harvest cycle, production could increase substantially next year.
As planning gradually clarified in his mind, he seemed to see countless upcoming work beckoning. But this busyness wasn't like his previous life's research work, when his supervisor suddenly assigned horizontal projects, making him work for companies.
Then, working until dizzy and dark, he'd questioned life, clearly knowing all the busy work was just labouring for his supervisor without helping his own growth or graduation.
Now every moment of busyness was for himself, making his heart increasingly solid.
Finally, his gaze fell on the mature Patronus trees, especially the silver seeds they'd produced. His eyes quietly filled with fervour.
"The seeds have finally formed."
The Patronus trees had been mature for some time. He'd even harvested their rewards. But he'd kept this batch in the greenhouse because mature Patronus trees needed additional time from maturation to fruiting and seed production.
This batch, influenced by Dumbledore's Patronus Charm, had far higher quality than ordinary ones. Their seeds might also possess extraordinary quality, saving him tremendous effort.
After all, he had experienced Patronus tree rewards. Besides very practical dark magic resistance, there were also Dark Arts Defence insights that increased combat experience.
When paper magical strength was hard to quickly improve, the practical combat aspect became especially crucial for strength enhancement.
So he had waited until now to obtain high-quality Patronus tree seeds.
Now he carefully waved his wand, casting Pruning Charms to harvest the seeds from the Patronus trees. This process wasn't particularly easy, requiring clean severance of magical nodes connecting seeds and trees to avoid quality degradation or complete deactivation from improper handling.
Fortunately, compared to initially planting Patronus trees, his Herbology mastery could be described as leaping forward. Diamond-level Pruning Charms had a hint of mastery about them.
In moments, over thirty silver Patronus tree seeds fell into his hands. Upon contact, he could feel the rich sacred magic within. His face showed some joy. The seed quality was slightly higher than estimated.
Though definitely not approaching the mother plants' near-Diamond level, approaching Platinum level was quite promising. Compared to most Patronus tree varieties, this was already much better.
But these seeds couldn't be planted immediately. Having just been picked from the mother trees, the sacred magic inside hadn't reached a stable, balanced state.
At this time, soaking them in external sacred magic and carefully harmonising the magic could not only accelerate internal magical balance but even enhance the seeds' inherent sacred magic during the process, producing higher-quality Patronus trees.
This operation process had been quite perfected by generations of herbologists, with detailed instructions for every step. Even potions for soaking Patronus tree seeds had several mature formulas available.
Of course, these could only slightly enhance Patronus tree seeds' sacred magic. If some potion could dramatically strengthen it, that potion would definitely be more valuable than the seeds themselves.
Like before, if not for someone at Dumbledore's level owing him a favour and casting the Patronus Charm, his Patronus trees could never have soared to near-Diamond level.
To dramatically improve this batch of seeds or even change their fate against heaven, relying on these potions was quite impossible. Unless Dumbledore summoned his phoenix Patronus again.
But this thought only flashed through his mind before being suppressed. He didn't have enough influence to make Dumbledore work for him.
As for the favour from the Forbidden Forest trial, perhaps it could be used more crucially later. Using it for at most near-Diamond Patronus trees really wasn't worthwhile.
After all, with Dumbledore's magical world connections, if he was willing to help, obtaining mythical-level plant seeds might be difficult, but Legendary-level ancient plant seeds weren't hopeless.
The choice was obvious. He showed some regret, preparing to follow established procedures for potion preparation. The greenhouse had all necessary materials, and with his Potions mastery, it wasn't very difficult.
But just as he prepared to act, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind like lightning.
"Dumbledore's Patronus Charm was certainly impressive. Phoenix Patronus plus Dumbledore's magical mastery probably approached mythical-level Patronus Charms. But..."
"Legendary and Mythical have vast differences. Even the weakest mythical essence far transcends Legendary level. Coincidentally, my Patronus Charm essence is truly mythical-level."
His gaze fell on his system panel's mythical-glowing Patronus Charm. Though insufficient magical talent meant even condensing the World Tree Patronus couldn't successfully summon it, using full strength only produced a wisp of silver smoke; the mythical essence was genuine.
Perhaps his Patronus Charm could also affect Patronus tree seeds? Once this idea emerged, he showed anticipation.
Then he pointed his wand at a Patronus tree seed: "Expecto Patronum!"
Next, the familiar mountain-heavy sensation came from his wand tip, making his whole body creak. An extremely faint silver wisp, like genuine silver thread, slowly emerged from the wand tip, landing on this Patronus tree seed.
Next moment, cracking sounds rang out. The seed surface immediately showed a crack. His heart jumped. Failure?
But looking at the space above this seed, he found the reward information hadn't disappeared. Instead, it flickered unsteadily, a sign of brewing transformation.
His eyes showed uncertainty but moments later became determined. Even failure would only cost one Patronus tree seed. But if there were truly gains, it might bring some surprises.
Then, continuing to bear the mountain-like crushing weight, he cast another Patronus Charm. Another faint silver wisp emerged from his wand, again landing on that seed.
Crack. Another crack appeared on the seed surface. The reward information above flickered even faster.
He narrowed his eyes: "Still not enough?"
Moments later, his lips slowly curved into a smile: "Then let me see just how much Patronus magic you can absorb."
Then his bones creaked throughout his body as he repeatedly cast Patronus Charms. The seed continuously cracked with each casting.
Time passed minute by minute. In the blink of an eye, two whole days had passed.