"Shadow."
At Ciel's call, shadows writhed across the greenhouse floor. Shadow emerged from within them, coiling affectionately around his body. Even the shadows on the ground danced joyfully, expressing its inner delight.
After all, he hadn't used it for quite some time.
His face showed a slight smile. He didn't mind Shadow's spikes at all, gently stroking it while speaking comfortingly: "Don't be anxious. I know I haven't used you lately, making you bored. But that's because you're one of my trump cards. Trump cards shouldn't be casually shown to others. They're meant for crucial moments."
These words finally seemed to dispel Shadow's dissatisfaction. The shadows on the ground swayed even more joyfully.
Watching this scene, his eyes flickered slightly. Once, he'd tried to master ancient shadow magic through Shadow Thorn's magical changes. But his magical perception and strength then were incomparable to now.
Those complex magical changes? He hadn't even scratched the surface back then. Much less the true mysteries of ancient magic – runic script and natural will. At that time, he hadn't touched these aspects at all.
Though he'd gained some benefits in Transfiguration, looking back now, it was truly naive.
But now he was completely different. The magical changes that were previously impossible to understand seemed much clearer.
Looking at these writhing shadows on the ground, he could sense shadow-natured magical particles constantly contracting and expanding within them, creating this peculiar phenomenon.
"A type of magical movement that has both Tolman Transfiguration and Gamp's Law properties. Fascinating."
His eyes brightened. From these shadow magic movements, he gained considerable inspiration. Especially his previous experience at the Philosopher's Stone destruction ritual, where he'd experienced countless magical properties. His Transfiguration vision had expanded tremendously.
Now, the Transfiguration mysteries within shadow magic corroborated with his previous experiences. His improved Transfiguration mastery gradually settled. The lustre on the Transfiguration text became increasingly substantial.
For a time, he wasn't eager to have Shadow take him into that shadow-filled world. Instead, he immersed himself in shadow magic's various changes.
His senses gradually deepened, penetrating every vibration of those shadow-natured magical particles.
Gradually, a familiar sensation emerged – he'd experienced this when using ancient runic script and casting ancient weather magic.
Runic script!
The deeper core driving these magical movements was a runic symbol. Ancient shadow magic was born from this rune.
He focused even more intently. The magical trajectory slowly formed a vague outline in his mind.
When he realised this, excitement flashed in his eyes. Though he'd only perceived which ancient shadow magic rune was rooted in and hadn't fully comprehended the runic foundation structure, compared to his previous complete ignorance, this was tremendous progress.
Magic that had once seemed painfully unreachable had suddenly drawn close.
On his system panel, faint, blurred text even appeared from perceiving ancient shadow magic's source:
[Ancient Shadow Magic]
This meant he'd truly begun to touch this ancient magic.
After taking a deep breath, he waved his wand: "Perthro!"
As the runic name was chanted, the magical changes he'd previously perceived were put into practice. Magic collided within his body, constantly changing properties, until it gushed from his wand tip as pitch black.
A thin shadow extended from his wand, dancing on the ground!
Though still far from Shadow's ancient shadow magic strength, it was proof that he could reverse-engineer part of ancient shadow magic.
Given enough time, he was confident he could gradually reverse-engineer the runic nodes involved, even the most basic runic structure. That would mean truly mastering ancient shadow magic!
He took a deep breath. After a long while, he calmed from the joy of witnessing his growth.
He hadn't forgotten his original goal – exploring that shadow world again to see if planting shadow flowers there was possible.
Though he'd now vaguely touched ancient shadow magic's boundaries, his current mastery was good for parlour tricks at most. Hoping to rely on this to enter the shadow world was pure fantasy.
He still had to depend on Shadow.
After stating his requirements, Shadow became excited, seemingly recalling times of arduous training.
Then, accompanied by gathering shadow magic, a shadow vortex suddenly appeared on the ground.
Seeing this familiar scene, he took a deep breath and stepped in.
With a dizzy, spinning sensation, the real world receded, replaced by endless darkness. Everything around was shrouded in shadow.
Though this wasn't his first time here, his experience was undoubtedly much stronger than any previous visit. Even his magical perception was completely filled with shadow magic.
This place truly didn't contain even a trace of other magic – only shadow magic. When he tried extending his magical perception, he sensed seemingly infinite shadow magic.
This truly seemed to be a world composed of shadows!
Countless emotions and doubts surged in his mind. Could Nicolas Flamel's legend about the World Tree be real? Was this shadow world once fruit hanging on World Tree branches? Now scattered around the real world, still providing shadow-natured magic?
But soon, he shook his head and stopped thinking about these things. He was only here to find a place to plant shadow flowers, not to seek answers to fundamental world questions.
He focused on his surroundings. Soon, some properties of this shadow world became clear:
"There's no concept of direction here – no east, west, south, or north, not even up, down, left, or right. The only thing determining position is shadow magic. Though the entire world's filled with shadow magic, its distribution's uneven. Some places are shallower; some areas have deeper shadow magic, dividing the world into shallow and deep shadow layers."
His current position had a relatively shallow shadow magic concentration. According to previous experience, even here, he'd suffer shadow magic erosion every moment – agony like slow torture to flesh and blood.
Previously, he'd indeed suffered greatly to improve his Transfiguration.
But now? Not to mention his upgraded Legendary Life plus super-fast recovery from limb regeneration; just the dark magic resistance from Patronus tree rewards created a protective layer on his surface that could resist dark-natured magic.
Though shadow didn't belong to conventional dark magic, its nature still leaned toward darkness. Therefore, while his dark magic resistance couldn't exert full effect, in the current shallow area, it was sufficient to resist shadow magic erosion.
He looked around quite easily, wanting to see where shadow flowers might be planted.
But soon, he abandoned the plan to search here.
"The shadow magic concentration's too low. The magic composing shadow flowers is almost substantial, with incredibly high concentration. If shadow flowers were planted here, they'd probably still dissipate, lasting only a bit longer. I need somewhere with higher shadow magic concentration."
After sensing the shadow magic flow direction, he had Shadow lead him forward along a stream of shadow magic.
Gradually, the surrounding darkness became increasingly profound. Dense shadows covered everything. Though still in relatively shallow areas, shadow magic concentration began rapidly climbing.
Soon, his previously adequate dark magic resistance could no longer withstand shadow magic erosion. Wisps of shadow magic began penetrating the protection, starting to erode his flesh and blood.
But this damage healed immediately from his powerful life force. The remaining sensation couldn't even be called pain – just a tingling feeling like ants crawling. It couldn't change his expression at all.
"Shadow, continue deeper."
Following his repeated requests, time passed. Shadow had led him far into areas he'd never reached before.
The original tingling sensation had become countless needle-like pains. His skin began looking corroded, starting to turn red in large patches.
He remained unmoved. After all, the erosion he'd suffered here before had exposed even his bones – truly unbearable to see. This current situation was nothing in comparison.
Of course, only his powerful life and recovery ability could support reaching here. For any other wizard without corresponding protective spells, they'd probably be instantly eroded throughout their flesh by pervasive shadow magic. Not even bone fragments would remain!
Yet he continued deeper into the shadow world.
As he went deeper, every moment saw the surrounding shadow magic concentration rapidly increasing. It even reached a degree Shadow, who controlled ancient shadow magic, found somewhat difficult.
His flesh began being eroded and stripped away. Pain sensations started rapidly intensifying.
His expression finally showed some fluctuation.
Not from being unable to endure pain, but because he and Shadow had already gone deep enough. This place was near the gap between shallow and deep layers.
Shadow magic concentration here was countless levels higher. But there still hadn't appeared the feeling of shadow magic almost condensing into substance like the shadow flowers.
His magical perception spread forward and detected what seemed like a much denser shadow in the distance. Like the cliff-like dividing line from shallow to deep sea.
That was the deep layer region, and it was from there that shadow magic began to have that substantial feeling.
Staying here, he looked at the deep layer region, hesitating about whether to continue deeper, when his mental eye suddenly felt stimulated, transmitting sharp pain. His sixth sense also conveyed dangerous, uneasy feelings.
His heart jumped. Though he didn't know what would happen if he continued deeper, he chose to trust his sixth sense. He still had many opportunities to explore the shadow world. No need to take risks and force success in one attempt.
"Shadow, we're leaving."
Hearing his instruction, Shadow felt relieved and hurriedly led him back toward the shallow layers.
Just then, he suddenly felt something and turned to glance again at the deep layer region.
His pupils contracted.
He saw that when he and Shadow chose to leave without continuing deeper, in that deep layer region, some extraordinarily dense, huge shadow flashed by.
"That is... a living creature?!"
He gripped his hands tightly, cold sweat nearly falling from his forehead.
He realised he'd misunderstood Nicolas Flamel's words. Nicolas had indeed said that legendary World Tree branches hung various worlds completely different from reality. But he never said those worlds composed entirely of flames, ice, shadows, or light were completely desolate.
If that were the case, where would the shadow flowers he'd obtained have come from?
This meant that in the shadow world's depths, there might be creatures similar to shadow flowers, also composed of shadow magic!
In this environment filled with dense shadow magic, he could basically use no magic except mental domain magic. Even ancient weather magic, his trump card, was the same. Even Legendary Life and Legendary Strength were strongly suppressed due to pervasive erosion.
If the shadow world's life forms were hostile, under such circumstances, it would truly be big trouble.
Thinking this, he felt quite fortunate. The enhanced sixth sense and mental eye activated by Occlumency usually didn't provide much sensation, but when encountering such dangers, they were indeed useful.
After a while, he and Shadow returned to reality from the shadow vortex.
This feeling of solid ground finally made him breathe with relief and abandon the idea of continuing to explore the shadow world short-term.
Too dangerous. Just the pervasive shadow magic erosion alone made movement very difficult for both him and Shadow. Not to mention those shadow life forms whose true forms hadn't been seen yet.
"At least, we must wait until Shadow fully matures. Then its ancient shadow magic strength will improve hugely. At the same time, I'll harvest rewards and rely on that ancient shadow magic insight to probably fully master ancient shadow magic. Then movement in the shadow world will be safer."
To accelerate Shadow's maturation, relying on time alone was insufficient. What Shadow lacked were nutrients containing ancient magic power. Simply absorbing through time passage would take who knows how long – possibly decades to complete this distance.
He did have means to promote Shadow's maturation, such as Demeter ritual magic. But due to Demeter's silver cup being severely damaged, the ancient magic generated by one ritual probably wouldn't be enough for Shadow to absorb and mature.
Fortunately, he had another plan. His gaze fell on the large amount of Quintaped blood collected from the Forbidden Forest trial.
Using this, he could induce variant human-faced luminous mushrooms. Using natural will to clash with the temple curse contained within could create Ancient Ash with the same ripening effect.
With the amount of Quintaped blood he had, the Ancient Ash obtainable this time would be enough for Shadow to easily reach maturity, with plenty left over for cultivating other ancient plants.
Looking at this Quintaped blood, his eyes showed burning intensity. He instinctively gripped his wand, wanting to begin inducing variant human-faced luminous mushrooms.
But simultaneously, Occlumency fluctuated slightly, and his mind immediately cleared. He became alert.
"Just now, was there bewitching magic coming from the Quintaped blood?"
His expression turned ugly. That's right – the being in the Delia Island temple had large amounts of power stolen by him last time. Not to mention such mysterious beings – even he himself, after suffering once, would definitely guard against a second time.
If he really treated such beings as fools, the one suffering losses would definitely be himself. Suspected mythical-level beings couldn't tolerate the slightest negligence.
He put the Quintaped blood away again.
The air in the greenhouse was oppressive, and outside was also overcast – exactly the most annoying weather of this season in the Scottish Highlands.
Already somewhat depressed from two consecutive setbacks, he shook his head again.
If Quintaped blood couldn't be easily used, then Shadow's maturation became indefinitely postponed. Exploration of the shadow world became impossible. The shadow flower rewards could only be looked at without any chance of obtaining them.
This was manageable, but the key issue was that his subsequent plans for cultivating ancient plants would all be delayed. Plan changes made him frown deeply, his mood becoming quite depressed.
At this time, he suddenly shook his head. Based on previous life experience, when plans encounter unexpected variables, staying stuck brooding often only makes things worse. Better to go to more open places for a walk and clear the mind – perhaps some opportunities would come.
Gently patting his cheeks, he talked to himself: "Summer vacation's just begun. There's still plenty of time to solve problems. As long as thinking doesn't stagnate, there are always more solutions than difficulties."
He stepped out of the greenhouse, walking casually toward higher hills near the Forbidden Forest, breathing the cool breeze, clearing the depression from his mind. Throughout the process, maintaining relaxed emotions, thinking of nothing, and completely banishing all previous affairs.
Just like this, when he opened his eyes again, though the air was increasingly oppressive, his mood had actually calmed.
"First try to solve it. If it can't be solved, just change the plan. The world doesn't have that many smooth-sailing situations. Unless one's omniscient and omnipotent, who can formulate a perfect plan from the start? One major significance of making plans is for modification."
With his mind relaxed, he turned around, already preparing to go down the mountain. Perhaps later, go to the Quidditch field and fly the Nimbus 2000?
But just then, the oppressive air suddenly seemed to break. Raindrops began falling from dark clouds.
In the blink of an eye, the raindrops became larger than soybeans, pattering into the forest. In the sky, dazzling lightning flashed between cloud layers like serpents. For a moment, the dark oppressive sky was illuminated. Rumbling thunder shook the wilderness.
This was clearly a long-accumulating thunderstorm.
He bathed in the rain, his eyes also reflecting this boundless power from nature.
Next moment, he suddenly thought of something.
He raised his head, staring fixedly at the constantly flashing lightning in the sky. A bold idea gradually became clear in his mind.