— — — — — —
Sleep hits different when you're completely wrung out.
After waking up naturally from a deep, dreamless sleep, Tom felt refreshed to his core. All the exhaustion he'd been carrying was gone, swept clean in one go. He felt like he'd been fully restored, every stat maxed out again.
His three roommates were still dead to the world, snoring away. After staring at the clock on the wall for a while, Tom finally checked the time.
Four in the morning.
He clicked his tongue.
Hold on. Yesterday, he'd come back after lunch and smashed straight into bed. From start to finish, maybe half an hour passed. Which meant…
He'd slept for fifteen hours?
Tom couldn't remember ever sleeping that long before.
Still, it felt amazing.
Only now did he finally have the time and energy to look at the contents of the Tenth Trial.
[Tenth Trial: Star]
[Objective: Relying solely on your own power, travel to the Moon and remain there for seven days (Earth standard days).]
[Reward: One opportunity for physical evolution.]
Tom closed the mission panel with a grave expression.
Translated into plain human language, this meant: Earth's too small for you now. Go mess around in space.
He'd known it. When even unlocking the trial had been this brutal, there was no way the actual challenge would be easy. But even so, this was way beyond what he'd expected. Each requirement was more ridiculous than the last.
Crossing space with his own body. Flying all the way to the Moon. Staying there for seven days.
Pick any one of those and it was basically impossible for a carbon-based lifeform. So what if you were a "Century King"? Plenty of Century Kings couldn't even fly.
Have Dumbledore go seven days without food or water and he'd starve to death too. Well… actually, he could bring food with him to the Moon.
But the real question was—how would he even get there?
Fly there himself?
Tom's thoughts tangled into a mess. He had no idea where to even begin. This felt harder than racing a phoenix, more like an all-around stress test of everything he had.
Suddenly, Catherine's favorite catchphrase popped into his head.
To the stars...
Damn it. The next trial wasn't going to send him into some abyss, was it? Earth didn't even have anything like that.
So while everyone else was cramming nervously for their final exams, Tom kept sneaking out of Hogwarts and into the Muggle world, digging up information about space and the Moon.
In this field, Muggles were already leagues ahead of wizards.
And after reading through it all, Tom's headache only got worse.
Distance from Earth to the Moon: 363,000 kilometers.
Day-night temperature difference on the Moon: 300 degrees.
Cosmic radiation. Meteor strikes. Atmospheric pressure issues…
After listing all the problems, his head felt a size bigger.
Which made for a sharp contrast with Snape, who was practically glowing with good spirits.
Snape had finally forced Lupin out, just as he'd wanted. There was no way Dumbledore could find another qualified Defense Against the Dark Arts professor on such short notice. Confident of that, Snape had once again placed his transfer request on the headmaster's desk.
Tom was immediately annoyed.
He was petty like that. Even though he knew full well that next term's Defense post was cursed and Snape's joy was probably for nothing, he still didn't want to see Snape smug about it.
Before the first exam, Tom caught Snape in the corridor.
"Professor," the boy said casually, "you seem pretty confident about your position next term."
"What are you getting at, Riddle?" Snape's smile vanished.
"Nothing much." Tom shook his head. "Just thought I'd pass along a little rumor. Professor Dumbledore has already lined up someone else."
Snape's face darkened. "Lupin's only been gone a few days. He found a replacement that fast?"
Tom seized the chance to smear Dumbledore a bit more. "You know the headmaster. Finding scapegoats is kind of his specialty."
"Who did Dumbledore find?" Snape pressed.
He intended to identify the target and then apply a bit of pressure until the person resigned voluntarily. This wasn't a threat. It was for their own good. Defense Against the Dark Arts was a deep, dangerous swamp. Who but him could handle it properly?
"Alastor Moody," Tom said cheerfully, tossing out the name. "Apparently a retired Auror. Crippled leg, one eye gone. Someone like that thinks he can compete with you for the job? I don't buy it."
Snape's expression became… complicated.
Moody?
That old bastard?
In all of Britain, there were only a handful of wizards Snape treated with real caution. If it weren't for Dumbledore shielding them, Lupin and Sirius would have been run into the ground long ago.
Unfortunately for him, Alastor Moody was one of those people you simply did not mess with. Among Death Eaters, just hearing the name "Alastor Moody" was enough to make spines shiver.
"Riddle, exams are about to start and you still have the mood to joke around?" Snape snapped. "If you're not top of the year this time, don't expect any special treatment from me next term."
After dropping that threat, Snape turned and left in a hurry. The retreating figure somehow managed to look a little flustered.
Tom's smile widened.
Ah. That felt good.
"Usaki."
After the first day of exams, Tom soothed Daphne, then headed into the Forbidden Forest and called for his Rayquaza.
He didn't have to wait long. Usaki's long, powerful form descended from the sky, rubbing up against him affectionately as always.
By now, Usaki had grown into something like an adolescent stage. Her size wasn't increasing as explosively as before, but the raw, compressed power hidden beneath that body was growing by the day.
It was precisely because she'd reached this stage that Tom finally felt comfortable letting her hunt in the upper atmosphere, or even higher.
And today, Tom had called her back for one reason. He wanted to take a preliminary look at space and experience firsthand what surviving there actually felt like.
Usaki opened her mouth, clearly itching to let out a triumphant roar, but Tom gave her a light pat from where he sat astride her back. Usaki immediately behaved, angling her body straight up and shooting skyward at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
Troposphere. Stratosphere. Mesosphere.
Then, punching through the exosphere, Tom entered outer space for the first time.
They were now more than a thousand kilometers above the ground, sharing altitude with only a handful of high-orbit satellites.
A faint green glow surrounded Tom. It was an energy shield provided by Usaki. Inside it, everything felt no different from being on the ground. Pressure, oxygen, everything was normal.
Strictly speaking, this wasn't Rayquaza's innate ability. It was an effect of their magical contract, sharing a portion of its power with Tom.
Even so, he couldn't rely on Rayquaza's strength to reach the Moon. In the end, he would still have to do it himself.
After layering every defensive spell he knew onto his body and repeatedly warning Usaki to pull him back to Earth at the first sign of trouble, Tom finally left his back and faced the starry void alone.
The transparent barrier instantly turned an icy blue.
The temperature here was close to minus 270 degrees Celsius. To maintain the effects of a constant-temperature charm, Tom had to continuously pour in magic. At the same time, the drastic pressure changes made him uncomfortable. He hadn't stayed long before his brow furrowed, and Usaki immediately rushed over to catch him.
"Hah… what a weird feeling."
Frowning, Tom returned to the ground with Rayquaza. He'd thought the oxygen problem could be solved with a Bubble-Head Charm, but that didn't work. Temperature and pressure could be managed, but radiation was another story. It couldn't be filtered out.
Once he had a clear idea of what the problems were, Tom actually felt much better.
Problems weren't scary. Not knowing what they were was.
He'd overcome countless obstacles on his way here. There was no reason this time would be any different.
---
Over the next few days, Tom attended his exams as usual.
In the practical Transfiguration exam, Professor McGonagall's task for most students was to turn a squirrel into a candlestick. Correct shape and function earned a Pass. Add decorative flair or patterns, and it was an Outstanding.
That was everyone else's assignment.
When it came to Tom, Professor McGonagall instinctively raised the difficulty.
Transform a Kneazle into a rabbit.
Transfiguring one living creature into another was already an advanced application of Transfiguration. Doing so with a magical creature like a Kneazle, which possessed innate magic, bumped the difficulty up several more levels.
"Professor, that's discrimination," Tom protested.
McGonagall smiled and offered a tempting deal. "Mr. Riddle, if you can complete it, I won't assign you any homework this summer."
Tom's eyes lit up, and he accepted on the spot.
Even if Hermione was still doing his homework for now, letting the young witch work a little less sounded nice.
He raised his wand and lightly tapped the kneazle. After a brief distortion, it turned into a small white rabbit, hopping over to Tom and rubbing against his trouser leg.
Professor McGonagall nodded in satisfaction and wrote a bold O on his grade sheet right in front of him.
...
Then came the next day's written Charms exam, which taught the students a harsh life lesson.
Professor Flitwick, usually humorous and endlessly forgiving, decided to get creative. He split the paper into two parts. Fifty percent covered material he had explicitly emphasized before. The other fifty percent included not only this year's content, but also spells from the previous two years.
Even Hermione was scratching her head, looking so distressed she was on the verge of tears.
"..."
Two desks away, Tom was having the time of his life. He secretly gave Flitwick a thumbs-up. The Ravenclaw headmaster put on a stern face, but the smile in his eyes gave him away.
No need to guess where that wicked idea came from. Tom had suggested it himself. He firmly believed in building his happiness on others' suffering.
Watching the pain on everyone's faces, he wore a pain-filled expression too.
Because holding back laughter was genuinely painful. Hahahaha.
Crack—!
The sudden, sharp sound rang out clearly in the room. Several students instinctively looked around, searching for its source.
The next instant—
BOOM!
Tom turned into a streak of light. Under the stunned gazes of his classmates, he smashed straight through the window. The shockwave from his magic sent desks and students tumbling in every direction.
In the headmaster's office, Dumbledore happened to see Tom flying at top speed toward Hogsmeade. The moment he left the range of Hogwarts' anti-Apparition wards, he vanished into thin air.
Dumbledore stared, completely baffled.
"What on earth just happened?"
No one knew.
Only Tom did.
That sound had been the shattering of a runic inscription.
Nicolas… was in danger.
.
.
.