While Snape was busy breaking the protective magic left behind by Voldemort, Kyle had already returned to his home in Dorset.
"Dad! I'm back!"
Kyle roared as he passed the living room, not caring if the two old men heard him, and dove straight into the breeding room.
This breeding room had been specially cleared out by house-elves at Kyle's instruction after Grindelwald snatched the Thunderbird egg from Newt, specifically to hatch it.
The Thunderbird egg lay quietly in a carefully arranged nest in the center of the room. Lami, the house-elf responsible for looking after the egg, was waiting silently nearby.
Seeing Kyle enter, Lami immediately retreated respectfully to the side.
The egg lay in the nest, shaking occasionally. A shallow crack had already appeared on the shell.
It seemed he had returned just in time.
A playful clack-clack sound kept coming from inside the Thunderbird egg.
Kyle pointed casually, and a chair flew over from behind him.
He sat down on the chair, watching the Thunderbird egg before him closely.
The little Thunderbird was moving constantly inside the egg, struggling to break out. Soon, the shallow crack became large and deep.
Suddenly, with a harsh scraping sound, the shell broke open.
A bald chick poked its head out from the hole in the shell.
Let alone being pretty, the newborn Thunderbird cub's looks didn't even rate as average.
But Kyle had read the Fantastic Beasts guide; he knew Thunderbirds looked very handsome when they grew up.
A beak as sharp as an eagle's, long pointed ears like two fierce dragon horns, radiating an aura of majesty.
Three pairs of powerful wings wrapped in flickering lightning, and against the backdrop of brilliant heavenly thunder, its feathers looked as if they were plated in shimmering gold.
This was the image of an adult Thunderbird Kyle had seen in the guide.
So, facing this bald, hairless turkey right now, Kyle—a seasoned connoisseur of good looks—felt no disgust at all.
He didn't mind the mucus remaining on the Thunderbird chick and rubbed its head a couple of times.
The chick nuzzled Kyle's hand affectionately. From the looks of it, it had taken Kyle, the first person it saw after being born, as its mother.
"Lami."
"Young Master, what are your orders?" The house-elf scurried over eagerly.
"What do newborn Thunderbirds eat?"
"Feeding it some meat cut into small strips will do." Lami snapped his fingers, and a plate of chicken strips, still threaded with blood, appeared in his hand.
Kyle picked up one of the strips.
Smelling the faint scent of meat in the air, the Thunderbird chick couldn't wait to open its beak, waiting for Kyle to feed it.
Seeing the little guy's greedy look, a smile appeared on Kyle's face.
"What should I name you?"
Kyle poked the little guy's beak. Hmm, no teeth.
"How about Toothless?"
Kyle thought about it and decided against it.
He didn't want the image of a certain Night Fury popping up in his mind every time he called the name.
"How about Thor? Or Sikong Zhen? Since you both play with lightning."
Finally, after much thought, Kyle decided to name it "Lan."
The combination of water and lightning attributes created Storm Release—Lan Release. The Thunderbird's natural talents also gave it the ability to summon storms and control lightning, perfectly matching the attributes of water and lightning.
So nothing suited this little guy better than the name "Lan."
Kyle held a strip of chicken and dangled it up and down in front of the little guy.
Attracted by the chicken, the little guy nodded its head along with the up-and-down movement of the meat in Kyle's hand.
That counted as consent.
"Alright then," Kyle fed the meat strip into Lan's mouth with satisfaction. "Your name is Lan."
Adult Thunderbirds were huge, with a wingspan of fully eight or nine meters.
Consequently, the Thunderbird chick wasn't small either; at birth, it was already the size of an adult domestic chicken.
The large plate of meat strips prepared by the house-elf was soon eaten clean.
No matter the creature, life during infancy was roughly the same: eat until full, sleep, wake up when rested, and eat again—a repeating cycle.
Lan was currently in the "eat until full and sleep" phase.
Looking at Lan, who was sound asleep in the nest, Kyle handed the task of caring for him over to Lami and turned to leave the breeding room.
Walking out of the living room, Kyle kept thinking about the Thunderbird.
To be immune to lightning and also able to manipulate it—what an enviable ability.
He had used lightning to temper his body for over a year, yet he still hadn't managed to upgrade his Chidori into the Raikiri, which required a much higher concentration of current.
Kyle suddenly remembered the magic Voldemort had used back in the Forbidden Forest, the kind that resembled Busoshoku Haki hardening.
If even The Phoenix's Vow, forged from Goblin metal, could be withstood, there was no reason it couldn't resist a little bit of electric current.
Kyle decided to go ask Grindelwald to see if he knew this kind of magic.
In the living room, Kyle bumped into Dumbledore, whom he hadn't seen for a few days.
Voldemort probably mostly knows Dark Magic, Kyle pondered.
In the end, he decided to find Grindelwald.
So he spoke up: "Dad, where's Dad Gellert?"
Hearing that Kyle's very first sentence was to ask where Grindelwald was, Dumbledore's originally kindly face instantly froze.
"In the study," Dumbledore replied grumpily.
Kyle immediately ran toward Grindelwald's study, leaving Dumbledore standing in the living room in disarray.
Could it really be that because the bloodline wasn't concentrated enough—making him at most only half a father to Kyle—that Kyle was closer to Grindelwald?
Dumbledore was so mad.
Should he adopt some tactics to improve the father-son relationship?
Kyle liked good-looking magical beasts, but Dumbledore couldn't bring himself to lower his dignity and go wreak havoc on Scamander's magical zoo next door like Grindelwald did.
Er, if I used Human Transfiguration to turn into Grindelwald's appearance...
What was he thinking? He was the great Dumbledore; how could he use such underhanded means?
But thinking about it, it was quite tempting.
There seemed to be no method more convenient and efficient for bonding than this.
Dumbledore paced back and forth in the living room with a conflicted expression.
"You haven't fallen behind on your Nature Transformation training, have you?"
In the study, Grindelwald asked concernedly about his son's studies, just like a Chinese parent.
"Of course not." Kyle shook his head. Subsequently, a wisp of pitch-black magic power oozed out from his back, forming a sharp, black giant scythe beside him.
If an Honor of Kings player were here, they would recognize who Kyle was cosplaying right now.
Destroyed soul, peerless power.
Silent words, heart of nirvana. Sima Yi!
Judging by the expression on Grindelwald's face, he was quite satisfied with Kyle's current mastery of Nature Transformation and his control over magic power.
After showing off for a bit, Kyle retracted the Shadow Scythe and explained his purpose to Grindelwald.
"A similar magic?" Grindelwald rested his chin on his hand in thought and soon gave an answer.
"I remember a spell called Demon Skin. It belongs to the category of Human Transfiguration and can make your skin as tough as an ancient demon's."
Grindelwald took a few sheets of parchment and tapped his finger lightly on them. A blot of ink bloomed where his finger touched the paper, automatically forming dense handwriting.
"Is this the spell called Demon Skin?" Kyle took the parchment from Grindelwald's hand with eager eyes.
Grindelwald slowly shook his head. "No, this is knowledge regarding the transfiguration of skin within Human Transfiguration."
Seeing the confusion in Kyle's eyes, Grindelwald explained, "The outermost stratum corneum of the skin is non-living matter. Anyone who knows a little Transfiguration can easily alter it."
"Demon Skin is not a difficult spell. As long as you learn the knowledge on these pages, you can easily create a magic similar to Demon Skin."
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Kyle instantly guessed Grindelwald's intention.
So he nodded and said to Grindelwald, "I understand, Dad."
"Human Transfiguration still carries certain dangers," Grindelwald warned sternly. "Until you master the Animagus transformation, do not attempt to transfigure body tissues other than the stratum corneum and hair."
"Got it, Dad. I won't do anything suicidal."
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