Mysterious Journey

Chapter 615: Aura of Fortuitous Destiny

rua!
Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With the last marble chess piece crashing to the ground, the room fell silent once more.
Ptooey—
Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey—
Expressionlessly wiping the white stone dust from her face, Erina looked at the few little witches around her, all covered in gray-white dust, and sighed helplessly. She was finally beginning to understand how Dumbledore and Grindelwald had felt recently.
The ground was littered with the destroyed limbs and fragments of giant wizarding chess pieces, and the air was thick with a visible layer of stone dust, creating the illusion of being on a brutally savage battlefield, filled with the clamor of war.
Perhaps Hermione had encountered some slight setbacks in her study of Ancient Runes.
However, after a few months of after-school spell tutoring from Albus Dumbledore, this “computing machine,” originally from the non-magical world, made rapid progress in Exploding Charms, quickly catching up to Erina's level – if it weren't for the differences in bloodline, which caused some shortcomings in magical concentration and level, the two might already be about equal at this point.
Not to mention, beside Hermione, there was also a little iron girl under the influence of a Frenzy Charm.
As Hermione took the initiative to attack, before the chess pieces in the giant chessboard could change from green names to red names, Hanna had already picked up the black chess king, who had retreated to the back of the chessboard, and rushed onto the giant chessboard excitedly. Like a female general in a Dynasty Warriors game, she coordinated with Hermione's Exploding Charms to slaughter the pieces.
"Scourgify."
Hermione looked around and, finding no more moving statues in the arena, waved her wand calmly, cleaning the dust from her body, and asked cheerfully,
"Erina, according to the previous instructions, knocking down all the chess pieces means we can pass the level directly, right?"
"...According to the rules, yes."
Erina, standing in the corner, sighed again and answered weakly.
This scene of exploiting loopholes in the rule settings, madly outputting while riding on the rules, seemed familiar to her, and she must have seen it more than once, but... in this episode, the protagonist seemed to have changed.
Hanna casually threw down the black king, now only half a torso, and ran over happily, eagerly asking,
"So can we go to the next level? What's the score for this level?"
"Go, go. Knocked down all the chess pieces – full marks."
Erina glanced sadly at the giant wizarding chessboard formation, which had lost a large portion of its pieces due to infighting and had been doubly ravaged by Hermione and Hanna through physical and magical means, and answered reluctantly.
Not to mention that, due to Luna's lowering of the average difficulty, these giant wizarding chess pieces, enchanted by Professor McGonagall, only had two-thirds of their original intelligence, attack, magic resistance, and physical resistance.
Even according to the normal difficulty setting, these three little witches had a certain chance of achieving final victory when facing no more than twice their own number of chess pieces. The only shortcoming might have been the young Luna Lovegood.
Compared to the other two little witches, she, who was studying "Binary Reversal Reconstruction Architecture Magic," was temporarily stuck in the wave-particle duality module, and her illusion magic, even if successfully cast, could not exert much effect in the current level.
……
After Professor McGonagall's giant chessboard, came Professor Snape's potions assessment.
This was a very simple, empty room, resembling a potions classroom with only one table. Various strange potions would randomly appear on the table, and only by drinking all the potions could one complete the level.
Unlike the previous three levels, Severus Snape's level had extremely interesting rules.
In addition to dividing the difficulty based on the average level of the wizards entering the instance [Easy (1-2)], [Normal (3-5)], [Hard (6-7)], there was also an extremely hidden special setting, which was divided according to the number of houses.
If the wizards who arrived in this room came from three different houses, only three, six, or nine potions would appear on the table; if they came from two different houses, the number of potions appearing on the table would double once; but if they were all students from the same house, the number of potions appearing would double twice.
On the other hand, the potions faced by lower-year students were all brewed by Snape himself.
The only difficulty lay in whether any of the wizards in the group had brewed the corresponding antidote correctly in class according to his requirements, and whether they could correctly summon the antidote after identifying the types of potions on each table.
The potions that third- to fifth-year wizards had to drink included not only those brewed by Snape but also "dark potions" brewed by other wizards – in fact, this was what Snape had always wanted to do.
Of course, as a potions professor, Snape had slightly screened the "dark potions."
He had made some improvements to some of the more poisonous or highly corrosive potions that could cause sudden death. Each potion brewed by the students also had the corresponding student's name and house on the front.
As for the upper-year students, all the potions they had to drink would be the failures and successes of all the students in the school in potions class; and the range of antidotes they could choose from would be randomly drawn from the works of all the students in the school. The only fortunate thing was that the chances of upper-year students successfully passing through to the fourth level were not very high.
Therefore, this level, to some extent, relied heavily on luck.
If the randomly generated potions were relatively harmless, or if they were the types for which the wizards could easily find the correct antidote, then this level would be very simple. But if everything was reversed, then it could only be a test of physical fitness.
In other words...
Theoretically, if led by a lucky leader, some strange situations might occur...
"Oh, Courage Potion, Elixir of Euphoria, Draught of Despair..."
Luna walked to the table with three potions, curiously reading the labels attached to the bottles one by one, while looking around the environment.
Behind her, Erina was helping Hermione and Hanna recover their stamina and magic – for these two first-year witches, high-intensity combat was still a considerable burden.
This was Luna's first time coming to the fourth level.
The information about this level mainly came from "Droha's" several successful passages.
According to the boys, they had encountered Swelling Solution, Potion of Pain, Scabbers Pus, Weeping Potion, Laughing Potion…
Fortunately, both Harry and Draco had good grades in potions and, after a little thought, found the corresponding antidote.
However, even so, they still suffered a little because the potions were not pure.
But…
Luna looked at the names of the potions again, turned her head to look at Hermione Granger, and Erina, who was about to issue a task, and asked uncertainly,
"I don't feel like we need to find antidotes for these potions. If we drink them all directly, can we pass the level?"
"..."
Erina, who was about to conjure a golden quest exclamation point, expressionlessly put down her wand and took the initiative to walk to the end of the room to open the door.
Sure enough… she shouldn't have let Luna Lovegood enter the room first.
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Guya
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