Chapter 76: Wand Making (Edited)

Late in the evening, Tom was still studying. With the detailed descriptions and photos of the various wand cores and woods, and the samples provided by Mr. Ollivander, Tom was gaining a better understanding of the materials used in varitology.

[Enough knowledge was gained to unveil the theory of the hidden knowledge of Varitology.]

[Varitology talent will be revealed when a wand is created for the first time]

[Level 0 of Varitology (0/100)]

Tom: Yes (^-^)V

Although he didn't know the use of learning Varitology, the thrill of having a skill for nothing was very satisfying.

The next day, Mr. Ollivander was surprised to see Tom's progress. He had given Tom three days to finish the book, but he hadn't expected him to have memorized it in one night.

So he was excited to begin the next stage of his teaching.

Mr. Ollivander was in a much more relaxed state, to say the least. He had thousands of wands in stock, enough to keep him going for years, and with so few customers coming in before the start of the school year, he always had time to spare.

Since he had nothing better to do, he decided to teach his apprentice.

"Tom, do you know what a wand really is?"

Tom recalled the process of casting spells with his wand and said, "A magic amplifier?"

Mr. Ollivander shook his head, "A wand is not a magic amplifier, in fact, it's more of an auxiliary accessory..."

Ollivander pulled out a huge piece of parchment with a drawing of a man and his inner workings, "Beginners often have the misconception that a wizard's magic is weak and needs a wand to amplify it, but this is fundamentally wrong. If wands were magic amplifiers, why would a great wizard like Dumbledore cast spells without a wand?"

The question confused Tom: Yes, a wand was never meant to turn one unit of magic into ten, if that were the case, why would Dumbledore and the others be learning to cast spells without a wand? Wouldn't that be a deliberate weakening of their power? If you use a wand, a wizard's attack is 100, without a wand it is only 10, why wouldn't Dumbledore use his wand?

Are you afraid of being disarmed in battle? You can have a spare wand, or find a way to secure your wand to your hand, which would be easier than casting spells without it.

"Wands simply help wizards channel their magical powers so they can concentrate on more complex spells. Most spells require the use of a wand, but spells can also be cast without a wand. Wandless spells require incredible concentration and skill, and powerful wizards have honed their skills this way."

Tom understood, in general, that magic within the wizard himself is abundant. As evidenced by the accidental magic of little wizards, it was indeed true. The wand was more like one of those fancy aids to a modern bow and arrow that helped to shoot more accurately, but did not prevent the skilled from shooting with confidence in their own abilities.

After explaining the principles of wands, Mr. Ollivander showed Tom how to create one.

"Different combinations of magical materials can have different effects and, of course, the length of the wand will make a difference."

With that, Ollivander greeted Tom and sat him down at the workbench, where he picked up a piece of pine wood and pulled out a piece of unicorn tail hair that looked old. As he explained, he polished the wood, split it in half and inserted the unicorn tail hair.

After inserting the core of the wand, Ollivander took out a small carving knife, the tip of which was as thin as a hair, and then began to write carve the wand for a while. He did not explain this step to Tom, but concentrated on carving.

It took Ollivander about a quarter of an hour to finish carving the inside of the wand, and then he took a small note out of the drawer, but then he reacted,

He put it in place.

"There are several effects that can be achieved by carving runes into the inside of a wand, but a wand body with a wand core is useless, as every wand maker uses a different rune. If I could get my hands on that wand and study it..." Ollivander was halfway through the sentence when something occurred to him and his eyes lit up with desire.

He put the two pieces of pine together, let them return to their original shape and made himself a rough wand.

He waved the wand with slight distaste, and a bright light emerged from its tip.

"Look, it's done. But the quality of the wand is too mediocre due to the materials used." Without further ado, the Ollivander broke the rough wand. But he did it deftly, breaking only the useless pine wood and not the unicorn tail hair inside.

He pulled out another roll of parchment, on which he had drawn all sorts of strange symbols.

"These are some of the basic runes of varitology, as well as some rune arrangements. You can find a piece of wood and carve the runes into it, bigger at first, then smaller as you get better, do this until the rune is the size of a grain of rice."

Ollivander set about leaving homework and then left him alone. He left only the wand he stemmed for Tom to study.

Tom found a workbench and sat down. He first lit the magic lamp on the workbench, an alchemical device, something like the lamps found in Muggle operating rooms, and then placed the parchment and carved wand on the table.

He studied the arrangement of the runes on the scroll and discovered that most of them consisted of seven runes, with a fixed beginning and end and a variety of oddities in between, followed by a note explaining their effects. These arrangements essentially seek "stability," so that the magic passing through them can function stably.

Tom chose an initial rune and began trying to carve it.

It was much harder than he expected. One movement of the hand and the whole thing would be ruined, runes are extremely delicate things, and a slight difference will cause the characteristics to undergo shuddering changes.

It took Tom almost an hour to carve the first rune, and in the end it was identical to the rune on the parchment, but the strokes, deep here and there, were simply unqualified products.

But when Ollivander came over, he was delighted and congratulated Tom: in his opinion, he had talent for carving something like that for the first time.

Tom spent the next day carving runes, and by the time he returned to his dormitory at night he had mastered all six runes. What surprised him was that not only had his varitology experience bar become a question mark, but he had also gained a few points in Alchemy.

It seemed that varitology and alchemy had something in common.