Chapter 433 "Brainstorming"

"Author? Who is the author of the book?" When Stephanie asked this, Sean realized that he had forgotten such key information.

Who wrote this book?

He moved over quickly, and Stephanie quickly closed the book, and there was no author on the cover. They opened to the title page, but there was nothing. The last page and the back of the book were also missing, and even Stephanie couldn't find the author's name after flipping through the entire book.

This is a book without an author.

The two looked at each other and simply read the story from the beginning. However, the story is normal. The protagonist is still a bard, but this time, the bard solves a major accident in the kingdom and is loved by the people.

They continued to read; the protagonist remained unchanged. The second story is that the bard meets a woman who makes him fall in love, chases after her to no avail, and finally leaves. This book is not too thick, especially when illustrations accompany each story. It does not take much time to read the entire book roughly.

The two got together, and it didn't take long to turn to the last page. The last story is about the bard's dark alchemy experiment. After staring at it for a long time, the two felt a little weird.

Sean shook his head and said, "Although most of them are fables and fairy tales, they have nothing to do with each other."

"The only thing in common is that the bard appears in every story, and most of them describe his main point of view." Stephanie added.

"But the bard in the illustrations is rarely consistent, and there is no point that can be connected between the stories. After the story of him with the Snake, the next story is about bards and medieval vampires..." Sean said.

After pondering for a while, Stephanie said, "I feel that maybe those are the real experiences from the bard itself. After all, if that story is excluded, there will at least be a change in the other stories."

"What do you mean?" Sean asked.

"In all the other stories, the character of the bard is getting darker and more despicable. It's not much of a collection of stories. It's more like the bard's character development toward the dark side."

Sean reread the book and found that, as Stephanie said, the bard was slowly turning bad. In the last story, the bard even killed an entire village.

"What is the purpose of the author who wrote these stories? To reveal the evil truth about the bard to the world?" Sean thought about it.

Stephanie shook her head, "It's impossible to know the accurate answer, but what I'm curious about is the relationship between the author and the bard."

Sean thought about it, "If the author and the bard are enemies, how can he reveal the evil side of the bard to the world by leaving such a collection of vague stories like this? If it is a friend or family member, there's no way they would write it this way."

"This is obviously not a normal fairy tale that was written." Stephanie patted the cover, "The author wrote it to convey a certain message."

"The Bard and the Greedy Snake" has a message that the author wants to convey. They are trying to spread the truth. As for why it is expressed so cryptically, instead of explaining it straightforwardly, I have a guess."

Sean didn't expect that she had already thought about so many things, so he said, "Tell me."

"That new world, the Misty Land you told me about, is the middle between heaven and hell. Obviously, the Misty Land is special," She walked to a stone wall, a door opened, waved her wand, and two velvet chairs came from the Room of Requirement.

"Sit down." Stephanie pushed a chair over.

When Sean sat down, she curled up in the chair, hugged her knees with her hands, and stared at the ceiling of the library.

"The Misty Land is special, and the Snake and the Robin that were killed must also be one of the most important individuals in that world. Otherwise, the Misty Land would not have collapsed after they died."

"We can assume that the Snake and the Robin are the rulers of the Misty Land. People who go there have to pass tests before they can see the Robin, and the Snake is the final tester."

"This shows that they are probably beyond the existence of ordinary wizards..." Stephanie paused.

"They may represent the Misty Land. The bard killed them and took a piece of the black gem. The bard has likely mastered some of the abilities of the Snake and the Robin. For example, we both have partial authority over the Room of Requirement."

Sean nodded while thinking. Although it was all guesswork, everything was reasonable.

She continued, "We compare Hogwarts with it. If the bard has mastered the authority of the Room of Requirement like us,"

"Then he can watch the people in the castle, just like us." Sean's eyes lit up, and he knew what Stephanie was talking about.

"That's right," Stephanie agreed, "We won't monitor other people in the castle, but the bard will."

Sean continued, "In other words, the author of this book is likely to be a being from the Misty Land?"

"Yes, that bard may be an extremely powerful wizard in reality, and in the Misty Illusion, he is the supreme being who can rule the creatures in that world. Although it's just a guess, but I think this is the most reasonable explanation." Stephanie said.

"So, it doesn't dare to write in too much detail, let alone be straightforward. It only dares to hint in the form of fables."

"Well," Stephanie tilted her head, "Actually, we can know that when the bard finally killed the snake and the robin, someone definitely has seen this before, and the author is one of them."

"If we can find one of them, maybe we can know what the truth behind the whole story is," Sean said.

She continued, "You're right, but there is a problem. The Misty Land should be in ruins now, but it still retains the function as a transit from the world to the afterlife. We are all living people. How do we get into the Misty Land?"

Sean rubbed his forehead. Sean knew a resident of the Misty Land.

The huge flame giant Sean in his body might have lived in that world. Sean can use the Obscurus and his connection with Pride to appear in the Land in the form of a soul. But the only place he can move is one-third of an acre of the island, and beyond that, it is just something full of magma.

In addition to this possibility, another way to enter the Misty Land is to be like Harry in the original book. Voldemort accidentally made him into the seventh Horcrux. When Voldemort hits Harry with the Killing Curse, Voldemort's soul blocks the spell for him, and Harry goes to an unknown world.

Not to mention that the risk was too much; when Harry was in King's Cross Station, it was a kind of projection from his own heart.

Of course, there's another way, and only the Returners knew about it.

Looking at Sean, Stephanie said, "Actually, you don't need to be so stressed now. Our guess has not been confirmed, and the hidden meaning in the story has not been fully explained."

"Well, I know..." Sean replied.

Stephanie reminded him one thing, don't worry about it now. If there are people in this world who know this story besides the person involved, Sean can only think of two people.

Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald.

When Sean thought of Dumbledore, he had already had a lot of thoughts. In his guess, Dumbledore and the Returners have established an unbreakable vow, and it is impossible to learn the secrets about the Returners from Dumbledore.

But does this answer a question that has been troubling Sean? Why did Dumbledore work with The Returners? Perhaps it was because of the truth of the story that Dumbledore made such a decision.

As for Grindelwald, there is a high probability that he does not know this story, and neither the old Grindelwald nor the real Grindelwald is in a state where they can discuss about it.

But when the time came, Grindelwald merged into one, and the impact of the time incident was eliminated. After Grindelwald has a complete memory, does he know more things?

Thinking of this, Sean stretched.

"Sitting here in the middle of the night, I can't think of anything. But today is something. At least we know more things and connect with many things now."

"Yeah." Stephanie responded softly.

"Let's go back and rest. It's late...huh?"

Hearing no reply, Sean moved closer suspiciously. Stephanie curled up in the chair and breathed lightly and steadily, hugging herself tightly.

"Stephanie? Are you asleep?" Sean was dumbfounded.

He moved a little closer and could see her eyes. It was only then that Sean realized it. It seemed that Stephanie's reading ability and memory didn't come without a price. It wasn't as easy as she said.

In order to use her talent, she expended a lot of energy and racked her brain to think about the whole thing just now.

She must be exhausted.

Sean sighed softly and looked around. Sean thought for a while and took out his wand. He cast a spell and picked up the chair. He went into the Room of Requirement and into Stephanie's little private room.

Putting the chair beside the bed, Sean hesitated for a moment but still picked up Stephanie. She is very light, and even if Sean is not that strong, he can still lift her up. He gently carried Stephanie to the bed as fast as possible and covered her with a quilt.

"It's time for me to go back to sleep as well." Sean stretched and walked outside.

As soon as he took a step, Sean discovered a piece of parchment on a desk. A corner of the parchment was a little burnt black, and there were cursive characters on it.

A list of Hogwarts' Secret Rooms and Entrance?

Sean picked up the parchment in surprise. He had seen this parchment before.

In the beginning, he was trapped in Slytherin's common room's secret chamber and found this piece of paper in the Room of Requirement the next day after returning. Sean didn't take it seriously at the time.

However, he is much more familiar with Stephanie now than before, and they can recognize each other's handwriting.

She wrote this parchment at that time. Sean held the paper and glanced back unconsciously. She was still in a peaceful sleep. Sean sighed silently, carefully put the parchment back in place, and quietly left the room.

He closed the door and said something softly at the end.

"Good night."

On the bed, Stephanie seemed to be having a sweet dream. The corners of her mouth were slightly raised.