Chapter 145 Practical Lessons (3) - Key

All the Ravenclaw students laughed.

One of the girls said, without thinking, "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."

They quickly arranged it in the correct order, and in a blinding light, the runes on it disappeared and were replaced by a string of gorgeous, flowing text in English glittering on the wall: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."

"That's right! That's it, this wall obviously represents Ravenclaw, and those other three walls ..." Percy said excitedly.

"Representing the other three houses!"

Everyone thought of that.

Guided by this thinking, the runes on the other three walls were deciphered one by one -

"Daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart." This is a famous quote from Godric Gryffindor.

"Tough, honest, upright, and loyal." That's what people say about Hufflepuff.

"With honour, with might to keep it all." These are the famous words of a famous Slytherin wizard in history.

On the four walls, four lines of writing glowed, and everyone subconsciously held their breath, and sure enough, the writing on the walls disappeared.

In the darkness, only the light from their wands served as a source of light, and the not-so-bright light illuminated their excited faces.

A plain door appeared, as if it had always been there, and the students walked in.

Inside there is only a table, and on the table is a manuscript, entitled: "An Important Manuscript".

Geoffrey flipped over the first page, and it read, "Collect four keys to exit this place." Other than that, it is blank.

He "snorted", "we still need the key? Just push open the door and get out ..." he suddenly stopped talking, seemingly choked on his saliva. A layer of sweat quickly broke out on his face, "I, can we still find the door to the classroom?"

Facing each other, Percy said through the air, "Professor Hap ... are you there, Professor Hap?"

There is no response.

"Looks like we have to gather the keys." Wood scratched his head, "But where are they?"

"East, West, South, and North, of course, remember the runes we saw in the graveyard?" Percy said to Penelope.

"You mean ... that story!"

"That's right." Percy said aloud, the tip of his nose slightly red from excitement, "The runes on the tombstones recorded information about this place, but there was actually one more thing, which is about keys."

With that, the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students took out the parchments they had recorded earlier and arranged them as required.

"I have 3-1 here, who has 3-2 in their hands?"

"I'm ahead of you in line, I'm 1-7."

They glued the parchments to the wall in order and carefully examined them: "Obviously, ten is one group, four groups in total."

"The first group gives the background of that operation in 1842, pretty much the same as Professor Hap said ..."

"It doesn't matter," Geoffrey said.

Percy rolled his eyes and continued, "The second group described the topography of the place, a very simple southeast-northwest section, plus a central safe house."

"The third and fourth groups were problems the Ministry of Magic staff encountered at the time, oh, and although the concealment ward failed, the other wards were still in operation, see here, one of the defences was a horde of shadowy deceased bodies, the little skeletons we met ..."

"That's wicked! How come the Ministry of Magic at that time didn't arrest him?"

"Oh, I think it might be because they haven't even had a chance to set up the Ministry of Magic at the time..."

...

"What were the other defences?"

"Lethifold, Gargoyles, and a Devil's Snare," Percy said as he pointed at the runes on it.

"Good~ It looks like we're dealing with similar stuff," Wood said, "The corpse corresponds to a small skeleton, and it looks like there are similar alternatives elsewhere, but what I'm wondering is, what's a Lethifold?"

" Fairly rare magical creature that looks like a black cloak, glides close to the ground and hunts at night. Some say they're close relatives to Dementors, and in addition to their similarity in looks, they're both restrained by Patronus charm." Percy said.

"Is there anyone here who knows the Patronus charm?" Wood asked.

No one raised their hands.

Percy told the half-truth: "That's not part of the test, Wood. No one would go the extra mile and spend a lot of time learning a powerful spell they can't use."

Penelope recalled, "Dean Thomas mentioned this spell in class, and I tried it a few times, and there was just some white mist come from the wand. If someone instructs ..."

"But the Lethifold is quite a dangerous creature, the professor won't let us deal with it, and I guess we'll bump into the crow's lair then?" Percy speculated, but he believed it to be eight or nine out of ten to be right.

"Enough small talk, where shall we start?" Geoffrey said.

" Graveyard, we know it best, and we can save time."

"Very well."

They walked out of the safe house and Percy placed his wand flat in the palm of his hand and whispered to it, "Point me."

The wand spun and indicated his right-hand side, where North is.

"So we're going to go in the opposite direction, and we'll be back to the tomb," Percy said to everyone.

They returned to the graveyard again, and the Slytherin and Hufflepuff students gestured and tsked at the dark tombstones.

"Look, the skeletal bones are turning into stone." Wood warned.

The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students found that all the small skeletons that were scattered all over the ground had turned into broken stones.

"A very clever transfiguration, we didn't notice it at all at that time." A male wizard picked up a stone and took a closer look at it.

A Ravenclaw girl said sadly, "I even hugged it, it looked so cute."

Percy looked at her with a grimace as he pulled Penelope and whispered, "She's always been like this?"

"She's an avid lover of golems," Penelope explained.

"Well, let's all split up and look for it, it shouldn't be too hard ..."

After seven or eight minutes, one of the Hufflepuff students found a golden key in a stone.

"Where did you find that?"

He pointed to the broken stone not far away, Wood's eyes widened, "That's the little skeleton that attacked me, I purposely left it there! I didn't realize the key is hidden in its head."

"Very good, we finished a quarter of the work, let's keep up the good work ..." Percy just wanted to encourage with a couple of words, Slytherin's head boy came over holding a box.

"What is this?"

"A treasure map," Geoffrey said.

"How did this get there?" Percy's mind messed up as the students gathered around and looked at the map in the box.

The markings on it were simple, a drawing of a bottle to the southeast of the safe house, next to it there's a rune representing wealth.

Just then, a muffled thunder-like voice came from the sky -

"Looks like you guys had a good time ... but I regret to inform you that this journey of surprise is over, for now, take your things and follow the directions to get out of here."

An arrow appeared at their feet.

Ten minutes later, they re-entered the ancient rune classroom, with expressions of bewilderment and trance still on their faces.

"It's over just like that? Isn't the key still not collected?"

On the podium, Felix smiled at them, "Class ends in a few minutes, and I had to interrupt this adventure to avoid you being late. But there's no need to worry-"

"You will all be there for the rest of this school year. In addition to the task of collecting the four keys, you will encounter many other small, strange, simple, and interesting tasks ..."

"Like that treasure map?"

"That's right, Geoffrey." Felix said, "The assignment for this class is to parse the runes you encounter and complete a paper no less than a foot long."

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