Chapter 168: Self-selected 5-star group draw (Edited)

As Dumbledore spoke, the quest completion message appeared on Tom's side.

[Riding Horses and Slaying Demons (Prologue): The final quest was completed and you automatically got the qualification to start the quest Riding Horses and Slaying Demons (Act II)]

[Description: The Burnham estate has been cleared of all infected animals, but... is the mess really over?].

[Quest Reward: Edge of Fate x 30 (can be used in place of Entanglement of Fate during the 5-star draw of your choice, destroyed when it expires)]

[Anniversary Celebration (Act 1) opens]

[Anniversary Celebration (Act 1) Contents: five-star draw of your choice]

"Shit!" Just by watching the first act of the anniversary celebration, Tom was excited, and with this reward alone, Tom felt that the battle he had just fought was not in vain. If he had slipped, this anniversary number five would have become just a simple reward of magic stones. And in addition to the drawing of choice, there were 30 drawing opportunities!

30 Edge of Destiny drawing opportunities, which equals 4,800 magic stones. Even if it's for a limited time, that's 30 real drawings!

Tom thought the limited time 'Edge of Destiny' would only be available for the current draw, but he didn't expect it to be available for the 5-star draw of his choice. For the time being, Tom's draw remains Lockhart's pool. First, let's be clear that this is a super toxic pool and that drawing Lockhart will not give Tom any improvement.

It was a draw screen that Tom didn't want to use.

Because, if you don't draw Lockhart, you don't get a boost, and if you do, you get a negative boost!

How can you draw a five-star character and get a negative boost when you draw? Naturally, it's due to the mechanics of the system's card pool: 90 rounds of minor guarantee (five stars guaranteed, but only a 50% chance of current raises, plus a 50% chance of drawing Professor Trelawney, and another five-star resident), 180 rounds of major guarantee (a guaranteed five stars must be a current raise).

With this mechanism, the various funds cannot be drawn indiscriminately, as the system is set up so that the guarantee is inherited. This means that the number drawn from the previous draw will "carry over" to the next draw. For example, if Tom had drawn 130 rounds in Lockhart's draw, then, under the guaranteed inheritance mechanism, he would only need to draw 60 rounds in Lockhart's draw to draw Lockhart, and he would never be crooked.

If Tom thinks Lockhart is a loser and skips the draw, then on the draw behind Lockhart, Tom would only need 60 rounds to secure an upstream.

Notice the problem now? If the 30 rounds of 'Edge of Fate' are only drawn from Lockhart's draw, then this is the hole dug by the system for Tom, and it's not a benefit. Because if Tom draws 30 rounds and takes out Lockhart, he loses his big guarantee! It may take over a hundred rounds to get the upstream after Lockhart!

That's negative momentum.

But for once in its life, the system was conscious enough to allow Tom to save these 'Edge of Fate' for the optional five-star draw, so there was no negative momentum, since Tom wanted to get the five-star character he wanted to choose, which would give him a positive boost.

Once he got that out of the way, Tom turned his attention to the Five Star draw option, wondering which Five Star characters he could choose. If it was limited to the resident pool, Tom was fine with that; after all, there was a character in the resident pool he wanted to draw more than once.

Not Professor McGonagall, not Snape or Flitwick, but Professor Trelawney. This professor could only enhance the gift of Divination, but could do nothing else: he couldn't give spells, couldn't enhance other gifts, and seemed to be a complete loser. But Tom had more to say about divination.

First, it was important to be clear that divination was not a hoax, but that he could actually see the future. Professor Trelawney had made this powerful branch of magic look like a fraud because she didn't have enough talent. If one has enough talent, one can be called a "seer."

Tom has just the right talent for divination.

The five-star self-selection interface is also very interesting, with a big line on the far left: Choose your five-star wizard, next to which was a group photo of the professors, and Tom was surprised to see Dumbledore among them, with the word "Recommended" in front of him. In addition to the five resident professors and the replica of Professor Dumbledore, there was a black silhouette with a question mark.

Tom touched the silhouette, which was revealed to be a mystery character, and received a card in the shape of a chocolate frog. The card was scratched off to reveal a character that could be added to the stock as the fifth character in the stock on the card.

Feeling good today, Tom flipped the card over in his hand, and it had dynamic art and a voiceover. Lifting the facade, a somewhat muffled voice spoke.

"For the greater good!" A middle-aged wizard with silver hair and oddly colored pupils waved his wand gracefully, and a ring of blue fire appeared in front of him.

Gellert Grindelwald!

Underneath the card was a brief description of Grindelwald: Gellert Grindelwald, one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time. He planned to find the Deathly Hallows, become the Master of Death, and use that power to lead a revolution in the magical world, overthrowing the International Statute of Secrecy and creating a new world order led by wise and powerful wizards. He lost to Dumbledore in a legendary duel in 1945, has been imprisoned ever since in his own Constructed Castle in Nurmengard.

Tom: Good heavens!

He felt he had used the luck of his life to draw this card.

He picked Grindelwald in a second. Before this character came out, Tom had intended Dumbledore to be his five-star choice for this draw, but here comes Grindelwald....

Tom glanced at the clueless looking Dumbledore next to him and thought, Dumbledore is no worse than Grindelwald, but one is already drawn and the other is not yet unlocked, so I, Tom, a non-paying player, prefer to unlock the locked figure first.

Well, Tom stopped pretending and showed his hand: he just wanted to draw Grindelwald. He's been waiting for the draw for a while, and he's been waiting for Grindelwald since the system appeared. Although drawing five stars would make his learning process a bit more efficient, with the tens of thousands of stones he had, he would only be able to draw 2-3 stars out of five, which wouldn't really improve his learning process and would leave him without enough stones for the character he wanted to draw.

Think about it, if you spent all your stones before, now you're facing the Grindelwald draw with only the 30 'Edge of Fate' you were given, isn't that a big loss?

Tom also knew that the draws he had opened were closely related to real life events, for example, talking to Dumbledore had opened the 'Fire Phoenix' draw, and destroying Quirrell had opened the 'Evil Soul' draw. So he had wondered how he could go to Nurmengard, meet Grindelwald, and open the Grindelwald draw.

Although Tom knew that the castle of Nurmengard was located on the border between Austria and Switzerland, and could probably be found in the Alps, he did not head there directly. For one thing, such a search would be like looking for a needle in a haystack; Voldemort had been searching for Grindelwald with the Death Eaters for some time, and it would be even harder to find him on his own.

And what if he does find him? Do you really think there are no guardian spells or guards outside Nurmengard Castle? No way! That's where they have Grindelwald, and there must be at least a few warning spells... Voldemort might have gotten in easily, but he was Voldemort, and who knows how he got in. Tom was sure that as soon as he reached the outside of the castle, Dumbledore would know.

Dumbledore had a great tolerance, but that tolerance had a limit. Tom felt he was a good student, even though he pretended to be a teacher, taking students out of school and acting like a civil servant. But he couldn't explain his motives for going to Nurmengard; it would be funny if Dumbledore thought he was a remnant of the Mortifages of that era.

After Grindelwald was selected, he flashed a mischievous grin and then disappeared in pieces. At the same time, Lockhart's draw vanished from the [Draws] screen as if it had been deleted, and was replaced by a new five-star draw of his choice.

[Dear traveler, the "Grand Picture Dream" sweepstakes event is now open, and the probability of "Grand Picture Dream Grindelwald (Fire)" has increased!"]

[During this period, the traveler will be able to obtain more skills and treasures to improve his power]

[Draw time]

[During the anniversary period]

[Introduction]

[●During the event, the chance of obtaining the 5-star limited character "Grindelwald (Fire)" will increase considerably!]

[During this period, the chance of obtaining the 5-star ability pieces "Protego Diabolica", "Apparition" and "Cruciatus" will increase significantly!!!]

[*Limited characters will not enter the "Run for the World" resident draw].

[For more information, click on the [Details] button located at the bottom left of the prayer screen.]

"It's actually "Protego Diabolica" Tom was thrilled. He was very impressed with this Charm, as it was a combination of attack and defense, and if he had "Protego Diabolica" he wouldn't have been in such a mess in the mansion just now. And the "Apparition" and "Cruciatus" appearing at the same time are also very attractive.

[Details] shows that the five-star skill is the same as before, with the same rate of 5-star skill pieces as 4-star, but you need 7 pieces to make a full skill. "Yes," said Tom, feeling really good this time, this was a win!

At that moment, Dumbledore patted Tom on the shoulder, gesturing for him and Harry and Ron to grab his arm, Fawkes had somehow gotten closer to him, this time he didn't sing, he just stood still on Dumbledore's shoulder.

Dumbledore pulled the three of them and gave Fawkes a slight nod. Tom got the feeling that Fawkes seemed to roll his eyes, looking very unhappy with this overload of Dumbledore. But with his subordinates and students watching, Fawkes was too embarrassed to make Dumbledore look bad, so he flew back to Hogwarts with the four of them in tow.

The experience of flying in a phoenix was completely different from previous forms of movement, and in the blink of an eye they were in front of the gates of Hogwarts from the outskirts of Bristol, no squeezing, no dizziness, no wind or sun, just a warm, hot current coursing through their bodies.

Fawkes didn't want to wait a second longer and disappeared. Dumbledore walked through the gates of Hogwarts with the three of them under the rising sun.

For wizards and Muggles alike, the sun was rising. Tom had finished his adventure and returned to Hogwarts. The Minister of Administration, Jim Hacker, had awakened from his slumber to go to work in the Administration offices.

But before he could sit down, he jumped out of his chair when he heard a message on the radio.

"Today... Bristol... fire..."

"Bristow, fire?!" Hacker dropped his glasses into his coffee cup in horror, because there was a very sad fact: fire protection was also in charge of his Department of Administrative Affairs.

The Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA) was a notorious political graveyard, as DAA Permanent Secretary Humphrey was known to be a hooligan minister. During Humphrey's various campaigns, the average term length of previous cabinet ministers was even less than 11 months.

That the DAA is the political graveyard of ministers does not mean that it is insignificant. On the contrary, it was Britain's most important department, a mini-cabinet. The DAA and the Ministry of General Affairs were responsible for such areas as, among others, the country's administrative system, local self-government and public bodies, postal communications, fire safety, the mining industry; they even had a say in the hiring and dismissal of civil servants.

Only a powerful official like Humphrey could run such a monstrous department.

And the bad thing about having so much power is that you never know when a pot is going to fall from the sky. Hacker, for one, now feels he's been given a real black eye.

"The Bristol Fire is none of my business!" Hacker wanted to scream, and only heard about it on the news. But he couldn't help it, since his DAA was also in charge of the firefighting....

"Minister, your appointment with MI6 has arrived," Bernard, Hacker's secretary, told him through the door, and Hacker took a moment to compose himself and follow the agent to MI6.

As soon as they reached the front door of the office building, Hacker saw several black limousines speeding out, with men inside dressed in black suits and sunglasses, looking invincible, so flamboyant that they didn't think anyone could tell they were agents.

"This is..."

"Top secret, Minister." The representative seemed reluctant to reveal more, "They have official business in Bristol."

Hacker squeezed out an uncomfortable smile, inwardly sputtering: if it's top secret, what's all this nonsense?!

The agent's representative led Hacker down the long path to the video room.

"Minister, this is the surveillance video from the supermarket in front of the embassy, please remember, this video has nothing to do with the government!" The agent's representative pulled out a chair for Hacker and invited him to sit in it.

Hacker sat in the chair and carefully watched the footage from the previous night.