Chapter 3

[ Inferius Lv. 6 HP: 300 ]

'What the hell is an Inferius doing in this cave? Sirius, what the hell were you thinking?' Harry questioned as he stared at the reanimated dead body wearing rags crawling around the exit of the Veil Room.

Inferi are corpses animated through magic, a piece of magic directly originating from the dark arts, falling into the necromancy category. As far as Harry knew, this kind of magic was something that Voldemort had used during his last war, and the name Inferius was unique to the Wizarding World.

There were two reasons he could come up with for why an Inferius was here. First of all, someone else who had fallen through the veil before them had created it. Or it was Sirius, who, for some reason, began using the Dark Arts.

Harry himself had no problem using the dark arts right now. They were useful magics. Why wouldn't he use something like a one-hit kill if his life was in danger? He was no longer the original Harry Potter, with those strange moral limitations summarized as Dark Magic = EVIL.

No, while he had the memories, body, and identity of Harry Potter, he was a different soul with additional memories and personalities. And he also had a powerful skill like Gamer's Mind, which affected his mentality even more.

But Sirius Black was a different matter. While it wasn't impossible that the Heir of House Black, a house notorious for its affiliation with the Dark Arts, had taught them from a young age, his using them was a completely different can of worms. For him to create an Inferius, something drastic must have happened.

The Inferius hadn't noticed Harry yet, who still had his wand ready in his hand. Remembering its weakness, he pointed his wand at its clothes, "Incendio!"

Its ragged clothes began to burn, melting its skin and HP away before it could even react to him.

[ Bonus Damage for Natural Weakness! ]

[ 25 exp gained! ]

[ Skill Acquired ]

[ Fire-Making Spell (Active) Lv. 1: A Charm-type Spell that conjures a jet of flames. Cost Varies. ]

[ Skill Acquired ]

[ Elemental Mastery: Fire (Novice) (Passive) Lv. 1: You are a complete beginner in the usage of fire-type skills, magic, and abilities. Fire skills are 0.1% more powerful. Fire skills are 0.01% cheaper. Your control over fire skills is slightly enhanced. ]

[ Skill Acquired ]

[ Casting Mastery (Novice) (Passive) Lv. 1: You are a complete beginner in your ability to cast spells and still require a Foci that is attuned to you. ]

[ Charm Mastery (Novice) has leveled up! ]

[ Loot Corpse? Yes or No ]

Unsure whether he should loot the corpse of an undead, he still chose yes just to see what he got.

[ Inferius Lv. 6 looted:

 - 25 copper pennies gained

 - Inferius Flesh gained

 - Inferius Bones gained ]

'Well, that was pretty much what I expected.' Harry mused as he watched the newly acquired items in the inventory: 'The money is nice, even though it looks pretty medieval. Never heard of copper pennies. And the Inferius parts can be used as ingredients, it seems.'

As long as he didn't need to dismantle the corpses himself, he would pick up whatever he could. Crafting was always an OP ability in every gamer story, and collecting ingredients was always a good idea.

'Hopefully, this cave system won't be too large. I wonder how many Inferius there are,' Harry thought as he observed his MP. One simple Incendio had cost him 10 MP, almost a fifth of his MP bar.

He recovered his MP at a rate of 1.2 MP per minute. If he had to face too many Inferi at once, he would be in trouble. And he didn't want to invest his stat points yet. He at least wanted to test whether he could grind them by studying and training, and he did that with the first few.

It was only logical to assume that the higher his stats got, the harder it was to grind them without leveling up.

Choosing to be careful, he decided to use all the resources he had available to him and pulled his invisible cloak out of his inventory and put it around himself.

———

'I should have shut my mouth.' Harry thought as he killed another Armored Inferius by putting its clothes below its armor on fire.

A while ago, these armored Inferi, which were around Levels 11 to 16, had begun to appear, often accompanied by a group of 3 to 4 normal Inferi, whose levels ranged from 4 to 10. Only through his Cloak and Dagger tactic of using his Invisibility Cloak was he able to progress.

Still, these armored Inferi were a good source of old weapons and armor. He had gathered quite a collection of steel armor pieces and different steel swords, axes, spears, and clubs.

It was going very slowly; not only must this cave system be kilometers under the surface since he had been moving upwards for a long time already, but it was also absolutely massive. He had to regularly pause to refill his MP since he still chose not to invest his Stat Points.

On the bright side, he had gained a new skill that allowed him to recover his MP faster.

[ Meditation (Active) Lv. 9: While using this skill, your MP regeneration rate is raised by 45%. Physical shock interrupts the meditative state. ]

Harry had been down here for days already, still exploring the cave system for any signs of Sirius or an exit. This made him learn other spells too, like the Water-Making Spell, which also unlocked the Transfiguration Mastery for him.

The water-making spell was an absolute necessity since it was the only source of clean water for him. While he hadn't needed to eat yet, drinking had been a far more pressing essential. After two days without it, he had gained his first negative status effect since waking up, which made him recover his MP slower.

On the other hand, he didn't really get exhausted as long as he took care of negative status effects. Neither did he feel the need to sleep yet, but Harry suspected that if he went too long without it, he would get another negative status effect.

Also, he had leveled up quite a few times already, currently sitting at Level 17. He even gained a few free stat points for the massive stress his body was under, which confirmed his theory and made him still save his stat points until it was absolutely necessary.

As long as he could kill the Inferi hidden under his cloak with only one fire spell, he would press on.

Harry walked higher and higher, and instead of getting warmer because he was approaching the surface, the air around him actually became colder.

[ Skill acquired. ]

[ Cold Climate Resistance (Passive) Lv. 1: Your body's ability to adapt and survive in cold climates.

1% resistance to damage from cold weather and its negative status effects.

1% resistance from cold and frost-based attacks. ]

'Does that mean that I am in a cold climate region? Or is it just cold in this particular area of the cave system?' Harry mused as he saw the skill notification: 'Anyways, resistance skills are always useful.'

Soon he arrived in a large circular cave. On the other side of the room, he could make out a large closed iron gate. He didn't run directly towards the gate since it wasn't that simple to reach it.

[ Inferius Giant Lv. 25 HP: 5000 ]

'5000 fucking HP for a Level 25...' Harry's eyes went wide as he saw that number. 'I would need a Vit Stat of 499 for that. It probably has racial advantages and skills that allow it to become such a walking tank.'

Inferius or not, it also looked different from the Giants he was familiar with. This one looked like an adult but was at least 1 meter smaller than Grawp, Hagrid's half-brother, who was a small giant and got bullied out of his tribe for it.

But it didn't change that it would be problematic to beat. It could easily kill him in one hit with that massive wooden club it was carrying. The Giants of his world had an innate resistance to magic, even more so an Inferius.

Besides fire magic, most spells have no effect on them since Inferi are nothing more than reanimated corpses resistant to pain. But 5000 HP would be hard to take care of in one shot, with a simple spell like the Fire-Making Spell.

Unfortunately, there was not much of a choice; he was simply under-leveled for more than the basic spells. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to cast a few more powerful fire-based spells, like the Blasting Curse Confringo or the Fire Rope Spell. But every time he got a notification,

[ Spell casting failed. Charm Mastery (Apprentice) (or even Charm Mastery (Expert)) is needed to cast the spell successfully. ]

He could always sneak around the giant using his invisible cloak and try to open the Iron Gate before it noticed him. But he had the feeling that the gate wouldn't budge.

And then Harry realized that the cave room was quite large and high. He didn't have to face it in a direct battle; Inferi weren't sentient anyway. They were more like programmed puppets to react in a specific way if they didn't receive new orders.

Summoning his broom from his inventory and storing his invisible cloak back so he wouldn't lose it, he jumped from the ground into the air. And not a moment too late, as soon as he was airborne, more Inferi and Armored Inferi appeared from rifts and cracks hidden all over the walls of the room.

This was an absolute death trap for anyone on the ground. He began to target the Inferi all over the room by setting them on fire. It was good that his broom was not using his own MP, but the environmental magic.

All of the Inferi could see him and were following him as he was flying around the room, and he began to round them up into a group so the fire would spread amongst them. Effectively letting them kill each other.

It was also fortunate that he gained a level up twice during this battle, speeding up the killing process as each level up restored his HP and MP.

Then he remembered his first year and pointed his wand at the massive wooden club the giant Inferius was holding, always swinging at him if he flew too close. While the room was relatively high and big, it was still quite close to the range of the club.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry shouted, and the club began to fly out of the hand of the giant Inferius. Once Harry canceled the spell, this heavy club directly fell into the crowd of burning Inferi, squashing four or five of them directly under it. It was enough to absolutely kill them since their bodies had been completely made into meat paste.

[ Skill acquired. ] [ Levitation Charm (Active) Lv. 1: A Charm-Type Spell Allowing the Caster to Make Objects Fly. ]

It took Harry over an hour to kill all the Inferi in the room, including the giant one. Mostly, his tactic consisted of creating a big pyre of smaller Inferi while keeping the bigger one in it and slowly burning its HP into ashes.

He actually lost some HP because of smoke poisoning. Harry had to use some of his clothes to cover his mouth and nose and, from time to time, dive deeper into the range of the Inferi to get a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, the Bubble Head Charm required 'Charm Mastery (Apprentice)' to cast.

The whole battle was risky, making the next prompt from the system a no-brainer.

[ Level up! ]

[ Loot Corpses? Yes or No ]

[ 129 x Inferius looted:

 - 57 Silver Stags and 33 Copper Pennies gained

 - 34 x Inferius Flesh gained

 - 39 x Inferius Bones gained

 - 88 x Inferius Ashes gained

34 Armored Inferius looted:

 - 30 Silver Stags and 20 Copper Pennies gained

 - 9 x Inferius Flesh gained

 - 12 x Inferius Bones gained

 - 16 x Inferius Ashes gained

 - 11 x Rusty Steel Armor gained

 - 9 rusty steel swords gained

 - 5 x rusty steel axes gained

 - 6 x Rusty Steel Spears gained

 - 15 x molten steel clump gained

1 Inferius Giant Lv. 25 looted:

 - 1 x Giant Bones

 - 1 x Rotten Giant Flesh

 - 1 x Rotten Giant Heart

 - 1 x Magick Moste Evile

 - 1 x Letter from Sirius

 - 1 x Rusted Key ]

'That's a lot.' Harry muttered, but there was one thing that caught his attention instantly as he pulled it out of his inventory.

Dear Harry,

While I hope someone stopped you from running into the Veil after me, I still left this letter just in case.

It's been a while; well, for you, probably not so much. But for me, it has pretty much been my whole life. If you read this, then I am already dead.

I have no idea how long it has been since I put a ton of charms on this piece of paper to make it last. First of all, you are no longer on Earth. It took me an uncomfortably long time to figure this out.

The Veil of Death is on a currently unpopulated island, a few kilometers east of the mainland, up in the northern part of the continent. In our language, they call it the Island Stone. A fitting description, if you ask me.

One of the first problems you will face is the language barrier. These people speak a different language from our own. On the back of this letter, you will find a charm that allows you to learn any language quickly; it can also be used to teach someone else.

I wrote this letter in my old age. Don't worry about me, Pup. I lived a long and fulfilling life. I have a loving family and a home; I even became the leader of my people. My children, especially my son Brandon, are magical, and I have taught them everything I know.

While I have no idea how many generations my magical blood will last, I created a copy of every book I knew and left it with my descendants. A small warning: there is magic in this world, though in different forms, but we are able to learn it. The magic users of this world can tame and control animals, have a form of divination, and scry, but there are also other vile magics like sacrificial blood magic.

During my life, I met a multitude of magical beings, including giants, the children of the forest, dragons, the deep ones, and more.

Be especially wary of the ice necromancers up at the northern pole of this planet. I never ventured far there, since this is their land, but there is something absolutely vile and dark up there.

I have half a mind to put a big wall between them and myself.

I was born as a Black; I know what I am talking about.

Although I changed my name, I chose a new one to leave a better legacy for myself. My greatest regret is that I won't be able to see you again, Pup. I have instructed my descendants to leave the letter in the cave and ensure that it's guarded so that no one will use the Veil.

This is a new opportunity for you. A completely new world for you to explore. No longer bound to your fame and the prejudices of the Wizarding World. For your parents', Moony's, and my sake, live your life to the fullest.

Like I did, make me proud, Pup. Mischief managed.

Sirius Stark (formerly Black)

P.S. Look after my descendants if they are still around.

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