Seeking growth

"That is correct yes." Nick said nodding in agreement. "How did you even get a broom to fly that fast , no wait , WHY did you get one to go that fast?" Lee asked curiously. "First I didn't use a broom. Second does it matter all that much? Like I very much doubt any of you are going to make a similar trip anytime soon and even if you were there are better methods anyways like continental portkeys." Nick said bluntly. Everyone went silent as they realized he had a point as it really was unlikely that they needed to leave the country anytime soon and that portkeys were in fact a better method.-

"Wait a sec , did you say you didn't use a broom?" Seamus asked after noticing this detail. "That is what I said yes , why?" Nick said casually. "Please tell me you didn't use my dads car." Ron said with a look of panic. Nick scoffed "That piece of junk was taken by the ministry and even if it wasn't it was horribly inefficient and sloppily enchanted which made sense considering your dad was merely tinkering with it to begin with. No I merely enchanted a piece of equipment to allow me to fly without the constraints of a broom." he explained honestly.-

It didn't matter if he told them about this enchantment as unless he chose to sell it publicly the information was nearly useless to know. Nick can fly? Cool can you? No? Then how the hell is knowing it useful at all? Besides making people jealous knowing that Nick didn't need a broom to fly served no real purpose. Everyone also realized this after the twins asked for such an enchanted object and Nick denied them without any hesitation.-

Once it became clear that Nick wasn't going to share his flight enchantment the conversation shifted to what Nick went to Iceland for. All he told them was that he had read about something that was found and hidden away there in the past and he decided to go treasure hunting for it while he had the time. This was entirely true even if he left out a few key details that would have made it clear that this was no simple matter. When asked what he found Nick refused to answer and left it up to their imaginations after merely stating that it was a profitable trip.-

He wasn't lying either as merely the drones he had recovered would have proven valuable and worthwhile for the trip much less everything else he found as well. A bunch of high potential dragon eggs , the knowledge of the dwemer recorded on the lexicon and extremely valuable data regarding divinity not to mention the vast amount of powerful metal he had gotten while he was there made the entire trip extremely profitable. Still despite that Nick chose to immediately vanish from the school instead of relaxing as he now knew roughly how large a gap he had to cover in order to face Zeus was.-

Well it wasn't exactly accurate to say he vanished from the school so much as went to a part of it that no one else was aware of in the form of Slytherins library. Nick was about halfway done with the library and he wanted to finish the rest as soon as possible so he could begin deciphering the lexicons knowledge while he improved his power via rituals and elixirs. The funny part was that Nick knew of one such ritual that would likely cause his power to instantly jump many tiers at once but like all such things came with a very high price.-

The ritual of maturation was a dreadful thing that was created by wizards of old in order to accelerate the physical and magical maturation of a young wizard thus skipping the growth period entirely. This sounded good at first glance until you understood the price needed to achieve such a thing. First was obviously that the body and magic might mature but the mind and soul did not thus creating a child in an adult body. The second issue however was that one needed to sacrifice twice the time it would have normally been for this maturation in terms of lifespan.-

To simplify if you matured the child it was used on the full seven year growth period that child instead loses fourteen years off their total lifespan. For Nick this isn't a problem since his lifespan is endless as elves stop aging after reaching maturity unless they choose otherwise. No the issue for him comes in the form of stunted potential as whatever gains he would have gotten through natural maturity beyond his natural magic growth would be rendered null as he obviously wouldn't have them since he skipped years of maturation.