Chapter 132: Playing in the office with Hermione (Edited)

Hermione wanted to get to work on the spot, but Tom stopped her. There was no time to waste, we could go back to the library and sort it out at some point.

"Let's play cards, maybe magic chess" Tom thought it would be nice to work for a while without Hermione, but with Hermione here, it would be too boring to go through Lockhart's books. He opened a drawer, revealing a deck of cards and an exquisite box of magic chess.

Hermione sighed, "It's the only game in the magical world, and frankly, I'm tired of playing it."

What Hermione said was the truth. The game of magical chess was a novelty at first. But once you get used to the pieces moving and making noise, it's just chess layered with magic.

Using magic to make money? It's true that Muggles pay for magic, but Tom and Hermione are wizards.

They already live in a magical world, so after a few games of Magic Chess, they're not very satisfied. The game mode of Magic Chess was monotonous, there was not even piece stealing, but only offline PVP for the players.

But Tom looked at the piece table and the board and suddenly he had an idea: he was inspired again! If they were tired of playing magic chess, they could create their own game.

He told Hermione the idea, and Hermione's eyes lit up: this could work!

Tom flipped the magic chessboard over and cleared it of the pieces, causing the disgruntled pieces to scream, leaving only a chessboard. Tom pulled out his wand and pointed it at the chessboard, and the chessboard slowly grew to the size of his desk.

He then began to transform the enlarged board, turning it into a flat area in the center and a small round hill in each corner.

At this point, the white and black pieces also struggled to stand, each in its own separate line, distinct from the other. These chess pieces were high quality items left by Lockhart. Each shell piece in armor is clearly seen, as if it were a real knight and praetorian guard. Tom looked at the pieces and muttered to himself, "It's still a little less. Hermione, do you know the copy spell?"

Hermione shook her head, a spell of such complexity was beyond the scope of a second year wizard. But even if Hermione didn't know the copy spell, she was good at transfiguration, and had created the board bits of grass, making the board look green and not naked.

"Then I'll go find Professor Flitwick" Tom immediately pulled a box out from under his desk, shoved the pieces in it, and after turning into Lockhart, ran out of the office, up to the seventh floor of the castle, to see Professor Flitwick.

"Professor Flitwick, I have something to bother you with" Tom knocked on the door and shared his need with Professor Flitwick.

"Oh? I can use copy spells, but why would you use such a complex spell on a group of ordinary pieces?"

Tom shared his thoughts with Professor Flitwick. After learning of Tom's thoughts, Flitwick was also intrigued: does this seem more interesting than simple magical chess?

So he readily agreed, casting a duplication spell on each piece, so that the pieces in the box would double in two if they touched.

The duplication spell is a spell used especially at Gringotts. The goblins would cast a duplication spell on the treasures in some of the old vaults, so that when these treasures were touched, they would start an "infinite" copy immediately, the thief would touch the real, the real would make a duplicate, which could continue to duplicate once touched, and worse, the duplicate of the duplicate could also duplicate itself....

This increase is mathematically known as exponential growth, two raised to the power N. As for the number of N, it depends on whether the thief can use a counter enchantment for the duplication spell and his reaction speed. One cup, in theory, can become 256 cups in only 9 seconds, and this is the simplest case: a cup only touches one cup, if it touches several more, it will double even faster.

This spell could suffocate the thief in the vault, where he would be crushed by the infinite copies of the treasure. And even if he survives, chances are that what he has in his hand is a fake. A fake made by a duplication spell will disappear after a while. Irish elves like to use the replication spell to make copies of the Golden Galleon and give them to wizards for their amusement.

Of course, to avoid tragedy, Professor Flitwick was kind enough to teach Tom the counterspell for the duplication spell. The counterspell was considerably easier than the original spell and Tom mastered it quickly.

"Well, if you manage to improve the game, Professor Lockhart, let me play too" Said Flitwick , with some anticipation, before Tom left.

Tom took the pieces back to his office.

He chose the king]: the black and white pawn king and queen were not under a doubling spell, and placed the black king next to it, while the white queen was given to Hermione.

Using Transfiguration, Hermione transformed the queen into her own image, and then took Tom's king and transformed the king into Tom's image. Next, they copied the knights, rooks, and pawns from the pieces. As for the bishops, Tom had the idea of doing a magical conversion, but not today, there was not enough time.

Seeing the number of pieces being copied increasing rapidly, Tom nodded in satisfaction, applied the counterspell to them and stopped the copying. By now, the number of pawns exceeded a thousand, and the number of knights numbered in the hundreds.

But the duplicate pieces were not as intelligent as the originals, they seemed bored and only followed orders unconsciously. The original pieces stood out from the rest and seemed much more intelligent.

Tom picked out some pieces and divided them equally between the two of them, 900 pawns for him and Hermione, 200 knights and 50 rooks; it seemed like a lot of pieces, but there really weren't that many together.

Nine hundred pawns, each only a centimeter long and wide, would form a square 30 cm x 30 cm, taking up less than one-twentieth the area of a chessboard the size of a desk.

The number of pieces is fair, one original pawn produces 100 duplicate pieces, and the extra 100 go to the king and queen, and the same for the knights, one original produces 100 duplicate knights, and for the rooks, each produced 25.

Once the pieces were dealt out, Tom and Hermione set out to play a more realistic game of strategy.