Chapter 19 - Room of Requirement

--A good book on Divination that surpasses the knowledge of the host has been completed. 2 Divination Talent Points are added to the system.—

The cover of the book fell down slowly. Finally having the talent points for it, Alder raised the Talent level of Divination to 2 without waiting.

'Now, the exciting part…' thought Alder and grabbed the other book. It was finally time to check catoptromancy.

The method itself was not too complicated. The book was even saying that with enough talent you can see the future just by looking at the normal mirrors. The book also talked about two assisting ways for catoptromancy. Scrying mirrors and psychomanteums. While the former was just a kind of mirror, the latter required a complete different setting.

The longer he delved into the profession, Alder's way of seeing things also changed. At first he was thinking reading palm or tea leaves could be unreliable, since they were objective things. For example; the lines in the palm were always there, you wouldn't need to find a Seer to understand them as long as you had a guideline. But even the mirrors were answering to those with talent, while you can get aid from external materials, in the end the mirror would speak to you if the setting was right.

This made Alder think if the world itself was trying to communicate with the Seer. Only it couldn't if the Seer was not talented enough. If that was true, the whole world was full of spoilers about the future for those talented enough to see them. While the future may not be certain once you saw them, it was a good source not many had in their life.

Alder got up from his bed, since reading has become a life style, Alder would change his environment from time to time to not get bored. He came to the bathroom and started looking at his image.

'Focus… Think about what do you want to see… Decide on a key word or sentence to trigger the prophecy…' thought Alder trying to remember everything he has read. Choosing a trigger was necessary to make the vision start, or else one might lose his/her mind constantly seeing prophecies or the same prophecy again and again.

Alder closed his eyes. And with a strong yet low voice he opened his eyes resolutely. "Show me."

But… nothing happened.

All he could see was his own image.

…

Almost half an hour has passed and Alder started to feel weird. Looking at his own image for that long started to spook him. He tried all sorts of things he wanted to see, an opportunity, money, power, death and others but the mirror didn't answer to even a single one of them.

'This is not working… It seems my talent is not enough yet or maybe the time is not right… I wonder if seniors have a scrying mirror for their class? But I would rather have my own…'

But a thought appeared in his mind. 'Of course. Room of requirements. Maybe the room also contains an office belonging to a founder which would be like killing two birds with one stone.'

He quickly glanced at his pocket watch and seeing there was still almost two hours until the curfew, he went his way to the seventh floor and found the moving tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

'Now quest or divination? I don't know how long will it take to see something, if I see anything at all…'

He started walking through the corridor thinking 'Study room of Rowena Ravenclaw.'. He walked the same path three times but there was yet to be any sign of a door.

'Am I wrong? Shouldn't it be Ravenclaw who built the room? I can't imagine anyone else who can build a such a complicated room, it should be full of runes. But… Would she build a room to help all students? I don't think it would fit the trait of Ravenclaws to help people with trivial matters. Rowena Ravenclaw would be probably type to teach how to fish, instead of giving one.'

This time Alder tried to say 'Study room of Helga Hufflepuff.' in his mind, tracking the same route he took before.

And sure enough when he passed the third time he saw a double door which had engravings of a badger and cups on it.

He slowly opened the door and a room almost as bright as the day came before him. The room had many lighted torches on its walls. They were burning with a red fire and when Alder got close to the nearest one, he could notice how these marvellous flames were.

'They should be burning for over thousand years… And the wood itself is still intact for some reason. Could this be the legendary Gubraithian Fire, Everlasting Flame?' thought Alder. But feeling it was still beyond his understanding he decided to look for other things in the room.

But before that, he decided to check the notification that rung in his mind when he entered the room.

-Side Quest: Heir – Find The Office of Helga Hufflepuff is completed. 2 Free Stat Points, 2 Free Talent Points and 20000 Experience have been added to the system.-

He was pleased with the rewards, especially with the Experience.

Against his expectations Alder found the room rather plain. It contained a bookshelf full of books, a giant desk and two chairs as big as a throne. The chairs looked rather comfortable considering their technology stemmed from over a thousand years ago.

When Alder checked the books, he found most of them familiar from the names in the library. But the bookshelves contained some unique ones too. Although Alder at first guessed maybe their copies were in restricted section in the library, he casted the thought when he thought about their names. He found no reason for their restriction.

They were all about sanitization, instructions on storing the food and debates on conjuring food. There were even small booklets containing important information like what one could do to clean food, even water.

'I wonder they had an epidemic at their time. But even finding and preparing food would be hard at those times, considering little was known about germs.'

Alder was especially amused with the magic that could remove the mold on the bread.

After noticing almost most of the instructive booklets had the name Hufflepuff on it, Alder thought 'I don't know about the power that Helga Hufflepuff yielded but his contribution to the society as a whole itself is admirable.'.

Alder checked the parchments but he didn't have any expectations from them. Having seen the completed researches, he could conclude that she was not the type of a person that would hoard knowledge and shy from sharing them.

And the reality proved his thoughts, most of the parchments were contained things known by everyone at this time. But Alder finally found a gem among them. Researches on conjuration of real food. Alder took a quick glance at it and even though he couldn't understand most of it, he noticed one thing. The research came to a dead end. It failed the break the laws of reality. But Alder decided to keep them for the future. If the day he could fully understand them and even managed to complete them really comes, a brand new era might be waiting for them.

Alder rolled the parchments contained the important stuff and tucked them into his robe.

'I should learn Extension Charm sometime…' he thought and left the room.

He started walking the same route, this time thinking 'Psychomanteum'.