The Lonely Dragon of Hogwarts

When leaving the fourth floor corridor, Harry put on a sad and worried look.

In sharp contrast, it was John who was beaming with joy.

John had no intention of entering the trap door right now.

Because he felt that the Philosopher's Stone was not there at all.

The Philosopher's Stone is not very big. If Dumbledore really wanted to protect it, he could just carry it with him. Why bother setting up a special secret room?

So John speculated that all this arrangement was just a 'playground' set up by Dumbledore to train Harry as the savior.

Dumbledore liked to do this kind of thing.

The senior sister on the night of the sorting ceremony told him that Dumbledore liked to deliberately create so-called 'treasure places' to attract students to explore.

This is definitely good news for John.

You must know that the original treasure of the level of the Magic Stone is simply not accessible to a young wizard like John.

And now, with Harry's help, John also got such an opportunity.

If nothing else happens, John just needs to wait for things to develop and intervene at the last minute, then the Philosopher's Stone is almost a must-win!

Based on this consideration, John did not reveal any information about the Philosopher's Stone and the Trial to Harry, but let Harry continue to investigate on his own.

John, on the other hand, devoted himself to improving his own strength with greater enthusiasm.

After all, before the decisive battle comes, you should always have some ability to protect yourself.

Time passed like this little by little until Christmas came.

……

On Christmas Eve, the weather became colder and colder.

The snow around Hogwarts is increasing almost every moment, and the surface of the Black Lake has also become solid ice.

John was busy in the dormitory, taking care of the bubbling crucible for a while, and packing a big bag for a while.

"Ding Lingling—"

As the alarm rang, a faint, silvery white steam slowly emerged from the crucible.

John just finished sorting the cloth bag, stood up, and divided the potion in the crucible into a dozen small bottles.

This is the fifth pot of demulcent he has refined in more than a month.

This potion can be used to calm and soothe irritability and anxiety. The effect is somewhat similar to the pot of chicken soup that John cooked in Hagrid's cabin before, but it has more magical power.

In addition, John also refined many joy potions.

The potion's effect of making people feel involuntarily happy and excited can be offset by the demulcent without any side effects.

In this way, a perfect cycle is formed.

John has been drinking elixirs and demulcents every day for over a month.

He also goes to Hagena on time for classes every weekend, and enjoys a luxurious meal made with magic ingredients.

In this way, John's magical talent has made great progress.

John felt that if he encountered a troll again, he wouldn't need Michelle to cover him.

With his current magic power, he could completely increase his magic output and use controlling spells such as the petrification spell to forcefully penetrate the magic-resistant skin to temporarily control the giant monster.

Immediately afterwards, use continuous cutting spells to perform beheading and finishing blows.

However, this rapid increase in power did not come without a price.

In order to refine a large amount of euphoric and demulcent agents, John's wallet and material library suffered heavy losses.

Almost all the materials worth more than 100 galleons and nearly [-] gold coins that he had accumulated through working, trading, and hunting Acromantulas were exchanged for materials for refining the joy potion and the demulcent agent.

Although John always comforted himself, saying that these small coins just changed a form and continued to accompany him in the form of magical talent.

And this is also the price that must be consumed to quickly increase strength.

He himself enjoyed the potion very well when he drank it.

But the rapid shrinkage of his wallet still made him feel distressed.

The most important thing is that he has run out of materials. If he doesn't get some money, he will no longer be able to continue his 'cultivation' method that can rapidly increase his magic talent.

Shaking his head, John picked up the prepared cloth bag and headed to the Forbidden Forest.

It was completely dark outside at this time.

John released [Fluorescent Flash], carefully identifying the marks he left in the Forbidden Forest, and finally stopped in front of a small mound.

This is the lair of an Acromantula.

John actually never gave up the idea of ​​hunting the Acromantula.

After all, the venom of the Acromantula is too valuable.

John wanted to speed up the growth of his magic talent by constantly drinking potions, so the Acromantula was a good source of income.

So in the past period of time, while John was trading with the centaurs, he was also constantly looking for the Acromantula nest in the shallows of the Forbidden Forest.

Due to the heavy snow, the whole process was not smooth.

Fortunately, the centaurs were very moved after hearing that John was planning to hunt the Acromantula.

You must know that the Acromantula is actually a kind of 'pest'.

Since this thing appeared in the Forbidden Forest, it has begun to rapidly develop its population and hunt other animals to extinction, posing a huge threat to the entire Forbidden Forest ecology.

In order to protect the Forbidden Forest, the centaurs tribe has been fighting the Acromantulas for decades, just as Firenze said before.

And now, a wizard like John is coming to hunt the Acromantula.

The horse people were very moved by this.

Not only did he give John some materials for free, but he also pointed out the locations of many Acromantula nests for John.

The one where John is currently is one of them.

John put down the cloth bag and first used a magic spell to break the seal on the mound, revealing a cave covered in spider silk.

Then he took out a large number of metal plates engraved with various magic patterns from his cloth pocket, scattered them and buried them in the surrounding snow.

This metal plate is a simple alchemy magic trap that John learned from "A Concise Guide to Unarmed Jungle Adventure".

It has built-in obstacle-heavy spells and leg-locking spells, which can easily restrain unsuspecting prey and wizards, especially when they are arranged in large numbers in an array.

John knew firsthand the power of this trap.

Honestly, it's really intense.

Moreover, this thing is low-cost and very simple to make. Even an alchemy illiterate like John can easily make it.

No wonder "A Concise Guide to Unarmed Jungle Adventure" is so expensive at 40 Galleons.

After a moment of emotion, John raised his wand and pointed it at the cave.

"Burning flames!"

"boom--"

Orange-red flames burst out, quickly igniting the spider silk in the cave, and quickly swept into the cave.

After a while, John heard wailing in the cave.

Immediately afterwards, two Acromantulas covered in fire struggled to get out of the cave.

They rolled around in the snow like crazy, trying to extinguish the magic flames on their bodies.

However, this behavior also happened to trigger the magic alchemy trap in the snow.

"Buzzing—"

A series of sounds of magic release sounded, and the two Acromantulas were immediately restrained.

Seeing this, John stood up unhurriedly, ended the lives of the Acromantulas one by one, took out the test tubes, and began to extract the venom.

Ten minutes later, John stuffed the three test tubes into his arms.

The two Acromantulas contributed a total of 10 ounces of venom to him, which was a gain of 50 galleons, which was quite good.

John smiled and extinguished the remaining magic flames to prevent forest fires, and then prepared to go to the next Acromantula nest.

He marked a total of four similar nests.

If the Acromantula inside is powerful enough, the galleons it brings should be enough for John to drink the potion for a while longer.

However, at this moment, a creature radiating silvery white light suddenly broke into John's field of vision.

John looked closely and realized it was a unicorn.

This excited John.

He still remembered the bundle of unicorn tail feathers in Hagrid's hut.

If he could get close to a unicorn and grab a handful, wouldn't that make him rich?

With this thought in mind, John immediately approached the unicorn.

But as soon as he took a few steps, his whole body froze.

Because behind the unicorn, another dark figure suddenly appeared.

With the appearance of this figure, the already low temperature around him began to drop sharply.

A cold and ominous aura instantly enveloped John.