Hogwarts: Even Voldemort Can't Stop Me From Studying

Vid was silent for a moment and felt quite strange.

The group in front of him, except for Mikhail, had no faces. The Cube could at least produce a pair of eyes, but it had no other features.

Yet at this moment, he could subtly sense the guilt and unease from the Broom, Cloak, and Firebird, feeling as if they dared not ”meet his gaze.”

The Cube stood to the side, head held high, implicitly expressing ”I’m not one of them,” as well as ”I’ve already scolded them.”

Vid rubbed his forehead and asked, ”What happened? Did you blow up the Alchemy Room or break some precious Magic Potion?”

”No, no.” Broom swayed side to side and said, ”It was all Cloak’s doing, taking the master’s stone necklace to play with without permission.”

”I only wore it for a bit; it was Broom who tried to hit me, causing the necklace to drop!”

”If you hadn’t secretly taken it, it wouldn’t have fallen!”

”If you hadn’t hit me, it wouldn’t have fallen!”

”It fell ... didn’t it not break? It was Mikhail who pecked at it with his beak!”

”Yes, yes, Mikhail, don’t you realize how high the temperature of your beak is?”

Both Poppets directed the blame towards Firebird, while Mikhail tilted his head and chirped, appearing innocent and cute.

Cloak felt pangs of conscience and hesitantly said, ”Actually, it wasn’t broken at that time ... No, no, the necklace is still fine, it’s another thing that’s broken.”

”What is it?” Vid asked as he walked into the storage room and saw the third party ”tragically sacrificed” in this mishap.

A stone.

”I ... I wanted to put the necklace back,” Cloak whispered, ”but somehow, just a slight touch and that stone shattered...”

Ordinary stones naturally weren’t worth Vid’s collection on the shelf, but this was Professor Morry’s Christmas gift to him, an inscribed stone gifted by the Dream Messenger from Uagadou School of Magic in Africa.

Vid was quite interested in how the Dream Messenger could remotely send this stone to a student’s hand, but the rune was written in ancient Egyptian script, and he hadn’t yet had time to learn a whole new language, so he had temporarily set the stone aside.

A rune stone that every Uagadou student has isn’t particularly precious, but since it was a gift from Professor Morry, it held special significance.

Seeing Vid silently collect the shattered stone, Broom and Cloak nervously huddled together, shifting positions, occasionally pushing each other.

The Cube sighed and came closer, saying, ”Actually, you can’t completely blame them ... Of course, it’s wrong to touch collectibles without permission, but the reason it broke, I think, is the stone itself.”

Vid glanced at the Cube.

He’d always thought the Cube was mature and sensible, but how could it speak such unreasonable words of defense?

It sounded quite familiar ... like when a child falls and the grandmother scolds the ground: ”Bad floor! Bad floor! Hurting my baby!”

”I’m not speaking up for them; look at this spot,” the Cube pointed at the support where the rune stone originally rested. ”It’s tipped outward, not inward.”

”Uh ...” Broom swayed, saying, ”I wasn’t the one who moved it like that.”

”Me neither!” Cloak quickly added.

Mikhail: ”Chirp chirp chirp!”

The Cube waved, ”Don’t rush to pass the buck; I’m analyzing the situation!”

It looked at Vid and said, ”If the necklace’s motion was enough to smash the rune stone, then the support would tip inward, and the fragments would be inside.”

”But now, the support is tipped outward, the stone fragments are on the edge of the shelf, indicating the situation might have been reversed at the time—”

”It wasn’t the necklace that broke the rune stone; rather, the rune stone actively leaned towards the necklace, tipping the support. After the collision, one turned into fragments.”

After a moment of silence, Cloak vigorously clapped, exclaiming, ”Cube, you’re simply Sherlock Holmes!”

”Sherlock Holmes! Boluo! Meitantei Konan!” Broom also used its broom head to beat the ground heavily, its branches rustling.

Vid gave the two Poppets a sideways glance and asked in a cool tone, ”You two are pleased, aren’t you?”

The two Poppets instantly fell silent, then both bent over and said, ”Sorry, we were wrong.”

”Hmm, knowing your mistake is good,” Vid said calmly, ”You’re to face the wall for an hour, Mikhail, you supervise.”

Though they might have accidentally done something good, Professor Morry’s gift was ultimately broken.

After the Poppets left, Vid took the Cube Poppet to the laboratory, gathered all the recent research materials, and then placed the necklace on the table, casting the Spell again:

”Oumygon, Fata, Teai’amogen, Layuhta, Nupsilang’ayuta...”

The necklace emitted a slightly brighter red glow, in Vid’s vision, some of the runes around it were bright, some dim, with hints of a silver light swiftly moving through.

It suddenly reminded him of the simulated animation of neurons transmitting signals, somehow feeling they were somewhat similar.

Vid steadied himself, marking the bright runes he saw on the research drawing, and the Cube Poppet quickly calculated and simulated, listing several new Spell arrangements and reciting methods minutes later.

Vid tried again: ”Semiala-Sami-Eisno-Oumai...”