บท 67: Chapter 67
Any particular thoughts on the ongoing arc?
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Ethan concentrated on his magic before splitting his mind to reach the areas in front of the ten coffins. He never had to divide his mind into so many threads before, and it was a feat most would consider impossible, but there was a first for everything.
Although it brought his mind to its very limits, Ethan still managed to do it with his wand. This was the signal for Tracey to step onto the trapped tile.
The moment she did, the ten coffins opened, and Ethan did not wait for the monsters to get out when he activated his magic.
Ethan visualised the proper circuit mentally, did his best to channel the end product through the ten strands, and succeeded to a major extent as he managed to affect all ten locations at once.
Unfortunately, while seven of them turned into long spikes that pierced through the bodies of the guardians, three of them fell short, stopping at the armours of the guardians.
The three remaining guardians leaped out of their coffins, and once again, their target was Ethan. He found it strange that he was always their target, but he did not have the time to think about it as they were nearly upon him.
Bill reacted fast, blasting two of them with the same spell Snyde had used earlier, "Lacarnum Inflamarae!"
The fireball created was noticeably bigger than the one Snyde had conjured, easily reaching a diameter of thirty centimetres, and slammed into the backs of the guardians, dispatching two of them with one spell.
Still, there remained one who swung its swords at Ethan, aiming for the neck. He rolled backward awkwardly, the swings barely missing, but it was still on him.
"Bombarda!"
The back of the guardian's head exploded violently, and the monster fell. Ethan was shocked, though, as the spell did not come from Bill but from Tracey instead.
Bombarda was a potent spell that would cause an explosion on anything hit by it. It was also not something they had learned during the year, so Tracey should not know about it. And even if she had somehow learned it on her own during the year, she was not the kind of person to keep that kind of thing to herself.
She most assuredly would have bragged about it, had she learned such a spell. And even without taking this into account, Bombarda was a fifth-year spell, something that should have been well beyond her skill level, considering she had only managed to get an Exceeding Expectations grade on her Charm exam thanks to Ethan's help.
It definitely was not his paranoia; there was something amiss with Tracey. But at the same time, she had risked revealing it to save him, so he said nothing about it and simply thanked her, "Thanks for the save. Sorry, I missed those three."
Tracey smiled proudly, teasing, "I'm so going to tell Theo and Daphne I saved your ass."
And there she was—the Tracey he knew.
Meanwhile, Bill reassured, "It's fine; I don't think I know many people who could pull off this kind of thing except for Professor McGonagall."
Ethan nodded in agreement, as he too was sure McGonagall could not only replicate the feat but probably even surpass it. It was not that she had a stronger mind than Ethan or that she would be capable of splitting her mind into so many parts, but more that with sufficient prowess in Transfiguration, one would also be able to alter more than one target.
Taking some more time to recover, Ethan approached the portal along with the other two and did his best to check its safety.
He did not get much, but that was to be expected. Spacial magic was one of the most complex types of magic after all.
There were very few spells and enchantments involving it, and the few that did were of incredible difficulty.
Apparition, which was literally teleportation, was among the easiest to master, and yet only adults had the right to be taught the spell, both because of the dangerousness behind it and the difficulty of mastering it.
And even then, most adults did not learn it, both because of the danger factor and difficulty but also because of the unpleasant effect upon achieving it. Ethan suspected that when they had been teleported from the main chamber with the golden pyramid, they had been forcefully apparated, as the experience felt identical to when his father showed him the spell.
Other types of spatial magic included the Expansion Charm, which would have the wizard seal a certain area of space and expand it. This would allow the wizard to turn a room or even a house bigger than it was, or do the same with a bag. It was even harder to master, however, which explained the price of space-expanded bags.
Portal Magic was among the hardest forms of space magic to master, which was quite something to say. It allowed for a more lasting connection to be made between two places and, more importantly, for stable teleportation.
It was not so much used by people, as Apparition, while uncomfortable at first, would become better with time, and experienced users would barely feel anything using it.
However, there would always be a strain using it, which Ethan did not quite understand yet as he did not get to study the spell in depth since his father had only demonstrated its effects to him and not taught him, but this strain made it impractical to transport anything other than people.
Most enchantments would be destabilised by Apparition, and even for the tougher ones, they would be weakened by it. Also, portals could transport larger quantities of people.
But that was about everything Ethan knew about space magic, which was unfortunately not enough to properly analyse the portal before him.
It was not see-through but instead a veil of deep, hazy blue, making it impossible to guess the destination based on sight alone.
The two marbles Bill had taken earlier had given Ethan an idea, and that was to check for the spatial coordinates of the portal's two ends.
It was a bit of a shot in the dark as it was only theory, but since the portal was linking two precise points in space together, his runic knowledge told him that for the enchantment to work, the 'area of effect' had to be specified in the enchantment for it to work.
It was a bit shaky of a logic since it was based on runes, and while the portal did have some runes hidden, it was also using several other types of magic.
That is why Ethan was surprised to actually be able to find these coordinates. Moreover, as the portal formed a connection between the two points in space, Ethan was also capable of extending his magical sense through the portal without having to go through himself.
This allowed him to examine the other side of the portal and find its coordinates as well.
The only problem was that he had no idea how to read these coordinates. He could recognise them for what they were because he could somewhat read the enchantment, but he had also never learned to read spatial coordinates.
It was not like the coordinates one would read on a map, because one could not only care about latitude and longitude when teleporting; there was also the matter of height and, by the looks of things, other parameters to take into account, resulting in a system of notation Ethan was unfamiliar with.
Still, Ethan could guess, and while he did not know how exactly they were arranged, he could tell they were rather close to one another, meaning the portal might be teleporting them not so far away.
But most importantly, his magical sense was telling him that the portal actually did lead somewhere that was not an absolute death upon entering. At least, within a metre of the portal, there was no immediate death.
For example, had it been leading to the depth of the ocean and somehow stopped the water from leaking through, Ethan would have still felt the water and crushing pressure on the other side. The same went for every other kind of similar immediate death.
As to whether the portal led to a larger area that would still spell imminent death through traps beyond a metre of the portal… Well, there was only one way to tell.
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