Professor McGonagall had been teaching at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for thirty-five years. Aside from Professor Binns, she was undoubtedly the most senior faculty member still actively teaching.

Throughout her long teaching career, Professor McGonagall had almost always maintained an air of dignity and strictness.

This led almost all the students and teachers in the school to feel a sense of awe towards her—different from the pure dislike and fear towards Severus Snape, and closer to the emotion people felt when facing Dumbledore.

After all, as time passed, many successful figures active in the wizarding world today had once been Professor McGonagall's students, such as Lucius Malfoy, Arthur Weasley, Severus Snape...

Compared to the approachable Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall had her own way of doing things, unable to tolerate shamelessness or stupidity, and especially loathing any cheating or playing of clever tricks—especially those who tried to evade or distort her most valued and beloved subject, Transfiguration.

"I believe I require a reasonable explanation, Miss Kaslana."

Professor McGonagall glanced at the snail on her fingertip, which had been released from the "Transfiguration Charm" and returned to its original form, piercing Ellina with a sharp gaze like a frosted blade, her voice particularly stern.

"As far as I know, with your talent in magic, even without resorting to such tricks, you could easily master true Transfiguration—instead of constantly deceiving everyone with meaningless illusions, as you are doing now."

Without a doubt, Ellina Kaslana was possibly one of the most magically gifted young witches Minerva McGonagall had seen in years, whether it was Potions, Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration... even the tedious and complicated History of Magic and Astronomy, she seemed to be a natural witch, with no weaknesses in any area.

For the past two months, Professor McGonagall had believed this.

Until this day, after a careless reminder from Hannah Abbott, she suddenly realized that it was very likely that Ellina had been deceiving everyone's eyes with such illusion magic for so many days, and had also cheated away countless house points.

Even now, she was still shocked by Ellina's superb magical ability and imagination—creating illusions was not an easy task; in a sense, it was even more difficult than simple Transfiguration.

The shame of being deceived for a long time, the heartache of Ellina wasting her talent, and the shock brought by the illusion magic created by the girl to cope with the courses... Minerva McGonagall found it difficult to discern which emotion was absolutely dominant, but there was no doubt that "Ellina's cleverness" stopped here today.

"So Ellina has been cheating all along?"

"I knew it... how could she possibly master it so quickly..."

"Do you think Professor McGonagall will deduct all the previous points?"

"Thinking about it this way, maybe she's doing the same in her other courses."

"Yeah, we've all been deceived by her..."

Along with the conversation between Professor McGonagall and Ellina, the young wizards in the classroom gradually reacted, and stopped the magic experiments in their hands, curiously looking over here, whispering to each other.

Everyone's eyes were filled with excitement and inexplicable indignation, as if they had received an exciting gift.

It had to be said that Ellina's performance at Hogwarts before had been too dazzling.

Compared to witnessing the continuation of a legend, for most people, they were more eager to see the bursting of a beautiful bubble, or the embarrassment of a proud white swan falling from a height.

This was unrelated to age or region; it was a little bit of inferiority rooted in the depths of human nature.

This rare event, similar to a top student being caught cheating in an exam, instantly ignited the interest of most of the little ones, although few realized that the magic Ellina had shown was actually more difficult than Transfiguration.

This was also why Professor McGonagall's expression was particularly complex...

To make an analogy, it was roughly equivalent to a student in a high school math class directly writing a set of mAtLAB mathematical software to avoid tedious calculations, and from then on, skipping all the processes to get the results.

"This isn't an illusion; this is Transfiguration."

Ellina was silent for a few seconds, and then, amid the whispers of the surrounding students, raised her head to look at Professor McGonagall.

"Or rather, the mainstream understanding of Transfiguration in the wizarding world is not essentially different from my magic. Professor McGonagall, you should be very clear about the contents of 'Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration's Five Principal Exceptions,' so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. Strictly speaking, what I'm showing is also a variation of modern Transfiguration."

Although the girl was very clear that if she directly admitted her mistake at this time, perhaps it would only end with a verbal reprimand, but feeling the sudden gloating gaze around her, Ellina felt that she needed to defend herself a little.

Whether it was to divert the topic or to conduct a debate on the essence of Transfiguration.

At least... so that this accident would not become the students' "holiday gift" for today.

Professor McGonagall easily saw Ellina's intention, but she did not intend to fully cooperate with the girl's script—a genius who was always smooth sailing was unlikely to ensure that the road ahead would not go astray.

Taking this opportunity, Minerva McGonagall planned to slightly temper Ellina's temperament.

However, before that, she had to take into account the girl's emotions first, which was the experience McGonagall had summarized after experiencing many things—Ellina was a child who responded to soft approaches rather than hard ones, and was especially concerned about her own face.

"If I remember correctly, this is the second time you've mentioned 'Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration's Five Principal Exceptions.'"

Scanning the whispering students around her, Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows and said coldly.

"But that's the content of the seventh-year Transfiguration course, Miss Kaslana. Unless you can fully elaborate on these concepts, I don't think there is any need to discuss the essence of Transfiguration with you at this moment—in other words, you must first prove that you have the qualifications to study magic in terms of knowledge reserves, rather than purely learning magic."

Along with Professor McGonagall's voice, the whispers in the classroom instantly quieted down.

The seventh-year course content, magical research and the essence of magic... these words were not difficult to understand, and judging from Professor McGonagall's tone, it was obviously somewhat different from the simple cheating everyone imagined—if Ellina could really answer those questions, perhaps it would be more appropriate to describe it as an academic dispute.

Looking at the flickering eyes of the surrounding students, and looking at Professor McGonagall, whose eyes were hiding a few expectations, Ellina instantly understood Professor McGonagall's meaning, calmed down and nodded, answering unhurriedly.

"Of course, no problem, since you think it's necessary."

"'Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration' was a magical theory proposed by the famous wizard Gamp hundreds of years ago after a long career of magical experiments. It mentions that there are five major exceptions to modern Transfiguration, that is, impossible magic situations."

If she had encountered this question a few weeks ago, Ellina could only rely on some memories from her previous life to answer it, then after two months of study, she had completely made up for this theoretical shortcoming.

Even, after combining some of her own spellcasting experience, Ellina had a further understanding and derivation on the basis of the theoretical explanation in the book. Professor McGonagall also knew about this—as one of the only two Transfiguration masters at Hogwarts, Ellina naturally had to ask her for advice on this aspect.

Therefore, when Professor McGonagall asked this question, Ellina instantly relaxed a lot.

The animosity and tension that had risen halfway gradually dissipated, and she smiled slightly at Professor McGonagall.

"First of all, Transfiguration cannot conjure food, whether it is directly formed dishes or ingredients. This is the most important point, which means that there are great limitations to the transformation of matter. For example, the lion and pig that Professor McGonagall turned the lectern into in the first lesson cannot be used for cooking."

Ellina paused, and her gaze slowly swept across the faces of the little ones who were expecting to see a good show, and the corners of her mouth raised.

"Over the past few days, I think everyone should know that the food that appears on the Hogwarts plates is not conjured out of thin air by magic. All the dishes are cooked by the house-elves in the Hogwarts kitchen, and then sent to the plates above through Transfer Magic."

"The second point, which happens to be the content involved in today's lesson—'Living things and dead things cannot be permanently Transfigured.' We can only temporarily turn a snail into a glass bead, but it is impossible to permanently turn it into a lifeless dead thing. Once the magic attached to the snail dissipates, it will automatically change back to its original form. Similarly, a desk cannot be permanently turned into a pig..."

In fact, in the original Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, it actually wrote that objects cannot be permanently transformed between each other.

However, since Ellina mastered some magic between Transfiguration and Alchemy, this centuries-old rule description seemed less rigorous in the girl's eyes, so she added some of her own understanding here.

As long as the essence and elemental composition of the substance were not changed, Ellina could now easily change the shape of some small-volume simple objects at will, just like kneading plasticine.

The only difficulty was that all her Transfigurations were permanent.

The magical world's conventional Disruption Charm cannot undo the objects released by Ellina's "Restructuring Spell," which is why Ellina has always been reluctant to get too deeply involved in Transfiguration—just as Dumbledore said, when dealing with any magic that cannot be temporarily reversed or reversed, you must be especially cautious.

Glancing at Professor McGonagall, who wanted to speak but stopped, Ellina did not choose to explain too much.

Some things only needed to be told to Professor Dumbledore. If Dumbledore thought that Minerva McGonagall could know all this, the old wizard would have proactively told McGonagall these things long ago, instead of choosing to seal them.

"The third point, Transfiguration cannot conjure magical items. Neither flying brooms, automatic stirring cauldrons, wands, nor even the gold Galleons and silver Sickles produced by Gringotts can be transformed—perhaps they can be close in appearance, but when they are put into a coin bag, they will not automatically count, but will only become ordinary items without magic."

Sitting on the largest few gold mountains in the entire magical world, Ellina naturally carefully studied these currencies circulating in the magical world.

Without a doubt, the cunning and suspicious goblins would not forget to counterfeit currency.

All the gold coins were attached with exquisite magic, and the circle of character numbers branded on the edge represented the information of the caster, and also had the functions of anti-oxidation, strengthening, and automatic counting—this was also why, with the wizards' terrible math skills, they could use such a complex and cumbersome currency system, because the coins produced by Gringotts would perform some simple "change and calculation."

"The fourth point, Transfiguration cannot change the quantity of an object. For example, we cannot turn a mirror into two snuff boxes, nor can we turn a desk into two pigs, or turn seven people into a gourd. Unless you use the 'Whole Body Transfiguration,' wrapping all the objects connected together in an area with magic and transforming them."

Regarding this point, Ellina had even carried out some relatively dangerous attempts.

When she got lost some time ago, she had thought about treating the stone wall in front of her as a single individual and turning them into gravel, trying to temporarily open a straight channel to the distance.

However, unfortunately, Hogwarts Castle seemed to have long been magically protected in this regard.

Any Transfiguration of the main body of the castle would default to locking to the entire Hogwarts Castle range, and wanting to drill a hole with Transfiguration was not much different in essence from turning the castle into a Transformer.

"As for the last point, although Mr. Gamp described it in the book as 'Transfiguration cannot create something from nothing' and classified it as the last exception to Transfiguration, but..."

Ellina raised her eyebrows, and a touch of nostalgia appeared in her eyes.

"I am more accustomed to calling it the [Equivalent Exchange] principle—there is no gain without sacrifice, and you must pay an equal price to get what you want. This is also the most basic concept in ancient Alchemy. Just like the Summoning Spell learned after the higher grades, either it is a projection formed by magic, or it is the use of Transfer Charm, neither of which is directly conjuring objects out of thin air."

"So... do I qualify now? Professor McGonagall."

At the end, Ellina tilted her head, and a smugness appeared on her delicate face.

"Based on the essence of modern Transfiguration, I don't think my approach seems to be anything out of the ordinary. After all, the Transfiguration we are learning now is actually a more advanced illusion... Is Professor McGonagall satisfied with this explanation?"

Scanning the faces of the other students in the classroom showing sudden realization, as well as admiration and worship, Ellina pouted quite speechlessly. These first-year children were too easy to fool and had no position of their own at all.

However, from the beginning, she did not take the discussions of these first-year students to heart. She mostly just wanted to take this opportunity to make Professor McGonagall understand that everyone staying out of each other's business, as before, was actually the most ideal situation.

What a little witch with a terrible talent.

Professor McGonagall took a deep look at Ellina, and her heart was full of emotion.

There were many people with excellent magical talent, but there were only a few people in the magical world who had tried to analyze the essence of magic from the very beginning—and as for someone like Ellina who had begun to explore in the first grade, it had never appeared in her impression.

"Overall, there are not too many problems. Because of your wonderful answer, Hufflepuff gets five points. But..."

Professor McGonagall paused slightly, frowned looking at Ellina's smug and proud appearance, and continued with a smile.

"This doesn't seem to be a reason for you not to complete the classroom homework according to the requirements I made in class."

"Eh?!" Ellina blinked her eyes, and something seemed wrong.

According to the script in her heart, it should be heading towards a happy ending at this time, and not have any strange follow-up.

Professor McGonagall gently pushed her glasses, and a dangerous light reflected from the edge of the lens.

"I will make corresponding special adjustments to the course content for you later—on the other hand, let's discuss the punishment for you not handing in homework for two consecutive months. Perhaps I need to remind you that as the Head of Gryffindor and the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, I have the right to directly decide to punish you..."

"And your punishment is..."