The dismantling of the Basilisk went more smoothly than Hermione had imagined.

The masterpiece that King Ragnuk the First of the goblins had obsessed over for a millennium withstood Hannah's brute strength.

Under Hannah's increasingly skilled and precise sword swings, the seemingly tough scales of the dead Basilisk were hardly stronger than parchment.

And, under Hermione's influence, Hermione and Luna also began practicing "body magic" in their spare time—Luna chose a blade bow, while Hermione chose a relatively traditional lady's rapier, the weapons naturally coming from the shared weapons in the Hogwarts vault.

"I still don't understand why wizards must master at least one cold weapon..."

Hermione rubbed her sore wrist, and before Hermione could speak, she quickly shut down the girl's previous perfunctory answers.

"It's not Mr. Gryffindor's era anymore. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy has been in effect for centuries. There is little interaction between Muggles and wizards. Wizards no longer rely on cold weapons to protect themselves—besides, even for self-defense, firearms are obviously more effective than swords, right? Not to mention, you have now developed magical armor like 'Valkyria'."

"First of all, it's 'we' not 'you'—"

Hermione corrected seriously, while controlling the constantly deforming blade as it extended under the snake skin.

"At Hogwarts, and in many specific venues, cold weapons still have advantages that firearms and magic cannot replace. Of course, firearms training will also be on the agenda later, but with intelligent assistance, the operator's strength is key."

"Of course, more importantly, in the early stages of magitechnological civilization, they have a higher affinity with magic, such as..."

Hermione placed her right hand on a meter-long section of snake that had been cut open by Hannah, a naive and joyful expression appearing on her face.

"Disintegrate, Nyx Hecate—"

She whispered, her right hand scattering upwards as if clutching petals.

Countless black blades, shimmering with metallic light, pierced out from the Basilisk's skin.

In the center of the rustling, falling emerald green snake scales, a bewitching and beautiful black metal flower bloomed instantly.

And below the petals, the white snake meat disintegrated silently into various rough chunks, like building blocks that had lost their support. After Hermione's careful magic exploration, she could avoid breaking the muscle texture of the ingredient when she withdrew and vibrated the blade.

Of course, Hermione was only doing a rough decomposition job for now.

More detailed slicing and separation would be further refined by Hermione and Luna.

"The flexible manipulation of a single magical weapon is the first requirement for piloting Valkyria armor."

Hermione said calmly, turning to look at the two little witches behind her, gently flicking her fingers to retract the delicate little cross.

"Gringotts Wizarding Bank can create exclusive weapons for you, but only if your magic and magical skills meet the standard—the judging standard will be based on the decomposition accuracy of the ingredients. Reaching sixty percent of my level of magical manipulation will be considered qualified."

On a light blue ice shelf formed by frost not far away, layers of snake meat as thin as cicada wings were stacked together.

Under the dim blue flames of the underground ice cellar, the shimmering white纹理 on the snake meat could be vaguely seen.

"Sixty percent? Are you looking down on someone, Hermione?"

Hermione glared at Hermione and snorted unhappily, crossing her wand in her left hand with the rapier in her right.

On the other side, Luna also raised the blade bow in her hand.

Perhaps they couldn't yet directly activate the extension and deformation of "Nyx Hecate" like Hermione.

But with the assistance of wands, they could now achieve the release of the basic form. If judged by normal combat power, after their attacks hit most fixed target organisms, they could almost complete a one-shot kill using instantaneous deformation.

The only difference was in the precision of operation and power...

Under Hermione's thoughtful gaze, the weapons in Hermione and Luna's hands were swung out simultaneously.

Accompanying the girls' soft shouts, countless cold lights pierced through the cold air.

"Release—"

"Release."

And in a place further away.

Hannah adjusted her breathing, recalling the sword skills that Hermione had taught her.

The Sword of Gryffindor was a standard English broadsword.

As a sword tailored for adult men, it was slightly too long for the thirteen-year-old Hannah.

Therefore, Hermione taught her the most classic Scottish two-handed greatsword slashing method—only one type of frontal attack, a pure to the extreme force, under the blessing of the ancient Runic magic of the Bull's Strength, it could theoretically easily split the stone statue in front of the Headmaster's office.

This was also the reason why Gryffindor was invincible in duels: this sword could even split most magical barriers.

And with the increasing maturity of Apparition magic, its upper limit was much higher than it was in the past.

"Hoo—"

The Sword of Gryffindor turned into a blurry sword shadow and disappeared into the Basilisk's body.

Accompanied by a sound like butter meeting a heated blade, the seemingly tough and huge Basilisk carcass quickly split in two.

"Hermione, I think I... did it?"

Hannah froze for half a second, then squatted down and leaned close to the Basilisk carcass to observe carefully for a few seconds.

"Take a look, did I meet the requirement you said! I felt like I succeeded just now?"

Uh—

How could this silly girl's physical talent be so strong?!

Hermione turned her head and glanced at the incredibly smooth cut, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly.

Obviously, the new era Hogwarts Sword Saint was born.

"Well, Hannah is qualified—"

…………

Lockhart and Anna returned the day before the end of the holidays.

His worldview had undergone another reshaping, along with his faltering love.

He was very confused. After his persuasion and explanation, Arhipovna did not leave directly after all. The two of them spent most of Christmas vacation in a very delicate atmosphere in the "Core Research Institute"—inseparable.

At least in the eyes of the surrounding goblins and Destiny Group employees, they looked more like high-level organization members on their honeymoon.

"All actions of unofficial members must be carried out under the supervision of the 'introducer'."

This was a basic visiting regulation on the Hyperion and in various inner worlds, an iron rule that even Hermione had to strictly abide by.

With the help of this rule, Lockhart successfully "retained" Arhipovna, who wanted to leave—just as Lockhart had predicted, for researchers like Arhipovna, the technology of the Human Order Preservation Organization, which was decades ahead of the outside world, and the magical and scientific integration industry that surpassed imagination, were simply irresistible, like a torch in the eyes of a moth in the night.

A few months ago, Arthur Weasley's bragging about "taming his wife" at the Black Sea Shipyard had a little effect.

Although Arhipovna didn't give him any good looks these days, when they were discussing Dao every night, the Russian strongwoman, who occupied the absolute upper hand, didn't show much resistance. From being unfamiliar and unskilled to being tacitly familiar, this was a life experience that Lockhart had never experienced.

But on the other hand, Arhipovna's condescending look of disgust made Lockhart fall into deep self-doubt.

Especially when the two returned to Hogwarts, everything seemed to return to the starting point before departure.

"Thank you, Mr. Lockhart, let's stop here."

After leaving the Hyperion, Arhipovna said this, as calm and intellectual as before.

"The visiting fee and accommodation fee, I have paid for these days, right? You are a high-ranking Great Arcana, a wizard, a big shot in charge of all the industries in the City of Succubi—all the gifts of fate are secretly marked with a price—right?"

"Uh, Anna... what are you talking about? I thought we were, no, how could I not—"

"'City of Succubi' Code, the first sentence on the first page—familiar, right?"

Arhipovna glanced at the silly wizard, a hint of hesitation flashed in her eyes, and she gently bit her lip.

"I am just an ordinary Muggle physicist without magic."

"During this time, I took the time to read all of your previous works. If those stories all really happened, then you have at least three lovers, and maybe even a wife. And if those are fake, then which of your words is true?"

"Uh, all of them? When, there are a whole nine books—" Lockhart opened his mouth, a little confused.

"After you fell asleep, and before you got up..."

Arhipovna twisted her dark red hair with her fingers, and said calmly.

"There is a terminal in the room of the Hyperion. You can activate the retrieval function by entering my personal information. The A-level researcher permission is much larger than I thought. I even found some confidential documents that I couldn't see in the Landau Institute before."

"Terminal?" Lockhart blinked.

He always thought that was just a convenient service call window.

Wait, now is not the time to struggle with those magical facilities on the Hyperion.

"Listen to me, Arhipovna, this should be a secret only known to the Great Arcana—in fact, those books, well, in terms of stories, most of them are true, but they are not my personal experiences. Before officially working for Destiny, I was a memory thief..."

Lockhart swallowed subconsciously, and after hesitating for less than half a second, he continued.

"In short, I tracked them down, and then used magic to record what others had done in my own account."

"Oh, very despicable, or remarkable... academic theft, merit theft—"

Arhipovna raised her eyebrows, her eyes becoming truly cold for the first time.

"So, when are you going to dispose of me? Mr. Liar."

"W-Wait, what do you mean by disposing of you—"

"You just said clearly that these things are secrets that only the Great Arcana can know. Then, according to the principle of confidentiality, you have sufficient reason to correct this error without violating any regulations... You can legally erase a long part of my memory now."

Arhipovna walked up to Lockhart, stared into his eyes, and said calmly.

"Otherwise, I will report your violation to 'Ms. Fool'. The biggest danger of the intelligence agency lies here."

"Wh-"

"Leaking organization secrets because of personal feelings is a major issue that would be directly eliminated in the KGB, let alone the fact that you said so many things you shouldn't have said these days. My memory... is the most fatal evidence to report you."

Arhipovna drew the wand from Lockhart's waist and held it against her chest.

"Do it, Lockhart."

Is this Russian strongwoman crazy?

Lockhart looked at the woman in front of him in disbelief.

And what was even more outrageous...

He suddenly noticed that the skin behind Arhipovna's ears was dyed a light pink.

"Hey, you still like me, don't you."

A smug expression flashed across Lockhart's handsome face, and he backhanded to hug the woman in front of him, saying with certainty.

"I'm a wizard, you can't fool me—I'm very proficient in Legilimency, which is what you call mind-reading. You say so much just to force me to erase your memory, so that we will break up, right? I saw through your tricks long ago."

"...Let go of me. Y-You... you're just an idiot."

Caught off guard by Lockhart's hug, Arhipovna subconsciously struggled a few times.

Then, she sighed helplessly.

After so many days of getting along, she had long known the guy's IQ level.

And Lockhart's fallacious reasoning just now made her not even have the mood to expose it.

"Forget it, I'll just say it directly—"

Arhipovna breathed lightly, raised her head to look at Lockhart, and said seriously.

"This is a multiple choice question, understand? Lockhart."

"If you want to become a true member of the 'Great Arcana', then you must show enough reliability. The end of this Christmas holiday trip is not me, your choice will become the standard for judging by several other Great Arcana—in the first step, you failed, you were not cautious enough to keep secrets. So in the second step, you must at least have the ability to correct... uh..."

"These hints are enough, I know what to do..."

Lockhart let go of Arhipovna, and licked his lips with relish.

"You guessed the test questions, but you don't understand that the correct answer will never be a two-choice question."

"The Great Arcana never does multiple choice questions—"

————

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Yay!