Chapter 8.

  The day, before dawn, Sot up. After washing up, he peeked into Draco's room, seeing no signs of him waking, and decided to call him after breakfast. Fortunately, there were no csses that day, so Soren po explore the castle and familiarise himself with the surroundings.

  Upon reag the on room, Soren sahne, who had also just e out of her dormitory.

  The two agreed to go to the Great Hall for breakfast but found it pletely empty; they had woken up too early, as it wasn't breakfast time yet. Not minding this, they tio explore the legendary castle.

  Hogwarts had a total of one hundred and forty-two staircases. Some were wide and grand; others were narrow and shaky; some led to different pces every Friday; and some would suddenly have a step disappear half, requiring you to remember where to jump.

  Additionally, there were many doors that would not open unless you politely asked them to or poked the right spot; some doors weren't real doors at all, but sturdy walls that merely looked like doors and probably wao enjoy seeing others trying to make fun of themselves.

  Soren and Daphne explored all nine floors haphazardly, including the dungeons, someinpointing the locations of s needed for their studies, while also disc three secret passages, usually hidden behind tapestries, stone carvings, stone walls, or even behind portraits. Some secret passages required specific passwords or toug certain special spots to open.

  When they returo the Great Hall, several students were already seated at the Slytherin table enjoying breakfast. Soren saw a still-sleepy Draco sitting with Crabbe and Goyle, walked over to greet them, and introduced Daphhe four sat together to enjoy breakfast.

  Soren casually ate a bowl of milk oatmeal and took out a piece of part from his pocket, writing and drawing on it.

  "What are you drawing?" Draco couldn't help but ask while looking over his shoulder.

  "I am preparing to dra of Hogwarts, rec the location of every and every secret passage I discover." Sore her head down, focused on doodling on the paper.

  Just as Soren finished, he gently flipped the part, "Huh? Is this the map of the castle? I take a look?" A girl's voice sounded from the side. Soren turned his head to see Pansy.

  Upon seeing Pansy, a flicker of barely perceptible disdain crossed Daphne's eyes, but the observant Soren noticed it immediately.

  Soren took out his wand aly tapped it, using the doubling spell to create a duplicate of the map, which he then casually hao Pansy. "I still think you should explore the castle yourself; that's one of the joys of being a udent."

  The young wizards present were either pure-blood or half-blood, and their uanding of magic was not as superficial as that of Harry and his friends, so they quickly reised the spell Soren had performed.

  Pansy stared at Soren's wand, surprised, "You've already learhe Doubling spell?"

  Soren nonittally replied with a "Hmm," and said, "This spell isn't that difficult."

  Pansy's gaze towards Soren suddenly became very strange, and Soren could tell that Pansy had quickly g Draco with a hint of annoyand hesitation fshing in her eyes for a brief moment.

  She looked at the map Soren had drawn, frowning even more. The map was very detailed, with clear lines and bels; the markings for the secret passages and s were easily visible, even indig which stairs o be skipped.

  This map was not something a child could casually doodle; it tained enough skills such as surveying, and architectural drawing teiques.

  In his past life, Soren, as a great adventurer, had entered mazes, old castles, and dark forests, and he was skilled at hand-drawing maps and routes. Although it had been 11 years since his rebirth and he had lost some of his touch, the quality of his drawings was still far beyond that of these young kids.

  Before long, a few of Pansy's close friends arrived oer another in the Great Hall.

  Knowing that his current partner in exploration didn't particurly like this group of girls, Soren stood up and, together with Daphne, bid farewell to them. Before leaving, Soren duplicated a few more maps to distribute to Drad the other students present, helping them avoid the risk of getting lost as udents.

  Soren and Daphne had no iion of returning to the dormitory for now; they went to the library together to explore Hogwarts' colle of books.

  Hogwarts' colle boasted over a huhousand books, more than the bined colles of the Malfoy family, the Bck family, and his grandmother's home. Of course, quantity does e to quality; those easily purchasable items in bookstores were not worthy of being pced in a family library.

  Daphne found a book about spells and sat down to read quietly. Sore a siderable amount of time reviewing the titles on each bookshelf, figuring out the corresponding shelf locations for books in different fields.

  Soren's primary goal was to learn the occlumency spell. Within this castle, at least Dumbledore and Snape were known to be profit in mied magid Soren had many pns that he could not easily disclose. He borrowed several books he could find after a little trouble on the subject from the library, intending to study them slowly after returning to his dormitory.

  The occlumency spell was a very special type of magic that did not require intations or wands to cast. It only required the practitioo have a strong will and a powerful ability to suppress emotions and feelings.

  This was also why Soren had never sidered studying the occlumency spell before enrolling; he remembered asking Lucius about it, and Lucius had dismissed him, saying he was too young. Later, after several rounds of research, he discovered the real reason why children could not learn the following spell.

  In a child's brain, the emotional suppression meism is not fully developed. pared to adults who use the rational frontal lobe to make decisions, childreo rely on the amygda, which is responsible for emotions and intuition. This physiological dition directly limits the possibility of children learning the occlumency spell.

  In the inal story, the impulsive Harry was uo master this spell even by his fifth year for this reason. Even though Soren's mental maturity was far beyond Harry's, he did not believe he could fully master this skill at the age of 11; at most, he could grasp only the basics, which would be better than nothing.

  But that is already enough. After all, one of these two people who could peek inside his mind has a good retionship with his father, while the other is busy every day with his Harry Potter training pn, so it's uhey would give him magical inspiration for no reason, even if his father was once a real Death Eater.

  As long as he quickly detect when someone invades his thoughts, that is a victory in itself. A distinguished professor or a headmaster ot disregard their identity and forcefully invade a child's mind when their small as have already been noticed, right?

  Moreover, hum, Soren is not an ordinary little wizard who be bullied at will; behind him is the Malfoy family, which has influen politics, business, and education. Doing something offensive against the Malfoy family, especially in a situatiohe strong bullies the weak, Soren believes that even Dumbledore would have to weigh the sequences slightly.

  First-year students at Hogwarts have a total of eight subjects: Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, Astronomy, Charms, and the most anticipated Flying css.

  The day, Slytherin had its first css—Transfiguration.

  The Transfiguration css was held together with Hufflepuff students.

  The professor for Transfiguration rofessonagall, a strid meticulous teacher. Therefore, she treated the students from the four houses equally, without favoritism or targeting. The first-years quickly felt Professonagall's striess.

  "Transfiguration is the most dangerous course in your first year, so I do not want ao cause trouble in css. If someone does, I will ask them to leave. I have said this to every new css, and I hope you remember it." At the moment the css bell rang, she stood at the front, speaking seriously.

  After finishing her opening remarks, Professonagall took out her wand.

  She poihe tip of her wand at ay desk and quickly recited a spell. Uhe astonished gaze of the first-years, the desk gradually wriggled and naturally transformed into a dog, making loud barking sounds.

  "Wow!" Most of the first-years were captivated by this spell, exg in surprise. Even the pure-blood Slytherin wizards were the same.

  After all, Transfiguration is a difficult subject, and it bees increasingly profound and challenging as one progresses. Most adult wizards tend to focus their skills on more ve, simple, and uandable Charms.

  "I believe many of you have already previewed the textbook and have a preliminary uanding of this course," Professonagall said in a calm tone, waving her hand to turn the desk back, "As you see, this course is incredibly deep, so of course risks e with it. It is best not to attempt it alohout absolute fidence."

  Most little wizards were somewhat dismissive, but Soren did not dare to take this course lightly. He had roughly flipped through the first-year textbooks, and the most difficult one was "Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration." This course requires not only the correct spell but also a profound uanding of the essence of the transformed object.

  Wizards studying Transfiguration must not only deeply uand the material ws of objects but also have a clear uanding of any magical ws that may exist withihus avoiding the dahat e with transformation. This be said to be quite difficult.

  The effectiveness and ability of Transfiguration are closely reted to the wizard's level, and the difficulty increases in proportion to the plexity of the transformation. For example, a novi Transfiguration easily turn a matchstito a needle, but turning a matchstito a stick is extremely difficult; even maintaining the shape of a needle is challenging. A powerful wizard ot only do that at will but also apply spells to the transformed objects to achieve a perma effect.

  However, for Soren, who has learned mathematical and physical formus in his past life, Transfiguration was slightly easier. His uanding of material ws far exceeds that of many little wizards.

  What is a needle? A needle is metal, it is thin, it is strong, it is sharp!

  What he o do is rely on his imagination to visualize the image of a needle in his mind; the clearer and more detailed this image, the better. Then, relying on tration and using the spell to i magical power into the object to ge its external form. But that is not the end—

  He must also tio trate and outlihe characteristics of the needle; it must be thin and sharp enough to increase its pierg ability; it must be straight and hard enough not to bend easily against resistance—

  This process requires absolute focus, fidence, and unwaveriermination. The reason why wavering little wizards like Neville and Ron find it difficult to master Transfiguration is precisely this.

  While the surrounding students were still fiddling with the principles, Soren turned a matchstito a silver needle, which made Professonagall very pleased and awarded Slytherin ten points.

  By the end of the css, only the Malfoy brothers had pleted the task with their matchsticks.

  Although Draco yful, during the time after he received his wand, he was influenced by Soren and spent a siderable amount of time practig tration, so his performance was det; at least his needle was sharp enough to pierce a thi of paper.

  Professonagall had the whole css watch how the matchstick transformed into a needle and even showed a rare smile to the two of them.