Hogwarts Card System Chapter 136

Chapter 136: Impossible Food Creation

Late at night, in Ted’s “private laboratory.”

An Su and Parker were still standing guard for him, to avoid being discovered by the professor or Filch.

Actually, Ted’s relationship with Mrs. Norris was excellent now. The cat would sneak away from Filch to Ted’s place for snacks, showing a particular interest in the white mice, which greatly annoyed An Su. The owl often retaliated by dive-bombing in the castle corridors when no one was around.

This made Filch think his cat was sick and not eating, even taking her to the hospital wing to ask for medicine.

In the firelight, the cage still held several white mice and the long-tailed macaque.

Logically, Ted’s experiment should have been finished, and the monkey with the hairy face and thunderous mouth should have been returned.

The problem was, wasn’t this new experiment just starting?

Professor Kettleburn: My monkey is missing! Has anyone seen my monkey?!

…

Ted had been secretly researching Azeroth’s Conjure Water and Conjure Food spells for the past few days.

From Ted’s perspective, these two spells were almost the most difficult to convert into native magic.

If Ted hadn’t leveled up his Transfiguration by one level due to his knowledge of Druid shapeshifting, he wouldn’t even have dared to try.

Other spells like fire and water magic, magical suppression, and even “Awaken” had discernible traces.

Awaken could rapidly restore a large amount of internal magical power in a short time. If researched along the path of wizarding bloodlines, it wasn’t impossible.

But Conjure Water and Conjure Food were different.

Conjure Water was better; at least there was the native charm “Aguamenti,” which could conjure water.

The only difference was whether this water was drinkable and whether it could restore magical power and stamina.

But Conjure Food was entirely different.

Could the magical world conjure food out of thin air with magic?

Yes! And no.

Yes, because it could be conjured.

No, because what was conjured was merely an imitation and inedible.

There was a famous Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration in the field of Transfiguration.

Among its five principal exceptions, the first was that food could not be conjured out of thin air.

You could transform ingredients into food, like turning flour and water into bread, which simplified the steps.

Like what Aunt Molly did every day at home, most house witches were skilled at it.

Logically, if water could be conjured, why couldn’t food?

Ted had experimented: the water he conjured with the Conjure Water spell was drinkable.

The white mice and the long-tailed macaque could both attest to that~

But food was different.

A white mouse that ate the donut Ted conjured died in agony within five minutes.

Upon dissection, it was found that its stomach was severely damaged, and there were no food residues. There was a problem here.

Ted used Conjure Water again to create magical spring water that could restore magical power and stamina, and fed it to the white mice.

Three white mice, each with a different dosage, showed different reactions.

Two of them were in great pain, scurrying around and squeaking.

The last one was incredibly excited, even starting to dance wildly in the cage…

This particular mouse was a survivor from yesterday’s experiment; among the eight white mice used as test subjects so far, only this one was “fortunate” enough to participate in the third round of experiments.

Five minutes later, the other two white mice died, their eyeballs protruding, and their bodies slightly bloated.

When taken out and dissected with a small knife, their muscle blood vessels showed various damages, but their brains seemed fine.

“Like the result of excessive magical contamination?!” Ted couldn’t be sure.

He recorded the experiment process and data in his notebook, writing down his conjectures and subsequent experimental steps.

An Su, watching the two dead white mice, shook his head sadly: “Died so miserably, definitely inedible, can only throw them away, what a waste, caw-caw~”

Meanwhile, the long-tailed macaque in the cage covered its mouth with both paws, leaning against the side of the cage with a terrified expression, trying its best to stay away from Ted, wishing it could squeeze itself into the iron bars.

Its intelligence was quite good; at least it could tell that several white mice had died in the past few days, all from being force-fed water by this boy~

And he even seemed to want to force-feed it!

Long-tailed macaque: “Help! Someone’s killing a monkey! Someone, please, I’ll never steal anything again~~~”

“Clean this up and bury the white mice in a secluded spot outside the castle,” Ted instructed, then cast an Invisibility Charm on himself and left for his dormitory.

An Su naturally followed, silently flapping his wings and disappearing into the corridor.

The Spirit Crystal Servant, Parker, stretched its legs, then used psionics to command the magically created invisible servants to work.

Two invisible humanoid energy forms, carrying the dead white mice, floated out of the window to the edge of the distant Forbidden Forest, where they dug a pit and buried the mice.

Invisible servants were incredibly useful; they didn’t eat, drink, or complain, and didn’t need to be paid.

The only downside was that their intelligence was average, so they couldn’t be given overly complex commands.

However, the Spirit Crystal Servant Parker could direct them in detail, which compensated for their shortcomings.

…

The next day, Ted arrived outside Professor McGonagall’s office after school.

“Knock, knock, knock~”

“Come in.”

Ted pushed the door open and entered.

Professor McGonagall looked up and saw it was Ted.

Oh, a rare visitor!

She straightened up, took off her glasses, and wiped them with a fine cotton cloth, her gaze unfriendly as she scrutinized Ted.

Ted had caused quite a bit of trouble this year, even being punished with detention in the Forbidden Forest.

If it weren’t for his recent rapid progress in Transfiguration, which seemed to show he had put in a lot of effort, she would have certainly disciplined him~

“Ted, do you need something?” Professor McGonagall continued to wipe her glasses, not even bothering to look up at him.

Ted revealed a very sunny smile, just like when McGonagall had taken him to Diagon Alley.

“Professor, I have some questions about Transfiguration that I’d like to ask.”

Whether it was Ted’s brilliant smile that worked, or his efforts in Transfiguration that moved Professor McGonagall, she finally put on her glasses and looked at Ted directly.

“Sit down,” Professor McGonagall waved her hand gently, and a chair appeared behind Ted.

Ted sat across from the desk, holding a thick notebook, looking very well-behaved.

“Speak, what are your questions?” Ted’s pretense worked; Professor McGonagall found him somewhat more agreeable.

“Professor, I’d like to ask about the knowledge of Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, especially the first of its five principal exceptions…”

Professor McGonagall pushed up her glasses and carefully scrutinized Ted: “That knowledge is still too early for you.”

Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration was an extended topic for fifth-year extracurricular studies.

However, she thought for a moment, even if she didn’t tell him, given Ted’s personality, he would probably look it up himself. Hadn’t he already learned some?

“Alright, do you have any questions about not being able to conjure food?” she asked.

“Please, Professor, can food really not be conjured? I mean, can it really not be eaten?”

Professor McGonagall stared intently into Ted’s eyes, “From what you’re saying, you’ve already tried it, haven’t you? You weren’t foolish enough to eat something you conjured yourself, were you?”

Ted chuckled, “Of course not. But why can water conjured by Aguamenti be drunk?”

“Fool, because Aguamenti is a charm, not Transfiguration…”

Out of extra cultivation for a good student, Professor McGonagall told Ted a lot about Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, especially about “conjuring food,” which Ted had asked about.

Most of the time, Transfiguration could only conjure things one was familiar with, and most of them were not permanent.

This was why conjured food couldn’t be eaten; once the magical effect wore off, there was no telling what would be in your stomach.

Magic could even cause unpredictable and terrible destruction and consequences.

This was why Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration stipulated that food could not be conjured out of thin air.

But could it actually be done?

Yes!

Just as Newton’s three laws also have limitations, Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration is naturally only relative to conventional states.

Advanced Transfiguration could conjure food, but it was very, very, very difficult!

So difficult that the effort was completely disproportionate to the gain.

At the very least, one would need to be a master of Transfiguration to even attempt research in this area.

Even Professor McGonagall had never considered such an unreliable research direction.

Were ingredients really that expensive? Conjuring food was completely unnecessary!

You could perfectly well conjure fruit on a fruit tree.

Although it couldn’t be created out of thin air, growth could be accelerated, and growth spells and engorgement charms could be used.

The magical world’s productivity was very high, as could be seen from Hagrid’s giant Halloween pumpkin.

Once this powerful productivity was put into production, there would be no need to worry about basic necessities.

This was also why many wizards were so eccentric; they had absolutely no survival pressure. Food, clothing, and shelter were completely non-issues, so they could do whatever they pleased.

Imagine if Professor Quirrell had put the same effort into researching magical creature bloodlines into improving species.

Then it would truly be: “Pigs as fat as elephants, only with short noses; one slaughtered for the whole school would be enough to eat for half a year.”

…

Regardless, Ted at least learned that the magical world also had magical effects similar to Conjure Food. It was just extremely advanced.

He could continue his research.

It was simply a matter of designing more experiments and attempts.

Write a letter, I need more white mice!

(End of this chapter)