Chapter 301: The Essence Revealed

Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office.

The place had completely changed.

Gone were the various intricate gadgets Dumbledore had collected, as were the Pensieve, Fawkes, and almost all of Dumbledore's personal belongings.

Clearly, the former headmaster had returned here before he vanished completely, taking his things with him.

After all, whether it was the Pensieve or those personal letters, they contained a wealth of information and secrets, and the old man didn't seem so generous as to leave them for Murphy.

Even because he left suddenly without handing over to the current headmaster, Snape was unable to enter the room for a while.

After hearing about it, Murphy immediately sent a team of Aurors to act as a demolition crew, first blowing up the Gryffin revolving staircase, then blasting their way up to the eighth floor, delivering a portrait that blocked the door a fragmented farewell, and forcefully blew open the headmaster's office door with brute force.

People are gone, and yet the public facilities were locked?

Spoiled him.

This move not only won Snape a lot of favor but also gave the other professors a profound Murphy-style shock, revealing to them a fact: the master of this school was no longer the white-bearded old man who left some leeway in everything, but had become a madman who did not hesitate to destroy his home to achieve his goals.

At the moment, Snape was making some attempts in a room that had been transformed into a potions classroom.

Murphy had copied the alchemy materials obtained from Lemay and given them to him as part of the deal, he needed to research the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life for Murphy.

Of course, Murphy didn't rely solely on him; there were also some Muggle scientists at the Magical Research Institute engaged in this research.

Suddenly, a raven flew to his window sill, pecked at the window, and attracted Snape's attention.

The latter frowned and opened the window, and the raven unceremoniously flew into the room.

The next instant, several flashes of lightning burst forth, and Murphy's figure appeared in the headmaster's office with a loud thunderclap, the overflowing electricity burned a bunch of drafts to ash, and incidentally evaporated a pot of potion Snape had on the crucible.

Snape hurried to stabilize a few test tube racks and potions that were nearly knocked over by the shockwave, and once Murphy's glow subsided, he couldn't help but complain, "Do you have to make such a grand entrance?!"

"Sorry," Murphy stamped his foot, extinguishing a tuft of flame on the sole of his shoe, "I've just learned this mode of transportation, and I'm not yet proficient."

After seeing Dumbledore use a phoenix for teleportation, Murphy had been very envious of this ability to penetrate spatial barriers.

After a few attempts, he found that teleportation was not difficult for him, mainly requiring a creature with a special connection to the wizard as coordinates, and this creature was best to have a strong elemental nature.

Fortunately, the lightning raven met both conditions.

Dumbledore could transform into fire and teleport with the help of a phoenix, so naturally, he could also teleport in the form of lightning through the lightning raven.

"So, esteemed Governor, what brings you here?" Snape was not very pleased, "Because of your disturbance just now, a pot of potion I was brewing is ruined."

Murphy ignored him, "Any progress with the research?"

Snape muttered for a while until Murphy impatiently tapped on the table, "Alright, alright, I'll compensate double for the destroyed potion, just list the losses later, and I'll reimburse you."

Snape finally calmed down, "There's some progress, but not much."

"Let's hear it." Murphy sat down on the largest chair in the headmaster's office, as if he was the master of the place.

Snape frowned, quite displeased, but ultimately did not erupt, "The Elixir of Life has been tested and confirmed to be non-toxic, but there seem to be some side effects. I've verified it with two magical creatures, and it seems to reduce their magical abilities, currently, I don't know why."

This point was also reported by the Magical Research Institute conducting tests on the Elixir of Life.

With corroborating evidence from both sides, it seemed the Elixir of Life indeed had the side effect of suppressing magical power levels.

This reminded Murphy of what Lady Yaga had said, "Magic and life cannot coexist," which explained why Lemay, despite living for six hundred years, did not appear to be very powerful.

He chose life—and thus sacrificed magic.

Lemay's notes also discussed this, believing the Elixir of Life replaced part of the body's biological mechanisms with magic, maintaining the organism's survival with magic.

The more magic was used to sustain the body, the less was left for free use.

This effect made Murphy postpone his plan to use the Elixir of Life; unless absolutely necessary, it was best not to use it for now.

"What about the Philosopher's Stone?"

Snape shook his head, "I've basically understood the process of making the Philosopher's Stone, most of it is not particularly difficult. But one aspect is crucial, the creation of the Philosopher's Stone requires a material extremely rich in magic. Lemay called it 'the Fifth Element', 'Aurum Vitae', 'Essentia'. It is the source of the Philosopher's Stone's power. The other ingredients are just to ensure that this 'Essentia' does not get lost during use."

"Thus, unless we find this 'Essentia', we cannot create a Philosopher's Stone."

"Lemay mentioned in his notes that he was able to create the Philosopher's Stone by coincidence because he happened to discover an existence of Essentia."

Murphy frowned, remembering his only conversation with Lemay, "I see, so that's why he said it was an unreplicable miracle, a divine opportunity."

"Lemay spent six hundred years trying to find another Essentia, he had a deep understanding of it, describing the substance as having extremely powerful magical energy, he even invented a spell that could detect the presence of Essentia within a nearly hundred meters radius. He traveled to many places in the world in his lifetime but never found another Essentia," Snape said.

Lemay's six-hundred-year search came up empty, showing how rare "Essentia" was.

But just because Lemay couldn't find it doesn't mean Murphy couldn't.

"Give me that spell."

Snape searched the desk for a while and handed Murphy a photocopy, "This spell is not complicated, a third-year Hogwarts student can learn it. But, its searching range depends on the wizard's magical level, ordinary students can search about forty feet, while a skilled wizard can reach three to four hundred feet."

"But, this range is too small compared to the entire planet. To find Essentia, unless we mobilize all the wizards in the world to turn every inch of this planet upside down."

Murphy read the spell on the page a few times, indeed, as Snape said, the spell was simple, and he quickly learned it.

He drew his wand, chanting, "Essentia Reveal!"

Immediately, a wave similar to the "Revelio" spell spread out but rapidly decayed after leaving the body. Although the decay rate of the wave was much better than "Revelio" due to its more specific target, it still became very weak at a distance of a hundred meters, and beyond two hundred meters, it was almost impossible to get effective feedback.

Moreover, this spell consumed a lot of magical energy, making it difficult to sustain a maximum range search effort, requiring Murphy to exert full effort for each casting. Murphy calculated that a single search could cover an area of three to four hectares, and with London alone being over 16,000 hectares, to search the entire city of London using this spell under the most ideal conditions would require casting it four to five thousand times. Based on Murphy's current experience with the spell, it would take at least half a year.

To search the entire UK would take over a hundred years, and as for the whole world... unless one could live for tens of thousands of years.

However, this was an omnidirectional search spell.

That is, the spell's search range was a three-dimensional spherical area, which is why the magical wave's decay rate was so rapid.

What if, the spell's search range was compressed into a two-dimensional plane?

Or, what if it was compressed into a scanning line?

Coupled with a magic amplification array antenna, conducting a scan with a magical radar over thousands of kilometers wouldn't be too much, right?

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