270- It's too sweet!!

"Muggles have come up with quite a few novel desserts and drinks—like this one," Rhys said, waving his wand to filter out all the remaining grounds from the cup of coffee he handed to Helga, ensuring nothing would ruin the taste.

"I've had this stuff before. It's pretty effective at keeping you alert. The first few times I tried it, the effect was almost as strong as a potion," Helga replied, surprising Rhys—he hadn't expected her to have tried this curious Muggle beverage.

"A few hundred years ago, shepherds in Abyssinia, on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, would chew coffee berries to stay awake. I had it a few times while traveling through the area. It was mostly used in religious settings there—locals believed that to approach the divine, one had to overcome the desire to sleep." Helga even gave Rhys a brief history of coffee's origins.

"Well then," Rhys shrugged, "but I bet you've never had these amazing desserts."

As he spoke, he pulled out a small box filled with all sorts of carefully prepared sweets—kept fresh as if just baked, thanks to protective enchantments.

Helga casually picked one and popped it into her mouth. After just a couple of chews, her eyes went wide.

"It's too sweet!!!" she exclaimed, clearly unimpressed by Rhys's offering. The dessert was so sweet it nearly overwhelmed her.

Compared to people from the tenth century, modern tastes were undeniably heavy on the sugar.

"You'll get used to it," Rhys said with a casual shrug.

"I think they need to cut the sugar by at least half," Helga muttered, still feeling the overwhelming sweetness.

"Hey! That's the best part!"

After exchanging their thoughts on desserts, the two of them began to feel a bit drowsy and decided to head back to the inn for some rest. But just before heading to their rooms, Rhys seemed to remember something. He reached into his robes and pulled out a wand with a rustic, timeworn design.

"Helga, do you remember this wand?" Rhys held out the wand he'd purchased earlier at Ollivanders.

"Oh?" Helga accepted the wand and looked at it for a moment. As her eyes traced its familiar contours, memories long buried began to surface.

"You really went to the trouble of finding a descendant of that wandmaker?"

"His descendants are still in the wandmaking business, actually. And they've become the most renowned wandmakers in the wizarding world," Rhys said, then gave her a quick rundown of the Ollivander family's legacy.

Helga listened attentively, nodding as he spoke.

"So that sign on their shop might actually be true?" Helga mused aloud as she gazed at the wand in her hand, suddenly struck by a powerful sense of history—it held within it the legacy of wandcraft passed down over a thousand years, the crystallized wisdom of dozens of generations.

"Very likely. Their recorded wandmaking history spans a millennium—perhaps even longer," Rhys replied, using his and his friends' firsthand knowledge to vouch for the Ollivanders' timeline.

"But the current Ollivander has become a bit set in his ways," Rhys added. "They only use three types of core materials now. It makes for stable results, sure, but it lacks variety—just like the modern magical world."

Everything today seems geared toward making sure everyone scores an 80—unlike ancient wizards, where some could score 100 while others might only get a 60.

After handing the wand back to Helga, Rhys headed off to his room to sleep, while Helga remained in the corridor, taking a little time to bond with her "new" wand. Though she was already at a level where she hardly needed a wand to cast magic, out of habit she still carried one every day. A wizard without a wand simply felt… incomplete.

And she had to admit—the craftsmanship of the Ollivander ancestor was truly impressive. The wand felt perfectly balanced in her hand, smooth and natural to wield.

…

Two days later, after another bout of travel and excitement, the four of them returned to London.

Even as they stepped out of the airport, Helga's face still carried a look of shock: How had Muggles developed to this extent in just a thousand years?!

During the flight, she had seriously begun to question who the real magic users were.

Not even that old snake could have created something like an airplane—an alchemical masterpiece capable of carrying hundreds of people through the sky, smoothly and comfortably, over thousands of miles, with meals included?

She had asked Rhys about it during the flight. His answer was: it would be extremely difficult.

Even if he managed to make something similar, it would still be a crude imitation modeled after Muggle technology.

As for coming up with something like it on his own? Forget it.

If someone had handed him the same requirements without ever having seen an airplane, he probably would've ended up building a flying house.

What stunned her even more was that Muggles could mass-produce these alchemical creations. When she saw over a dozen similar machines lined up on the airport tarmac, Helga was utterly floored.

The advancement of Muggle society had completely shaken her.

"When it comes to transportation, we've fallen way behind," she said sincerely, after learning that modern wizards still relied on broomsticks for long-distance travel.

"Well, not entirely. We do have things like Portkeys and the Floo Network," Rhys replied, giving her a detailed explanation of those two magical innovations. "It's just that we never developed a full, integrated system."

"But those things were all invented a century ago, weren't they? What's happened in the magical world over the past hundred years? Why does it feel like there's been no progress at all?" Helga immediately zeroed in on the heart of the problem: from what Salazar had described, the wizarding world seemed… stagnant.

Her words made Rhys frown. Because she was right. A hundred years ago, the magical and non-magical worlds weren't that far apart. But the most mind-blowing inventions—those that had created this massive gap—were all born in the last century.

"Maybe it's the Statute of Secrecy," he finally said. "It probably caused the wizarding world to miss out on an age of rapid development."

"Maybe we should do something about it."

"You've got a point. Let's ask Rowena when we get back."

The two of them reached a consensus almost immediately.

"By the way, do you have a place to stay for now? If not, why don't you come stay at my place for a while?" Rhys asked, already scheming in the back of his mind.

He was quite tempted to bring this food-magic master into his own sweets shop.

Helga, of course, had no objections—she didn't have any modern wizarding currency on her, and she was in need of both income and a place to stay. Getting to mooch off her old friend's place? Perfect.

Without delay, the two of them said goodbye to Daphne and Astoria and headed straight for Diagon Alley.

Upon entering the bustling alley, Helga wasn't distracted by the vibrant storefronts and magic displays. The first thing she did was sit down and write a job application letter to Hogwarts' current headmaster.

"You're really not wasting any time, are you?" Rhys muttered, half amused and half exasperated.

In his mind, this was going to be a dead-end effort. But to his astonishment, less than ten minutes after sending it out, an owl returned with a reply—and an attached interview invitation!

"Salazar, do you know where Lupett's Dessert Shop is? This Albus Dumbledore asked to interview me there."

Rhys: "..."

_______

Read 12 Chapters ahead:

Patreon: HornyFBI