A Web Of Magic

Things went back to normal for the next few days. He didn't hear anything else from the healers who came to interview him. But the letter he received from Gringotts about the 400 galleon deposit in his account put a smile on his face. He's no longer as strapped for cash between this and the earnings from his potion's deal with the Diagon Alley shops. He can now happily spend money purchasing the costlier ingredients he had been holding out on.

There were plenty of inspirations he received once he started going through Slytherin's notes. Between that and Merlin's book, he had become overwhelmed with the amount of secret knowledge he had access to. Most of it went way over his head despite his Lv4 in his schools of magic. He theorized they were all at least Lv5 or higher. So, he decided to take things slow and tackle things one by one.

The first project he decided to work on now was to create the Flesh-suit he had read about in the Bonds of Flesh book. He learned plenty of ways to modify and improve it from reading Slytherin's notes. Once he successfully created it, he could likely tackle even his beast blood problem without going through the mind battlefield method that Newt had suggested. Using Newt's method, while he might resolve the spirit aftereffects of the beast blood thereby removing the deformation problem, he'll also lose the magic buff effect he received from the beast blood. He's now hoping to find a way to keep the benefits while getting rid of the negative effects. This might also give him an insight into resolving his Blood-curse problem.

The creation of the Flesh-suit might take over 2 months. This is enough to last till the rest of the school year. He received this beneficial knowledge just by going over the basics of the Curse research Slytherin left behind. 'Imagine how much more I'll be able to learn if I can understand it all. Too bad I'll need to read up a lot more to meet the prerequisites to understand it all. No worries, I have time. It shouldn't take too long using impact points,' Magnus planned.

Easter holidays were approaching which implied that the end of the year exams will be close by. Magnus wasn't worried because he already finished reading up all of that. He's now finishing up on the fourth-year curriculum. Memorizing information became much easier with the help of Occlumency. Once he arranged the information in his head, he'll not be forgetting it any time soon. Most of the students became busy with the last quidditch match of the year. Magnus had to stay on site to heal any of the injured.

While he liked flying just as much as the next wizard, Magnus never understood the craze behind quidditch. Yes, it was nice watching people perform loops on brooms like in the circus, but there was no need to wear embarrassing clothes and screaming at the top of their mouths from the stands. 'Hmm, maybe having such effective healing desensitized wizards to deathly sports?' he mused from his corner. Slytherin won the cup to no one's surprise. Magnus watched them show-off in the field but he smirked to himself. 'I wonder what they'll do when they realize no matter what, the house cup will still not be theirs.' The points Magnus earned this year for Ravenclaw gave them a lead despite Slytherin winning the quidditch cup.

When all of the students either went to celebrate their winning or wallow in their sorrows back in their common rooms, Magnus slipped away for a walk in the Forbidden Forest. He had some ingredients to find and today was supposed to be a fruitful day as per his divination. He became very proficient in the Disillusionment Charm and it was simple to slip away. The only people who had an inkling towards his excursions might be Fred and George with their map, but they were busy with their own stuff. He decided not to invite them this time as he didn't want their mistimed curiosity causing any problems.

His decision proved to be correct soon as he came across many troublesome magical creatures along the way that he skillfully avoided with the help of his focus crystal. Having the twins tag along might have complicated things. The rate and speed at which he found the ingredients surprised even himself. 'Maybe I should stick to this method. Having others with me might have skewed the divination results last time.' He returned to the castle once he felt that he had enough and it was time to attend dinner.

This became his new routine. He would divine the best time to collect ingredients and make a short excursion into the forest to procure them and no one was the wiser. He did meet the centaurs occasionally on his excursions and they were usually fine except for that Bane. He didn't know what the guy's problem was. Firenze on the other hand was nice. He would often go about how they have the burden of knowing things but not being able to do anything about them. Magnus was sure there was some misunderstanding going on here as he only ever divined simple things and nothing involving the fate of the world like the centaurs did. For a bunch of recluse creatures that don't want anything to do with the outside world, they sure liked to divine about it. Magnus just went with the flow and didn't correct Firenze. Firenze would sometimes point him towards remote places to search for some rare ingredients that he might have missed. Magnus would sometimes heal any injured centaurs in exchange for Firenze's help. While the centaurs had their own form of healing magic, it was often very slow or involved many herbs. This made it inefficient in terms of emergency treatments. That made Magnus's help very convenient.

Today Magnus came to the forest for some Troll's essence. Troll's essence can be made from a troll's flesh. This is hard to come by in the market so he came to the forest. This was a very important ingredient to make the Flesh-suit. So, Magnus set out towards the Troll's territory deep in the forest. Others might call him foolish but he had his own insurance to fall back on. Eventually he did come across a sickly green troll that smelled worse than a Mooncalf's dung. The troll truly lived up to its intelligence and took offense to a tree that stood in its way. It was trying to topple the tree using all its might. Any average tree might have given in but this was one of the ancient trees that grew to impressive heights. Thus, it didn't budge.

Magnus came upon this scene. He didn't waste any time and made a loud sound with his wand. This caught the attention of the troll which immediately roared at him and lumbered towards him. Magnus stood in his place and once it entered the 15ft range, he gazed into its eyes and cast "Confuse". The troll stopped in its place trying to recall what it was doing. Before it could recover, he used the next mind spell "Mind Spike." This made the troll receive a mental whiplash that made it dizzy on its feet. Another "Mind Spike" and it fell down with a thud. The troll was knocked out. This was the might of Mind arts at Lv4. The magic resistance of the troll might have given other wizards trouble, but it was pretty much useless against mind magic. 'No wonder this is so restricted by the Ministry. Anyone who doesn't practice mind defense, which is pretty much most wizards, are easily vulnerable to the mind arts. It takes great willpower to resist it. Well time to finish what I came here for,' he stepped forwards towards the troll.

He transfigured some bindings to secure the troll and pulled out a small enchanted knife. This was his latest purchase using his new wealth. It made collecting flesh ingredients easy. He quickly and precisely carved out 500 grams of the troll's flesh above its heart. Usually people just kill them to collect their ingredients but Magnus saw no need to do so. He preferred to take what he wanted in a painless manner. Once he got what he wanted, he secured it and poured some Essence of Dittany on the flesh wound while muttering a healing spell. Troll's flesh might be magically resistant but that is from the outside in and not the other way around. Once the wound was perfectly closed and there was no trace of it, he even cleaned the troll up with a strong cleaning charm as a service. He removed the bindings and the troll wouldn't even know what happened. Well it might dream about it if it were a human, but who knew what trolls dreamt?

He set upon the return journey when all of a sudden, a massive acromantula dropped behind him from the treetop. 'Huh, they never learn,' Magnus let out a sigh. Before the giant spider could raise its front legs to intimidate like it usually would, it found itself lying upside down and its furry legs pinned to the ground. 'This should be third one this week? Oh well, more money for me.' The acromantula saw the little wizard pull out a container from inside his robe and had a bad feeling before it lost its consciousness. Magnus wouldn't just kill it of course. They are all walking money bags to him.