Study Days at Hogwarts

On the podium at the venue, a well-known alchemist, about sixty years old, was speaking in broken English about the slow development and decline of alchemy in recent years. Albert's eyelids trembled when he heard this. So, I almost closed my eyes and fell asleep.

This morning, Albert still woke up in the dark. Even though he had just drank a large cup of strong tea, he still couldn't stop feeling sleepy and yawned.

Isobel, who was sitting next to him, was no better. Katherine and Valeria looked like they might fall asleep at any time.

As if to keep themselves awake, many wizards who came to this meeting were whispering. The middle-aged wizard on the stage used a microphone to amplify his voice, otherwise it would probably be embarrassing.

"Mr. Serra, has Professor Dumbledore basically stopped attending the International Alchemy Congress since he won the Gold Medal for Pioneering Contributions at the Cairo International Alchemy Congress?"

In order to prevent himself from falling asleep, Albert planned to find someone to chat with, and he also heard something from the words of the middle-aged wizard on the stage.

"Not sure. However, in recent decades, I have indeed never seen Dumbledore attend the International Alchemy Conference." Serra was not too surprised. He could actually guess the reason.

The guy on the stage was slobbering about how to promote the development of alchemy, but were those words really useful?

In Albert's view, the old guys on stage should bear most of the responsibility for the decline of alchemy.

Moreover, just nagging there for a long time will only produce a lot of nonsense. If the leader fails to fulfill his responsibilities and does all kinds of disgusting things, alchemy will naturally become what it is now. Looks like a ghost.

Especially they like to suppress newcomers. Many older and experienced wizards like this kind of nonsense, but they forget that they are old. Most of them are not able to accept new things and have insufficient ability in innovation.

Without innovation and enterprising people ahead to pave the way for everyone, the development of alchemy will naturally become very slow.

The group of people on stage are naturally aware of it, but sometimes for their own benefit, sometimes people will do it even if they know it is wrong.

Take the Barnabus Finkley Award for Excellence in Spellcasting that Albert recently won. Someone shamelessly filed a formal complaint to the International Federation of Wizards. If it were an ordinary wizard, he would probably be in a very awkward situation.

There is a saying: Underage wizards are not wizards.

Moreover, Albert is still underage, and underage wizards basically have no right to speak.

However, he has a lot of halos on his head, and he has just announced a humanoid restoration spell that will help wizards and werewolves solve their problems. The Wildsmith family used their connections to help him get it done, and the matter ended quietly, otherwise God knows what trouble would have happened.

While a few people were chatting, several staff members were distributing a new alchemy book to the members in the venue. The International Alchemy Congress was obviously not just shouting slogans on the side, they re-wrote alchemy-related books. Textbooks.

However, after seeing the price of this book, Albert wondered if these people were making money by selling the book, because this book was not cheap, at least not as cheap as a textbook.

If you really want to popularize alchemy, the price should at least be cheaper.

Although it is undeniable that the writing of this book is actually quite good, and it is basically more formal than the one Albert bought the day before yesterday, but that's all.

I don’t know when the speaker on the stage was replaced by a wizard who was about fifty years old. This time the topic was the use of alchemy. However, I don’t know whether it was due to lack of preparation or other reasons. The topic he talked about was very fragmented, and it was very short. It only lasted about a quarter of an hour, which was indeed shorter than the previous speaker who spoke for almost an hour.

Albert felt that what this person probably wanted to express was that alchemy should be made practical and applied to life, rather than just a record on parchment. He believed that when alchemy is better used, can better promote the development of alchemy.

However, in the eyes of most people, these are empty words, because everyone will try their best to transform their alchemical results into tangible and tangible benefits.

After this person finished speaking, and the third, fourth, and fifth people finished talking nonsense, everyone's patience was almost exhausted by them. The organizer seemed to know this very well. . So, the meeting was finally suspended, allowing everyone to go have something to eat, chat with others and rest for a while, before continuing to announce the outstanding works that emerged from this year's International Alchemy Conference.

"Ha, it's so boring, I almost fell asleep." Valeria muttered quietly.

In fact, she had no intention of coming over to attend today's meeting, but she was forced to come over by Kathleen this morning and was in trouble.

"Is it boring?" Kathleen asked.

"Aren't you bored?" Valeria asked Albert and Isobel.

"Not bad." Albert said.

"What do you mean it's okay?" Valeria said dissatisfied, "I almost saw you fell asleep."

"Actually, if you can understand it, you will actually find it quite interesting." Kathleen said meaningfully.

"What do you understand?" Valeria asked suspiciously.

"The shamelessness of adults." Albert stretched out his hand to cover his face and said, "Oh, I almost forgot, I am the only one here who is not an adult. What a hell. However, the opportunity to see the shameless faces of those people is actually It’s quite rare.”

"Are you trying to imply that we are old?" Valeria asked with a pout.

At this moment, an old man came over.

"Congratulations, Mr. Anderson, you won the Gold Medal for Pioneering Contribution at this Cairo International Alchemy Conference." The old man smiled and congratulated Albert, but Albert somehow felt that the old man's smile in front of him was hypocritical, "But , please keep this confidential first, and prepare the speech scripts you will need to use on stage next. We hope you can share some of your personal insights on alchemy and contribute to broadening everyone’s thinking.”

"I understand." Albert nodded to indicate that he understood.

"My name is Richard." The old man didn't seem to intend to leave immediately, but took the initiative to chat with Albert, "Maybe you don't know me, but I heard other French colleagues mention you."

"Hello Mr. Charles." Albert raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he was recalling where he had seen this name.

When he saw Isobel pointing towards the book in her hand, Albert remembered who this person was.

Charles Brick.

The author of the textbook "The Development and Research of Modern Alchemy".

""Development and Research of Modern Alchemy"?" Albert asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, that's what I wrote. What do you think of that book?" Charles was very satisfied that Albert recognized him.

"There is no alchemy course at Hogwarts." Albert suddenly said, "Although most wizards have heard of alchemy, they don't know what alchemy is, just like wizards who have never studied transfiguration. , mixing spells with transfiguration."

Charles raised his eyebrows slightly, but he was still ready to listen to Albert's words. Maybe the other person's words were not a compliment, but at least they expressed his views more clearly.

"The Development and Research of Modern Alchemy is too superficial for people who understand alchemy, but it is really difficult for people who have not even started to understand alchemy." Albert simply said that he had read the book The feeling of this book.

"Do you think "The Development and Research of Modern Alchemy" is useless?" Charles's expression became a little subtle, "I wonder what suggestions you have?"

"I suggest you publish a simpler alchemy book to introduce alchemy to wizards who don't understand alchemy and lead them to open the door of alchemy. Then this book can be placed in the middle and then published. A more difficult alchemy book can be regarded as a set of teaching materials.”

"You seem to know a lot about this matter." Charles was a little curious and was not angry at Albert's words. He was also considering the feasibility of that suggestion.

"My girlfriend is currently compiling textbooks on ancient magic texts, and I am helping her organize these things." Albert said with a smile.

Charles glanced at Isobel, nodded slightly towards Albert and said, "I will consider your suggestion carefully."

Richard had to admit that what Albert said made sense, because except for the countries around Egypt, many schools actually did not have alchemy classes, even in France where there had been alchemy masters like Nico Mele. There is no alchemy class.

"You don't seem to like him very much." Sierra asked with interest as she looked at Richard's leaving back.

"He feels very hypocritical to me." Albert commented without thinking.

"You are right, that is indeed a hypocritical guy. In fact, most people are hypocritical." Nicholas was not surprised at all. "As long as you are valuable, they never mind being hypocritical. That guy is also the Honorary Vice President of the Alchemy Research Center, and he helped write the "Development and Research of Modern Alchemy". Although it looks more formal, to be honest, the book is really average. However, you can get We have to thank him for the Pioneering Contribution Gold Award, they originally wanted Aria to win the award."

Several other people were no longer sleepy, and their curiosity suddenly aroused, and they all came over to listen to the twists and turns of the story.

"That Mr. Richard thinks that your alchemy results are valuable and may be used in some places in the future, and Aria's magic transmitter is difficult to be widely used. Of course, it is also related to what happened yesterday. They all realized that you have met many famous alchemists and have countless dazzling halos above your head. They gave you the Gold Medal for Pioneering Contribution at the Cairo International Alchemy Conference. Your completion can be used as a gimmick for publicity. You are the youngest recipient in history. Just like the last time you won the Barnabus Finkley Award for Excellent Spellcasting Techniques, you can use this to increase the visibility of the International Alchemy Congress."

"Of course, the most important thing is that you are still young and have investment value. At least you are a good friend. It is undeniable that you can actually make friends with people like Mr. Richard."

"The adult world is really complicated!" Albert couldn't help but joked.

In the afternoon, no one continued to waste everyone's precious time on the stage. They neatly displayed the alchemy results of the twelve participating contestants.

Albert came in seventh.

The first contestant is a middle-aged man. He used alchemy to extract and create a small pill similar to a tranquilizer. It is not as effective as a tranquilizer, but the pill is easier to store and carry, and it is also effective. It can be used to deal with some comparisons. Emergency situation.

The second contestant was a man in his thirties. He used alchemy to create a pair of multifunctional glasses that enabled the wearer to see objects clearly in the dark. It was said that he also had the ability to see through invisibility. However, these technologies have actually been around for a long time, and are not regarded as alchemical achievements by many people.

The third one is a witch under thirty years old. She extracted the essence from gilly grass and prepared an alchemical potion that claimed to allow people to breathe underwater. As a result, many people think that this approach is extremely wasteful of gillycyst grass, and it is completely unnecessary to take off your pants and fart.

The fourth place is Aria. His magic message machine is favored by many people because it seems to be able to transmit information across long distances and is very helpful for cross-border communications.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh Albert, his portrait and alchemy results were played on the projector, and there was a small whisper in the audience. The flying ointment is indeed relatively new, but that's it, because This thing has no use at all at present, but there is no doubt that it is useful.

However, what most people paid attention to was not the flying ointment, but Albert's age, because he was actually underage.