Rowena's attitude was very clear.
She intended to eliminate every contestant unworthy of participating during the first stage.
Only in the second stage would she begin increasing the difficulty of the trials and offering benefits to those who passed them.
"By the way, do you have data on the contestants?" Helga asked quietly.
She did not believe for a moment that Rowena had failed to leave a back door in the crystal balls.
"Of course. Let me see..."
Rowena took out a crystal ball identical to those carried by the contestants, placed her hand on it, and closed her eyes as she manipulated it.
"Among the Hogwarts contestants, Astoria Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass, Hermione Granger, and Cedric Diggory have completed the task..."
"Only those few?" Helga asked in astonishment.
The fact that Salazar was not among them was far too unreasonable.
What was that old snake doing?
"Oh! There's one more!"
Helga initially assumed that this would be the old snake currently using the name Rhys Lint.
Instead, Rowena spoke a name that left her somewhat incredulous.
"Neville Longbottom. I remember he's also a Hogwarts student, correct?"
Helga: ???
"Yes, but this is rather unbelievable..." Helga murmured.
Neville Longbottom had passed the main quest, while Salazar still had not.
She genuinely could not decide which fact surprised her more.
After explaining her impression of Neville Longbottom to Rowena, Helga sighed and admitted that she might have misjudged him.
Neville was no ordinary child.
He possessed qualities as precious as gold.
It was simply that, until now, those beautiful qualities had been hidden beneath an ordinary shell of stone, unable to reveal themselves.
'I hope this tournament can act like a grindstone, wearing away your ordinary shell and allowing you to truly transform.'
Helga sincerely prayed for Neville in her heart.
Rowena, however, felt nothing of the sort.
In her opinion, her test was already as easy as it could possibly be, practically an open-book exam. What was there to be proud of in passing something like that?
Salazar, on the other hand, was worth paying attention to, because he carried a far more important responsibility.
She hoped he was properly completing the task she had entrusted to him.
At that moment, Rowena's expression suddenly turned playful.
"What is it?" Helga noticed the change in her friend's expression.
"Someone is trying to crack the crystal ball."
"Who would be bold enough to do that?"
"Salazar."
"Then never mind."
Rowena understood that Salazar was probably trying to use the crystal ball to obtain information on the contestants, perhaps even communicate with them through it.
During her investigation, however, she discovered something very interesting.
Salazar's location overlapped with that of a contestant from the Mystic Society.
How amusing.
Rowena swore to the heavens that she genuinely had not tampered with the team assignments.
For that Mystic Society monk to end up in Salazar's group could only mean that his luck was unbelievably terrible.
"I should give Salazar something entertaining to deal with."
Without hesitation, Rowena began tampering with her own crystal ball.
Rhys felt that he was just about to crack the enchantments on the crystal ball.
The instant the spell gave way, his hand was violently knocked away from it.
"What happened?" Godric asked curiously from beside him.
Rhys remained silent for two seconds before telling him that he had received an electric shock.
Godric: ???
"Is that some kind of defensive mechanism built into the crystal ball?"
"No idea."
Rhys soon learned exactly what had happened, because Rowena's face appeared inside the crystal ball.
More precisely, it was the face of Aries.
"Salazar, you seem rather relaxed! Do you realise that several Hogwarts students have already completed the main quest? Even Neville Longbottom has finished it, yet yours still shows as incomplete. What exactly have you been doing all this time?"
That immediately irritated Rhys.
He had most likely been the very first person to complete the task.
Yet because he had failed to remove the dragon's heart, he now had to do it all over again.
Who could tolerate something like that?
After he vented his frustration, Rowena frowned.
"Perhaps you completed the task too quickly. The main quest probably hadn't even been issued at that point."
Rhys: "..."
"After all, under normal circumstances, no contestant would be sent directly into a dragon's lair."
Rhys: "..."
"Forget it. I can't be bothered arguing with you anymore. Things are a little troublesome. There are quite a lot of powerful beings in this alchemical world of yours..."
Rhys began counting them off on his fingers.
The Four Dragon Kings, the Pope, the Emperor, the Chief Mage, and possibly even gods.
It seemed there were far too many people he needed to fight.
Rowena fell silent on the other side of the crystal ball, to the point that Rhys briefly wondered whether the image transmission had frozen.
"Help me, Mr. Salazar!"
Rowena's voice came through the crystal ball.
Rhys froze.
Several seconds passed before he slowly said, "I forgot to mention that Godric is here too. You just can't see him because I summoned him with the Resurrection Stone ring."
This time, the image on the other side of the crystal ball cut off completely.
Rhys clicked his tongue and pulled up the locations of the remaining six Mystic Society monks through the crystal ball.
Then he noticed one position almost completely overlapping with Astoria's.
"Interesting. Let's start with this one."
Rhys closed his eyes and began meditating, silently tracing the Mystic Society monk's coordinates in his mind.
The next second, with a loud crack, he vanished from the tavern.
"Huff... huff..."
Astoria was breathing heavily, her face deathly pale.
Capricorn opposite her looked no better.
The clothing on his upper body had been completely shredded, and his skin was covered in scales. One arm hung at an unnatural angle by his side, clearly broken.
There was also a large hole in his abdomen, caused by an offensive spell stored in Astoria's necklace.
"Looks like... I'll have to risk everything..."
He forced out a smile uglier than crying, then completely released his control over the divine blood.
His aura began rising explosively.
The wound in his abdomen healed at astonishing speed, and even his broken arm reconnected itself.
The blood of the god awakened the potential within his body, drawing out every last trace of vitality he possessed.
Thirty seconds!
The battle had to be decided within thirty seconds!
Capricorn's gaze became incomparably sharp.
Seeing this, Astoria understood that the final confrontation had arrived.
She raised her wand as well.
Crack!
A sudden explosive sound echoed through the air.
Immediately afterwards, a figure appeared beside the monk.
Before Capricorn could react, a hole appeared in the middle of his forehead.
His rapidly rising aura stopped abruptly.
His life vanished with it.
Rhys had killed Capricorn.
After casually tossing the monk's corpse aside, Rhys smiled at Astoria.
"The hunt begins."
____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI