"What about you, Neville?"
Harry swore that if Neville also started talking about communicating with fish, he would go straight back to the common room and sleep until the hallucinations caused by excessive stress disappeared.
Fortunately, Neville's answer sounded much more normal.
And judging by his expression, he did not seem to understand what Luna had been talking about either.
"I used mana flow to guide the fish into the basket."
"Mana flow?"
Harry heard an entirely unfamiliar term.
"Mm... it means the flow of magic.. it's a little complicated. Professor White taught us. It's a technique used by ancient wizards."
Harry immediately understood.
Considering that Cedric was also from Hufflepuff, Harry felt he had already guessed what method Cedric had used.
Sure enough, after Harry described Cedric's actions, Neville confirmed that Cedric had also caught the fish by controlling the flow of magic.
Harry figured this flow of magic was probably an ancient version of the Summoning Charm, except it could be used without a wand.
He had to admit, that sounded pretty convenient.
At that moment, Rhys, Daphne, and Astoria happened to pass by them.
"You should open your trial rewards as soon as possible and see what you received. They'll be very useful in the later stages of the competition," Rhys told Daphne and Astoria.
When he noticed Harry and the others, he gave them a nod as well.
"Congratulations. Looks like all of you passed the trial."
"Rhys, you..." Harry began, only to stop halfway.
There were six of them here, and Rhys seemed to be the only one without a trial reward. Wouldn't asking him about it in front of everyone be rather hurtful?
Daphne and Astoria both looked at Harry, silently complaining that he had stopped asking.
They wanted to know the reason too!
"You want to ask why I didn't take part in the merfolk's trial?"
"Yes." Since Rhys had brought it up himself, Harry simply admitted it.
"Because the spell I was using was about to expire, so I needed to go up to the surface for some air."
Rhys gave an explanation that sounded perfectly reasonable, but anyone familiar with him would immediately know was complete nonsense.
Daphne and Astoria both blinked.
His spell was about to expire?
Please. The fish in the lake could suffocate before anything happened to him!
Still, the excuse successfully fooled Harry and Neville.
The group returned to the castle chatting and laughing.
No matter what, they had all passed this round of the competition with excellent results and could finally relax a little.
As for the next stage, that was something their future selves, one week from now, could worry about.
For now, all they needed to do was rest.
After eating a hot lunch in the Great Hall, the contestants finally felt as though all the energy they had lost in the Black Lake had been restored.
As Rhys was leaving the Great Hall, he sensed someone staring at him.
He stopped and looked back.
It was Luna.
"Is something wrong?"
Rhys had plenty of patience for this girl who possessed a faint trace of Ravenclaw's temperament.
"Earlier, outside, I felt like you weren't telling the truth."
Luna's blunt words amused Rhys.
"If I told you I simply couldn't be bothered to get the trial reward, would you believe me?"
"I would."
This time, Rhys was genuinely surprised.
For a moment, he found that he could not quite see through the young witch standing before him.
"So you followed me just to expose my lie?"
Luna shook her head.
"I just wanted to ask you something. When you mentioned the ancient merfolk kingdom, you seemed to really dislike those merfolk. Why?"
Luna was already being rather tactful.
At first, she had wanted to use the phrase "taking pleasure in their misfortune," but in the end she restrained herself.
Her personality had not remained completely unchanged during her years at Hogwarts.
"That's all?" Rhys raised an eyebrow.
He had thought Luna had something important to ask him.
"I'm a Slytherin, Luna. Isn't it perfectly normal for me to dislike those merfolk? Our common room is beneath the Black Lake, after all. If the merfolk were extremely powerful, Slytherin students wouldn't even be able to sleep peacefully."
Although it had been Rowena Ravenclaw who destroyed the ancient merfolk kingdom, among Hogwarts' four Houses, Slytherin had actually been the one that clashed with the merfolk most frequently.
After all, both the merfolk and Slytherin had always found their neighbour extremely irritating.
Rhys's words sent Luna into thought.
Her intuition told her that he was not lying.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be going."
After answering Luna's question, Rhys waved and quickly slipped away.
Luna wanted to stop him, but it was already too late.
Rhys had disappeared into the busy corridor.
She sighed softly.
She actually had one more question.
When she had seen him at the competition venue that day, had what he said been true?
But Luna felt that Rhys probably would not answer her.
She had a vague feeling that whatever Rhys had been doing inside the competition venue was something ordinary students like them could not even dream of.
Not long after returning to the common room, Daphne and Astoria brought back some information.
The reward for passing the merfolk's trial had to be collected from one of Hogwarts' greenhouses.
Rhys's reaction was extremely indifferent.
The word "greenhouse" alone was enough for him to understand what the reward was.
Sure enough, it was fruit from that tree again.
He had made the right choice by not bothering with the trial.
Still, driven by curiosity, he went to the greenhouse with Daphne and Astoria.
He wanted to see what kind of fruit would choose the two of them.
By the time the three arrived, quite a few contestants had already gathered inside the greenhouse.
It was obvious that everyone cared greatly about the rewards.
After all, they could directly affect the difficulty of the later stages.
Most of the contestants present had passed the merfolk's trial.
Someone like Rhys, who had not passed it but had still come along to watch, was extremely rare.
Not long after Rhys arrived, Professor Sprout appeared carrying a large flowerpot.
Inside it was the very transformation fruit tree that Rhys, Rowena, and Helga had poured so much effort into developing.
Helga had handed it over to Professor Sprout and asked her to distribute the trial rewards on her behalf.
Rhys was rather pleased about that.
After all, if Rowena had been present, she would definitely have mocked him mercilessly afterward and said something like, "Everyone here passed the trial. Why are you here?"
"Children, welcome. All of you are contestants who passed the merfolk's trial. Next, I will be distributing your rewards."
Professor Sprout gestured toward the tree.
"Your reward is the fruit growing on this tree!"
At those words, the contestants exchanged confused looks, unable to understand what exactly the professor had in mind.
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI