The metallic clatter of armour echoed through the space.
Sterling rarely showed a shocked expression, but now he stared openly at Ron standing before him in a suit of armour that seemed far too large for his slight frame.
Silver light flashed across the bright armour's surface. Ron smiled, removing his half-covering helmet, then half-knelt to grasp Sterling's hand and pulled him up with surprising force.
Sterling immediately opened magical vision. Ron's body bore bright golden threads—he was the real Ron Weasley.
"What happened to you?"
"Don't even mention it!" Ron said, and that serious, dignified air completely dissipated.
His brow furrowed deeply.
"Sterling, what did you encounter after entering here? I woke up in a small town, and after just a few days I was attacked by a group of bandits!"
Ron's eyes blazed with fury, but surprisingly, not a trace of fear.
"I don't know why I couldn't use magic! Merlin's beard, no matter how I waved my wand, I couldn't cast a single spell! I fought off bandits' machetes with my wand—ha, might as well have used my fists!"
"But Ron, your strength—"
"Yeah, on my own I wouldn't have stood a chance. I didn't beat a single bandit. If the leader hadn't thought my wand was just a random stick I'd picked up, it would've been broken that day."
Ron pursed his lips, pulling from the hide pouch at his waist his battered-looking wand. Honestly, Sterling felt this wasn't much different from being broken. Probably just one forceful wave and it would be done for—or rather, snap on the spot.
"Then how did you—"
"You finally asked the key question, Sterling!" Ron seemed to have been waiting for this. He instantly straightened his back, putting on a solemn expression completely at odds with his usual demeanour.
He spoke slowly: "Let me tell the story of the King—"
"Long story short." Sterling's tone was firm. "I must remind you, one day in this place very likely equals one month in the present—I mean normal time."
Ron rubbed his head where Sterling had knocked it, looking shocked.
"Blimey, your strength! All this time I've been training my body—how does your knock still hurt this much?"
Of course it does. Sterling had deliberately restrained himself before.
Sterling also silently praised Ron's current physical condition. That force just now, applied to pre-Avalon Ron, would have already knocked him unconscious.
"Never mind, continue with what happened to you."
"Alright, alright—later, there appeared this radiant, glorious, merciful, brave knight!"
Ron's eyes shone with genuine admiration.
"He alone with his lance drove away all the bandits, saving the entire town. He said my talent was rare, that I could follow him and become his squire! Then I began learning from him. While training and searching for you, Hermione and Harry, I was fighting an ugly monster when I accidentally fell into a water pool, then appeared here."
"So you were rescued by a wandering knight."
"No!" Ron's voice rose louder than Sterling had ever heard before.
"He's no wandering knight! He has so many followers—not just me, a large army obeys his commands! Supposedly his most loyal, capable follower has a famous name, called something... something Round Table—something order—"
No way. Sterling's pulse quickened. "Knights of the Round Table?"
"Right, right, that's it! Knights of the Round Table—wait, Knights of the Round Table?!"
Ron showed sudden realisation, then overwhelming excitement and pride flooded his features. He grasped Sterling's hand, shaking it enthusiastically. If not for lacking Sterling's strength, he might have tossed Sterling into the air.
"It's that Knights of the Round Table! The knighthood led by King Arthur! I mean—didn't you say this is Avalon? Also from King Arthur legends. Sterling, do you think maybe I was rescued by the real King Arthur and studied beside him all this time?"
"In that case, the initial bandit attack was Merlin's test for me... Ha! Looks like I passed Merlin's test, officially obtaining King Arthur's treasure hidden in Avalon..."
Ron was completely carried away by his fantasy, lost in his own world.
After all, this was Utopia—everything inside consisted of "fakes". However, perhaps under the Queen's arrangement, he'd truly experienced a small, unremarkable segment of King Arthur's life.
What he'd learnt from this experience and the physique he'd gained weren't false, though.
Sterling patted his shoulder armour, snapping him out of his fantasies of "becoming the new King Ron, leading Hogwarts to greatness again."
"I'm sorry, but I must remind you—perhaps you experienced magnificent days, but remember where we are now? Not Avalon proper, but the Utopia trapping Harry."
"Meaning—" The words died on Ron's lips as he grasped Sterling's implication, then dejectedly lowered his head.
"Don't be too disappointed. Your body is genuinely much better than before—this has been truly worthwhile."
Sterling patted Ron's wrist exposed outside the armour. Ron instantly grimaced in pain. Sterling smiled somewhat awkwardly.
"Why do I feel no different... Being hit by you still hurts this much."
"You're growing—and I'm meant to stand still?" Sterling waved his spotlessly clean wand, which stood in stark contrast to Ron's battered one.
"Moreover—right, you couldn't use magic then. Didn't you ever review magical theory there?"
"This... I don't know if it counts—" Ron hesitated a moment, extending his right hand and closing his eyes. "Hit me with full force, or—"
Ron instantly collapsed to the ground, his arms wrapped around his stomach, eyes watering.
"You requested it," Sterling said mildly, shaking his somewhat sore wrist.
The quality of Ron's armour was impressive—he actually hadn't punched through it. He'd once accidentally punched through a cauldron whilst stirring potions.
"Why did you suddenly ask me to hit you? Demonstrating something? Resistance to blows?"
"Yes—right hand—use the right hand!"
Ron said through gritted teeth. He silently decided never to arm-wrestle Sterling in Utopia again—he only now knew how much Sterling had held back with him and Harry before.
Merlin's triangular pants! While following King Arthur, he'd been struck full force by a lion-headed, snake-tailed monster's claw. He hadn't felt as much pain then as now!
Is this human? Is this really still human?
Ron covered his stomach and stood up, again extending his right hand. This time his wording was far more precise.
"At this fist—just the fist, not including wrist and forearm—punch hard or use first-to-second-year range magic."
Sterling nodded, casting Incendio.
"This power isn't second-year range—I should've limited it more strictly—"
Ron muttered but showed no pain from the flame burns.
His palm extended freely in the flames. The longer the exposure, the brighter the gauntlet's silver light became.
Finally, Ron closed his palm into a fist, extinguishing all flames within his grasp.
"How about that? I'm amazing, right! This was taught by one of the Knights of the Round Table. He didn't tell me his name, though. I only remember his hair seemed purple, then he was very burly. Supposedly a very strong knight."
"Is it the armour?"
Sterling saw through the mystery at a glance—it was actually because that Incendio was a spell he'd cast himself, and through his magical connection, Scholar of Stars could analyse everything.
Merlin's beard! How could such a ridiculously useful ability as Scholar Magic exist in the world?
"Your gauntlet—no, probably your whole suit of armour isn't real armour, is it? It's condensed magic power?"
"No, it doesn't feel like Magic Power Shaping." Sterling quickly denied his own hypothesis. In Scholar of Stars' analysis, this gauntlet's magic power content wasn't high enough—it couldn't be Magic Power Shaping.
Sterling reckoned if the whole-body armour's magic consumption was similar to the gauntlet's, this magic might be maintainable like Scholar of Stars. Judging by Ron's appearance and how accustomed he seemed to wearing the armour, it was highly likely.
"I can't really explain what this is. That knight only taught me how to use it; he didn't tell me specifically what it was. And what's strange is that the magic he taught me, I actually couldn't learn at all."
Ron scratched his head in confusion.
"No matter how I studied, I couldn't learn it. Like... like it wasn't even the same type of magic."
"Later whilst secretly practising, a silver-haired, purple-eyed man saw me, then spent an afternoon helping me... He said he adapted this magic for me to use—but it still has significant differences from the original the knight taught me."
"Right, that knight also gave me something—looks somewhat odd. That thing stuck to my ankle and won't come off."
Speaking, Ron removed his left foot's war boot, revealing a crossed shield and spear pattern on his ankle—but it wasn't complete. The shield was just a faint framework; the spear's shaft was also missing pieces.
This appearance—this was—
"An engraving? A broken engraving?"
Sterling looked at it in surprise. This was extremely similar to what Headmaster Dumbledore had once shown him—the "Sage Magic" engraving he'd completed by filling it with Transfiguration.
Dumbledore's engraving was a cross-star circled by a ring on his back. Many places on the ring and cross-star were red, different from the engraving's original gold.
Red parts were Transfiguration filling. If you removed the filling, Dumbledore's engraving differed from Ron's mark only in shape.
Too strange. According to Dumbledore, this engraving was clearly the "proof of advancement" after reaching a wizard's limits.
Ron, at wizard limits?
What a ridiculous joke. It felt like something that could buy out the Daily Prophet with manuscript fees if placed in The Quibbler's joke section.
"Right, Sterling, do you have a way to make this thing disappear—or be invisible for a while? After going home, if Mum sees this thing on my foot—"
Ron pinched his voice into a falsetto.
"Ronald Weasley! You've gone bad! Tattooing things on your body!"
"This kind of thing might need asking Professor Dumbledore—if he's at Hogwarts when we return."
Sterling deflected with one sentence. Suddenly inspiration flashed through his mind.
Wait. Engravings are "proof of advancement", but what's the process of obtaining engravings?
Finding Avalon's traces in the present world, glimpsing Avalon's gates, then receiving a "broken engraving".
If a present-world person directly entered Avalon—in that case, obtaining an engraving didn't seem surprising at all.
This way, Ron saying he couldn't learn that knight's taught magic no matter what made perfect sense.
Present-world people couldn't learn true Avalonian Thirteen Magics.
Even engravings, after being filled, could only grant the filling magic some Thirteen Magic characteristics.
So without that passing wizard's help, Ron genuinely couldn't have learnt this magic.
Sterling tentatively called it "Knight Magic".
As for why that wizard was Merlin—obviously, silver hair and purple eyes beside King Arthur, plus terrifyingly high magical accomplishments—who else but Merlin?
"Ron, what exactly is this magic's effect?"
"Let me think—" Ron lowered his head, counting on his fingers one by one.
"Can create armour—but this armour seems—how to say, always one piece from start to finish. If this creation receives damage, the next creation will still have that damage."
"But damage can be repaired—when I'm very determined to do something, the armour starts self-repairing."
"When protected by armour, if I concentrate magic power, I can achieve really amazing protective effects—don't look at me like that! I just concentrated magic power on my hand. Otherwise, even without concentrating on my stomach, I definitely wouldn't have been knocked down by one punch... right?"
Be more confident when you say it, Sterling thought.
He shook his head wordlessly.
This miraculous effect, related to will and such—definitely some Thirteen Magic partial effects, no mistake.
"Ron, you're very lucky."
"Huh?" Ron looked confused.
"Nothing." Sterling smiled, not knowing what expression Dumbledore would show when they returned and told him—Sterling had heard him mention how desperately he'd searched for Avalon in Jerusalem.