In Nicolas Flamel's guest study, the air was thick with the scent of old parchment and dry ink.
Alan's fingertips hovered just above a freshly organized manuscript — not quite touching it, yet somehow feeling the tremendous power that pulsed beneath its surface.
His entire attention was locked upon a single symbol.
It was an alchemical sigil of breathtaking complexity, formed from sharp angles and flowing curves, radiating a deep, elusive glow within his Mind Palace.
Its meaning alone was enough to make the heart of any modern wizard race.
"Spatial Folding."
Flamel's annotation beside it, penned in elegant, old-fashioned script, was simple yet profound — this symbol formed the theoretical foundation of Apparition.
It was not a spell in itself, but a description —
a cold, graceful expression of the universe's underlying rules.
It described how two points in three-dimensional space could be regarded as dots upon a two-dimensional surface —
and how that "sheet" could be folded, so the two dots overlapped.
Instantaneous movement.
A concept powerful enough to shatter one's understanding of reality.
Inside Alan's Mind Palace, a storm was brewing.
Thousands of topological models and Riemannian geometric functions were being constructed, simulated, and tested at a rate of billions per second.
He was attempting to recreate the very process of spatial folding — using nothing but the pure language of mathematics.
But every single simulation failed.
Every model he generated, every energy distribution chart, diverged wildly from the intrinsic logic contained within the ancient symbol.
The simulated space curvature was wrong.
The energy channeling pathways were unstable.
The coordinates of mental focus — hopelessly divergent.
Failure.
Complete and total failure.
A flood of red "ERROR" warnings flashed violently across his Mind Palace, shrieking in sharp, metallic tones.
Alan slowly closed his eyes, shutting out the torrent of corrupted data.
He leaned back against the wooden chair, feeling its cold, unyielding frame press against his back.
Where was the problem?
His model was sound.
His logical framework — built upon every known magical principle and the physics knowledge from his past life — was already near perfection.
And yet…
The answer surfaced, clear and undeniable.
He was missing the most crucial element.
Reality.
He lacked the raw, first-hand data that could only be captured in the precise instant of an actual spatial fold.
All his deductions were castles built in a vacuum — flawless in theory, meaningless in truth.
He was like someone trying to understand swimming by calculating Van der Waals forces, fluid pressure, and buoyancy equations —
perfect in numbers, but never once having touched the water.
"What one gains from paper will always remain shallow…"
An old line — from another world, long forgotten — echoed through his mind like the tolling of a distant bell.
He hadn't thought of that phrase in years.
But now, it struck him with thunderous force, shattering every wall within his thoughts.
Practice.
He needed to practice.
The spark began faintly — a flicker at the edge of reason —
but the moment it touched his ravenous thirst for knowledge, it ignited into an uncontrollable blaze.
A bold, almost mad idea took form within him.
He needed to personally experience Apparition —
not as an ordinary wizard learning a convenient travel spell…
No.
What he intended was far more dangerous — and infinitely more ambitious.
He would, in that fleeting instant of "transference," overclock his entire Mind Palace —
turning it into a hyper-speed processor and super-memory core capable of capturing the true data of space itself.
He was going to record and analyze, in real time, the entire process of spatial folding — the torrent of data so violent it could tear one's soul apart.
He wanted to use his own mental power to capture how space curvature, in that instant, warped from smoothness to infinity and back again; to trace the magic guiding that transformation — its vibrational frequency, its flowing path; and to pinpoint how the caster's consciousness anchored a three-dimensional coordinate in the void, fixing it as the destination.
Everything.
He wanted everything.
Alan was convinced that only by obtaining this raw, burning stream of first-hand experiential data could he hope to decipher the ancient sigil's hidden "source code of the world."
The very thought of it made his blood surge; his heart pounded heavily within his chest, each beat fueling this mad plan with unshakable resolve.
The standard Apparition course wouldn't begin until the students reached their sixth year.
He couldn't wait.
Five years — far too long.
Besides, he wasn't interested in a formal lesson or a polished technique.
He didn't care about "focus, determination, or calm."
What he needed was the experience itself — pure, unfiltered, tangible.
Alan's eyes snapped open.
He rose sharply to his feet; the chair screeched across the ancient stone floor in protest. Without a backward glance at the spread of manuscripts on the desk, he turned and strode out of Nicolas Flamel's guest room.
His footsteps struck the corridor floor in a steady, urgent rhythm — firm, resolute, echoing through the silence of the castle.
He had a very specific destination in mind.
There were a few people in Hogwarts — who were not only legally certified to perform side-along Apparition, but were also a true master of Spellcraft, one of these professors was a scholar standing at the very summit of Charms — someone whose boundless curiosity toward the unknown mirrored his own.
Someone who, just maybe, would understand — even support — a plan that to anyone else would seem indistinguishable from suicide.
Alan stopped before the office door of the Charms professor.
On the heavy oak surface gleamed a polished brass nameplate:
Professor Filius Flitwick.
Without hesitation, Alan raised his hand and knocked.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in," came Flitwick's high but clear voice from within.
Alan pushed open the door.
Behind a tower of books taller than himself, Professor Flitwick was perched on tiptoe, reaching for a volume from the top shelf. Seeing Alan, he smiled warmly.
"Ah, Alan! What can I do for you? If this is about your paper on the Simplification of Spell Models, I must say, it was quite—"
"Professor."
Alan interrupted softly — not loudly, but with a kind of unwavering intensity that cut straight through the air.
He didn't waste a single word.
Meeting Flitwick's eyes directly, those usually calm and rational pupils now blazed with a near-feverish fire — the kind of intellectual fervor that made even the diminutive Charms Master feel the heat.
"I need your help."
His tone was measured, each syllable carrying a precision that felt almost alchemical.
"I need you… to perform Apparition with me."
He paused — then, in a voice sharp and absolute, added two final words:
"Right now."
Flitwick's smile froze.
He stared at the first-year before him, this prodigy whose theories had already shaken Hogwarts more than once.
The book in his hand slipped and hit the floor with a dull thud — but he didn't even notice.
What on earth was this boy planning now?
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