The day after the judging concluded, Beauxbatons Castle welcomed a completely relaxing day of rest.
With all the competitive segments settled, everyone was just waiting for the award ceremony tomorrow to bring the grand event to a close.
The winter sun was warm and gentle. Lucien strolled alone through the magnificent campus. enjoying the rare leisure time, his pace much slower than usual.
He stopped frequently, pausing before landscapes that were either world-renowned or uniquely stylish.
The iconic Fountain of Beauty, the mermaid sculptures frolicking in the plaza fountain, the giant magical tapestries depicting the legends of Beauxbatons' founding, the ancient yew trees pruned into the shapes of unicorns glistening in the sunlight...
Lucien raised the old-fashioned film camera hanging around his neck with great interest, adjusted the angle, and pressed the shutter.
Click. Click.
Just like at Hogwarts, the dense magical enchantments at Beauxbatons caused most Muggle electronic devices to malfunction.
The only things that could work normally here were usually these classical models with relatively simple structures, relying on pure mechanics and basic principles.
The process of developing the photos also returned to the classics: it required a series of operations in a darkroom, including developing, stopping, and fixing.
However, the intervention of magic made the results completely different.
One only needed to use a special alchemical potion instead of ordinary chemicals during the final fixing stage, and the images recorded on the soaked photo paper would "come alive"—the people in the photos would smile and wave, the water in the fountain would cycle and ripple, and the leaves would sway gently in the breeze.
Aside from pure scenery, Lucien also made sure to include himself in the shots.
Sometimes he asked passing students to help press the shutter; other times, he used a Levitation Charm to suspend the camera in mid-air, set a timer, and quickly ran into the frame before striking a pose with a natural smile.
Lucien knew very well that what parents wanted to see wasn't the scenery in the photo, but the child within that scenery.
These photos would all be mailed back so that Aunt Penelope, far away at home, would know he was living happily in a foreign land.
Ding—Dududu—
A crisp ringing sound with a slightly comical trill came from his pocket.
Lucien pulled out the thin notebook and flipped open the cover.
What a coincidence.
The page shimmered with faint light; the person requesting the connection was none other than Aunt Penelope.
"Morning, Auntie." Lucien smiled and waved at the face gradually becoming clear on the page.
Aunt Penelope in the image was as beautiful and elegant as ever, but she didn't respond immediately. Even her expression was frozen, unchanging.
Lucien wasn't surprised. This was an unavoidable issue with cross-border real-time communication. After crossing such a vast distance and dealing with complex interference, the transmission of sound and image was unstable, often resulting in severe lag, delays, or even desynchronization.
Optimizing communication quality was indeed the urgent technical difficulty "SwiftSpeak" needed to solve next.
Lucien held the book patiently, waiting for it to buffer.
After about ten seconds or so, Penelope's gentle voice finally came through intermittently: "Morning... little Lucien. The wizarding... world is truly magical. Such a... lightweight book can actually... transmit images and sound..."
Her amazement was quite normal.
Although mobile phones and televisions existed in the Muggle world in this era, most were still at the stage of "brick phones" and bulky, heavy TV sets.
"SwiftSpeak," being lightweight, portable, and capable of real-time video communication, was like a smartphone from the future. It indeed surpassed the mainstream impression of current Muggle technology, seeming like a creation from years ahead.
Lucien walked slowly along the gravel path bathed in sunlight, chatting idly with his aunt through the choppy image and sound.
From time to time, he turned the "lens" of SwiftSpeak toward his surroundings, letting her see the soaring spires of Beauxbatons, the quiet crystal rose garden, or the silhouette of the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Actually, "SwiftSpeak" was designed for wizards and required a simple magical drive, but Lucien had custom-made a version for his aunt that didn't require magic.
This interaction reminded Lucien of an issue he had previously overlooked.
Some young wizards had parents who were Muggles and couldn't use the standard version of SwiftSpeak.
But the act of missing one's child didn't discriminate based on whether one possessed magic or not.
Muggle parents naturally wanted a more convenient way to contact their children studying at school as well.
So, designing a specific batch of "Special Edition SwiftSpeak" that required no extra magical manipulation was very necessary.