Chapter 201. The Magical Menagerie. Part 1. Information.
While Nagini was absorbed in the film, Severus was turning over in his mind everything he had learned from Arnold.
In truth, he had already visited his prisoner. While Arnold was unconscious, Severus had walked through his memories at his leisure and found everything he needed. The entire performance afterward, including the wolves' reactions, had been staged simply to rattle the wizard and apply pressure, while also giving him the confidence that he had managed to conceal a great deal. Only then would the Black Star's leader spare no effort to find a way to remove the mark. It would also serve as an incentive to accelerate the excavations in Egypt, in the hope of finding an answer in the past.
About the organization itself, Arnold knew nearly everything, with two exceptions. He didn't know who had founded it or when, and he didn't know where the mask, the one passed down from leader to leader, came from.
He had found nothing in the older records, which was exactly why Arnold had taken an immediate interest on the day Severus mentioned having seen something similar.
Even so, Arnold had managed to find one thing: matching runes on a clay tablet discovered at an auction in Greece. It dated back just over three and a half thousand years, but he had never been able to decipher what was carved on it, even after bringing in the best Muggle and wizarding archaeologists, linguists, historians, and paleographers he could find.
Even Flamel had been unable to help. Arnold had also intended to contact ihiros on the matter through Severus, once he had established a closer rapport with him. That had been yet another reason he had offered Severus the deputy position in the Copper division so readily.
Arnold had spent long decades studying the mask and its runes, convinced that something great lay behind them: something that could make him even stronger, allow him to break through the human limit, and reach an entirely different level of power, comparable to the wizards of antiquity.
His instincts had not led him astray: the means of becoming stronger had been right in front of him the entire time, on that very tablet.
Carved into it was a theory about the magical core, along with a method for strengthening it and even a ritual designed specifically for that purpose, similar to the one Severus himself had used, though several times less powerful. Still, it was capable of elevating a wizard to the peak rank of Magister in two hundred to two hundred and twenty years, which for this world was nothing short of a miracle. Arnold was already two hundred and forty-five and only at the mid-rank of Magister. To reach the peak, he would need to break through one more stage, which could easily take another hundred years or more. And there was no guarantee he would even live to see it. The elixirs that had kept him alive this long lost their potency with repeated use, and even if he survived long enough to reach the peak, he would gain twenty years at most, because his improperly developed core barely extended his lifespan as it should.
In the world Severus had come from, wizards who had just reached the rank of Magister could already live to be three hundred. Those who reached the peak could live to be nine hundred, and some exceptional cases exceeded a thousand, though most never reached that age by choice. Archmages could live to be around two and a half thousand, though the true upper limit remained unknown for the same reason. The same applied to Grand Archmages. Information on the Creators was sparse and much debated. Some claimed they were immortal, others set the limit at a hundred thousand years, and still others at around fifty thousand. No definitive answer existed.
Besides the tablet, Arnold had also found two books in the same language, as well as several artifacts, though they no longer functioned and were fairly mediocre. Judging by their quality, they appeared to be the work of wizards from this world, so they didn't interest Severus much. One book, however, caught his attention: its cover bore only a single word: History.
He made a mental note to collect it from Arnold at their next meeting. There was simply no time for it now. First, he wanted to deal with the ritual, along with the other matters weighing on him, and after that he could set aside time for the book.
The reason the Black Star's leader had come to this country was expansion: absorbing the Golden Dragon, replacing its leadership through the mask, then using them to reach the other factions, pitting the two largest against each other, and destroying them once they were weakened.
That had been the plan, but Severus's interference had ruined everything. A full year of preparation had gone straight down the drain, leaving Arnold no choice but to leave the country and return to headquarters, cursing the "pale-faced bastard" the entire way.
As for the organization itself, Severus had not learned much that was new. Lavr, the deputy leader of the Gold division, which handled intelligence and assassination, had already shared a substantial amount of information. What Severus had extracted from his recent prisoner mostly filled in the gaps, primarily concerning the Diamond division, led by another mid-rank Magister, a Necromancer only slightly weaker than Arnold.
But beyond all that, Severus had found something else of interest: information concerning the Queens, the organization that had recently attacked the Blacks and the MacMillans, and wounded his house-elf.
And yes, as he had suspected, that attack had not happened without Arnold's approval. Someone had paid him very handsomely to stay out of it, and the arrangement had suited Arnold just fine. He'd wanted to test how strong ihiros actually was. In the worst case, the Black Star would have entered the fight directly. Their wizards had been stationed less than a kilometer from the house during the attack and had observed the whole thing.
As for the Queens themselves, even Arnold knew very little. They guarded their secrets too well. But he did know something about Team One, their strongest unit, which the commander of the Diamond division had encountered in the field once, in a battle he had nearly lost. Beyond that, Arnold was aware of seventeen other teams, most led by wizards who matched the Black Star's division captains in strength, while the top three contained nothing but monsters equal to division commanders and their deputies.
Arnold simply didn't have any more detailed information: their plans, the precise location of their headquarters. That didn't trouble Severus much. He had no intention of charging headlong across a continent to pick a fight with the Queens. He had his own affairs, which mattered considerably more than some organization on the other side of the world.
"What are you thinking about?" Nagini tilted her head, giving him a puzzled look. The film had ended.
"An hour and a half already?" Severus looked at the rolling credits with genuine surprise. "I must have gotten lost in thought," he murmured with mild embarrassment, then turned to Nagini with a soft smile. "I was thinking about tomorrow's meeting. Nothing more."
"Fine. Then as a penalty, we're watching another film." She pointed her tail at him with a firm, highly displeased expression. "And you are watching it with me."
"Ahem. Ahem."
"All right, all right, my little tyrant." He held back laughter with some effort as another cassette appeared in his hand, bearing the title: Prisoner of the Caucasus. "I was told it has the same actors as the last one. I think it's worth a watch."
"Absolutely! That film was genuinely interesting and funny!" Nagini nodded with enthusiasm, which looked entirely too endearing. Unable to help himself, Severus stroked the top of her head as he slotted the next cassette into the player.
Early the following morning, Severus left the hotel. Nagini was still asleep after the night's film marathon. He made his way toward a shop dealing in magical creatures.
They had visited it the day before, but the creatures he was looking for hadn't been available. When he asked where they could be obtained, the seller had told him they simply weren't sold "here," placing particular emphasis on that last word, and had mentioned an opening time of "7:17," though the sign on the door clearly read 6:30. A quiet read of the man's thoughts had revealed the existence of an underground shop beneath the main store, one that opened at exactly 7:17, not a minute before or after.
The Phoenix and the Qilin were both banned from sale throughout Magical China, considered sacred animals not to be touched, while dragons were classified as third-level dangerous magical creatures, the highest in the country, and could not be sold to an ordinary wizard without special authorization.
Severus cared very little whether the operation was legal or not. But if the market's owners and the relevant departments of the magical government weren't both taking a cut, it seemed unlikely the whole thing would be running so openly under their noses. It was a simple "semi-legal" business, no different in principle from the slave trade that had existed in his own world. That was why he felt so indifferent to the poaching and the animal trafficking.
He reached the shop fairly quickly. Stopping outside, he drew out his pocket watch: 7:16. Exactly one minute to go. While he waited, another figure approached and stood beside him without a word, similarly wrapped in a robe. After a few seconds, a faint smile appeared at the corner of Severus's mouth.
It seems this place isn't entirely rotten through. There are still some worthy wizards here. But why do I keep getting pulled into other people's business? He let out a tired breath and stepped inside. The shop greeted him just as before, filled with various creatures and sounds ranging from barking to chirping to croaking.
The shop sold various reptiles and even insects. One cage held ten Saint Bernard puppies of different coat colors. Others held kittens, snakes, strange birds that looked like parrots but had crow-like beaks, peculiar toads standing on their front legs with crystals set into their foreheads, fire salamanders and common salamanders no bigger than a palm, and in an aquarium on a small island, several tortoises with glittering gemstones inlaid into their shells.
That was only a fraction of the inhabitants filling the bright, cage-lined shop. Behind the counter sat a kindly-looking elderly man in a green robe with blue patterns and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder. He had a short white beard, a small bald patch on his forehead, and around his neck hung a vial of glowing golden liquid that resembled a luck potion. His wrinkled face had a pair of dark, warmly expressive eyes, and a small bird resembling a bullfinch perched on his shoulder.
It was a perfect image of a benevolent old man. No one would have suspected for a moment that behind that face was a committed poacher with no scruples whatsoever when it came to profit.
"Good morning. I'm here about our conversation yesterday."
"Oh-ho-ho, yes, yes. I remember." He grinned and set two magical contracts on the counter. "Sign the non-disclosure agreement and follow me. You're in luck today. We had a fresh delivery of new residents just yesterday."
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