Link had a very, very long dream.
In the dream, Link once again saw the original owner of the body he now possessed.
The one who had the same name as him, but who should have sacrificed himself several years ago to save him and Emily, "Link."
Link watched him live a happy and joyful life under the protection of his parents.
Watched how confident and intelligent he was.
Watched how he was loved by everyone.
Within these scenes, Link even saw Dumbledore, and even Voldemort.
And right after that, the disaster arrived.
Amid shrill and painful screams, "Link" lost everything.
The father who once loved him the most turned into a demon and, without restraint, inflicted endless suffering upon him.
And in the end, that demon also transformed "Link" into another, even more terrifying demon.
Then he sacrificed himself as an offering to "Link."
After that, various floating messages slowly began drifting across the scenes Link saw.
These floating messages were somewhat similar to the "system notification messages" Link had seen before.
However, the messages he saw now were not written in the native language he was familiar with, but in another kind of symbols that humans simply could not understand, like chaotic scribbles.
These strange symbols drifted densely across Link's vision, like the branches of some parasitic vine constantly spreading.
As the branches spread, the scenes Link saw also began to speed up.
Link saw the drastic change in "Link's" personality.
Saw how "Link," unable to bear the humiliation, created Mike.
Saw Mike's insane behavior whenever he occasionally replaced "Link."
Until… that day, when Link's soul arrived.
Link replaced "Link" and took control of this body.
At the same time, the vines that had been spreading through Link's vision finally expanded to their limit.
Complex and vicious branches almost covered the entire scene.
Thump… Thump…
Link seemed to hear his own heartbeat.
With that steady rhythm, Link's vision, which had almost been completely covered by branches, finally began to change again.
Those branches and vines started twisting and wriggling continuously, and eventually formed something Link was extremely familiar with, the system panel.
Most importantly, on the system panel at that moment, the experience bars for all the spells Link had mastered were rising rapidly.
This rapid infusion of experience completely ignored the level limit restrictions of the spell system.
Those golden experience lock frames that appeared after spells reached LV5 seemed as if they had never existed at all, easily broken through by the massive amount of experience.
Even Link's LV6-level Replenishing Charm was no exception.
The experience bar that had already risen by one-third after observing Mike's battle surged upward rapidly, encountering almost no resistance and easily breaking past the limit.
Right after that, messages flooded in like a tide.
[RefillingCharm LV7 obtained!]
[Fiendfyre Curse LV6 obtained!]
[Killing Curse LV6 obtained!]
[Super-Sensory Charm LV6 obtained!]
[Occlumency LV7 obtained!]
[Flame Charm LV6 obtained!]
[Armor Protection Charm LV6 obtained!]
[Total Protection Charm LV6 obtained!]
———
Massive amounts of information rushed into Link's brain. Amid intense pain, Link's consciousness sank into darkness once again.
No one knew how much time passed. When Link woke up again, the first thing that came into his sight was the familiar ceiling of the Hogwarts hospital wing.
The entire ward was pitch black, and only the bright moonlight outside the window shone into the room through the thin gauze curtains, casting large shifting shadows on the wall.
Judging from the angle of the moonlight, it should be deep night now.
Emily and Cedric and the others were guarding beside his bed.
Emily had fallen asleep half-leaning on the edge of Link's bed with her arms as a pillow.
Cedric had made a simple bedroll on the floor near the door.
And outside the ward, Link could sense several familiar presences.
They should be keeping watch for him.
Link did not find John's presence among them.
This was actually unusual, because John had always considered himself Link's closest friend.
But Link was not surprised by this.
John snored when he slept, and it was extremely chaotic and irregular.
Link had been roommates with him for so many years and had suffered greatly because of it.
Later on, before going to sleep every time, Link even had to cast a Muffliato-type ear-blocking charm on himself in advance in order to fall asleep.
At a time like this, Emily naturally would not allow John to stay in the ward.
Link sighed.
Covered by a warm cotton blanket that carried a faint scent of lavender, he had no desire to move at all.
He did not call out to Emily or Cedric, but just stared blankly at the ceiling with an empty mind.
The moon shadows on the wall slowly moved, and finally disappeared, replaced by a patch of golden sunlight.
Under the light and floating touch of the thin sunlight, Emily beside Link's bed groaned and woke up.
She opened her red and swollen eyes and met Link's gaze directly.
This made the stretch she had only started halfway suddenly freeze.
Her pupils tightened, and her mouth opened slightly as if she wanted to say something, but her lips only produced faint sobbing sounds.
Tears fell continuously like pearls from a broken string, eventually joining together and soaking the bedsheet along the edge of the bed.
But Link shifted his gaze away from the silently crying Emily and moved it to the empty water cup on the bedside table.
Emily understood Link far too well.
She had lived with Link for so long that she knew his daily habits perfectly.
Just a slight change in his gaze was enough for her to understand what he meant.
She almost moved like an afterimage as she grabbed the cup, raised her wand to fill most of it with water, and then tremblingly brought the rim of the cup to Link's lips.
Link greedily replenished himself with water.
Only after drinking three full cups in a row did Link feel alive again.
He patted his stomach, feeling the liquid sloshing inside with gurgling sounds, and finally let out a long breath.
Only then did Emily finally recover from her earlier shock.
While quietly sobbing, she cautiously poked Link's cheek with her finger.
After confirming that Link was truly awake, she finally broke down and threw herself onto him, crying loudly.
This sudden pounce was a bit too much for Link, and he could not help letting out a muffled groan.
After all, his stomach was still full of water.
But feeling Emily's cold, trembling body in his arms, Link still reached out and hugged her tightly.
"Stop crying. I woke up, didn't I? I'm in great condition. There's nothing wrong with me."
At this point, Link suddenly paused, then raised the corners of his mouth and said, "No, to be precise, I feel like my condition right now is better than ever before!"
Hearing this, Emily lifted her tear-filled eyes and looked at Link.
Seeing his pale face, she felt that although there probably was nothing seriously wrong, there was no way he could be described as being in good condition, so she lowered her head again and cried loudly while rubbing her face against Link's chest.
As if she wanted to burrow into his body.
This made Link laugh loudly, because only he himself knew best.
What he said was absolutely the truth.
During the long period of unconsciousness just now, almost all the spells he possessed had increased by at least one level.
This even included those skills that had already reached LV5 and normally required golden skill points to continue upgrading.
Other lower-level spells such as the Imperius Curse did not receive this kind of breakthrough treatment, but they still increased by several levels in a row.
So many spell upgrades caused the upper limit of magical power inside Link's body to increase by nearly double.
The strength of his magic power also increased by nearly twenty percent compared to before.
Although these improvements did not look very impressive on the surface, once multiplied by Link's already enormous magical reserves and astonishing magical strength, they became extremely terrifying.
The current Link, although still not at the level of a legendary wizard in terms of fine control over magic power, was already almost equal to an ordinary legendary wizard in destructive power and magical reserves.
If Voldemort attacked again now, Link alone could fight Voldemort head-on and still retreat safely.
Not only that, those spells that broke past their level limits without using golden skill points also granted Link a large number of special abilities.
For example, Occlumency, the spell Link used most often.
After Occlumency upgraded again, this spell that sealed the mind underwent another mutation.
It completely merged with the also-upgraded Legilimency and became a form of perfect control over the brain.
Now Link could freely manipulate any single thought and any single memory inside his brain.
At first glance, this seemed like an ability every normal person possessed.
But in reality, ordinary people's so-called memories and thoughts were only human instincts.
These instincts had flaws.
The most typical feature was forgetting memories that were not very important.
However, this situation would absolutely never occur with the current Link.
In other words, Link had gained true perfect memory, and could also freely adjust his own mental state at will.
He could be happy whenever he wanted to be happy, sad whenever he wanted to be sad, and if he entered battle, he could instantly enter a lasting and efficient state of absolute rationality.
The most terrifying part was that this ability was not limited to himself.
For those who had not mastered Occlumency or who lacked strong willpower, Link was like a mind-controlling demon who could freely invade their brains and, without them realizing it at all, alter any of their memories and emotions.
There was also the Super-Sensory Charm.
This spell, which Link had mastered since his early school years, also underwent a qualitative change after reaching LV6.
It had already merged with Link's original mental power, evolving from simple extraordinary perception into a kind of mind's-eye ability similar to a sixth sense.
This ability was extremely overpowered. With the mind's-eye state activated, Link could almost predict every attack directed at him and respond in time.
But correspondingly, its limitations were also very large.
What this ability consumed was not pure magic power, but mixed energy mainly composed of mental power with magic power as a supplement, and the consumption rate was extremely high.
This meant Link could not keep it constantly activated like Occlumency, and could only switch it on briefly during battle.
Otherwise, once his mental power was exhausted, the result would be Link himself losing the ability to act and being left at the mercy of others.
At the same time, its effectiveness gradually decreased as the range expanded.
According to Link's current perception, the absolute defense zone of this mind's-eye ability was only a pitiful three meters or so.
Attacks beyond this range could still be sensed, but there would be delays, and the consumption of mental power would increase sharply.
Then there was the Replenishing Charm.
Its changes after reaching LV7 were basically the same as what had happened when the Sectumsempra upgraded before.
There was no essential transformation, but there had been great improvements in control range, control precision, and power.
Now Link could manipulate water vapor in a more detailed and deeper way.
For example, controlling atmospheric pressure through the movement and compression of water vapor.
Link was not very good at physics.
But even so, he clearly understood how terrifying this ability would be.
And this also revealed the fundamental difference between water control ability and curse power.
If the curse power evolved from the Sectumsempra was a warrior that pursued both offense and defense with strong destructive power and considerable defensive ability, then the water control ability evolved from the Replenishing Charm was an assassin that completely abandoned any defensive methods and pursued faster, more numerous, stronger, and more unpredictable attack methods at all costs.
By using atmospheric pressure, Link could now even kill someone without them realizing it at all.
Or create air cannons that directly produced explosive frontal damage.
And aside from these spells that Link was most familiar with, other spells such as the Killing Curse and Fiendfyre Curse also granted Link many additional abilities.
But these abilities would still require long-term digestion before he could understand them more deeply.
On the hospital bed, Link and Emily's playful interaction continued.
At first Emily still restrained herself because she was worried about Link's health.
But after confirming that Link had not lied to her, she could no longer hold back her emotions.
The two of them ended up playfully wrestling together on the bed, which woke Cedric who was sleeping on the floor nearby.
Cedric rubbed his eyes and sat up from the ground.
After looking at Link and Emily, his eyes turned red and he also became emotional.
But he was far more sensible than Emily.
Seeing Link and Emily having fun, he smiled knowingly and quietly left the ward.
In the current situation, he felt it was better to leave the space to Link and Emily.
As for himself, what he should do now was inform everyone as soon as possible that Link had woken up.
Of course, even after informing them, he should not let those people rush in directly. It would be best to wait another two hours.
Thinking about the endurance Link usually bragged about to them, Cedric made this decision with a mischievous grin.