"Alright, Hog, activate the rune. Aim and shoot. Target that stone you just threw," Alan commanded.
"Understood, sir!" Hog replied. He concentrated, channeling his magic into the intricately patterned rune.
As the device engaged, the fist-sized metal sphere on his back floated upward, a wand slightly longer than the sphere itself clicking into place at the front. To be honest, the floating turret looked a bit ridiculous—like a horizontally oriented piece of candied hawthorn.
"Sir, a light spot has appeared in my vision. Is this what I use to aim?" Hog asked, noticing a crosshair manifesting on his goggles. He found he could move it freely with his mental focus.
"That's right. For the first test, be cautious. Lock onto the target for three seconds before firing," Alan reminded him carefully.
"Yes, sir... wait." Hog tilted his head. "Why did the light spot suddenly turn into a red cross? It was a green crosshair a second ago."
"You idiot," Alan muttered, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. "You lifted your head too high and blocked the muzzle. If you had fired just now, the first thing you would have hit was the back of your own skull."
Hog had been so focused on the HUD in his goggles that he had instinctively craned his neck up. He broke out in a cold sweat, quickly lowered his head, and resumed his meticulous aiming.
"Sir, should I fire? This posture should be fine now, right?" Hog asked, sounding much less certain.
Alan looked at Hog, whose rear was sticking up in the air and whose chin was nearly touching the dirt, and felt a wave of speechlessness. *Did he really need to be this afraid of a misfire?* He nodded. "Fire away. Don't worry, the spell I've loaded isn't world-breaking. You won't die from friendly fire."
"Okay, firing!"
Hog concentrated, flooding the vest with magic. The turret on his back trembled, silver-blue electrical discharge dancing across its surface. With a sharp crack, a bolt of concentrated lightning lanced out, striking the distant stone.
A loud bang echoed through the clearing. The stone was instantly blasted apart, fragments of rock whistling through the air and peppered the trees ten meters away.
"Sir... you call that 'not very powerful'?" Hog asked, his legs feeling a bit like jelly. If that had hit his head, he would have been vaporized.
"It's just a standard Beam Lightning rune. Against a living target, it mostly causes paralysis and localized burns. Unless I hit a vital organ, it would take two or three of those to actually kill a werewolf. What are you panicking about?" Alan said, dismissively waving a hand.
Hog stared at him, speechless. A spell that could drop a werewolf in three shots was "ordinary"? He realized Alan's baseline for "powerful" was drastically skewed compared to the rest of the world.
"Anyway, the test was a success. Spend your free time getting familiar with the harness. This is just the prototype; I'll be adding more modules later—an Apparition anchor, and a utility belt for throwable charms."
Alan ignored Hog's traumatized expression and shifted his gaze to the house-elf. "Kiki, your turn. Come here."
"Yes, Master." Kiki scurried forward and snapped to attention.
Alan produced a similar tactical vest, scaled down for her frame, and helped her into it.
"Kiki, your natural casting is already excellent, so I won't give you a turret. The primary functions of your vest are stealth, energy storage, and physical support."
Through his observations, Alan had discovered that house-elves possessed an extraordinary natural perception of magic. Their sensitivity was far higher than that of most wizards, which allowed them to perform wandless magic from birth. Furthermore, they were incredibly efficient; where a wizard might spend five or six units of energy on a spell, an elf could achieve the same result with three or four.
However, their internal reserves were their greatest weakness. An average house-elf possessed less than a third of the magical capacity of an adult wizard. This was partly due to their small size, but mostly due to the systematic malnutrition and abuse they suffered in wizarding society.
Kiki had started with only 150 units. After months of Alan's high-protein diet, she had reached 170, though she was still quite lean. To compensate for this, Alan had installed an external power source.
Her vest was equipped with nine energy-storage runes, each holding 20 units of magic, providing a 180-unit backup reservoir. It also featured a passive energy-absorption array that siphoned magic from the surrounding environment to slowly recharge.
Additionally, the vest was enchanted with constant Disillusionment and Shield charms, and the pockets were expanded with the Extension Charm to assist with her chores. To support her training, Alan had added a Vulnera Sanentur rune—given Kiki's frail frame, she needed an immediate healing trigger to keep up with the high-intensity physical regimen Alan demanded to expand her natural magic capacity.
Kiki tested the interface with the same focus Hog had shown, learning how to draw from the vest's reserves. She was soon fiddling with the settings, a look of quiet wonder on her face.
After finishing the orientation, Alan led the pair back toward the Forbidden Forest cabin. As they broke through the tree line, he saw a familiar, slightly chubbier figure sitting on the porch steps, petting a cat. It was Vivian.
Her appearance had changed noticeably. At the start of the term, Alan had put her on a strictly monitored high-energy diet to see if caloric intake alone would boost magic reserves. Vivian had been more than happy to participate, but the data proved that eating without effort yielded nothing but a softer waistline.