This was a coin made of pure silver.
Unlike a silver sickle, this silver coin had no human head or numbers.
The front showed a dial with 12 markings, while the back was engraved with words Weilan couldn't understand.
Between the front and back of the coin, on the narrow, flattened cylindrical side—where ordinary coins are usually designed with a gear shape—this coin had a line of tiny, ant-sized letters engraved.
Similar to the text on the back of the coin, Weilan still couldn't understand what these small letters said.
Hermione said these words looked very similar to the Ancient Runes she was currently studying.
To translate the Ancient Runes on the coin, Hermione practically moved every book about Ancient Runes in the library.
The towering stacks of books surrounded their three small figures, and Hermione, relying on her understanding of Ancient Runes, searched the dictionary for the meaning of each rune by its shape.
“Dirt… flowers… sand… rain…”
“Uh, these words don’t match.”
Hermione felt the veins on her temples throbbing wildly.
Whenever she finally found a character with a similar shape in the dictionary, upon closer inspection, it always failed to match in some subtle detail.
Either there was an extra stroke, or a missing horizontal line, or two short lines that should have been parallel were written as intersecting.
And so, after all this time, she couldn't even decipher a single character!
She felt that all the Ancient Runes knowledge she had spent an entire year learning last year was being strongly mocked by this coin.
On the other side, Ron buried his entire head in “Ancient Runes for Beginners,” with only his iconic red hair peeking out from the spine.
Holding the text Hermione had copied from the coin, he intermittently translated strange sentences:
“Fish’s eyes, eerie home… Hmm, no, it doesn’t seem to be that word…”
Weilan gave up after trying for ten minutes.
If the excellent student Hermione, after a year of studying Ancient Runes translation, still couldn't decipher these words, it could only mean their current approach was flawed.
He suggested copying the words onto a piece of paper and giving them to the Ancient Runes Professor, Bathsheda Babbling, tomorrow to ask for her opinion.
“Professor Babbling is very aloof; she expects us to try to solve problems ourselves first before asking her for help with what we can’t figure out.”
Weilan sat in the middle, looking at his two friends still diligently working on either side—especially Hermione, who rarely showed signs of scratching her head or being perplexed.
He understood in his heart that whether he rejoined this book catalog retrieval activity or not, it no longer held much significance.
The magic power in his right eye recovered to 20.
Weilan remembered that the upgraded 【Minute Observation】 seemed to be able to reproduce magic in his field of vision.
So, he consumed 8 points of magic power, used 【Minute Observation】, and observed the coin.
In an instant, a massive amount of information, a massive amount of images, flooded into Weilan’s mind.
He couldn't process so much information at once.
Thus, these images turned into fragmented scenes, flashing frame by frame in his mind.
He saw the back of a young man in silver robes, waving his wand, stirring a cauldron of molten silver.
He saw the fiery silver liquid plating the young man's back with a golden edge, he raised his wand, pouring the scalding silver liquid into three coin molds.
He saw the young man kneeling before a workbench, picking up a sharp penknife, and successively engraving obscure and difficult-to-understand characters onto the three coins.
He saw the young man putting the three coins into his pocket, his head turning back away from him, slightly revealing the outline of his profile.
He saw that profile, and it was actually…
“Ah!”
Under overload, 【Minute Observation】 was forcibly terminated.
Weilan fell back into the pile of books, covered in cold sweat.
“Weilan, what’s wrong, Weilan?”
Hermione anxiously helped him up: “Are you too tired today? How about we stop here for today and get some rest?”
Weilan didn't refuse: “Okay, I’ll go back to rest first… Also, you two should go to bed early too, don’t waste your time on this coin. You won’t be able to decipher it.”
“Why?” Hermione clenched her fist slightly, as if very unconvinced.
“Because these words were imbued with magic when they were written.”
Weilan thought of the magic flowing on the penknife as the young man engraved the words in the reproduced scene.
Facing Hermione’s wide eyes, Weilan’s gaze flickered, and he added— “I’m guessing.”
“Anyway, we have time, let’s go ask Professor Babbling. If there was a clue, we wouldn’t have spent so much time on it, not even being able to decipher a single character.”
Bidding farewell to Ron and Hermione, Weilan returned to the dormitory. He carefully placed the Galleons he earned today into the large money pouch deep inside his suitcase.
Counting only Galleons, he had earned too much these past few days, his savings had already increased to 167 Galleons.
“Will I be able to buy a house by the end of this semester? Will I be able to move out of that orphanage?”
Carrying such a sweet wish, the tired Weilan quickly fell into a dream.
…
In the following days, after Hermione finished her Ancient Runes class, she incidentally asked Professor Babbling about the method for deciphering the text on the coin.
“Professor Babbling explained it this way.” That evening, Hermione relayed her exact words to them in the Gryffindor common room, “‘Some ancient Wizards with extremely profound knowledge would, when writing Runes, use the words as a medium to seal their magic within the text.’”
“‘After sealing the magic, these Runes will be slightly different from ordinary Runes. If you want to decipher magical Runes, you must understand both the Runes and the magic sealed within them.’”
“So we also have to learn Merlin’s magic?”
Ron threw down the book “Mastering Ancient Runes in 24 Hours” in his hand, somewhat exasperated.
“Not necessarily, Merlin must have only sealed one type of magic, we just need to find that magic.”
Weilan recalled that in the replicated fragments, the magic the young man controlled was never grand or dazzling, immensely powerful, but rather ordinary, subtle, and continuous magic—just like the spells most Hogwarts small Wizards cast.
“Hermione, starting next week, I want to attend Ancient Runes class with you.”
Weilan said, bending down to pick up the book “Mastering Ancient Runes in 24 Hours” from the floor.
Ever since Weilan added another course to his schedule, he had barely had any free time in October.
Due to his reputation and strength, guaranteed by the Magical Enforcement Team represented by Mr. Gobert and Mr. McCarthy, the detective agency's business was booming.
Although the remuneration was mostly sickles and Knuts, and no generous patrons like Mr. Pippin appeared again, Weilan accepted all cases. They quickly heard many rumors about ancient secrets from these villagers.
For example, Ravenclaw’s daughter betrayed her mother and eloped with her lover.
When Ron loudly spoke this rumor in the Great Hall, Weilan saw Ravenclaw’s true daughter, and also the ghost of Ravenclaw House, The Grey Lady, slowly floating above the Great Hall.
Her beautiful eyes gave Ron a disdainful look, and she left without looking back.
Another example was Slytherin’s daughter, who resented her father her entire life, and after escaping Hogwarts, drowned in the Northford Marsh. Her father then built a tomb for her on the spot beneath the Northford Marsh.
This news prompted Dumbledore himself to visit the Northford Marsh for a field investigation. To Weilan’s surprise, Dumbledore actually did discover a tomb.
Unfortunately, besides evil Dark Arts creations, there was nothing useful inside.
Fortunately, even if they couldn't provide useful relic clues, they helped the villagers solve their daily troubles and also received labor compensation.
Moreover, two of the more complex incidents also provided Weilan with experience points.
Now, the experience points in his right eye had reached 4.
【Experience Level: 2 (4/40)】
This morning, Weilan went downstairs for breakfast and found the entire Great Hall newly decorated.
Huge silk banners hung on the walls, each representing one of Hogwarts’ Houses.
Red background with a golden lion.
Blue background with a bronze eagle.
Yellow background with a black badger.
Green background with a silver serpent.
Behind the staff table hung the largest banner, bearing the Hogwarts crest: the lion, eagle, badger, and serpent linked together, surrounding a large letter H.
“The Triwizard Tournament is about to begin? The other two schools are coming?”
Weilan realized that because he had been too busy recently and was not interested in the Triwizard Tournament, he had almost forgotten about it.