"I've learned a lot tonight."
Albert came out of the bathroom with a dry towel on his head and sat down at the table to chat with Isobel using the two-way mirror.
There was a knock on the door of the room.
"What's up?"
Albert hurriedly wiped the water off his head with a towel, opened the door and found the bar owner Diana and her daughter Yanila standing in the corridor outside.
“Here’s the list.”
Diana smiled and handed a piece of paper to Albert, reminding him, "The competition will start around ten o'clock tomorrow. You can choose a magic from the list and perform it in front of the judges."
Albert took the paper and glanced at its contents. His eyes fell on the stack of papers in Diana's hand, and he quickly guessed what was going on.
The competition will start tomorrow. All contestants will need to show their magic in front of the referee, so they have to make some preparations in advance to avoid unexpected accidents.
As for Yanila's curious look, Albert simply ignored it.
"Thank you. I see."
Albert chatted with Diana for a few words and then closed the door again. When he was about to return to the table, he heard the voices of mother and daughter talking in the corridor.
"Mom, you're right, Mr. Anderson is indeed a very special person. However, he seems to know what you want to do and is a little disgusted." Yanila's voice was so soft that Albert could hardly hear it.
"Don't be silly, my daughter." Diana looked at Yanila's beautiful face and said softly, "You are so beautiful and a big singer. Which man can refuse you?"
"Didn't you say he already has a girlfriend?" Yanila said with a frown, obviously disagreeing with Diana's proposal.
"So what?" Diana said dismissively, "Many couples break up after graduation.
Yanila was speechless for a while.
Well, although Mr. Anderson is indeed her type, but... Yanila can't say that she likes him, at most she has some good feelings for him.
On the contrary, she was very disgusted with what her mother asked her to do.
Seducing and pursuing a man
It's not like Yanila is unwanted, so why should she do this
Ever since she embarked on the path of a singer, Yanila has had no shortage of suitors at school.
Besides, who can guarantee that guy will win the Barnabus Finkley Gold Medal for Excellence in Spellcasting
Anyway, Yanila is quite disgusted by this matter.
However, all the men in her family are gold medal winners. It is for this reason that Yanila still hasn't found a boyfriend.
"You should trust my judgment. I'm very good at judging people." Diana was very confident in her judgment. From the brief conversation between Bud and Albert, it was not difficult to see Albert's extraordinaryness. It was not just the support of a senior to a junior, or a teacher to a student. Their conversation was more equal and casual, just like good friends.
Yanila curled her lips but did not try to refute Diana's words. Her mother was indeed very good at this.
"You should pray that he can win the gold medal." Diana didn't continue to talk nonsense. "Forget it, I'll take you to meet other contestants. However, I'm sure none of them are as suitable as Mr. Anderson."
As soon as the two left, Albert's door was opened a crack and then closed again.
Albert, who was originally sitting at the table, was holding a round stone in his fingertips. He reached out to take off his headphones, with an extremely strange expression on his face.
He sort of figured out what was going on.
"I didn't expect that I would encounter such a ridiculous and weird thing?"
Albert couldn't help but shake his head, getting rid of the distracting thoughts in his head, and began to use the two-way mirror to contact Isobel, while reading the paper he had just received.
Thirty different plans are listed on the paper, and the difficulty of each plan is not very high. The contestants only need to choose one and then present it in front of the judges.
In fact, this can also be considered a kind of dissuasion.
If a contestant cannot even do this, it is better for him to give up the competition in advance to avoid making a fool of himself in public tomorrow.
After all, most wizards with excellent spellcasting skills have fairly high attainments in magic, which is one of the reasons why the Barnabus Finkley Award for Excellence in Spellcasting is so valuable.
Many wizards who won the Gold Medal eventually became celebrities.
To a certain extent, Diana's family's way of selecting people is actually correct. The person selected using this method must be a genius.
On the other side of the two-way mirror, Katrina was talking to Isobel about their future careers and the subjects they should choose when they enter sixth grade.
It was supposed to be Mrs. MacDougal's responsibility to give Katrina advice, but she was too busy, so Isobel had to do it for her.
"Did you hear any sound just now, as if someone was calling you?" Katrina's expression was a little strange. She seemed to hear Albert's voice calling from the room just now.
"Someone is calling me?" Isobel asked suspiciously.
"Yes, it was Albert. I just heard his voice. He seemed to be calling you." Katrina made a shushing gesture. "Did you hear that voice again?"
"Really?" Isobel stared at Katrina and couldn't help but teasing, "You missed him too much, so you heard it wrong."
"That's not funny." Katrina stood and looked for the source of the sound.
"Okay, I won't tease you anymore. The sound actually came from the two-way mirror." Isobel pointed to the two-way mirror on the table and explained to Katrina with a smile: "We have always kept in touch through the two-way mirror."
Katrina picked up the two-way mirror that was upside down on the table and looked at the familiar person in the mirror with a surprised expression.
"Where's Isobel?"
Albert recognized at a glance the girl in the mirror who looked a bit like Isobel.
"Next to me." Katrina put the two-way mirror back on the table and walked away. She didn't want to watch the two of them showing their affection, so she left the rest of the time to them.
"I seem to have interrupted your conversation just now." Albert said apologetically.
"I was just talking to Katrina about sixth grade further studies." Isobel pulled out a chair and sat in front of the desk. "However, she seems to be planning to take the same courses as you, but she only chose mathematical divination and ancient magic runes."
"With us. Besides, the other courses are useless." Albert said bluntly. "By the way, I arrived in Spain today using the International Floo Network. You should have come with me. The food here is good, and I encountered some interesting things."
Albert talked to Isobel about his experiences in Spain, but did not mention Yanila.
He just briefly mentioned that he met a very good singer here and said that he would bring her a gift when he returned.
Yes, in Albert's eyes, Yanila is a singer who sings pretty well.
Time flew by as the two chatted casually, and they even lay on the bed to continue chatting. When talking about the Christmas ball, Isobel was a little silent.
Albert once told her that if he was elected as the champion of the Triwizard Tournament, he hoped to invite Katrina to be his dance partner at the Christmas ball.
Then, she replaced her sister and asked Isobel to dance the first dance with her. The McDougal sisters looked very similar, and no one would recognize them after they were dressed up. Even if someone recognized them, they just kept it to themselves.
Isobel never doubted Albert's ability, nor did she ever doubt that he could not become a champion in the Triwizard Tournament.
However, Albert's proposal made her hesitate. Although Isobel also wanted to dance with Albert, she felt that it would be unfair to her sister.
Albert didn't know what to say about this. He almost forgot that Isobel was a sister-con and was really good to her sister Katrina.
Albert did not refute this. He said that there was still more than half a year left for this matter and a solution would be found by then.
As the night deepened, the bar gradually fell into silence. However, many people were destined to suffer from insomnia tonight.
When Albert woke up the next morning, he was in good spirits. When he got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, he found that the atmosphere in the bar was very depressing.
The lively atmosphere of last night was completely gone. Everyone seemed to have suffered from anorexia at the same time and had no appetite for the food in front of them.
Albert suddenly had the illusion that he was preparing for the college entrance examination in his previous life, but the atmosphere here did not affect his appetite at all.
"It seems that you had a good rest last night."
When Bud went downstairs, he found Albert, who had just finished a toast sandwich, eating a "stick" similar to a fried dough stick with hot chocolate.
"good."
After eating the fried dough sticks, Albert commented: "The breakfast here is too sweet. I am not used to it."
"I think so too." Bud ordered himself a toast sandwich and a cup of hot milk. He looked up and looked around the bar, smiling and said, "Most of the contestants don't have such a good appetite as you."
yes!
The other contestants all have severe anxiety disorders and are obviously no match for Albert, who has rich competition experience and strong mental qualities.
"You are very calm!"
Rodris appeared out of nowhere, sat down next to Bard and looked at Albert. He was surprised at Albert's calmness, which was not like the composure that an underage wizard should have.
"After experiencing a lot, I'm not nervous anymore." Albert didn't lie. His current mental quality was truly the result of hard work.
After all, he had killed people, fought basilisks, faced werewolves, and participated in two large-scale competitions. Naturally, he was calmer than most of the contestants.
"Are you the referee?" Bud cast a probing look at his old friend.
"No, I'm just an uninvited audience member." Rodris shook his head.
"Is Mr. Dumbledore on the panel?" Albert asked suddenly. He was really afraid that Dumbledore would suddenly appear and see something from his spell-casting technique.
I should have done some divination last night, but I miscalculated!
"No, there are always five fixed referees." Rodris said: "The referees are all professionals. In fact, most international competitions are usually judged by professionals to maintain fairness and justice in the competition."
To be honest, Albert has no impression of so-called professionals and even scoffs at so-called fairness and justice.
"Hypocrisy, you are the one who dares to say such nonsense." Bud curled his lips in disdain and said, "Don't tell me you don't know what most international competitions are like?"
"At least, the Barnabus Finkley Excellent Spellcasting Competition is relatively fair." Rodris shrugged and said, "You should know this."
At this moment, the bar suddenly became quiet.
Albert turned his head and looked towards the stairs of the bar, and saw five elderly wizards coming down from upstairs, with the bar owner Diana respectfully accompanying them.
"Those should be the referees!" Albert looked at the old people, three men and two women, and they were all very old. Albert suspected that they were even older than Dumbledore.
The atmosphere in the bar became even more depressing. Even Bud and Rodris stopped bickering. They simply introduced the five old men to Albert and also gave him some advice on how he should demonstrate his magic later.
A simple and effective suggestion: great force works wonders.
Adhering to the principle that wizards who are good at casting spells must have attainments in magic that are not too low, contestants should show off their magic as much as possible. As long as it is not too bad and there are not serious mistakes, they do not have to worry about being eliminated in the first round of screening.
When it was half past nine, the bar waiters began to clean up and make room for the next game.
The stage used for the concert last night was turned into a stage for contestants to perform. The contestants who were about to participate in the competition needed to line up in groups according to the number plates they were assigned yesterday, and go on stage one by one to show their magic.
Albert's number plate was 17, and he was at the end of the first queue.
He looked carefully in front and behind him. In front of Albert was a man not much older than him. His face was a little pale, and he kept wiping the sweat from his palms with a handkerchief. He seemed very nervous.
Standing behind Albert was a mature wizard who was about 27 or 28 years old. He looked much calmer. When Albert turned his head, his eyes met with the other man's. The man seemed surprised by Albert's youth and calmness.
"Are you here for Miss Yanila too?" the wizard spoke fluent French.
"Ms. Yanila?" Albert asked in French.
"you do not know?"
"Know what?" Albert asked.
The wizard looked confused. "Aren't you a student at Beauxbatons? How come you don't know Miss Yanila?"
"No, I'm a student at Hogwarts," Albert corrected.
The wizard suddenly stopped talking, as if he didn't intend to reveal the news to Albert.
Of course Albert saw what this guy was thinking and couldn't help but curl his lips.
It seems that other people know about what happened in Yanila's family. She is really unlucky.
During the time Albert was chatting with others, the game had already begun.
With the help of Diana and a young man and woman, the contestants began to walk onto the stage in an orderly manner to show their magic.
Contestant No. 1 was a man in his thirties. He waved his wand in what he thought was an elegant manner, and large fields of flowers appeared out of thin air.