No one knows what happened last night.
At least, no one knew on the surface.
Albert was not in a good mood this morning because he was woken up by Bud in the middle of the night. He covered his yawn with his hand and slowly read the Bull Fighting Daily.
The bottle of Felix last night was proven harmless after being tested by Isius himself. The other party also successfully received the final payment of 1,000 gold coins from the Bullfight Daily. Together with the initial 200 gold coins, Albert received 600 gold coins, plus a bottle of Felix for about two days, and also completed the panel task.
"You look sleepy?" Diana, the bar owner, came over to inform Albert of the time of the party. "By the way, where is Mr. Bud?"
"He should still be sleeping. We talked until very late last night before we went to bed." Albert put down the newspaper and said.
"Oh, there's one more thing." Before Diana turned and walked away, she turned back and said, "After the Barnabus Finkley Excellent Spellcasting Competition, there will be a small banquet specially prepared for you and the referee. Please don't stay and attend the banquet before leaving."
Albert looked at Diana's leaving back and raised his eyebrows slightly. He thought of something Bud had mentioned to him.
At this moment, Albert felt as if someone was spying on him. He picked up the newspaper again as a cover and looked quietly in a certain direction.
Sitting there was a special reporter from the Bull Fighting Daily.
Albert suddenly understood why that guy was secretly looking at him. He was observing whether he showed any symptoms caused by an overdose of Felixir.
"Want to tease him a little?"
Albert suddenly felt an inexplicable evil taste in his heart, but he quickly suppressed the thought.
It's best to distance yourself from this matter.
After all, it was all Isius' fault.
It was he who deceived the group of people who set up the gambling game of the Bull Fighting Daily, took their money and ran away.
What does it have to do with him, Albert
The tracking spell that the other party left on Isius had already been forcibly blocked by Albert using magic. It would definitely be very interesting when the furious mastermind found out that he had been made a fool of.
“It feels really good.”
A faint smile appeared on Albert's lips. He finally understood why there were so many old bitches.
What a delight!
After Albert made eye contact with special correspondent Lucian, he smiled and nodded at the other party, then looked away in the other party's astonished eyes and re-read the latest issue of "Bullfighting Daily".
Then again, he found the front-page headline in the Bull Fighting Daily embarrassing to read.
Anyway, it's just a bit of propaganda for him.
However, when he read to the end of the article, Albert discovered that there was a pitfall.
If Albert was found to have used a large amount of Felicis, he would most likely immediately become the object of scorn by countless people, and many people would take advantage of his misfortune.
So cruel!
If you get tricked by someone, your reputation will probably be ruined!
As expected, it was right to fleece those guys. Why didn’t we let the house-elves carry more Galleons in the first place!
What a pity.
When the time was almost up, Albert got up and followed the other contestants upstairs to join the party.
Yesterday's living room was surrounded by comfortable sofas, and drinks and desserts were placed on the small round table in front of them.
Several referees have taken their seats, and the contestants are sitting among the referees for one-on-one communication.
Albert was very calm, as he had a lot of experience with old friends. The man who looked like an Auror was very adaptable, and the other lady also quickly got into the mood. However, the decadent Mr. Noe stuttered when he spoke, and was the most embarrassed of the four.
Albert was chatting casually with the lady next to him, both of them using Italian. After a brief communication, Albert learned that the lady in front of him was called Monica, and was said to have been working as a referee for 63 years.
The two chatted casually about Italian food, and their relationship became much closer.
Monica looked at Albert who was talking eloquently and was surprised that he was actually a Muggle wizard. Although she had read his information, Albert did not look like a Muggle wizard. What surprised Monica the most was Albert's circle of friends. He had casually mentioned several Italian experts in various fields. From his tone, it seemed that he had a good relationship with them.
Later, the topic of their casual conversation was gradually led to the topic of spell-casting techniques, and Albert directly used the knowledge on the panel skills to fool people... Well, it wasn't really fooling people.
In short, Ms. Monica kept her mouth open most of the time, and seemed shocked by Albert's unique insights into spellcasting. Even Mr. Yafer, the Bulgarian wizard next to Albert, couldn't help but turn his head and chat with him.
Looking at No. 17, who was the most dazzling person in the whole party, special correspondent Lucian showed a barely perceptible smile at the corner of his mouth.
No. 17 had indeed taken the Felicity drug, otherwise it would have been impossible for him to have a conversation with several referees.
The next step is to get the other party out.
This is also the main reason why Lucian appears here.
As long as No. 17 is found to have taken Felixir and is disqualified from the competition, he can get a huge bonus.
Lucien couldn't wait any longer.
However, what puzzled him was why No. 17 had not revealed any flaws yet
Taking large doses of Felix should make him arrogant and make the referees realize that something is wrong, but why are there no signs
"It's a strange thing."
In the opinion of special correspondent Lucian, Albert clearly reveals many characteristics of the Folliculum Viagra.
But... why
The party lasted for two hours. Lucian followed the contestants out of the living room with confused eyes. He couldn't understand why the situation was different from what he said.
Finally, Lucien quickly returned to the Bullfighting Daily to report this strange incident and asked whether to activate the reserve plan.
The so-called contingency plan was actually to pretend to be someone else and report that Albert had taken the Felixir.
Yes, report it.
Then, investigate.
As for who reported it, it really doesn’t matter.
Anyway, large-scale competitions like these have a process for checking the presence of the felinofoginseng, but it is rather time-consuming and laborious.
After receiving the report, the Spanish Ministry of Magic took immediate action, showing a righteous image of "I will resolutely maintain the fairness and justice of the competition."
This incident caused an uproar.
Plus, the Bullfight Daily deliberately set traps in its headlines.
Many people began to suspect that No. 17 had secretly used the Felicis Potion. After all, he was too young. The young wizards who were jealous of him were also happy to see him get into trouble, and began to fan the flames and demand that the matter be handled fairly and that the contestants be treated fairly.
"I found that some people are willing to do anything for money." Albert sighed softly, "They really did it."
"You expected it, didn't you?" Bud found the matter more and more interesting. The Bull Fighting Daily had hit a wall when it met Albert.
"No, I never expected the changes in other people." Albert didn't care about the suspicious eyes around him and said in a very light voice, "Do you think the British wizarding world will be like this..."
"So stupid?" Bud was not surprised at all.
"They just don't want to admit that I'm a genius. They prefer to believe that I secretly used the Felicityl to cheat." Albert was not surprised at all.
"The same is true in the British wizarding world. People only want to see what they want to see. It's human nature." Bud sighed. He knew what Albert was referring to. "If Voldemort returns one day, the entire British wizarding world will probably try desperately to deny that he is still alive."
"It's more due to the Spanish Ministry of Magic. They want civilians to be easier to manage, and fools are undoubtedly easier to manage than smart people." Albert said softly, "But I think it's more interesting this way."
To be honest, Albert didn't think he was a magnanimous person.
Therefore, he was now particularly looking forward to the wonderful expressions on the faces of those who had suspected that he had cheated by using the Felicis drug when they learned the cruel truth.
After lunch, the four contestants were gathered in the living room, along with several referees, the bar owner Diana, a special reporter from the Bull Fighting Daily, and three officials from the Spanish Ministry of Magic.
"I'm sorry to call you all here, but I think you may have heard some bad rumors." Diana frowned. She was very unhappy about this.
"In the interests of fairness in the competition, the organisers felt it was necessary to take action."
"How are you going to test it?" the wizard who looked like an Auror frowned and asked, "Use Legilimency or Veritaserum?"
"We prefer to use Legilimency," Diana said. "Mr. Digar is a master of Legilimency. He can... Please tell me Ms. Camerin."
"How can you guarantee that he won't mess around with the memories in my head?" said the only female in the team.
"Do you have any questions, Mr. Noe?"
"How do you guarantee that he won't lie?" Noe had already smelled the scent of conspiracy. "Don't tell me he is an official from the Ministry of Magic. As long as he is a human being, he may lie for some reason."
The officials from the Spanish Ministry of Magic all had ugly expressions on their faces, especially the contestants who all had a strong sense of distrust towards them.
"Please speak Mr. Anderson." Diana nodded to Albert.
"As far as I know, major competitions have their own ways to check for cheating." Albert certainly knew what the method was.
A small amount of truth serum will not cause harm to humans.
However, many large-scale events actually do not like to use Veritaserum, because this thing itself is a banned item, it is very troublesome to use it, and there are ways to circumvent it, such as the user himself does not know that he has used Veritaserum, or even uses the antidote to Veritaserum in advance.
The atmosphere at the scene suddenly became a little tense. Even Diana didn't know what to do. She had never encountered such a situation before.
"Don't worry." One of the five referees stepped forward and said, "In fact, the referee team already has a way to identify whether the felony drug has been used."
Everyone looked at the referees.
"Honestly speaking, we don't advocate its use." A referee opened a box containing a transparent medicine.
"As we all know, taking too much Felix has some bad symptoms, and you can't drink it continuously, otherwise there will be serious consequences." Ms. Monica introduced to everyone, "If you take Felix in a short period of time, you may experience dizziness, poisoning and other symptoms if you use it again. Of course, if you don't use Felix, it itself is harmless."
"How short is a short time?" Albert asked. "If it's a year, he thinks he can just give up."
"Within a month," said Monica.
“What if I get poisoned?”
"We have emergency medicine here."
The four of them looked at each other, and finally looked at the Ministry of Magic officials.
"We need to prove that this drug is effective," said the official in charge of the three men. "You know, this is a gamble, and we have to be careful."
"We have Felicis here." An elderly referee took out a small golden bottle and handed it to him. "You only need one drop. Otherwise, if the poisoning is serious, you may be in trouble."
The faces of the three Ministry of Magic officials did not look good. Finally, one of them drank a little bit of Felicis and then drank the testing potion. As a result, he panicked and almost fainted. Not only that, his face turned pale all of a sudden, as if he was sick.
"Drink this. It will make you feel better. Although it will take a while for the dosage you just gave to be better."
As they spoke, they took out another bottle, lowered it into the water, and let the Ministry official drink it. Only then did his face look better.
"Well, you guys just admit it, or drink some of this stuff?"
"Let me go first." The wizard who looked like an Auror stepped forward, took the cup handed to him by the referee and drank it all.
It doesn't work.
The second one is Ms. Camerin.
Again no effect.
"Let me go first."
Noe vaguely realized that all these troubles might be aimed at No. 17.
However, he didn't think the other party needed to use the Felicityl potion.
Again no effect.
Everyone stared at Albert, and he took the cup and drank it all in full view of everyone.
Well, still no effect.
"How could it be!"
Both the Ministry of Magic and the special reporter were extremely surprised, as if they had already determined that someone had taken Felix Felicis and later participated in the competition.
"It seems that this is just a joke. Maybe the Ministry of Magic should carefully interrogate the guy who deliberately reported it."
If you still can't figure out what's going on now, you'd be a fool.
It is obviously aimed at No. 17, and this matter is most likely related to gambling.
"Well, everyone has seen that no one used the Felicis Felix to cheat." A male referee and three Spanish Ministry of Magic officials said, "I think this should just be a joke."
Just a joke
The three officials from the Ministry of Magic left with grim expressions. They didn't understand how things had turned out like this.
Lucien, a special correspondent for the Bull Fighting Daily, looked even uglier. He swayed slightly and reached out to hold on to the chair so that he wouldn't fall to the ground.
Didn’t they say that No. 17 used the Felicityl drug
Those referees are deceiving them
Or... that bastard Isius deceived them.
Lucien simply couldn't imagine how much money the Bull Fighting Daily would lose if No. 17 won the championship.