"Look, that's one of the entrances."
Tarino stopped and pointed to the brick wall beside the street, where an old billboard stood.
In fact, without Tarino's reminder, Maka had already discovered the anomaly there.
Nowadays, he can vaguely sense anything with magical power. Although due to the natural attenuation of magic power, the farther it is, the harder it is to detect it, but even a distance of more than ten meters is quite astonishing.
This is actually how Moody's magic eye works.
Of course, the maker of that thing must be a master of alchemy, and the detection accuracy must be far beyond the reach of the current Maka.
However, Moody's magic eye can only detect a rough magic reaction, and convert it into a rough visual image through the sophisticated alchemy array.
That didn't help him feel the mystery of magic more clearly.
But even so, alchemy has proven its potential. If the knowledge wasn't too esoteric and complicated, and the failure rate in actually making alchemical items was frighteningly high, I'm afraid the study of spells wouldn't be the mainstream in today's magic world.
While Maka was thinking out of habit, Tarino had already taken out his wand and tapped several letters on the billboard in an orderly manner.
"Let's go! Today I will take you to see what the 'black' market is." Tarino said with a smile.
Maka, who has long been accustomed to seeing the underground black market in the Muggle world, is indeed very curious about the black market in the magical world. If there is always darkness beyond the light, then the black market is the so-called "gray area".
And places like this are usually quite shocking.
Sure enough, when Maka followed Tarino through the billboard, and after experiencing a cold feeling similar to that of walking through the entrance of "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters", a burst of noise continued to pour into his ears. Come in.
The first thing that catches the eye is an extremely wide circular square.
It can be seen from the old stone brick floor under the feet that several centuries have passed since the original construction period.
Around this circular square, a full circle of doors is tightly arranged, and from time to time, one or two mysterious wizards with their heads and faces covered will come out of those doors.
Maka looked back, and sure enough, he and Tarino also came out of these stone-carved doors.
And in the four directions of this square, there are four stone roads leading to different directions.
On both sides of those roads, various strange buildings line up row upon row, and occasionally there are ghost cypresses that look dry but are actually full of vitality growing wantonly between the buildings.
Under the dim hanging street lights, this place looks much more eerie and darker than Knockturn Alley.
At this time, Maka raised her head and looked towards the sky, only to find that the top of her head was completely pitch black, without even a trace of light, making it impossible to tell the direction.
"This place is larger than the two Hogsmeade villages. Once you leave these four main roads, the route will become complicated. Even old people who often walk here may lose their way..."
As Tarino explained, he led Maka towards a stone road on the opposite side.
"The street with the brightest lights is a comprehensive shopping area. There are many messy shops, both serious and informal. But in general, they are all ordinary cheap goods... "
He walked forward, pointed to the one on the left, and then pointed to the right after speaking.
"The lights over there are slightly dimmed mainly for the trading of various materials. Of course, there are also some basic products of potions or alchemy."
"... And now, in the direction we are going," he pointed to the darker street ahead, "there are many high-value rare items for sale, and there are even regular auctions. Well, there are A... look, that's the building..."
There was no need for Tarino to point to that building. Maka had seen it early - no way, among all the buildings, that large building was the tallest and eye-catching.
That big guy looks very similar to Gringotts Wizarding Bank, but it is obviously several times bigger than Gringotts.
"That's also run by goblins?" Maka couldn't help but guess.
"Yes! The Darkling Pavilion Wizards Guild, in addition to undertaking currency deposits and withdrawals and treasury leasing like Gringotts in Diagon Alley, there are more services here." Tarino said with high spirits, "Information trading, personal Listed employment with groups, various task assignments and acceptances, etc. In short, it is an old trade union with a very high credibility."
"You usually take jobs here?" Maka said with a smile.
"Uh... Of course, although the agency fees here are not low, the point is that you will never be unable to find work here." Tarino shrugged, "After all, our industry is most afraid of not having reliable employers. Isn’t it?”
"Well... what about the darkest road before?" Maka pointed behind her and asked, "What's there?"
After Tarino heard this, he subconsciously curled his lips.
"That's the residential area over there," he said with emphasis, "the residential area where the 'nobles' of the underground world live."
"Nobles of the underground world?" Maka thought for a moment and suddenly said, "Could it be... those dark wizard families from ancient times?"
"You also know?" Tarino said in surprise, "As far as I know, there is no such information left outside. Dumbledore's existence in recent years has also kept those families low-key..."
"If you are willing to look for it, you can still find some clues." Maka spread her hands and said, "But they are really low-key. It has been almost hundreds of years, right? There is no news at all... This is not just because of Deng Is it because of Bullido?”
"I heard others say this too, who knows?" Tarino said nonchalantly, "Those families are already very weak. If they all die at any time, I wouldn't be surprised at all."
However, once it is connected with the things from ancient times, nothing is simple - Maka has already fully understood this.
He believed that those families would continue to decline, but that they would disappear silently, he wouldn't believe it even if they were killed.
When faced with death, even the Florob caterpillars, which eat and sleep all day long, will struggle to their death. How could those once giant creatures die without warning
The two of them walked side by side towards the large building called "Dark Spirit Pavilion" while chatting aimlessly.
When they passed two magnificent black metal doors in succession, a wide hall immediately came into their sight.
The shiny black marble floor and the hall without any load-bearing columns make the place look much larger than it appears from the outside.
But it can be seen that there is no sign of the traceless stretching spell being applied here. It is just because there is no visual obstruction, which makes this place look wider than imagined.
There are long counters in each of the three directions of the hall. Behind that, there were a large number of goblin staff sitting, who were handling different business for all kinds of customers.
In the hall, there are more strange wizards. The most emotional thing for Maka at this moment is to experience the number of wizards in person.
Although many of the wizards who appear here are definitely not so-called "dark wizards", those guys who exude suspicious aura are definitely not good people.
From this point of view, the number of wizards in the entire British wizarding world may be much greater than officially announced. The reason for this must be the "isolated" habit of wizards that has been difficult to correct since ancient times.
Although the British Ministry of Magic has been established for nearly four hundred years, the loose and free attitude of wizards towards life has directly led to the loose and unruly wizarding society.
If it weren't for this, no matter how powerful Voldemort was, it would be difficult for him to have such a big impact on the magical world.
"So, if I put up a task here to detect the movements of werewolves..." Maka looked at the large counter on the left and asked Tarino, "How long does it usually take to get the news?"
"If you are not in a hurry, you can do this..." Tarino nodded, "I estimate that it will only take a week at most."
"Then what if I want to go faster?" Maka thought for a moment and said, "Or should I be able to find the werewolf directly here?"
"Greyback has registered here before and accepted employment tasks for a period of time. But you know... werewolves have never been popular, even in the underground world." Tarino shook his head and said, "Now If so... there must be some werewolves here, but even if they exist, they are very low-key and their identities will not be easily exposed."
It was Maka himself who suggested coming here. Although he wanted to come here more to experience things, wouldn't it be better if he could find clues here
Judging from the environment here, getting things done is at least much easier than searching for clues aimlessly.
"You are more familiar with this place than me. I want you to tell me, where should I try my luck?" Maka looked around and asked casually.
Tarino pondered for a moment, then gestured with his chin towards the entrance to the side hall next to the counter on the left.
"There are several large mercenary teams there. If you have enough gold galleons, it won't be a problem for them to capture Greyback directly." He said, "Of course, they also sell information, and the price is, of course. It’s a bit more expensive.”
Maka thought about her current property and felt that she should first find a way to make money for herself in this place where money is everywhere. This is the first priority.
Since his partner Tyrande left Hogsmeade, his income has shrunk dramatically. Now his level of potions has greatly improved compared to before, and he has invented several more potions. It doesn't seem to be very difficult to make money.
Just as Maka was thinking, there was a commotion from a corner of the hall, attracting his attention.