The obscure and moist atmosphere lingers in this double secret room, and even breathing in it feels heavy and stagnant.
Rotten black wood leaned loosely against the wall, barely supporting the bookcase to maintain its posture a thousand years ago.
A corner of the desk has collapsed, revealing the slightly green ancient stone wall behind it.
Although everywhere here is covered with traces of corruption caused by time, instead of lamenting the passage of time, it makes people wonder why they have not silently turned into a puddle of black soil in these thousands of years.
It has been long enough. If it were not for the protection of magic, I am afraid that even if I came in Dumbledore's time, let alone Maka, I would not be able to see such a scene.
"Perhaps this place was protected by magic, but because Salazar Slytherin did not intend to preserve this place for future generations, the magic left behind did not last that long..."
Maka thought to herself, stretched out her hand and pulled the door of the bookcase, but unexpectedly, the entire bookcase collapsed with a crash.
When he pulled out a book from under the fallen damp board, he found that they were in even worse condition.
All the pages are stuck together with some greasy substance. Even if you forcefully tear out a page and take a look, you can't distinguish the handwriting on it at all.
As for the desk next to it, it was even more empty. There were only two meaningless scratches on the table, as if telling people some unknown story.
Nothing of value seemed to be left in this secret room.
But even so, Maka is still checking everything here carefully - since the shadow left by Salazar can still be seen outside, there must be some clues left here, but he hasn't discovered it yet.
Just as he was carefully searching for something in the corner of the secret room, as if he felt something, he suddenly turned his head and looked at the wall behind him -
There was nothing on that stone wall, no carvings or decorations. Only damp brown moss grew and spread between the bricks. It looked greasy and a bit disgusting.
No, he did sense it just now. There was an extremely subtle fluctuation of magic power passing by.
After thinking about it, Maka stretched out her wand and pointed it at that location, and a trace of magic spread from the tip of the wand. The next second, he raised his eyebrows slightly and nodded thoughtfully.
If he guessed correctly, a magic was once solidified there, but the magic used to maintain it had long been exhausted.
The magic power he sent just now was swallowed up, which is the best proof.
After thinking for a moment, Maka pressed the wand against the stone wall and used the principle of the flashback spell to issue a burst of magic power, trying to urge it to work again.
With the injection of magic power, countless green light-point debris spurted out from the gaps in the stone bricks, gathered around Maka, and swirled around...
Maka was always paying attention to these light particles, but did not find any signs of danger. They were just swirling around him, like a group of tiny fireflies, circulating silently.
He could feel that the solidified magic power consumption was not high and it was not a powerful thing.
Just when Maka's magic power was injected to a certain level, those light particles suddenly dispersed, as if they were repairing the stone chamber, covering everything here with a layer of illusive and real light green virtual reality. film.
Judging from this appearance, it is very similar to the phantom of Salazar seen at the entrance before.
Maka put down her wand, turned around and took a look, and immediately discovered that a map that was sometimes blurry and sometimes clear appeared on the stone wall above the desk.
"A map of the world from a thousand years ago?" Maka couldn't help grinning, "This is much more detailed than Rowena's navigation chart..."
It's a pity that everything he sees now is just an illusion. When the magic power is used up, he will return to his previous state.
After looking around and finding nothing suspicious, he focused on the map.
This map contains a lot of information, but they are all locations from thousands of years ago, marked one by one with ancient magic script, and Maka can roughly understand it.
But today, the cities and settlements in ancient times have long been ruthlessly crushed by the wheels of history. The places on the map are completely meaningless. No matter how hard he looks, it is difficult to find anything worth noting.
However, there was a red circle that made him look at it a few more times.
As recorded in the "Book of Sin", that is where the Monument of Bewitchment is now located - Albania.
Whether or not that was what Salazar Slytherin had brought there, at least now it was certain that he had definitely been there. But the note next to the red circle made Maka stunned for a moment.
"Despicable...Helpo...grave?"
Three words composed of ancient magic words, without any deep meaning, simple and straightforward, made Maka couldn't help but take a breath.
"Despicable Herbo" is the oldest and most powerful dark wizard known in documented records. Almost all wizards learned about him through their childhood fairy tale books.
But even though this dark wizard is a household name, few people actually know him.
If they hadn't specifically checked, most people would have thought that he lived at the same time as the Big Four at Hogwarts.
However, in order to learn about the Horcrux invented by this old guy, Maka consulted quite a lot of information.
According to sporadic records, the despicable Herbo was a dark wizard active in ancient Greece, at least a thousand years earlier than the life of the Big Four at Hogwarts!
This is a veritable ancient monster!
"... Well... When was the peak period of magic development?" When the name of such an old monster suddenly appeared, Maka began to feel a little guilty.
The degree of loss of magic is so tragic that people have lost the basis for judgment. When future generations try to explore the traces left by their ancestors, they will inevitably be timid and unable to advance even an inch.
Even Maka, who has been exposed to the power of rules, feels a little powerless at this moment.
"Slytherin dares to go, but it makes no sense for me to go..."
After continuing to check the secret room, Maka, who had gained nothing else, glanced at the increasingly illusory map, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the phantom-shrouded stone room again.
…
This time, time was not abundant. After Maka tidied up a little, she avoided the sight of others and headed for Albania without stopping.
In the UK, only Gatwick Airport has direct flights to Albania. In order to be efficient, Maka had to fly at full speed on a broomstick for more than 30 kilometers. The wind blew her entire face numb along the way. .
But what can be done? He was also desperate because he couldn't use Apparition!
It wasn't until the afternoon that he was able to board a plane to Tirana, the capital of Albania, and this trip really began.
"...No, this piece should be placed here."
On the plane, the Muggles were all bored doing things to pass the time, such as reading, or... playing puzzles.
Next to Maka sat a father and daughter. The father was about 40 years old, and the girl was about the same age as Maka.
Maka sat in the window seat, and the girl sat... well, in the aisle seat, with her father ruthlessly occupying the middle.
At this moment, the gentleman-looking uncle was putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a landscape painting. Her daughter would occasionally give instructions, but the two of them had been working on it for more than an hour, and the whole painting was still only a jigsaw puzzle. A corner.
Maka was leaning against the porthole, crossing her hands on her chest, lazily watching them fight, but she was thinking about other things in her mind.
The flight duration of this flight is expected to be about 4 hours, and it is estimated that it will have just fallen into the night when we arrive in Tirana.
Another hour passed, and the father and daughter worked together to make trouble for each other, and finally completed the four corners and four sides. It can be seen that this gives them a lot of confidence.
However, at this moment, the plane suddenly shook!
It's always a little frightening to be caught in the turbulence of an airplane, but Maka let out a "puff" and laughed unkindly.
Who would have thought
It took the father and daughter more than two hours to piece together only half of the puzzle. As a result, the plane shook and the pieces on the puzzle board began to fly.
In the horrified sight of the two people, their previous efforts were in vain at this moment.
The girl was so angry that she stamped her feet. When she heard Maka's laughter, she couldn't care less about being shy and glared at him fiercely.
"Sorry, sorry..." Maka said cheerfully, "I also like puzzles, let me help you!"
He helped pick up the puzzle pieces scattered on the ground, then took the puzzle board from the gentleman's uncle's hand, and started putting it together under the dubious gazes of the father and daughter.
No matter how complex the puzzle is, it is far less difficult than constructing a rune array. Maka has long been accustomed to this boring task of finding patterns.
The corners are indeed the easiest to piece together, and can also be used as a baseline for subsequent puzzles. After he completed all the puzzle pieces, the general area of the puzzle pieces near the edge could be determined based on the color blocks.
I saw him piece it together in a fuss, leaving the father and daughter next to him stunned.
More than ten minutes passed, and a world-class masterpiece "The Last Supper" was displayed in front of the three people.
"This is really... so cool!" The girl said in disbelief with her eyes flashing.
But Maka was holding the puzzle board and staring at the work above by the famous Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, in a daze.