The sky was overcast and the sea breeze was howling.
Rows of dark green waves rose and fell one after another, like countless sea beasts breaking free from their cages, their rough backs covered with seaweed almost touching the gloomy sky.
The southernmost country on the Balkan Peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and this area has been very turbulent recently.
This is Greece, a country that once had one of the most brilliant civilizations in the world. However, for some unknown reason, the Greek magic world today seems to be lackluster.
The magic world in Greece was very prosperous more than a thousand years ago. Countless outstanding wizards were born in this area and left a great reputation.
However, the Greek magic world today is suffering from a lack of talent and a decline in all industries.
Almost all wizards understand one thing—magic is a subject that requires extreme emphasis on talent!
In the history of the wizarding world, there are very few examples of wizards who were born dull becoming outstanding talents in the wizarding world.
Even Newt Scamander, the admittedly taciturn magizoologist in his youth, demonstrated a rare ability to gain the trust of magical creatures at a very young age.
However, according to statistics from experts, among the wizards born in Greece in the past few hundred years, there are very few with relatively high talents, and most of them are ordinary people who have lived a mediocre life.
This once brilliant and glorious place hasn't produced a genius that leads the times for a long time.
Over time, wizards left Greece, this evil place, and went to develop in the magic world of other countries.
As a result of this vicious cycle, the Greek magic world is facing a talent shortage.
Today, this country with a lack of talent has welcomed two uninvited guests—
There were two wizards, one old and one young. The old man had a messy head of gray curly hair and a few freckles on his face. He was carrying an old-fashioned brown leather suitcase in his hands.
The young man was a boy with blond hair, dark blue eyes and soft features. He was probably only eleven or twelve years old and looked like he was still in school.
"You must be the famous Magizoologist, Mr. Newt Scamander!" A bald middle-aged wizard came up with two followers, shook hands with the old man enthusiastically, and spoke fluent English. "Let me introduce myself. I am Albert, the Minister of the Greek Ministry of Magic. I was the one who corresponded with you three days ago."
It can be seen that the Greek Ministry of Magic really does not have many staff.
Albert, the Minister of Magic, personally wrote to the Magizoologist and came to greet him in person, even with only two little followers following him...
"Hello, Mr. Abbott." The old man looked a little shy and smiled slightly at the Greek Minister of Magic.
As if it was a sequelae of his contact with these people from the Ministry of Magic when he was young, he grasped his suitcase tightly and subconsciously checked every button on the outside of the suitcase.
Minister Abbott apparently did not notice the old man's little trick and tried to get close to him very enthusiastically.
"Ah, this is your grandson, right? He is really a handsome man!" He turned his gaze to the blond boy next to the old man and praised with a smile on his face, "I heard that your grandson is only twelve years old, and he has become your assistant. He has just reached the second grade, right?"
The blond-haired boy imitated the old man, smiled shyly, and walked forward.
"Hello, Mr. Abbott. My name is Rolf... Rolf Scamander." The boy introduced himself, "I just entered the second grade this year."
"It's amazing that you can be your grandfather's assistant when you are only in the second grade." Albert touched his bald head and sighed.
How he wished that Greece could have a few such clever young wizards!
But it is really strange that the young wizards born in Greece are less talented than each other. It usually takes them six or seven years to barely complete the third or fourth grade courses in magic schools in other regions.
And this gap is widening from generation to generation!
"I guess Rolf is also studying at Hogwarts, right?" Albert continued to smile and try to get close to him, hoping to establish a relationship with him so as to reduce the cost of hiring this elderly Magizoologist. "Which college is he studying in now? Is he in Hufflepuff like your grandfather?"
"No, Mr. Abbott, I didn't go to school at Hogwarts." Rolf raised his head and said to the Minister of Magic, "My mother said that Hogwarts changes the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts every year, and the teaching quality is worrying, so she asked me to study at Invermorny School of Magic."
"I was assigned to Yin Famo Ni's Thunderbird Academy, the same academy as my grandmother."
After hearing Rolf's words, Newt, who had been standing beside him without saying anything for a long time, had a hint of regret in his eyes.
Because of raising illegal magical animals, Newt was expelled from Hogwarts halfway through school, so he really wanted his grandson to fulfill his wish of graduating smoothly from Hogwarts...
"Because of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor? That's a real shame." Abbott said, "I heard that a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor came to Hogwarts in the past two years. He has been re-elected for the second year and seems to be quite capable."
"You know Bulgaria and Romania, right? They are the two countries to the north of Greece. Their wizards seem to worship that professor very much. Especially the wizards in Romania. They are usually very arrogant, but as soon as the name of the professor is mentioned, they will immediately become very secretive..."
"I don't quite understand why the Romanian people would idolize a guy who is a professor in the UK, even though the two countries are more than 2,000 kilometers apart."
Albert spread his hands, looking puzzled.
"You're talking about Professor Dracula, right?" Newt finally spoke for the first time after greeting Minister Abbott. "Albus told me that Professor Dracula is a very special person. There must be something about him that we don't know yet."
"That's right." Albert spread his hands. "It doesn't matter. Those arrogant Romanian wizards never take our Greek Ministry of Magic seriously. It's impossible for them to tell me about Professor Dracula..."
As he spoke, he became a little angry. "How abominable! Our Greek magic world was once the world leader more than a thousand years ago, but now because of poor development, we have to endure the anger of these guys..."
"Ahem, Mr. Abbott!" Rolf found that his grandfather's eyes had become somewhat erratic, as if they were drifting to some place far away, and he quickly interrupted Minister Abbott's complaints, "You wrote to my grandfather to ask him to come over, didn't you say that you suspected that there were magical animals causing trouble here?"
"Oh, by the way, look at me, I almost forgot something!" Albert slapped his bald forehead and laughed awkwardly. "Rove is smart, otherwise we don't know how much time we would have wasted here!"
As he spoke, he signaled with his eyes to a younger brother beside him.
The younger brother expressed his understanding and took out a map from a large box behind him and handed it to Albert.
Albert took the Greek topographic map with satisfaction and used his magic wand to draw a red circle on a mountainous area.
"Mr. Scamander, look here—" He held up the map with his left hand and pointed the circled area with his wand in his right hand, "It is in this mountain range that a large range of strange phenomena have occurred during this period of time."
"Although I don't want to admit it, our Greek wizards definitely can't cast magic on such a large scale, so don't blame me for suspecting magical animals first."
Rove looked at Minister Abbott with pity, looking like a little adult, and said with a sigh:
"Your words are too hurtful, Minister Abbott..."
Albert's words were choked.
"It's clearly my heart that's been pierced, why are you sighing like a kid?!" He complained crazily in his heart.
But in order to maintain his demeanor as the Minister of Magic of a country, Albert could only smile stiffly, looking as if nothing had happened.
Newt didn't care about the expression of the miserable Greek Minister of Magic. He just waved his wand, brought the map closer, and then looked carefully at the area circled in red.
There are densely packed arcs representing mountains.
"Is this... Mount Olympus?" Newt asked.
"Yes, yes, you are worthy of being called Mr. Scamander, you are really professional!" Albert gave a thumbs up, "The entire area of Mount Olympus has been surrounded by fog recently, and it has lasted for more than ten days and has not dissipated yet."
"If it's just fog, it should be normal." Newt asked softly, "It's winter now, and the Olympus Mountains block the moisture from the southwest wind from the ocean. It's not strange that the rain and snow last a little longer."
Newt analyzed it from a very professional perspective, with an obvious look of disappointment on his face.
He thought that some new and magical animal had appeared in a place as mythical as Mount Olympus.
So, on the day he received the letter, Newt secretly brought his grandson and assistant Rolf to Greece without telling his wife Tina, wanting to see the magical animals.
But when they arrived here, Albert told him that it was just a common fog in winter.
Newt immediately felt like he had been cheated.
"No, I certainly wouldn't trick you here just because of the fog, Mr. Scamander!" As if he had seen Newt's unhappy expression, Albert explained hastily, "If it was just fog, it would be fine, but there are large tracts of black gas and white light coming out of the fog from time to time, which is very weird!"
After hearing Albert's subsequent explanation, Newt became interested again.
"Can you confirm the exact date when the fog appeared? Please also describe to me in detail the image of the black gas and white light." He said, "I need this to determine what magical animal caused the impact."
"Hmm... I remember the fog appeared after Halloween." Albert scratched his bald head and said thoughtfully, "I have discussed it with the Muggle government and asked their experts to use the weather conditions as an excuse to explain the strange situation on Mount Olympus..."
"After all, the symbolic significance of Mount Olympus is too important to the people here, so we dare not let public opinion ferment. Yesterday, I watched the Muggle news program on... something called TV. The Muggle observatory said that the fog appeared after Halloween, and today is already nineteen days!"
"Nineteen days?" Newt frowned. "There aren't many magical animals that can cause such large-scale weather changes, and there are even fewer that can last for nineteen days..."
Newt extended his hand to Rolf, who tactfully took out a very old leather book and handed it to Newt.
"Thunderbirds can do that, and the white light you described could be lightning caused by thunderbirds... but the black air couldn't be caused by thunderbirds." Newt said as he wrote and drew on a leather notebook.
"So what you're saying is..."
"There are three possibilities—" Newt wrote several pages on the leather book and handed it to Albert.
"The first possibility is that the cloud layer brought by the Thunderbird caused this large-scale fog, and the white light was the lightning caused by the Thunderbird. As for the black gas that does not match the characteristics of the Thunderbird, it is possible that dark creatures such as Dementors and Voldemorts are fighting with the Thunderbird."
"But there is a big problem with this possibility. Thunderbirds are not on the Dementors' diet. And the number of Voldemorts is pitifully small. They can usually only be seen in tropical regions. Even if a few Voldemorts appear in Greece, it is difficult for them to cause black gas that can be observed by wizards with the naked eye."
"What about the second possibility?" Albert asked anxiously.
"The second possibility is that there are some magical animals that I haven't discovered yet!" At this point, Newt's eyes flashed with excitement, "This is also the most ideal situation in my mind - whether it is a creature that has just been observed, a species born from the mating of different magical animals, or a new species formed by mutation, I have no problem with it!"
However, Abbott did not hold high hopes for this possibility.
As we all know, Newt Scamander has become the world's most famous wizard of magical zoology since the 1920s. He travels around the world all year round, looking for all kinds of magical animals that have never been discovered.
His book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" has been published in dozens of editions. Basically, every time a new edition comes out, many magic schools rush to choose it as a teaching material for the Care of Magical Creatures course.
Such a legendary magizoologist, decades later, is it possible that there are still magical animals that he has not discovered
Not to mention, this thing that might be a magical animal is so high-profile that the special effects directly cover the entire Mount Olympus...
"Then... what about the third possibility?" Albert asked again.
"The third possibility..." Newt's excited expression faded and his face became solemn.
"It could be two extremely powerful wizards, fighting each other on Mount Olympus right now!"
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