RPAGF Chapter 119 Hogwarts Infrastructure and Foreman
Chapter 119 Hogwarts Infrastructure and Foreman
At the end of March, the last Hufflepuff-Slytherin Quidditch match ended, marking the end of the Quidditch season for this term.
For the next half a year, the stadium will be idle.
This also means that the project of adding security facilities to it can start.
In November last year, Gilderoy Lockhart, a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, submitted an application, expressing his concerns about the safety of Quidditch. As a very responsible teacher, he is willing to undertake the reconstruction of the stadium project.
Principal Dumbledore was not there at the time, and the deans of the four colleges discussed it and agreed to his application.
Of course, they mainly hold the mentality of watching jokes.
But when Lockhart gave the design drawing, the four deans felt that it was not a joke.
In a fair evaluation, this design drawing is feasible and realistic, and can reflect sufficient professionalism.A large rune array composed of nine hubs plus hundreds of micro-nodes will be placed under the ground of the court to maintain two main magic functions for a long time:
Continuously deforms the ground into an elastic material.
And a slow-fall force field that maintains a height less than ten feet off the ground.
After such a modification, the behavior logic of the Golden Snitch and Bludgers should also be modified so that they will not take the initiative to enter the slowing force field, causing the game to be unfair.
With such an arrangement, even if a student falls from a height of tens of meters, there is no risk of breaking his neck.
Although the four deans are not specialized in magic text, they have good eyesight and can see the gold content in it.
Of course, they were all quite surprised, thinking that Lockhart had secured a rune master. This guy had no skills himself, but if he had this level of connections, it could bring benefits to Hogwarts.
No one realizes that this "master of magic text" is hiding in this school.
But just having a plan is not enough. According to the logo on the design drawing, the entire project needs at least a thousand basic rune boards. It will take an experienced alchemist a year or two to complete this workload. Lockhart will Not cutting corners, or even screwing up, is unknown.
But he really took out a sufficient number of rune tablets engraved with valid runes.
Now most of the professors have changed their opinion of Lockhart.
Lockhart himself was a little proud of being able to make these high-level mages look at him differently, but he was more intimidated, afraid of that young man who could take out so many rune tablets in an understatement.
What kind of scary background does he have?In fact, these thousands of rune boards are really nothing to Erwin, because the inscriptions on them are the most basic executive runes, and only need to play a single effect, and the technical content is very low. The auxiliary inscription tool in the hut can be mass-produced automatically.
Otherwise, he would not have the confidence to let Lockhart take on this job.
Seeing that Lockhart really did his best, Professor McGonagall, who has always been upright, felt a little embarrassed. She sincerely apologized to Lockhart, and at the same time suggested that several of their deans could help.
But Snape had a different opinion: "It's not a troublesome matter, just let the half-giant from the hunting ground come forward, he must be worthy of the salary he has taken for so many years."
Professor McGonagall was a little displeased, but everyone was the dean, so she didn't say anything.
So it was big Hagrid, Gilderoy Lockhart and Erwin on the Quidditch pitch on Saturday.
"Student Erwin is very talented, I asked him to practice." This is how Lockhart explained to Hagrid.
The gamekeeper certainly has him, and every Hogwarts teacher should respect him for his simplicity.
"Morning, Erwin," he greeted with a giggle.
The main job was to dig a hole, and then bury the array hub and various nodes. Hagrid picked up the big shovel and started to work in full swing.
Erwin is in charge of debugging the hubs and nodes of the array to ensure that they can resonate with each other and function.After all, this is considered to be in public, and the professors are paying attention, and it is not easy for him to show too strong magical power.
After all, what he can do now cannot be explained by talent.
Gilderoy Lockhart commanded blandly, trying to look as if he wasn't useless.
After getting the armor ring from Erwin, Lockhart's Defense Against the Dark Arts class finally had some more substantive content, which emphasized the importance of defense in battle.
"No matter what environment you are in or any enemy you face, protecting yourself from injury is the top priority! As long as you have enough resistance to the curse, you can even display a noble spirit of sacrifice, stand in front of your partners, and serve them Take the damage!"
It's a pretty good line, but the problem is, he repeats it in Defense Against the Dark Arts every year.
"Now, use all your abilities to attack me!"
This link is only available in classes below the third grade, and this guy is still a little self-aware.
A normal low-grade Hogwarts student who can use the Disarming Curse and the Petrification Curse is considered an excellent student. Lockhart's magic power level is not bad, and the Iron Armor Curse formed by the armor ring can still hold the field.
For the students, casting spells on the professor was much more interesting than reading those boring weird novels, so Lockhart had recovered part of his reputation during this period.
Now there are only two people actually working on the court, so the progress is not fast. Although it is spring, under the sunlight, Lockhart is sweating profusely, and it seems that he is the most tired one.
By the time the sun goes down, the installation is complete.
"Is that all right?" Lockhart asked.
"Not yet," Erwin shook his head slightly, "You go to Professor McGonagall and the others, it's just the last step."
"Huh?" Lockhart was a little confused.
"Just go ahead and say it, and they'll understand."
Although this entire set of rune arrays seems complete, there is actually one most obvious problem, that is, there is no source of magic power.
In the world of magic, all forces and energies can be controlled, but only magic power cannot be generated for no reason.To maintain the effect of this rune array on such a large field, it must have a stable source of mana. It is unrealistic to use magic materials or wizards to charge it.
Irwin did it on purpose. Anyone who doesn't know anything about runes can directly discover this problem, but the professors at Hogwarts didn't say anything.
That means they don't think it's a problem.
Lockhart sent a message, and 10 minutes later, not only Professor McGonagall, but also the other three deans came.
Snape frowned when he saw Erwin, "Why is he here?"
"Erwin's been helping, Professor," Hagrid answered first.
"Go back to the castle." Snape looked at Erwin coldly and raised his hooked nose.
"He's a student of my academy, you've crossed the line, Severus." Professor McGonagall was a little displeased.
"He has no right to stay here anymore." Snape was very stubborn.
"Why are you not qualified? There is nothing to keep secret about the next thing. He is a student of Hogwarts, and he is still a very good student. It's okay to just watch." The short Professor Flitwick said.
The diminutive professor is now floating to avoid having to look up to other professors because of his height.
"I just took a look, and there is nothing wrong with the entire rune array." Flitwick blinked at Erwin, "I heard that you helped arrange it? Sure, young man."
Snape snorted.
"Let's start quickly." Professor Sprout said, "The mandrakes in my greenhouse have reached a critical moment of maturity. Although there are students to help take care of them, I am still a little worried."
Several professors stood on four corners beside the largest hub, raising their wands at the same time.
Gold, blue, yellow and green lights emanated from the tips of their wands, outlining the patterns of lion, eagle, badger and snake respectively, which are the symbols of the four houses.
These four animals made of light gathered together, forming an arrangement similar to the Hogwarts school emblem, and then suddenly submerged into the hub.
No, it didn't enter the hub, Erwin found out immediately, it penetrated the hub and directly entered the ground.
The ground suddenly trembled, as if a meridian was suddenly connected, the hub suddenly produced a powerful rune fluctuation, and a large amount of magic power spread from it to the surroundings, instantly activating all other hubs and nodes.
The rune array on the Quidditch pitch was officially put into use.
And the source of the magic that started it...was Hogwarts.
This is the strength of this school itself.
Hogwarts itself can be regarded as a huge alchemical creation, containing immeasurable magic power, which runs in the underground veins and supports the consumption of the entire school.
Lockhart was amazed, of course he was just watching the fun, and this experience will become the basis for his conversation with others after he leaves Hogwarts.
"I just said, why would you go to such lengths to help this arrogant fool." Riddle's voice sounded next to Erwin's ear, "This is all you want, isn't it?"
"It's just incidental." Erwin responded lightly.
"Sure enough, this castle contains unimaginable power, my guess is right." Riddle said to himself, "Unfortunately, if I had known it back then, I would have found a way to stay in Hogwarts no matter what. It seems that mobilizing this force requires the joint authority of the four deans? Interesting."
Erwin was feeling the magic power, but unfortunately, apart from its seemingly endless supply, he didn't discover anything, and it was impossible to make any inferences.
But it is enough to be sure that Hogwarts itself has this power.
"By the way, I suddenly suspect that Salazar Slytherin was pushed out, probably not because of the ridiculous reason of recruiting Muggle students." Riddle said again.
"That's right, the castle itself has such powerful energy, and the four founders are all outstanding wizards, and they are two men and two women. What kind of emotional and interest disputes have occurred is really fascinating." Erwin rarely refuted Del's conspiracy theory.
But it doesn’t make sense to think about it now, because there are no relevant historical materials left. Is it possible to write a fictional historical novel about the love-hate entanglement between the four founders based on imagination?
"It's done." Professor Flitwick looked at the activated rune array with satisfaction.
Snape's attention was still on Erwin, "You'd better not tell other students what you just saw." He said sternly.
This was the first time Professor McGonagall was displeased, but Snape didn't care.
"Thank you, professors." Hagrid, who had been watching quietly all this time, said at this time. He didn't look surprised, which meant that he had seen similar scenes more than once in the gamekeeper's career. "Now it's time for me to fill in the holes."
The professors left, leaving Erwin, Hagrid, and Lockhart to continue working. After filling all the holes and re-laying the lawn, there was only the last step left.
Hagrid threw his shovel up sharply. The half-giant had extraordinary strength, but the shovel dropped rapidly before it hit the ground, and finally touched the ground lightly. The tip of the shovel didn't even leave any marks on the lawn.
"Successful." Lockhart beamed, as if he was really the person in charge of the project.
The next day, Professor McGonagall knocked on the door of Lockhart's office with a bag of gold coins.
"This is the project fund for you. It was approved by the principal when he was at school at Christmas. It was supposed to advance part of it to you in advance, but something delayed it."
In fact, it was because he didn't trust Lockhart that he didn't give the advance payment. Professor McGonagall was an upright person, so he looked quite unnatural when he said these words.
Lockhart has been working hard for so many years, and he still has a basic emotional intelligence. Of course, he will not accept it directly, "How can the school pay for this, this is my voluntary contribution." His expression is extremely noble.
"Hogwarts will not take advantage of you in vain, Professor Lockhart. What's more, compared to a complete set of rune arrays, this amount of money is considered small."
"No matter how much money you have, you don't have to give it to me. The school must have other places to spend money." Lockhart said while peeking at the money bag.
The bag is not too big, and it really can't hold many gold coins.
"It's a special money bag, the capacity has been expanded, and there are actually [-] Galleons inside."
Eight thousand?
Lockhart was stunned for a moment, although he still said the words of refusal, but he was not so firm anymore, and finally accepted it smoothly.
But after Professor McGonagall left, he did not put the purse in his safe.
He approached Hagrid first and offered to give him five hundred Galleons for his hard work, but he was sternly rejected.
"I don't need so much money, sir, serving Hogwarts is what I should do."
After leaving Hagrid's hut, none of the eight thousand Gallon Lockharts and Nat dared to stay, and handed them all over to Erwin, who now knew his position very well.
"There are [-] Galleons?" Erwin was also quite surprised, Hogwarts really had a lot of project funds.
Perhaps undertaking infrastructure projects in the wizarding world is also a good way to make money?