The glowing blue letters on the arcane light curtain began to shift, dissolving and reforming with deliberate grace. After a moment, they coalesced into a single line of text, presented in Ravenclaw's signature elegant script:
"Where does time begin?"
The question caught Adrian Blackwood slightly off guard. It wasn't one of the usual logic riddles like those asked by the eagle-shaped knocker of Ravenclaw Tower. It wasn't mathematical, or even linguistic—it was metaphysical. Philosophical. And perhaps deliberately so.
Adrian frowned. In the strictest academic sense, time is a construct—an abstract framework humans devised to mark change and measure progression. It is defined by the motion of matter and the sequence of cause and effect. Astronomical cycles like the Earth's rotation or the moon's orbit give it form. Time isn't a thing so much as an understanding. Even Muggle physicists like Einstein had concluded that time, alongside space, was relative—more perception than reality. A persistent illusion, he had called it.
But of course, the enchanted door before Adrian wasn't asking for a scientific lecture. No, this was a Ravenclaw test. It demanded insight, elegance of thought—an answer that revealed not just knowledge, but how that knowledge was interpreted.
Taking a calming breath, Adrian remembered his training from weeks of facing the knocker's questions—questions designed not to measure rote memory, but intellectual maturity. He smiled faintly, then spoke aloud with clarity:
"The moment just past has ended. The moment to come begins now."
There was a brief, heavy silence. Then, as though pleased, the great bronze door creaked open—accepting the answer as it always did when one revealed an original but sound perspective.
A cool mist rolled out from the opening.
Adrian stepped forward, and the threshold swallowed him. The interior was filled with silvery fog—dense, shimmering, and otherworldly. For a heartbeat, Adrian thought he was falling. But then the mist around him reformed.
Suddenly, he was standing on what could only be described as the moon.
A vast grey plain stretched out before him, filled with ancient craters, rugged ridges, and seas of volcanic basalt—the so-called Mare Tranquillitatis. The air shimmered with unreality, yet the illusion was complete. Above him loomed the vast blackness of space, and hanging brilliantly in the sky was the Earth—a luminous blue orb, suspended like a marble among the stars. Yet something about the stars surrounding it was… wrong. There were too many. Constellations didn't align with Earth's usual perspective. They were drifting, oddly arranged, and interspersed with several glowing celestial bodies Adrian did not recognize.
Despite a rising dizziness from the surreal beauty, Adrian's system-trained instincts kicked in. He scanned his surroundings slowly, deliberately, trying to imprint every detail he could onto his memory. No threats, no shifts in gravity. Still, this was a powerful phantasm-level illusion—a rare class of spatial magic designed to be both symbolic and sentient.
Curious, Adrian bent down, intending to touch the textured grey surface beneath his boots—but the moment his hand reached out, the illusion crumbled. The moon seemed to shrink and recoil like a frightened beast, and with a sweep of motion, it vanished into mist.
Instantly, the mist erupted around him in a vortex, like he had triggered a magical defense or transformation protocol. He was at the eye of a storm—the swirling fog forming a rotating cylinder of clouds while the center remained calm. Adrian held still. He'd learned not to act rashly in system trials. Instead, he observed.
As the rotation slowed, layers of mist dissolved outward, revealing the next illusion: an infinite cosmos. It was as though someone had taken the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall and magnified it a thousandfold. Stars twinkled across every inch of space, some static, others subtly shifting. Nebulae pulsed softly like heartbeats. Comets arced gently through the sky.
Then came the voice.
It was female—serious, dignified, and ringing with a kind of ethereal weight that reminded Adrian of the Sorting Hat or the Room of Requirement when it "spoke" through magic.
"Only a wizard of true intellect may proceed. Reconstruct the celestial pattern seen from the moon by identifying the correct constellation positions from this galactic field. You must match their orientation and spatial relationship as they appeared ten minutes ago. Success will allow passage. Failure will result in a powerful Obliviate charm and immediate expulsion from the trial."
Adrian's pulse quickened.
This was no ordinary magical challenge—it was a founder-level legacy trial, likely a fragment of Ravenclaw's own mind preserved in the statue's enchantment. And it wasn't just about recalling positions—it was about pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and observational synthesis, all elevated to an arcane level.
He felt his System interface activate faintly in the back of his mind, its analytical modules humming, yet it offered no direct assistance. The memory retention boost granted by the "Xueba" system was formidable—but it did not cover visual-spatial memory. Adrian had never trained himself to memorize constellations or celestial charts visually. He had relied too much on words, numbers, and logic—on exams and scrolls, not stargazing.
He winced inwardly. Should've added those walnut-and-pumpkin-seed cognitive potions to my breakfast routine.
Above him, the cosmos shimmered with quiet challenge.
At that moment, Adrian Blackwood suddenly remembered a critical item tucked away in his system storage—a last resort he hadn't expected to use so soon. A rare burst of luck made him pause and access the glowing system interface in his mind. From the organized list of stored objects, he quickly selected a piece of simple parchment tied with a crimson cord.
The ribbon slipped off on its own, and the parchment gently unfurled in midair. Written in flowing ink were the words:
"Xueba Halo"
Below the title, neat lines described its effects:
"Before activation, clearly state the desired duration. For the time specified, the host will gain increased magical fortune and a magic amplification effect superior to that of a high-grade Elixir of Clarity. Additionally, the host will temporarily receive the wisdom of legendary wizards and access the collective knowledge of three major magical libraries."
There was no hesitation. Adrian declared aloud, "Activate halo: three minutes."
Instantly, a sharp jolt of heat flooded his mind. The sensation was searing, like hundreds of ideas rushing into his brain all at once. Ancient magical theory, celestial navigation principles, starmap visualization, advanced Arithmancy—his skull throbbed with overload.
Then, clarity.
The pain receded, replaced by a sublime calm. His mind was no longer guessing—it was orchestrating. The stars above now felt like notes in a grand cosmic symphony, and Adrian was the conductor. He could recognize each celestial body by its arc, intensity, and spatial resonance. The fleeting memory of the view from the moon earlier became crystal-clear.
Adrian began to scan the endless sky. With laser focus, he isolated and dismissed decoy stars, tracing lines across the cosmos to rebuild the correct alignment. He rotated galaxies into position, corrected stellar parallax, and even accounted for orbital drift. What had seemed like an impossible task moments ago now unfolded with intuitive grace.
In just over two minutes, the configuration was complete. The original view was fully restored—down to the smallest flickering satellite star. He glanced at the remaining seconds on the active system buff. Not even enough time left to be useful. A shame, really.
The cold, disembodied female voice didn't return, but it wasn't necessary. The moment the last constellation snapped into place, the illusion fractured. The starfield dissolved into streams of silver light, crumbling like brittle glass into fragments. Each piece of stardust vanished into the void, signifying one thing—the trial had been passed.
Adrian exhaled slowly.
"This level of magical difficulty is absurd," he muttered. "Even skilled adult wizards with extensive Astrological training would struggle. Why would Rowena Ravenclaw construct such a brutal test? Without the Xueba Halo… I would've had no chance. And that Obliviate failsafe wasn't just for show. That kind of reinforced memory-wipe spell could cause long-term cognitive damage. Forgetting this trial would be considered… a minor side effect."
He had no time to ponder it further.
The space around him trembled. The swirling cosmic fragments reformed and elongated. In moments, they transformed into a towering structure—a medieval-style wizard's tower with elegant spires and intricate buttresses, its presence steeped in mystery and arcane history.
The heavy gates of the tower creaked open on their own, beckoning.
Adrian stepped inside.
A gossamer-thin veil of energy, like translucent cicada wings, shimmered in the air ahead. The rest of the space unfolded behind it in breathtaking splendor. The entire interior radiated artistic majesty—built in deep bronze and shades of midnight blue. It was a visual echo of Ravenclaw House itself.
Antique yet elegant furniture filled the room—curved chaise lounges, delicate tables carved with star maps, and intricate filigree cabinets. Rich, ancient carpets were laid wall to wall, their embroidery done in gold thread and runic motifs. Every inch felt like a museum, yet it was alive with enchantment.
Adrian gazed up.
The domed ceiling gleamed with overlapping scales—silver-blue, glinting like polished armor. He recognized the origin instantly: Swedish Short-Snout dragon hide—an incredibly rare and dangerous material to acquire. Suspended from above, a spiraling crystal chandelier hovered in midair, gently rotating, shedding soft silvery light across the chamber.
The painted murals along the upper walls caught Adrian's attention next. They depicted events previously seen on the enchanted tapestries outside—only now rendered with extraordinary detail. The artistry looked impossibly modern, as if someone had updated the brushstrokes with spell-enhanced realism. Adrian's brows furrowed. According to all historical records, Rowena Ravenclaw had died sometime in the 11th century. These depictions felt hundreds of years more advanced than they should have been.
He didn't have time to linger on the thought.
The light curtain ahead of him pulsed, and from the very fragments of the shattered starmap earlier, a new image reformed. A complex astral diagram filled the screen—planets, constellations, and runes connected by swirling lines of silver.
At the lower-right corner of the projection was a miniature model of the very tower Adrian was now standing in—complete with surrounding terrain, elevation glyphs, and energy conduits.
Then the voice returned.
"Extend your wand. Cast the Movement Charm. Complete the Astral Traversal. Failure to complete the task will result in permanent confinement within the tower."
Adrian's grip tightened around his wand.
The final trial had begun.