At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

"How did you know beforehand that it was Professor McGonagall?" Ron asked incredulously in a low voice, trying to catch his breath. "It was clearly a cat! Even the markings were just like the real thing!"

Lucian paused for a moment, the pen in his hand hovering between his fingers. He didn't look at Ron; his gaze was fixed on the rough match on the corner of the table.

"Because of weight."

He said, "A ten-pound cat couldn't walk with that light gait. Unless she hid the excess mass in a dimension we can't see... but that involves deceiving the principle of equivalent exchange."

"Huh?" Ron blinked, looking like he'd just swallowed a slug.

Ron and Harry only half understood, while Hermione Granger, who was flipping through a book in front of them, suddenly turned around, her eyes filled with curiosity. She clearly understood the conservation of mass.

"Transfiguration is the most complex and dangerous magic in all of Hogwarts' courses."

Professor McGonagall's stern voice drew everyone's attention back to the podium: "Anyone who misbehaves in my class, get out immediately and don't come back."

She waved her wand. The podium instantly expanded and twisted, transforming into a grunting Yorkshire pig, before returning to normal a few seconds later.

The students gasped in unison. Harry's eyes widened; the sense of wonder emanating from the very essence of magic made him eager to try it himself.

In his mental vision, the pig was nothing more than a jumble of forcibly overwritten gibberish. The corrective force of reality, like countless invisible springs, was frantically squeezing that deformed mass of matter, trying to turn it back into a wooden lectern.

"Ingenious, but too arrogant," Lucien thought to himself. "This is defying the laws of physics with willpower."

Lucian once wrote the following reflection in his notes: In the underlying logic of this world, the universe is composed of two interwoven layers of reality: the physical layer that follows objective laws, and the conceptual layer that is composed of definitions.

What Professor McGonagall just did was not to reassemble the wood at the molecular level, but to modify the conceptual definition of that mass of matter with her powerful will.

If magic is not continuously supplied, the inertia of reality will act like a spring, forcibly correcting the pig back to the podium.

"Today, what you're going to do is a simple beginning," Professor McGonagall said, pointing to the matches on each person's table. "Try to turn them into a needle. Concentrate, clearly visualize what a needle looks like, and then say the incantation, 'Vera Verto.'"

Practice begins.

Most of the young wizards were struggling with their matches, and Seamus Finnigan, as usual, created a small explosion, getting his face covered in soot. Hermione was the best; the tip of her match already had a metallic silver sheen.

"Very good, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall nodded approvingly.

Lucian glanced at it.

An illusion.

Hermione merely used magic to distort the light and surface texture; the interior remained loose wood fibers. This was visual illusion, not distortion.

Professor McGonagall paced back and forth in the classroom, correcting the students' pronunciation and gestures. She stopped when she reached the back row.

Lucian was holding up his wand, the tip hovering an inch above the match, hesitant to bring it down.

"Mr. Ashford," Professor McGonagall said, her tone tinged with displeasure and a natural reaction to student laziness, "is it that you disdain to try, or have you encountered some difficulty?"

Lucian looked up and asked a question:

"Professor, I'm just confirming a premise. Does our so-called transformation mean modifying the conceptual definition of this match, or is it reorganizing its fundamental physical components?"

The classroom fell silent. Hermione whirled around, staring intently at Lucien.

Professor McGonagall was stunned. In all her years of teaching, she had never had a student ask such a fundamental question in the first class.

She composed herself and gave a standard academic answer: "Transfiguration is a wizard's use of will to guide magic, altering both concepts and influencing matter. The two are inseparable."

"I see."

Lucian nodded, his tone as flat as if he were discussing the weather. "In other words, traditional transfiguration treats spells as vague macro commands, relying on the wizard's will to violently defy the inertia of reality. It's like... trying to crack a walnut with a sledgehammer."

"To be frank, this system is too primitive and lacks aesthetic appeal."

Professor McGonagall frowned; her words sounded as if she were criticizing the very foundation of the entire Transfiguration system.

"So, Mr. Ashford," she said, her voice tinged with a stern, probing tone, "since you believe the traditional method is 'sledgehammer,' do you have any more efficient ideas?"

Lucian did not answer.

There was no point in saying more. He extended his wand and gently touched the match.

The incantation was not recited.

In his mental vision, the door to the microscopic world opened wide. He saw the intricate wood fibers, those long chains of cellulose molecules composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.

His intent seeped in, and a wisp of extremely pure gray true energy seeped in along the tip of the wand.

Perhaps there's no need to defy the inertia of reality to modify the concept, because it follows the laws of physics.

Broken key.

To onlookers, the match had silently "melted." It had vanished from its original form, transforming into a small droplet of bright silver liquid, like mercury, suspended on the table.

"What is that...?" Ron's mouth dropped open.

Immediately following, a restructuring took place.

The image of the lattice arrangement of iron atoms came to Lucian's mind.

The drop of liquid began to flow, stretch, and coalesce. It was building the structure of a needle. Atoms took their places layer by layer according to the most stable hexagonal close-packed structure.

One second later, the droplet disappeared.

Ding.

A very slight, crisp sound. A flawless steel needle, gleaming with a cold light, landed silently on the table.

Its needle is incredibly sharp, the thread hole at the end is round and smooth, and the surface even has a unique bluing luster characteristic of industrial quenching. Of course, bluing is a change in concept.

The silent and efficient transformation of matter from one form to another has been completed.

Professor McGonagall froze. She picked up the needle with her slightly trembling fingers.

The fingertips felt cold, hard, and absolutely real.

There was no sign of any magic sustaining it. Even if Lucien died right now, this needle would remain forever.

After a long silence, Professor McGonagall took a deep breath, her voice dry yet solemn: "Ravenclaw gets 20 points... for this terrifying precision."

"Everyone else may leave after class. Mr. Ashford, please stay."

……

After the students left, filled with questions and awe, only the teacher and the students remained in the classroom.

"Your theory... what you just did..." Professor McGonagall held the needle as if it were a hot potato. "That's not something recorded in any first-year textbook or even the current ones."

"All things return to their origin, Professor," Lucian replied calmly. "Whether it's magic or Muggle science, tracing back to the source, it's all about understanding and applying the rules of the world. Wizards use wands, Muggle craftsmen use chisels; there's no fundamental difference."

"'Craftsman'...a brilliant metaphor. Most of the time, we so-called shapeshifters are indeed using magic to forcibly distort reality, while you are conforming to the rules."

She took a deep breath and made a decision.

"Hogwarts' curriculum is designed for the majority, but there are always exceptions like you who cannot be satisfied by the standard textbooks. For this reason, I personally lead an unofficial study group, inviting only students with extraordinary talent and unique insights in Transfiguration. We do not adhere to the textbooks, but explore the boundaries of Transfiguration."

She looked at Lucien: "Would you like to join us, Mr. Ashford?"

"It's my pleasure, Professor." Lucien bowed slightly, which was exactly what he wanted.

"Great. Come to my office at 8 p.m. Friday."

Lucian packed up his books and left the classroom. As soon as he stepped into the corridor, he saw a tall figure standing quietly at the end where shadow met sunlight.

Albus Dumbledore.

Lucian's back tensed slightly. The Occlumency technique, like a rusty gate, slammed shut, locking all his emotions into the abyss. He stopped, bowed slightly, his politeness impeccable.

"headmaster."

"A very impressive presentation, Mr. Ashford."

Dumbledore smiled and pulled an oiled paper bag from his star-and-moon robe. "As I walked down the corridor, I sensed a... very pure, almost essential sense of order. This is quite rare at Hogwarts."

He picked up a bright yellow, sizzling honey candy and offered it to me: "Want one? Sweets can help relieve the anxiety caused by overthinking—especially for kids who see the world too 'clearly'. I think we might need to have a deeper discussion about this in my office. Now?"

Lucian looked at the aged hand and those blue eyes that seemed to see into one's soul. He knew that his recent material reconstruction had caught the attention of this white wizard.

"Don't be alarmed," Dumbledore continued. "This power is not your fault, my dear child."

"Of course." Lucien took the candy but didn't eat it. "I also have some questions about the castle's structure that I'd like to ask you."

……

It was already dusk when I came out of the principal's office.

Lucian was still pondering Dumbledore's words:

In the round principal's office, the warm golden fireplace flickered, softening the outlines of the portraits of past principals on the four walls. The towering dark wooden bookshelves were piled with gilded ancient books, the smell of old paper mingling with the sweet aroma of lemon hard candy. Phoenix Fox, with its golden and red wings folded, perched on the bookshelf by the window, its tail feathers occasionally brushing against the leather spines of the books.

Dumbledore's voice was gentle yet penetrating: "Many wizards spend their entire lives without grasping the core of Transfiguration, yet you can touch it instinctively. This shows that you have never been trapped by the Obscurus, and your heart has always been moving towards true magic." He paused, and Fawkes let out a soft hum, affectionately nuzzling the back of his outstretched hand. Warm light fell on his half-moon spectacles, refracting into tiny fragments of light.

"Hogwarts' doors are open to you. Here you'll find the finest Transfiguration texts, and a corner to accommodate your uniqueness. You might ask me how to make two powers coexist." He paused for a moment, then turned his gaze towards the seventh floor, his eyes twinkling mischievously, a hint of slyness in his voice: "If you're interested in the restoration of Hogwarts Castle, perhaps you could take a look on the seventh floor—"

Without realizing it, he stopped in a quiet corridor on the seventh floor. There hung a tapestry depicting a giant beating Barnabas with a stick.

Lucian stopped in his tracks, not in a hurry to act. He first carefully observed his surroundings. The corridor was deserted, with only the occasional soft scraping sound of armor in the distance. His gaze fell on the tapestry; in his mental vision, the magical patterns on the fabric were not complex, just an ordinary decoration.

The real anomaly is on the wall opposite it.

It was an ordinary stone wall, but in his vision, the magical structure inside it presented a strange, ever-changing vortex. Countless tiny spatial rifts intertwined, annihilated, and reborn here, forming an extremely unstable magical singularity.

"Spatial folding. Utilizing the castle's vast magical surplus, a spatial bubble was forcibly created here, attached to the main space."

It was as if someone had used incredibly skillful techniques to fold a three-dimensional pocket out of a two-dimensional plane on architectural blueprints. He knew what it was: the Room of Requirement, the very thing he had longed for most in his past life.

He began to pace.

"Requirement 1: Absolute silence, shielding all known magical and physical detection methods."

He went through it for the first time.

"Requirement 2: A complete set of tools required for top-level alchemy."

He walked past it a second time.

"Requirement 3: Stable environment, pure magic, no attribute bias, to facilitate precise operation."

He walked there for the third time.

As his heel touched the ground for the third time, the stone wall opposite him began to change. Instead of a door frame appearing on the wall's surface, ripples spread across it like water. The bricks that made up the wall seemed to lose their substance, receding to both sides in a silent flow, revealing a deep, dark opening.

Lucian went inside.

Darkness closed in behind him, and the walls returned to normal.

The view before me suddenly opened up.

This is a top-tier workshop brimming with Victorian aesthetics. A massive skylight simulates the deep starry sky, while slowly flowing nebulae provide soft, even lighting. At the center of the room stands a workbench crafted from a single block of obsidian, etched with intricate energy-guiding patterns. Along the walls, tools ranging from massive dragon-skin bellows to delicate crystal droppers are neatly categorized and hung on brass racks. The air is filled with the scent of cold metal and dried sage.

The magical environment here is extremely pure, like a completely clean sheet of paper, waiting for the craftsman to make the first stroke.

Lucian walked to the obsidian workbench and gently ran his fingers across the cold surface.

A long-lost feeling of being in control welled up inside me.

This will be his domain, the starting point for him to dismantle and reconstruct this magical world.