Hogwarts: I graduated before the system came

After dealing with most of the traces of holy light on Aldo's body, Douglas took out a bottle of light green potion emitting a soft breath of life from his arms and fed it to Aldo.

This is a powerful repair potion that can quickly repair damaged tissue and replenish lost vitality.

As the medicine entered his throat, Aldo felt a warm current instantly spreading to his limbs. His body, which had been cold due to blood loss and severe pain, gradually recovered some temperature, his breathing became much steadier, and his face regained a hint of blood color from its previous deathly gray.

"Mr. Holmes, you... what kind of magic is this? I have never seen... such a miraculous treatment..."

Aldo spoke weakly, his voice filled with the excitement of surviving the disaster and uncontrollable curiosity.

He felt as if he had been pulled back from the brink of hell.

"This is no ordinary healing magic, Mr. Aldo."

Douglas placed the last jet-black silver needle into the container, his voice calm but carrying an unquestionable weight.

"This is ancient wisdom from the Far East, an art of Qi and balance. As for those spells, they are merely auxiliary means to pry open the balance."

Lupin couldn't help but smile when he heard this, and he was not surprised at all.

Isn’t the core concept of the new wolfsbane potion improved by Douglas based on the theory of balance and harmony in ancient Eastern medicine?

Douglas always draws inspiration from different bodies of knowledge.

Aldo struggled to sit up from the ground, and his eyes were rekindled with the desire for life and concern for his companions.

"Mr. Holmes, Mr. Lupin."

He stretched out his scarred hand, trying to grab something.

"Please... please go to our new home! Chief Marco and his people... they must be waiting for you there! They must be! You... you are the last hope of the Ash Claw!" His voice choked again with excitement, and tears flashed in his one eye.

Douglas reached out and gently pressed Aldo's shoulder as he tried to get up, signaling him not to move.

"We will, Aldo, but you need to recover some strength first. You are not in your current state and cannot withstand the turbulence of Apparition. Also, we need to know the exact location of that new home."

Hearing that Douglas wanted to take him with him, Aldo quickly waved his hand and said:

"I won't go. I can give you my approximate location. I'm not sure what the attackers were. They didn't leave any tracking marks on me. Those hyenas of the Vatican are the best at these insidious tactics."

Douglas shrugged and said:

"If there were tracking marks, the others would have been caught long ago. It would be useless for us to go there. If you're worried..."

He took out his wand, and a tiny, almost transparent magical wave lingered at the tip of the wand.

He tapped the air in front of Aldo's forehead three times and uttered a few short and strange syllables:

"Through the Looking Glass."

A faint ripple, like ripples on the water, spread silently with Aldo's body as the center, and then dissipated into the air as if it had never appeared.

The whole process was so fast that Lupin only caught a very faint trace of magic.

Douglas then cast the spell on himself and Lupin.

Then he said in a relaxed tone:

"Well, even if they do track the magic, now they'll just be tracking a false image that keeps spinning in place or moving in the wrong direction."

"At least for a short time, there's no way they'll find our true location."

After hearing what Douglas said, Aldo struggled to kneel down, but was supported by Lupin in time.

"Thank you, Mr. Holmes! Thank you! You... you have not only saved my life, but you have also... given me hope..."

Aldo repeated incoherently.

Douglas patted his shoulder gently, signaling him to calm down:

"Don't thank me yet. We need to find your people as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the more dangerous they will be."

Douglas first used the magic radar's fine probe to carefully scan the ground of the mine tunnel above to confirm that there were no signs of human activity, let alone any preset magic traps.

Only then did he put away the radar and turned to Aldo, who was still leaning weakly against the rock wall.

"Hold on to me, Mr. Aldo."

Douglas didn't explain much, just stretched out his arm and motioned Aldo to grab it.

Lupin also stepped forward, ready to assist if necessary.

Just as Aldo hesitated and stretched out his dry arm to touch Douglas's sleeve, a familiar, stomach-churning squeezing feeling suddenly hit him.

Apparition!

Aldo felt his eyes go dark, and the air around him seemed to turn into solidified glue, wrapping, pulling and spinning him tightly.

In his weakened state, he almost passed out again.

When he regained consciousness and stepped on solid ground, he found that he had left the dark, damp, and desperate bottom of the mine.

They were now in a relatively dry and spacious cave, which was the old stronghold of the Ash Claw tribe that they had entered and found to have been cleaned out.

"vomit……"

Aldo bent down and retched violently a few times, but nothing came out.

He held onto the cold rock wall, gasping for breath, his one eye filled with horror.

He looked at the cave in front of him, which was so clean that even the smell of blood and traces of battle had been wiped out. A fear deeper than before gripped his heart.

"No...impossible..."

Aldo's voice trembled.

"Where's the smell of blood? Where are the signs of battle? They're all... gone? Who... who did this? The devil... did the devil devour this place?"

Douglas looked at him calmly until Aldo's emotions calmed down a little, then he slowly spoke:

"Aldo, calm down. If it were really a demon, do you think it would be so tidy? The enemy who attacked you had the time to clean up this place as if no one had ever lived here. Do you think that if they were really trying to exterminate your entire clan, they wouldn't have the time to track you down? The fact that you're still alive means that the others are probably fine too. At least they won't be wiped out along with the others."

Aldo was slightly stunned, and looked at Douglas with his cloudy eye, trying to find a glimmer of hope from his calm expression.

"Perhaps," Douglas continued, taking out two parchment maps from his arms.

"Your people are fine, they've just... moved. Here are two maps. Take a look. Which backup base should we go to next to look for them?"

Aldo leaned in to take a closer look. He first picked up one of the maps with Master Antonio's signature on it and searched it carefully with his one eye.

"It seems you have also contacted Master Antonio, he is a good man..."

"We have several backup bases. The closest one is this one, or this one..."

He muttered to himself.

But his voice stopped abruptly when his eyes inadvertently swept over another map that Douglas had unfolded.

His single eye suddenly widened and his pupils contracted violently, as if he had seen the most terrifying thing.

He stretched out his trembling finger, but did not touch it. He just hovered above Isabella's map, and the blood on his face instantly drained away.

"No...this...this is impossible..."

He pointed at the map, his voice filled with horror and disbelief.

"This mark... and here... these emergency shelters that only the chief and our elders know about... why... the rest of the tribe only know about two of them... but... how come they are all here?!"

Douglas understood.

It seems that there is definitely an unusual relationship between Isabella and Marco, the leader of the Ash Claw tribe.

Maybe it's an alliance, or maybe it's some other deeper connection.

This undoubtedly explains why Isabella is so concerned about the Ash Claw incident that she even took the risk of contacting him in the UK.

He suddenly raised his head and stared at Douglas:

"Who gave you this map? This... This is practically our tribe's highest-ranking secret!"

Chapter 398 The last hope, the abandoned mining area!

"The person who provided the map was a trustworthy friend. Perhaps your clan leader sensed danger and asked her to pass it to me in advance, just in case."

Douglas answered simply without further explanation.

"The most important thing now is to find your people, Mr. Aldo. Based on this more detailed map, where do you think they are most likely to have gone?"

Aldo took a deep breath to calm himself down. He noticed that Douglas used the word "she", the woman who gave the patriarch the message.

He studied Isabella's map carefully, his finger hesitantly moving between several marked points. Each mark represented a difficult memory and a dangerous migration.

It was already bright outside, and the sunlight shone in through the gaps in the cave, dispelling some of the chill.

Douglas took out some food wrapped in oil paper from his bottomless pocket - a few pieces of toasted bread, some bacon, a small bag of dried fruits, and even a small water bag.

"Let's eat something first," he said to Aldo and Lupin, "we need the strength."

Aldo was already starving at this moment, and he didn't bother to be polite. He took the food and gobbled it up.

Lupin also took a portion and chewed it slowly, looking from time to time at Douglas who was in deep thought and Aldo who was concentrating on studying the map.

After eating the simple food, the three of them felt much more refreshed.

Aldo pointed to a marked point on the map:

"This is an abandoned sulfur mine near the Calabria Fault. The terrain there is complex, and there's a natural sulfur smell that masks the smell. It's one of our most commonly used backup points. If they successfully evacuate from the main base, this is the most likely place to go."

"Okay, let's go here." Douglas made a quick decision.

They left the cleared cave and, under Aldo's guidance, followed the secret path marked on Isabella's map towards the first backup base.

The mountain road in the Apennine Mountains was rugged and difficult to travel, but the three of them walked at a fast pace.

Around noon, they arrived at the abandoned sulfur mine that Aldo had mentioned.

There is a faint smell of sulfur here, and the surrounding rocks are also a strange yellow and white.

Douglas signaled the two to stop, while he quietly moved forward and conducted a thorough investigation. After confirming that there were no ambushes or other people, he called Lupin and Aldo to follow.

Under an inconspicuous rock wall, Aldo pushed aside the dense bushes and revealed a dark cave entrance that was only wide enough for one person to pass through, similar to a cellar entrance.

"It's here." Aldo's voice was a little excited.

The three of them entered one after another. The tunnel sloped downward. The smell of sulfur in the air became stronger, but it was also mixed with a hint of... the breath of life.

After walking about ten meters, the tunnel suddenly opened up and a small underground cave appeared.

In the center of the cavity, there was a pile of embers from an extinguished fire, still warm.

In the corners, there were some gnawed bones and fruit cores scattered around.

“They’ve been here!”

When Aldo saw these traces, his one eye gleamed with joy. "Look at these traces, they must have been left a few days ago! They managed to escape here!"

Douglas carefully examined the fire and the food residue and nodded:

"Yes, and they left in a hurry, but not in a panic. There are no signs of a fight here."

Aldo added excitedly: "The defensive magic and warning runes here have been reset. This is how our tribe arranged them! If the enemy tracks us down, they will definitely not be so kind as to help us restore them!"

This is undoubtedly good news, indicating that at least some members of the Ash Claw have safely evacuated here and may have been picked up by others afterwards.

"They may have gone to the next backup point," Lupin analyzed.

Aldo nodded vigorously and pointed to another location on the map:

"Yes! We must have gone to that ancient cave on the edge of the Black Forest! It's more secluded there, and closer to our contact point with some friendly mountain tribes!"

Without staying for long, they immediately set off for the second backup base.

It was a huge cave located at the edge of a dense forest, its entrance cleverly hidden by vines and boulders.

However, when they approached the cave entrance, they found some unusual traces.

The ground near the cave entrance was a bit messy, with several small trees broken in half and some dried, dark bloodstains scattered on the ground.

Douglas stopped beside a rock that was used as a makeshift sentry post, his eyes sharp.

He bent down and picked up a half-broken arrow from the dirt.

The arrow shaft was made of rough wood, but the arrowhead was carefully polished from obsidian, gleaming with a cold glow.

Even more striking was the presence of a thin, dried-up dark coating still remaining on the arrowhead.

Douglas gently picked up a little powder with his fingertips and sniffed it.