Hogwarts: I graduated before the system came

Bill grinned, a hint of professional mockery on his pale face, and his eyes swept over the dry bones on the ground.

"And then, just like them, I was knocked unconscious here."

"Then don't let our master get thirsty," said Douglas.

They both raised their wands at almost the same time.

"Clear spring water!"

"Clear spring water!"

Two streams of clear water gushed out from the tips of their staffs, like two living, soft silver snakes, drawing elegant arcs in the air and sliding precisely and gently into the two outermost pottery jars.

"hiss--"

The water flowed into the clay that had been dry for thousands of years, letting out a satisfied, long sigh.

The high-frequency resonance emitted by the two ceramic jars filled with clear water instantly disappeared. The tearing mental impact was instantly weakened by two-sevenths.

"efficient!"

Bill perked up and immediately turned the tip of his stick and aimed it at the third pottery jar.

When the seventh pottery jar was also filled with clear water, the whole world became quiet.

No, not absolute silence.

But the aggressive and brutal noise disappeared completely.

Instead, there is a low, complex chorus that seems to come from deep underground.

Seven different whispers drifted out from seven water-soaked pottery jars, interweaving together. They were no longer harsh, but instead carried a strange, ancient rhythm.

Douglas closed his eyes and distinguished each sound.

On the far left is the dry and empty "hunger".

The one next to it is the cunning and changeable "Deception".

The third one is the "forgetfulness" of being lost and confused.

The fourth one is the suppressed and violent "anger".

The fifth one is "sadness" with moisture.

The sixth one is the trembling "fear".

The one in the middle, which was also the largest, had the clearest, steadiest, and most ancient sound. It simply repeated the same word over and over again in an emotionless tone.

"Key." Douglas opened his eyes and said softly.

Bill had already put down his wand, and his face showed the ecstasy of having solved an extremely difficult problem.

"So that's it! They're not guardians, they're musical instruments! An orchestra made up of seven sealed emotions!"

Douglas's eyes fell on the smooth stone wall at the end of the tomb.

Chapter 440: The dead end of the curse-breaking master, and the smooth path for Douglas!

In the tomb, the seven completely different whispers have merged from the initial noise into an eerie symphony.

They no longer attack each other, as if they have found some kind of balance.

The ecstasy on Bill's face quickly faded, replaced by the concentration and solemnity that was unique to a curse breaker when facing complex ancient magic.

He paced slowly around the seven jars, his eyes darting back and forth between them like a conductor trying to understand a musical score.

"The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, people had to pass through seven gates to the underworld. Each gate was guarded by a different deity, and required the recitation of the correct spells and the offering of the correct sacrifices."

His voice echoed in the empty tomb, with the rigor of academic discussion.

"These seven emotions likely correspond to the seven gates of testing. Hunger, deception, fear... these are the inner demons a soul will encounter on its journey to the underworld. We must guide and soothe them according to the order recorded in the Book of the Dead, turning conflict into harmony."

He stopped in front of a clay jar that whispered "anger" and frowned.

"But this arrangement is wrong. It doesn't add up at all. Whether it's the positions of the seven stars or the four sons of Horus, there's no logic to it."

Bill fell into deep thought. This was the area he was best at, but the puzzle before him was like a chess game with the rules disrupted by a naughty child, leaving him with no idea where to start.

Douglas didn't interrupt him, but walked over to the clay jar that whispered "hunger".

He did not look at the symbols on the jar, nor did he listen to the heart-wrenching whispers.

He reached out his hand and, with his knuckles, gently and rhythmically tapped the rough clay wall of the jar.

Knock, knock, knock.

"No, Bill."

Douglas spoke, his voice was not loud, but it clearly cut off Bill's thoughts.

"This isn't a symphony, it's a combination lock."

He raised his head and looked at the smooth stone wall at the end of the tomb, as if he could see something through it.

"An ancient safe with emotions as the password."

Bill was stunned. He turned around and looked at Douglas's back.

"Combination lock?"

Douglas didn't look back. He closed his eyes and raised his wand in his other hand.

An extremely soft white light appeared at the tip of the staff, and the light was like gentle milk, without any aggressiveness.

He murmured a word in a language Bill had never heard before, with an ancient Eastern rhythm.

"Tracing the source of thoughts."

This was not a standard Latin spell; it was pronounced short and forcefully, like striking an invisible gong.

As the spell took effect, the white light at the tip of the wand rippled like water, gently brushing over the seven pottery jars.

A miracle happened.

Above each pottery jar, a layer of faint, distorted light and shadow emerged, like the air scorched by the heat wave on a summer afternoon.

At this moment, those invisible emotional whispers were given visible form.

The first thing to light up was the "hunger" urn in front of Douglas.

In the light and shadow, a stretch of cracked land stretched endlessly. Several skinny camels stretched their necks and wailed at the empty sky. Their cracked lips seemed to still have the texture of sand.

The scene changed and showed a dried-up village well. The desperate faces of the villagers were stacked up and reflected in the last pool of turbid mud at the bottom of the well.

Next is the jar of deception.

In the light and shadow, black foam appeared in the clear well water, and illusory snake shadows twisted and swam in the water.

Then, the scene switches to the boundless desert, where a mirage-like city looms in the distance, tempting thirsty travelers.

Above the "Fear" pottery jar, a sandstorm that covered the sky was raging. A guide was holding a broken star map, his face covered with tears and dust.

Then, a little prince in gorgeous clothes was trapped in a dark tomb passage by a rolling black fog, which was filled with shrieking, faceless shadows.

The fourth pottery jar embodies the emotion of “sadness” into a concrete image.

A girl wearing a lotus crown was crying helplessly in a swamp that was ankle-deep, her tears dripping and mixing with the muddy water.

The light and shadow of the "Anger" Urn are the most violent.

The water vapor of the Nile River was dried up by the scorching sun, turning into manic, formless elves that rolled up quicksand and danced wildly over the desert.

The sixth pottery jar represents "forgetfulness".

In the light and shadow, the little prince found the legendary flower. When he gazed at the flower, the pain, fear and fatigue on his face were all wiped away as if by an eraser, leaving only a blank and pure space.

Finally, everyone's eyes were focused on the largest pottery jar in the center.

The clay jar that whispers "key".

Its light and shadow are the simplest and the most shocking.

No disaster, no sadness.

There was only a blurry figure wrapped in a coarse robe, slowly raising his hands towards the starry desert sky on a full moon night.

As he moved, the stars in the sky that had been dimmed by the sandstorm seemed to be polished again by an invisible hand. A clear star trail, like a silver river, covered the entire night sky, pointing in the direction of home.

There was dead silence in the tomb.

Only those silent lights and shadows flow quietly, telling forgotten stories.

Bill was completely stunned. He opened his mouth and looked at this and that. The expression on his face showed shock and confusion that he had never experienced in his career.

The knowledge system he was proud of, his professional judgments on ancient Egyptian mythology, rune logic, and the composition of curses, seemed so pale and powerless in the face of this intuitive and almost barbaric scene before him.

He looked at Douglas, with a barely perceptible tremor in his voice.

"Merlin's beard... Old Taoist, what kind of magic is this?"

His gaze shifted from the lights and shadows back to Douglas, his eyes full of inquiry and disbelief.

“You turned the story into pictures!”

Douglas retracted his wand, and the light and shadows floating above the pottery jar slowly dissipated and turned into invisible whispers again.

He opened his eyes, and in those pupils that always seemed a little lazy, there now flashed a sharp light that could solve the final mystery.

"Bill, we were all wrong."

His voice was particularly clear in the silent tomb.

"The order is not in mythology, nor in any archaeological record."

Douglas turned around and met Bill's shocked gaze, with a hint of understanding at the corner of his mouth.

"It's in that fake fairy tale book you bought."

He paused and said word by word:

"Ankh Ka's legacy is not a requiem for the dead."

"It's a story about an intruder... for the living to see."

Chapter 441 Bill's Nightmare: The Burning Burrow!

The shock on Bill's face was like a frozen lake, which lasted only a few seconds before being quickly melted by the curse-breaker's professional instinct.

He took a deep breath, and the smell of dust and dried plants brought his thoughts, which had been somewhat dizzy due to shock, back to the ground.

"I understand."

Bill's eyes became sharp again, and he walked around the seven pottery jars, his steps returning to that unique rhythm that mixed calmness and rigor.

"The story of the intruder... Ankh Ka used the spiritual disturbances he had dealt with as a code sequence."

He stopped and looked at Douglas with the excitement of meeting a worthy opponent.

"Then the logic is simple. The order of the stories is the order in which I discovered them."

Bill's mind raced, like a precision instrument being recalibrated.

"The first story I read in that fake fairy tale book was 'Whisper of the Nile', the girl with the lotus crown."

He pointed to the clay urn that emitted a sad whisper.

“So, the first note is sadness.”

He then walked towards another pottery jar, the light and shadow on which had shown a sandstorm that covered the sky.

"The second story is 'Signposts in the Sandstorm'. The caravan encountered the gray-robed man in despair."

Bill pointed to the clay urn that represented fear.

"Then there's 'The Clay Pot Man and the Green Lizard,' and the snake's shadow in the well."

He pointed to the Urn of Deception.

"The last one is 'The Prince and the Flower of Forgetfulness'. The prince is looking for the flower that can make him forget his pain in the tomb passage." He pointed to the urn of "forgetfulness".

"Sadness, fear, deception, forgetfulness..."

Bill read out the sequence, a look of confidence on his face that suggested he was about to solve the final puzzle.