Just as Borgin received news and dispatched the obsidian gargoyle, those pure-blood families who had been watching from the sidelines were overjoyed after confirming that the Malfoy family could truly handle such large quantities of dark magical items.
Though sending their family treasures to the Malfoy family did pain them somewhat, thinking about the trouble if the Ministry discovered these items later made them realise the costs of settling such matters would far exceed the items' value.
Moreover, even at this time, the Malfoy family's prices were only slightly lower than usual—a stark contrast to Borgin, who demanded they pay disposal fees. The difference was clear.
Therefore, the pure-blood families competed to send their true treasures—those extremely dangerous dark magical items—to the Malfoy family. Lucius welcomed them all.
Though he had the ability to lower prices by half again, the Malfoy family never skimped on necessary expenses. He was determined to build good relations with Ciel, this young wizard who might very well become the next Dark Lord.
To achieve this, he naturally had to demonstrate the Malfoy family's greatest value by handling things cleanly and efficiently. Saving a few Galleons by dragging things out for two or three days would be counterproductive.
Lucius understood these pros and cons clearly. After twelve heavy chests arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief. He roughly knew each family's collection quantities—except for a few scattered items, the British magical world's pure-blood families' dark magical items should all be here.
Feeling the unsettling, terrifying aura even through the chests, Lucius was curious about Ciel's methods and motivations. But he immediately killed his curiosity in the cradle.
"Countless troubles arise from curiosity. The more you know, the faster you die—I must remember this."
Lucius quickly delivered all twelve chests to Ciel's room: "Mr Sprout, this is roughly everything we could collect. Some items inside wouldn't have been brought out if the Ministry wasn't serious this time."
Ciel showed admiration for Lucius's efficiency, sincerely praising: "Mr Malfoy, you truly deserve to lead the Malfoy family through so many years of prominence. This ability and network are unmatched in all of magical Britain."
These words made Lucius show some pride, knowing the Malfoy family's value had been demonstrated before this promising young wizard, deepening their cooperation.
"With this, when Dumbledore and the Dark Lord both pass away, Draco's relationship with this boy will be enough to keep our family standing for decades more."
Relieved, Lucius left without even glancing at the room, fearing he might glimpse some extremely dangerous, twisted magic.
Ciel looked at the twelve chests, his eyes gradually warming. He could feel the dark magical power emanating from these chests was far stronger than previous deliveries. Undoubtedly, the pure-blood families had truly brought out their treasures.
"I wonder if there's any possibility of advancing the Patronus tree seed further?"
With this thought, he waved his wand and opened a chest. Instantly, twisted, malicious, ominous magic poured out like a fountain. The air itself seemed filled with deadly black smoke formed by concentrated dark magic.
But just then, the Patronus tree seed in his chest scattered silver light. This deadly magic melted rapidly like snow in sunlight when touched by the silver radiance.
Simultaneously, the Patronus tree seed's potential continued awakening through annihilating dark magic, its reward lustre growing brighter.
However, after a few glances, he shook his head with slight disappointment: "As expected. Advancing the Patronus tree seed from Epic to Legendary level requires far more difficulty. Even with many treasures here, it's still far from sufficient for advancement."
"Probably can only brighten the lustre somewhat and add a bit more Legendary radiance—no qualitative change."
But fortunately, the Patronus tree seed's protection slowly increased during this process, along with the quantity of sacred magical particles surrounding him. At least it wasn't completely without gain.
"Processing so many dark magical items still requires time. Can't waste it."
His gaze fell on his system panel. Compared to studying other abilities, his newly acquired ancient shadow magic, as a type of ancient magic, naturally had the highest priority.
With previous experience studying ancient weather magic, he was no longer completely ignorant about ancient magic principles.
"Ancient magic's essence lies in two parts. One is mastering the corresponding runic script, especially its magical configurations. Only specific magical configurations can trigger corresponding ancient magic."
He had already obtained this from the ancient shadow magic insight in his Shadow Thorn tree reward. Though ancient shadow magic corresponded to only one runic script—far less than ancient weather magic—even a single rune contained vast mysteries.
He still remembered the vision from receiving this insight: that Titan giant controlling shadows, directly drowning the world in darkness.
"Compared to ancient weather magic, my ancient shadow magic insight is more complete. The former only gave me basic configurations for three runes with no path forward, while ancient shadow magic provided deeper configurations encompassing thirteen nodes."
His wand slowly moved through the air, magic surging at its tip, sketching glowing tracks. Any wizard knowledgeable about runes could see he was constructing and writing a runic script with magical nodes: ᛈ (Perthro).
Unlike previous struggles with basic configurations, his current magical mastery and perception had transformed completely. Basic configurations requiring seven magical nodes posed little difficulty now.
Even constructing ᛈ for the first time, he succeeded after just a few attempts. Seven magical nodes resonated, forming the rune's basic configuration.
Around him, shadows on the ground began writhing. His system panel's ancient shadow magic text was quickly covered by iron-level radiance.
As he squinted and continued constructing more nodes—eight, nine—until sweat beaded his forehead and various enhancement abilities boosted his magical perception, eleven magical nodes took shape.
Though not reaching the complete thirteen nodes, compared to the seven-node basic configuration, his current runic script was significantly more powerful. The ancient shadow magic text changed from iron to dim bronze radiance. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽
However, a large area remained uncovered by this radiance throughout.
He had expected this: "This is ancient magic's greatest difficulty beyond mastering runic configurations. Driving ancient magic requires natural will to unleash its true power. Having only configurations without natural will makes ancient magic merely decorative."
"It's lost precisely because obtaining natural will is extremely dangerous."
His danger tolerance far exceeded ordinary wizards—he'd even obtained a natural will for lightning. But now, his headache wasn't the danger of obtaining shadow-driving natural will, but not knowing where to find it.
The surrounding shadows contained nothing like that.
After much thought, he recalled Nicolas Flamel's theory about magical power origins. Shadow magic barely existed in reality, or in such minute quantities as to be negligible.
So perhaps the natural shadow will be hard to find in the real world and should be sought in the shadow magic source world?
But remembering his previous exploration of the shadow world with Shadow, if Shadow will existed there, his long stay should have left some residue, like when he obtained lightning will through electrical shock. Yet his system panel showed virtually nothing.
Where could he obtain shadow will?
After long consideration, he slowly settled on a troubling possibility: "Can't find it in the real world, so it must be in the shadow world. But my stay there didn't yield shadow will, so perhaps it exists in special forms."
He immediately thought of his near-entry into the deep shadow world, seeing something living flash through that especially dark, nearly substantial shadow magic.
"Could those things possess shadow will, bringing them to life in the shadow world? Must I obtain shadow will from such shadow creatures?"
He considered this the most likely possibility, but even with his transformed shadow magic control, that deep shadow world still seemed extremely forbidding. Especially that fleeting shadow glimpse.
Without absolute confidence, he wouldn't risk entering.
"Guess it must be postponed. Even without Shadow, which will prevent ancient shadow magic's full power, current performance still counts as strange, stealthy magic with uses. I'll find opportunities later—"
Just as he weighed pros and cons, planning to temporarily shelve obtaining Shadow Will, his brow suddenly furrowed tightly.
His gaze swept to the room's door gap, where a shadow was silently writhing inside.
"Hmm?! This—also ancient shadow magic?"
He never expected to encounter the same rare ancient magic by chance. The next moment, that shadow seemed completely unaware of discovery, brazenly circling behind him.
His expression showed unmistakable confusion. What was happening?
Before he could understand, a black obsidian gargoyle slowly emerged from the shadow, blood-red eyes looking at him like a hunter viewing doomed prey—
But what the gargoyle didn't expect was that he, who should have been completely unaware of its arrival, seemed prepared, staring directly at it.
Even that supposedly terrified gaze gradually changed from confusion and surprise to wild joy.
Now the obsidian gargoyle, which had killed countless dark wizards, felt confused:
"This little wizard... why isn't he afraid of me?"