"Thunderbird!" Allen silently chewed on the unfamiliar word.
"Yes, the characteristics of your eyes are very similar to those of a Thunderbird, but I am not an expert in this field, so I cannot be entirely certain right now," Professor McGonagall explained.
"Then if I want to ask about magical creatures in the future, who should I consult? You know, today's situation will definitely not be the last time; I need more knowledge and information about this," Allen quickly said.
"The most knowledgeable person about this at Hogwarts is Professor Kettleburn, who teaches Care of Magical Creatures, but he spends his time outside of class with his little creatures, so you might not be able to find him," Professor McGonagall said, hesitating for a moment.
"Actually, I'd like to recommend Mr. Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. He is also very knowledgeable about all kinds of magical creatures, especially large ones!" Professor McGonagall emphasized the word "large" when she said it.
"Thunderbirds are also large magical creatures, so you can consult Hagrid for more specific information," Professor McGonagall added.
"Oh, I see. I'll head back now," Allen said, realizing he had no more questions.
"Don't rush. Although I can't take a sample, I still need to take a photo," she said, and a large, old-fashioned camera flew into Professor McGonagall's hand.
Allen had no choice but to cooperate with the photo session.
"I'll send you a copy once the photos are developed," Professor McGonagall mused. "If you can prove later that you can still transform into a part of a magical creature, Professor Dumbledore and I will consider giving you a salary for cooperating with our research. Transforming into magical creatures has always been a hot topic in the academic world, but it's still in the theoretical stage, and no one has had substantial success yet. You're becoming more and more valuable for research!" Professor McGonagall added.
"(⊙o⊙)…," Allen didn't know what to say, so he said goodbye and left.
...
After leaving Professor McGonagall's office, Allen realized he was so hungry he could eat a whole pig. Seeing that it wasn't past lunchtime yet, he quickly hurried to the Great Hall to eat.
After wolfing down his food, Allen felt that his entire body finally had sufficient nutritional supply and began to feel drowsy, but he knew clearly that he couldn't sleep now; he still had many things to do.
The Thunderbird's eyes would disappear when he went to sleep tonight, and he didn't know when they would randomly appear again next time! If he didn't seize the time to do something, he would lose out too much this time.
Fortunately, today was Saturday, and there were no classes tomorrow, so he would work hard today! He would try his best to record those characters again. Allen secretly made up his mind.
Allen returned to his dormitory and found all his textbooks and notebooks that he could write on, filling a bag to the brim. He then went back to the abandoned lavatory he had visited that morning. Only then did Allen realize it was a girls' lavatory; he had been in too much of a hurry last time to notice.
But Allen couldn't bother with such details now; time was quickly slipping away. He had to hurry and get to work. He quickly scanned his surroundings, and seeing no one, he swiftly entered the girls' lavatory.
In the same corner stall, Allen carefully hung his bag on the wall and began a new round of recording and experimentation.
This time, Allen was much more experienced. He first disassembled an old notebook and then began a new round of spellcasting.
He quickly cast all the spells he knew, but this time he didn't use time deceleration. Instead, he quickly estimated the number of characters on the light curtain produced by each spell.
The conclusion he reached was that the Lumos spell was the shortest, and the Transfiguration spell was the longest. To be precise, the Transfiguration spell was hundreds of times longer than all the other spells combined. In fact, "hundreds of times" was a rough estimate by Allen, because the character stream on the Transfiguration spell's light curtain moved incredibly fast, too fast for him to even see clearly.
With this result, Allen began to execute his plan. He planned to concentrate his efforts on a decisive battle. He first chose the Lumos spell, which had the fewest characters, and prepared to "annihilate" it first.
Entering the time deceleration state again, Allen carefully felt his condition, while quickly jotting down two characters, then swiftly recording them on parchment. This time, Allen copied these two characters onto 10 sheets of parchment, then re-entered the time deceleration state. After noting two characters, he again recorded them on 9 of these 10 sheets of parchment, and so on. After entering the time deceleration state 10 times, he stopped because he felt his body had reached its limit and he needed to rest for a while. In the end, he obtained ten sheets of parchment, respectively recording 20 characters, 18 characters... down to 2 characters.
He was testing how many characters a single sheet of parchment could withstand.
During his rest breaks, Allen still didn't completely stop. He carefully felt his body; this time his mood was very calm, without the excitement of the morning, which allowed him to perceive more things. Combining this with the feeling of entering the time deceleration state, Allen quickly came to a conclusion.
His entry into the time deceleration state was a subjective experience of time deceleration, not an objective one.
That is, the time deceleration state was essentially his senses feeling that time had slowed down, but the flow of time in reality remained unchanged. This conclusion left Allen somewhat disappointed, feeling as though he had lost a very impressive skill.
Allen also concluded that entering the time deceleration state was essentially a spell cast by leveraging the power of his eyes, but the mechanism of this spell was clearly different from a wizard's spellcasting mechanism. However, both were self-consuming, and it was the will of the world manifesting magical effects. But because this magic acted on Allen himself, it placed a great burden on his body.
After feeling his body was well-rested, Allen resumed his cycle of entering the time deceleration state...
Two hours passed, and Allen finally finished recording all the characters for the Lumos spell. The 10 sheets of parchment on which the characters were initially recorded also showed noticeable changes; the more characters recorded, the worse the condition of the parchment. However, the parchment with only two characters recorded showed no change at all.
Finally, Allen chose the safest approach—recording only two characters per sheet of parchment.
He quickly recorded the characters of the Lumos spell he had written down using this method, copying the characters to different positions on each page so that when the entire notebook was closed, none of the characters would overlap.
Perhaps this would reduce the chance of the notebook burning. Allen silently comforted himself.
Then Allen calculated the time again. Combining the time it took him to record the Lumos spell characters, Allen quickly decided to use the remaining time to record the Scouring Charm characters.
...
It was another break time, and Allen leaned his head against the wall, thinking self-deprecatingly, "If people found out I was doing this in the toilet, would I be dubbed the 'Goddess of the Girls' Restroom' after I make a name for myself?"
What Allen didn't notice was that outside the stall, a hand silently picked up a piece of parchment from the floor...