Chapter 822 Cracking the Origin of Potions!

not understand well?

Just ask if you happen to meet me?

Hum╭(╯^╰)╮This question is not random.

Whether it's the "testimony" of the drugstore manager in Diagon Alley or the thick and heavy "Elementary Potions Encyclopedia", these are not easily found by just wandering around. At least Elena can be sure that the ones from Flourish and Blotts Bookstore are There is no such book on the bookshelf.

It seems that this little beaver is well prepared.

Elena's eyes collided with Hermione's provocative gaze, and she raised her eyebrows with some understanding.

So that’s it, is Little Beaver planning a holiday counterattack waiting for her here?

Due to her presence in the world, Hermione Granger was not isolated as in the original novel, but she also did not experience the thrilling escape from death after being blocked in the women's bathroom by a troll holding a big stick. .

Perhaps due to some of her influence, Hermione's sharp edge in school today is not so harsh.

But in contrast, the little beaver's stubbornness and unwillingness to admit defeat did not disappear because of this. Instead, it gradually converged and solidified into a bundle. It changed from being aggressive towards everyone to being only targeted towards Irene. Na's obsession.

When they left the Hogwarts Express last semester, White-haired Dumpling and Little Beaver re-signed the "New Hundred Times" gambling agreement for the next school year under the witness of Hannah and Luna. —As long as Hermione can take first place in grade in more than one-third of the courses, this little wing will be considered successful in challenging the white-haired devil.

"Tsk, that's really surprising. You didn't give up on Potions?"

A trace of surprise flashed in Elena's eyes. She originally thought that the little beaver would not challenge her in the field of potions.

After all, compared to other subjects, Potions is almost her strongest position. The gap between ordinary students and Potions teaching assistants is really too big. The gap between the two in extra points and final assessment is almost despairing. .

Human energy is limited, and even a talented little witch like Hermione cannot "wage war" in all fields.

According to Elena's previous predictions, Hermione's wisest approach would be to avoid her strong subjects and launch an attack on Elena's relatively weaker subjects - avoiding their sharp edges, which has the highest success rate. tactical choices.

Therefore, Elena was caught off guard when she encountered the backstab from the little beaver in Potions class.

Obviously, the "one hundred times" punishment game did not allow Elena to conquer the little beaver as she wished, but to some extent inspired Hermione Granger's desire to win-compared to the other two A girl with a slightly softer personality, the Minister of Magic's unwillingness to admit defeat in the original book has not changed at all due to the butterfly effect.

And the most important thing is——

As the Fairy Queen who has a lot to do every day and makes hundreds of millions every minute, Elena did not invest too much energy in preparing for potions during the summer vacation that just ended. She focused more on "previous work". The more important areas are "Soviet Talent Introduction", "SCP Foundation Operation", and "Hogwarts College Urban Construction".

Compared to the well-read Hermione Granger, she is really weak in the specific field of potions.

This time she was careless, Hermione was more competitive than she thought.

only……

Elena shook her head quietly in her heart, it was not the right time to use this little cleverness.

You know, she is not fighting alone now.

If she were in Professor Snape's Potions class, with his cold-faced and arrogant character, he would probably leave her alone and let her feel a little frustration, but Horace Slughorn En is not that kind of "bad guy".

Slughorn would almost never refuse such an opportunity to show off in front of children whenever someone asked.

"Huh? Might fresh nettles be better? I'm not sure about that either."

Glancing at Hermione, Elena turned her head without hesitation and asked for help from the old wizard standing beside the desk.

"Professor Slughorn, this seems to be a knowledge point that is not written in "Magic Potions and Potions"? Is there any wonderful principle of potions in this, or is it a limitation in the actual operation of society?"

Anyway, according to the previous agreement, the two of them were not competing for dominance in the classroom.

Even if Elena is temporarily unable to maintain dominance in a certain class, as long as Hermione fails to succeed in replacing her, the cunning Sandaime Dark Lord can still easily harvest the spoils according to the contract that is full of loopholes.

"Here...theoretically, fresh nettle can enhance the effect of the swelling potion a little."

Slughorn took over the conversation very naturally, raised his finger, shook it, and explained with a smile.

"As Ms. Kaslana introduced before, the presence of stinging hairs on the stems and leaves of nettle will cause irritation to the exposed skin of humans or animals. If you have observed how the swelling agent works, you will find that both In fact, they have very similar performances - the only difference is that the magic will make the potion take effect the moment it touches the skin."

The old wizard paused for a moment, looked around the classroom for a few seconds, and said meaningfully.

"However, fresh nettle is not suitable for teaching. In addition to safety reasons, the reason behind this is actually more based on the difference between the two qualities of materials in the final presentation and preparation of potions. So, I think Can you guess why the more expensive dried nettles are in the classroom instead of the theoretically more responsive fresh nettles?"

Hermione was stunned, lowered her head and flipped through her extracurricular books several times.

She had never thought of this at all. Whether it was from the store manager or the "Elementary Potion Encyclopedia", except for the optimization effect of fresh nettles in the potion reaction, there was no mention of it. Write other content.

Needless to say, this is another knowledge blind spot that is not recorded in books.

"Oh, don't worry about getting the answer wrong. You can follow the principle of the swelling potion and make a bold guess."

Slughorn said with a grin, looking at the classroom that was temporarily silent with considerable satisfaction.

He had to admit that Elena's narration mode just now provided him with a new idea - anyway, there is still more than half an hour before the second potion reaction time. If he can just kill the time like this, he will naturally do it again. It couldn't be better.

This kind of trade-off based on in-depth potion principles cannot be answered by just luck or by reading a few more potion-related books.

Even some potion geniuses with keen intuition can only vaguely understand the subtle differences between those potions after many attempts and comparisons.

And this must be based on the fact that all the potions in the previous attempts are perfectly formulated and can accurately lock the changes in the potion's properties caused by a small change in the potion material.

At this moment, Harry suddenly raised his right hand cautiously.

"Because dry nettle will make the potion react more stably?" he said. "Although fresh nettle will make the potion take effect faster, the improvement it brings is not that much due to the magic power of the potion itself. obvious?"

As he spoke, Harry Potter glanced at the old "Magic Potions and Potions" in his hand.

The blank space at the edge of the page with the description of the swelling potion is now filled with black notes just like the place where the potion is printed. Many of the spaces also include comments and revisions to the content of the textbook.

At this time, next to the writing on the page with the nettle pattern, there was also an explanation written:

[The processed dried nettles can improve the stability of the agent, while the reaction efficiency improved by fresh nettles is negligible]

This book is not the new term Potions textbook that Harry Potter bought from Flourish and Blotts.

Yesterday afternoon, when Harry was making up a routine lesson in Snape's office, he accidentally knocked over the potion bottle next to the professor's desk because of a sudden sleepiness, although Professor Snape controlled the flow of the potion in time. , but most of Harry's newly bought textbooks were damaged under the professor's spell, and it seemed that they could no longer be used.

Harry originally thought that he would be scolded severely, but unexpectedly, Professor Snape seemed to be in a good mood that day.

Apart from a few words of warning to take a good rest, Severus Snape did not criticize him too much. Instead, he ended his extra lessons early for the first time and gave Harry an early break to adjust his mental state.

On the other hand, in order not to affect Harry's subsequent courses.

Before leaving the Potions Professor's office, Snape also found a few old books from the junk pile that students had left in the classroom in previous years, and asked Harry to pick one at random and use it temporarily for the next Potions class. Deal with it.

However, Harry did not expect that the above notes would actually involve the questions raised by Professor Slughorn.

"Exactly, I couldn't explain it more accurately myself!"

Slughorn blinked in surprise, looked at Harry quite unexpectedly, and then said.

"Any qualified swelling agent will take effect within one to two seconds when it comes into contact with exposed skin. Fresh nettle will indeed speed up the speed, but the practicality of this improvement is not too high - other than that In addition to being cheap, fresh nettles’ rich juice will make them more active during the potion brewing process.”

"This means," Slughorn said, scanning the young faces in the classroom one by one, "when we use nettles in teaching, the more fresh the nettles, the more obvious the disadvantages will be. Mr. Potter, I think you should understand the reason for this disadvantage, right?"

Hermione's eyes suddenly lit up and her hand was raised again.

With Slughorn's prompts, she finally figured out the key to this.

However, under the current situation, poor Computing Girl has to wait for Harry to be unable to answer Slughorn's questions before she can get a chance to speak, and this is obviously a bit... difficulty.

"Well - because of stability, being active will shorten our reaction time, which is not conducive to learning. Is that right?"

"Exactly."

Slughorn said happily, and Hermione put her hands down, looking a little disappointed.

"In the introductory stage of potions, the most important thing is to reduce accidents. The rarer the element, the easier it is for you to control and understand, and the easier it is to find problems. When you grow to a certain stage, you can Start trying to sacrifice stability for efficiency, and look for some surprises beyond the established results.”

"So, the role of nettles in this potion is actually to give it a way to take effect?"

Elena tapped her lips thoughtfully and murmured quietly.

Compared with several other subjects, Potions was the most difficult subject for her to understand before, because it is not actually alchemy in the strict sense - it does not follow the equivalent exchange of substances, nor does it follow chemical rules. reaction.

However, Severus Snape is obviously more suitable as a researcher than a simple teacher.

Professional strength and teaching ability, these are two different dimensions of evaluation criteria - in terms of the integration of civilizations between the non-magical world and the magical world, Horace Slughorn has excellent knowledge and ease of understanding. more suitable.

"That's understandable, Miss Kaslana. But there's also some magic involved-"

Hearing Elena's whisper, Slughorn's eyes flashed with surprise and he nodded uncertainly.

If Harry Potter's answer was still in the category of a potion genius, then the speculations made by the silver-haired little witch next to him just now began to touch the deeper core, some discussions about the nature of potions.

Only wizards who have reached this point are qualified to be recognized by the field of potions as true "potions masters".

At this moment, in front of Slughorn, a little witch less than twelve years old seemed to be breaking into the door of ordinary potion genius possibilities at a speed he could not understand because of some extremely basic knowledge and discussions. A door that will linger for decades.

"Then by analogy, the function of pufferfish eyes should be the core effect of swelling medicine?"

Elena narrowed her eyes, her mind racing rapidly.

When a wild puffer fish is threatened, it can quickly suck water or air into its extremely elastic stomach, and expand to more than two to three times its original size in a short period of time. Its pupils are also the easiest to enlarge in any organism. of organs.

You know, when normal humans are excited, the first organ to enlarge is the pupil.

When most creatures are excited or excited, their pupils will enlarge. This amplitude can usually reach about five to ten times. In other words... puffer fish eyes are equivalent to "expansion" in a sense. .

Elena looked at the writing on the blackboard carefully and paused for a moment on the "pufferfish eyes".

Puffers is a general term that includes more than 200 species of fish from each genera of the teleosts, the order Pufferidae, and the family Pufferidae. This coverage is even larger than the owl-shaped fish represented by the "round-faced fat chicken" The goal is even wider.

"In other words, the reason why pufferfish eyes were chosen without specifying the species is because it points to the self-expanding species, rather than some more detailed and specialized classifications, and uses It is still the organ with the most significant telescopic effect and ratio in its body, rather than considering it from a biological or chemical perspective..."

And following this rule of reasoning, if the function of pufferfish eyes is to "expand" the entries.

So……

"Bat...liver? What does this mean?"

Elena's eyes stayed on the last remaining ingredient of the swelling potion for a few seconds.

According to the classic inference hypothesis model, for any hypothesis to be established, it is best to need three related "coincidences", and now she is still short of the last crucial piece of the puzzle before she can peek into the mysterious origin of potions.

"Could it be that it's a mysterious potion recipe with unknown meaning? No, it's not just that -"

You know, unlike other materials, bat liver can be said to be the most frequently used in potion preparation.

In many non-magical legends, bats are even directly equated with wizards.

Bats, guts, toxins…

Potions... potions that can be used on the human body...

A variety of magical materials are mixed... and finally appear... non-toxic...

In an instant, Elena's eyes suddenly lit up.

"I understand everything. That's it-"

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Great! A certain scientific Hogwarts has finally started~

Zoom in, la la la, this is definitely the most interesting and exclusive explanation that also makes sense! ~

Fat chicken swells! Gu Gu Gu Gu! !