Volume 4: The Sea and the Ship Heading North Chapter 292 Map
Adrian Fox.
This name only appeared two or three times in his memory, but even in these two or three times, Jon remembered it deeply in his mind.
It's not because of anything else, it's just because his greatest reliance now, whether it is the levitation spell or the variant use of the universal spell-breaking spell, the necessary ring and the gem on the ring were all created by the wizard with this name!
This man was once a good friend of Slughorn, but after creating the ring and several gems, he passed away without even having the chance to see whether his work had actually come to fruition.
Jon never thought that he could find the laboratory he left behind in this underground maze in the Arctic!
"What's wrong, Jon?"
Gabrielle, floating above his head, still confused, asked doubtfully.
Of course she didn't know any Adrian Fox, nor did she understand what the name meant to Jon.
Jon also came back to his senses at this time. He took a deep breath and spoke softly.
"I'm fine."
Then he reached out to the door and tried to push it open.
However, the ordinary-looking wooden door did not move, as if it was locked, and there was no way to open it directly.
While the other three rooms were destroyed by the basilisk, the entrance to this laboratory was still well preserved. It is certainly unlikely that the basilisk showed mercy. The most likely possibility is that the laboratory itself still has some protective capabilities.
After trying to push the door open directly without success, Jon tried waving his wand and casting an unlocking spell on the door handle, but it still had no effect.
Then he took off the ring he had been wearing around his neck, put it back on the index finger of his right hand, and finally used the hand wearing the ring to push the door.
This time he didn't encounter any resistance and pushed the door open easily!
John showed an expression of expectedness, while Gabrielle looked at the ring on John's hand with surprise. Even though John had used it before, he had never taken it out.
"Who gave you this ring? Have you been proposed to by any girl?"
Jon flicked her head in annoyance .
"This was given to you by one of my teachers. You hadn't come to Hogwarts at that time. You were so young, what were you thinking about?"
Gabrielle followed John into the laboratory with her head in her hands, looking aggrieved.
This room obviously had not been destroyed like the other three rooms, and the various furniture inside was still neatly arranged around.
There is a not-so-big bookcase in the corner, but there are no other books on it except a few empty vases. There is also a single bed in the corner between the two walls, with a mattress, sheets and a quilt.
Opposite the door was a set of tables and chairs with some old parchment left on them.
Jon first wandered around the bookshelf, and when he found nothing else except the vases, he came to the desk and began to flip through the parchments that were scattered around.
These were obviously some experimental notes, but the content was very scattered. It took Jon a long time to study them before he could figure out that he had come to the Arctic to find more gems that could be embedded in the ring to cast spells on himself.
The importance of gems to rings is similar to the core of a magic wand. However, compared to most materials from magical creatures that can be used as cores, the requirements for gems in rings are extremely demanding.
Adrian had studied for his entire life, but he only found a gem on Mount Olympus that could transmit the magic power of a wizard's body. However, the weight of the stone only allowed him to split it into three pieces at most, which was far from the double-digit gems he had imagined at the beginning.
Yes, at the beginning he planned to design the gems to be more fragmented, and embed such stones all over the ring, so that the magic that the ring can cast would be more diverse. But unfortunately, he was ultimately limited by the wizard himself, and the limited raw materials, so he could only make five gems.
Adrian came to the North Pole and started looking for suitable materials only after he had used up the stone from Mount Olympus. Finally, he made a discovery in this maze in the North Pole.
Jon rummaged through the scattered materials on the table and could only roughly see that Adrian had indeed successfully made a gem in this maze, but for some unknown reason, he could not take the gem away.
Because the information was incomplete, Jon did not find the reason, but he was sure that there was indeed a gem left here.
This couldn't help but make Jon extremely excited. Ever since Slughorn handed him the ring, Jon knew better than anyone how much of a boost the ring itself had brought him.
If he didn't have the ability to cast spells on himself, a normal wizard would have died hundreds of times just from the dangers he had to go through.
And every additional gem represents a new spell slot for Jon. He can rely on this gem to research new magic that can improve himself, which means another leap in strength for him.
But the information Adrian left here was too little. Those scattered materials were more like a pile of useless drafts. Apart from letting Jon know the purpose and results of his coming here, there was no more information provided.
After Jon looked through all the documents on the table, he opened a drawer next to the table, and in the drawer, he made a new discovery!
A very valuable discovery!
"Look at this!"
His voice attracted Gabrielle, who was wandering around the room, trying to figure out where in the maze the corridor they were in was.
She floated to Jon's side and looked at the parchment found in the drawer with him.
That's a map!
A map that depicts the route of most of the maze.
Adrian had obviously lived in this ice maze for quite some time. No one knew how he got along with the basilisk, but it seemed that no conflict had broken out between the two sides.
It was during this time that he not only found suitable stones under the ice for making ring gems, but also drew a map along all the routes of the maze.
Although the drawing on this map is a bit crude, it is not an ordinary blueprint. A special magic has been cast on it. Although it is not as magical as the Marauder's Map in Hogwarts, it can still be used to locate on the map based on the map itself.
Their current location is the northwest corner of the entire map, and the area of the maze depicted on the map is extremely huge.
It took Jon and his team nearly half a day to get from the entrance to their current location, which is only about one-tenth the size of the entire maze.
There are two or three targets clearly marked on this map. There is no other explanation as to what these marks represent. What is certain is that one of these marks must be the gem that Adrian did not take away from here!
With this, Jon was not only provided with a route to walk in the maze, but also a specific goal.
Even though he had already entered the maze, Jon still hadn't figured out why Grindelwald had asked him to come here specifically. But now that he had information about one of the ring gems, he at least had an accurate direction.
It can be said that this map is his biggest gain after entering the maze.
Afterwards, Jon carefully checked everything in the room again. After making sure that there were no other more valuable discoveries, he had no intention of leaving immediately.
At present, this secret corridor is temporarily safe. Jon did not rest during the day and traveled all day. Then he fought with a group of Death Eaters in the evening. After entering the maze, he ran and exercised intensely for several hours, and just now he killed a basilisk.
This had already made Jon's body feel exhausted. There happened to be a bed and a quilt in this laboratory. He used a cleaning spell and lay down on the bed with peace of mind. Then he "hired" child laborers and asked Gabrielle, who did not need to rest, to help guard the corridor outside the door. He then slept soundly.
Jon was indeed very tired. When he woke up, he looked at the time on his pocket watch and found that it was almost ten hours later.
Gabrielle was so idle during this period that when Jon came out of the laboratory to find her, she was squatting in the room that originally belonged to the basilisk cafeteria to observe the bears and wolves in the ice.
"Do you want to taste what Little White No. 2 tastes like?"
Jon's seductive voice rang in Gabrielle's ears, which made Gabrielle stunned, and a crystal clear saliva subconsciously appeared at the corner of her mouth.
But then she struggled and shook her head.
"In no mood!"
"The bears in these ice blocks were already dead. It's okay for us to dig one out and cut off its paw to taste it."
But even though Jon said so, Gabrielle still couldn't accept eating a creature of the same species that used to be her friend.
Even after hearing Jon say how delicious the bear paws would be if you just roast them over a fire and sprinkle some cumin, salt and chili powder on them, she couldn't help but drool from the corners of her mouth again, but in the end she was still very persistent and didn't let her greed for food overwhelm her.
Jon could only regretfully take out the dry food that Eric had prepared for them from his pocket and give some to Gabrielle.
Gabrielle, who is in ghost state, certainly doesn't feel any hunger, but she is not a real ghost after all. Using her sense of taste to taste some things is always good for her future state.
After eating and drinking, they got ready again. Jon carried Nick, who still looked terrified, on his back and left in the completely opposite direction of the secret corridor with a map in his hand.
When they reached the end of the corridor, John did the same thing as when he entered here, used the universal antidote on himself, and then left with Gabrielle.
Back in the cold maze, this time they didn't have to wander around like headless flies when they encountered a fork in the road. Instead, they could directly head towards the nearest marked point according to the instructions on the map.
"Why does Nick always have this expression? Can I help him change it?"
Gabrielle, floating behind Jon, tried to get some fun out of Nick.
"If you can somehow move his face, of course you can change it at will."
"He's hard as a rock, I can't possibly squeeze him! Give me a quill, will you, Jon?"
Hearing Gabrielle's request, Jon shook his head decisively.
"You can take it yourself if you want it. If I give it to you and you draw on Nick's face, he will definitely scold me loudly after he recovers."
"He definitely won't know now. As long as I don't say anything and you don't say anything, no one will know."
Gabrielle floated around Jon. She had been wanting to draw a turtle on Nick's face for a long time.
But as Nick's loyal friend, John still rejected her sternly (in fact, he knew that although Nick was petrified, he still had his perception of the outside world), and protectively placed Nick, who was originally on his back, horizontally in front of him to prevent Gabrielle from secretly making trouble.
Just as Gabrielle kept begging Jon and they had just passed a fork in the road, Jon suddenly had a very bad premonition in his heart!
This premonition came out of nowhere, like a sudden panic, but there was clearly nothing around!
He did not take this panic lightly. This intuitive perception had been verified to be accurate many times. Grindelwald had also emphasized to him that this intuition was actually a manifestation of his gift for prophecy.
So Yien immediately stopped playing with Gabrielle, stopped Gabrielle with a serious look on his face, and also stopped in his own steps.
Gabrielle could sense the seriousness of the matter from Jon's expression, so she immediately shut her mouth, obediently grabbed the corner of Jon's clothes, and followed him closely.
After a quick glance around, Jon didn't find anything unusual, but he didn't move forward. Instead, he still looked ahead, holding the wand in his hand, and began to step back carefully.
Just as he took the second step back, something strange happened!
On the ice walls on both sides, as well as directly in front of him, there was a distortion of the air, and suddenly three figures appeared!
At the same time they appeared, the spells were also uttered!
"Avada Kedavra!"
The pale green light instantly illuminated the entire maze passage. Three killing curses that almost blocked John's escape routes tore through the cold air like a venomous snake!
John, who was always under the blessing of the levitation spell, began to increase the distance and position to the maximum extent at a speed that a normal person could not achieve the moment his brain reacted.
But even so, he narrowly avoided two killing curses, and the killing curse shot from the left still hit his body accurately...
On the petrified Nick in front of him!
