Go, Polaris Quidditch Team! (First Update)

Cough!

Hearing that cough, little Lorna quickly stood up straight and pressed her back tightly against the whitewashed wall, completely ignoring the chalk dust left on her clothes. The soles of her feet hurt more and more; her tightly tied shoelaces felt like shackles, and the soles of her shoes were about as hard as iron plates. She wanted to take off her shoes and stand barefoot on the cold, smooth floor. She could imagine that comfort spreading through her whole body, just like what she had done countless times before.

However, her wish was doomed to go unfulfilled, because the bright, piercing eyes before her were fixed tightly on her, as if they wanted to twist her into a ball like a towel and squeeze every drop of shame out of her. Yet she felt no such emotion. Her little heart pounded wildly, filled only with the nervousness and unease of having her prank exposed, while her eyes held nothing but excitement. Fortunately, she was not being punished alone. Her dearest older brother was standing beside her.

She lowered her head and secretly stuck out her tongue.

"You should know why I asked you to educate little Lorna, shouldn’t you?" Her dearest older brother was questioned first. As the oldest, he should have borne the responsibility. "Your mischief came far too late, and at the worst possible time, Salomon," Athena said. "You shouldn’t have taken little Lorna to do something like that, just as you shouldn’t have given her a pistol."

But I had fun. I don’t think there was anything wrong with it. Little Lorna thought. I’ve never done anything this exciting in my life! If we hadn’t been caught, we might have become rich!

Salomon lowered his head and remained silent, accepting his adoptive mother’s rebuke in full. He and little Lorna had been complete novices at robbing banks. Calling it robbery would have been less accurate than calling it theft, and calling it theft would have been less accurate than calling it a trip to an amusement park. They had followed every online guide to the letter. Even locating the vault had required him to use magic to track the personnel escorting the money.

After stepping out of the portal, little Lorna had not hurried to move the dollars. Instead, she threw up her hands in celebration and jumped into the pile of bills—this money was part of AIM’s liquid funds, secretly transferred to this bank by Nick Fury. Salomon had only learned of it after seeing S.H.I.E.L.D.’s classified files. Thanks to Nick Fury’s assumption that Salomon looked down on the money of mundane society, he had gotten the chance to learn this information.

Salomon had originally intended to use the money to purchase laboratory equipment. His only competitor was Nick Fury, who also wanted to use it to build a secret base. But looking at the banknotes flying everywhere, he could only slow down his plan to move the money. He let little Lorna roll around in the scattered bills and treat the place like a playground. She had even used U.S. dollars to light a small bonfire for grilling.

The vault door was thick enough, anyway. No sound could get out.

But the Arcanist had to admit that letting little Lorna run wild had turned out terribly. Indulging her so blindly had only made the child more and more brazen. Somehow, she had produced a spray can and begun tagging the bank vault everywhere. Salomon could only stop her before things got even worse—namely, before little Lorna started spray-painting the cash.

"We need to get to work."

"Can’t we leave behind a souvenir?"

"No, little Lorna. We’ve already wasted too much time. Come on, put the money into the bags. We—"

"Are we leaving through the portal? Then what about the flying broom?"

"Next time."

At that moment, the underground vault door opened. A bank clerk had come to begin the day’s work, and the law-abiding employee stared in stunned disbelief at the Arcanist, who was pulling little Lorna out of the pile of bills. Little Lorna wanted to explain, but for a moment, she had no idea what to say.

"Are you here for the pool party too?" She blinked her innocent big eyes.

"Ahhh—"

"If you could calm down, we could settle this peacefully…" The Arcanist tried to calm him down.

"Someone, hurry!!"

"Fine." Salomon gestured toward the fleeing bank clerk. Something in the air seemed to tremble, and rose petals fell from his hand. The next instant, the bank clerk crashed onto the marble floor, his gold-rimmed glasses flying off to the side.

"He’s not dead, is he?" little Lorna asked worriedly.

"No. He’s only asleep. At worst, he’ll have a headache when he wakes up. Maybe a sore nose too. I’m sure someone heard him scream, so we need to hurry." The Arcanist waved his hand, restoring the scattered banknotes before pushing them through the newly opened portal. Little Lorna could see only darkness beyond it, with a faint glimmer of light. She had no idea where the portal led, but her excitement made her throw the question out of her mind.

"Now that the vault door is open." Salomon took out two masks and handed one to little Lorna. She immediately understood what he meant. Excitedly, she put on the mask and grabbed the flying broom that was lying beside her, half-asleep.

"I’m ready!" she said, bouncing up and down.

"Then let’s go!"

"Go Gryffindor!"

"Take a guess how many people saw you fly out of the bank on a flying broom," Athena said irritably, poking Salomon’s forehead with her finger. Little Lorna secretly giggled beside him. Naturally, Athena did not spare her either. She jabbed hard, as if she wanted to poke through little Lorna’s skull and physically carve the lesson deep into the girl’s mind. The girl closed her eyes and put on an aggrieved expression. Her short black-and-green hair bounced back and forth with the rhythm of Athena’s finger, just as mischievous and rebellious as its owner.

"You know what? You’re a skunk that never grows up!"

Little Lorna was no longer uneasy, because whenever Minerva poked her forehead, it meant the matter was not serious. That was how Minerva had punished her when she stole coins from pedestrians’ pockets. But if Minerva was overly calm, then things were truly bad. Little Lorna felt that Minerva absolutely could not find out about the pistol theft.

The Arcanist naturally knew just how much of a sensation they had caused on social media. The topic "#Harry Potter Is Real" had instantly shot to the top of the trending list. Worse still, the masks he had chosen for little Lorna were masks of characters from the Harry Potter series.

People of this era were interested in strange and unusual things.

"Don’t worry. They’ll just think it was some CGI animation, or the latest high-tech gadget. Who cares? Internet users only remember things for seven days anyway." Salomon blinked. The bank could not disclose the stolen money, because the money had never "existed" in the first place. As for Nick Fury, he would know at a glance that Salomon was behind it, but the Arcanist had no intention of admitting anything. Nick Fury had no evidence, anyway.

He would bet on it.

"Boss! You actually… I love you so much!" Maya Hansen cheered, hugging a huge stack of banknotes. "We can buy all the lab equipment we need! Just have your robots carry it in! And those Dark Magic Creature corpses, hurry up and throw them out! The freezer isn’t cold enough, and they’re starting to stink!"

"Buy the lab equipment yourself, ma’am. You have full discretion over this money. There are roughly several hundred million dollars here—one hundred million dollars is about 1.5 cubic meters. You’ll need to contact people you knew before, people willing to accept cash transactions."

"You’re not going to use online banking? How am I supposed to carry this much money out?"

"You can manage it." Salomon pulled several silver lockboxes out from behind him. "One lockbox can hold sixty-four cubic feet, or 1.81 cubic meters. One box, one hundred million dollars. Even when full, it won’t weigh more than fifteen pounds. And this." The Arcanist took an iron-colored ring from his pocket. "This is a gift for you."

"Great. I was sick of wearing plaid shirts anyway. Also, if you’re proposing, please allow me to refuse. I wouldn’t mind doing something with you, but I think this is all far too sudden…"

"This is a defensive ring." Salomon ignored Maya Hansen’s increasingly absurd behavior since arriving in the City of Immortals. The woman seemed close to going mad from being pent up for too long. He said, "This ring can slightly improve your defenses, but don’t expect too much. You can still be hit by bullets."

Maya Hansen patted her chest and let out a long breath. "That’s great," she said. "I thought you were proposing."

"Stop talking nonsense and get this place set up. We need to begin the experiments as soon as possible."

"What about the test subjects? I don’t want to be like some comic-book supervillain and create a Super Soldier who turns against us. And what about the colleagues you promised me?"

"I’ve already chosen your colleagues." The Arcanist nodded, as if he had long made his decision. They were a group of spellcasters who had been scattered abroad after Camelot fell and had endured to this day. Balthazar had only recently uncovered news of them. This Wizarding Council had hidden itself deeply, nearly blending into mundane society.

Now, he was going to reclaim this Wizarding Council in the name of the heir to the Sacred Sword.

"In a moment, you’ll be meeting your future colleagues for the first time. If they refuse… you’ll have experimental material, ma’am."