Harry Potter: The Arcane Thief (Litrpg)

Chapter 15: Not Weak Anymore

Axel brought the books recommended by the system to the librarian for borrowing. Upon seeing the titles, the lady looked at him in pleasant surprise.

She let him borrow the books and even thanked him for finding them.

"Some of them have been hidden for centuries! I wouldn't mind even if you borrow these for a year now!"

Of course, Axel had to answer how he found them, to which he simply said,

"You just have to find the best places to hide them."

With the books in his bag, Axel made his way back to the great hall for dinner.

He took a seat alone at the furthest corner of the table, near the Professor's table.

He decided to check out the books he'd borrowed. While he was eating peacefully while reading one of the books, someone annoyingly disturbed him.

"Hey, Hunt! I heard you were a cripple?" Asked Malfoy, purposefully making his voice loud so that others could hear it too.

Axel mentally let out a sigh. This guy… is starting to get on his nerves. Just a disclaimer, but those who get on his nerves don't usually end well.

Axel nodded, looking at him with a sympathetic look,

"Yeah blondie, must have sucked right? Even a cripple is better than you at magic," he said, one hand holding a goblet while his face made a lopsided mocking expression.

//Meme Leonardo De Caprio//

There were some sniggers and catcalls from those who heard.

That should have shut him up. Sadly, this guy was denser than Axel gave him credit for.

"Oh, you think you're better? How laughable!" He said, pulling his wand out.

Axel didn't look the least bit fazed.

"Yeah, I think I am. At least I read the rules before coming here and haven't embarrassed my house in public,' he said before glancing at the teacher's table, where some of the teachers had their eyes on them.

He had expected his Head of House professor Snape to take action, but the bastard just stared at them like he didn't intend to do anything.

'Git,' thought Axel. He had seen the same guy taking action against several Gryffindors this morning for the smallest of things.

No matter, someone could match him in his pettiness, apparently.

"Mr. Malfoy, it is against the rules to point your wand at a fellow student. 5 points from Slytherin," said Mcgonagall from her seat. Axel was sitting in the corner, being the closest to the teachers for a reason after all.

Malfoy's face was worth watching at that moment. And upon losing points, even the other Slytherins glared at him. Pureblood or not, that WAS entirely his fault. He was like a Gryffindor while the other boy acted like a Slytherin should.

Malfoy's face turned purple as he glared at Axel angrily.

"You just meet me in the Dueling class, Hunt. I'll show who's better then," he said before leaving.

'Dueling class, huh?' Axel had almost forgotten about it. It was tomorrow and it was held together for all the houses of the same year.

He glanced at the Professor who was going to teach them Dueling.

It was a tall and athletic beautiful woman with blond hair and hazel eyes.

Her name was Alice Longbottom, an ex-Auror and a famous duelist.

Neville Longbottom doesn't act so confident at Hogwarts for no reason. His mum teaches dueling at Hogwarts.

Axel would have looked forward to the dueling class, if he had a good background and a healthy body. But in his current state… It's going to be difficult. But, he still has to go. He knows nothing about magical combat and the fights from now on are going to heavily involve magic.

That night, the first thing he did after going to the Slytherin dorms was to change his door plate with another door plate containing a different name. This one was stuck to a room that was not occupied by anyone. After that, he put his own door plate in his bag and left the dorms for good.

Though he could technically stay in another dorm as well, but it's not worth it staying at this place longer. The people here are very punchable and his crippled hands have been itching for a while. Malfoy's already after him and retaliating openly will attract attention and curiosity to his background.

Now that he has no room to his name in this huge dorm, no one would find out that he never stayed in his room. There are so many rooms and they'd never even find his name. This is in case someone like Malfoy tried to ambush him at night, only to find that he was not in his room. Then they can complain that he's been breaking the curfew.

Now, he won't bother showing up here at all. There's so many students that even he can't tell whether any of them are coming to the dorm every night or not.

With things sorted out, he had officially left the Slytherin dorms. Somehow, he felt much more comfortable now. Maybe he's used to being homeless now. Now he can stay wherever he wants in this castle.

Right now, even though he was dead tired, he decided to practice some magic and Occlumency first. Being tired is no excuse. If you can do it without suffering any consequences, then you're just being lazy. It also helps that he has a genuine drive to learn magic.

While navigating between his classes today, he had also been scouting for locations to practice magic and sleep.

He had come across a huge room with hundreds of training dummies, targets, and other dueling equipment. It was the place where the dueling classes are usually held.

But of course, he's not going there right now. He is not the only one who would want to practice magic at night. Thus, he's sure there'd definitely be someone else there, or at least the prefects would go there to check if anyone was there.

During the day, he had casually stolen a few dummies and targets from there after confirming with the system that there was no risk. Now they'll come to his use.

He went back to the classroom that was his bedroom yesterday, locked the door, and set up the dummies and targets.

By now, he'd only learned three spells.

1)Lumos

2) Levitation

3) Transfiguration of a matchstick into a needle.

"…. Quite useless, if I do say so myself," he muttered.

He took out the books he'd borrowed from the library.

*Gulp*

Flipping through the pages of some of the best books of Hogwarts library, he gulped upon seeing so many types of spells. These included the spells in Hogwarts normal curriculum as well along with the other spells. And the difficulty varied from the first year to the seventh year and some even above that.

"Alright, let's start slow," he muttered. He was sure he can't learn any of them with his disabilities. Heck, even his Lumos light is quite weak and fluctuating.

Thus, he has to do something about this. There has to be a way.

That's his primary goal. His other immediate goal is to learn some spells that can be used even in his crippled state.

For that, he examined his current state.

His hands, specifically, his fingers had suffered major damage and he had little to no control over them.

But his legs, even though they hurt all the time, and he can't make rapid movements, his legs are still fine. That is, he still hasn't lost the incredible balance and grace of a master thief.

'Hm… it can be used,' he thought as all sorts of fighting scenarios flashed through his mind.

'Alright, system, can you tell me which spells I can cast with my current condition and are useful to me?'

[With 9% approval, affirmative. It is possible if you ask.]

The system recommended to him a few spells which he could practice.

'Ah… system, are you sure I can do all these?' Asked Chris, checking the difficulty level of some of the spells. There was one even above seventh-year difficulty.

[Affirmative. As previously mentioned, you have an extreme mental talent, Axel. Not even those above seventh year are able to take a Cruciatus curse without suffering mental damage.]

[A spell requires both magical and mental contribution to complete. The spells recommended by the system need about 90% mental contribution and only 10% Magical.]

"Great,"

He looked at the spells. Some of them are going to take a long time to practice. It's better to just learn the easiest ones first in order to at least have some modicum of safety. So that he won't be helpless in case someone attacks him.

The very first spell:

A Smoke producing spell.

Yep, as an experienced thief, he knows the fundamental requirements of becoming strong. Step 1: Learn how to distract and run… so that you survive long enough to make the tables turn.

"Efficio Fumus."

//Create Smoke//

It was supposed to produce a continuous stream of smoke that's quite thick. But when he muttered the incantation without wand movement, his wand produced a few fumes as if coughing them out.

But Axel actually smiled. This was already much better than most of his attempts to use other spells. And this spell doesn't need any direction so the wand movements are redundant.

After reading the theory a few more times, and getting a perfect image for the fumes he wanted, he cast the spell with much more focus and much more force.

This time, he was able to produce the smoke, and even if the power was somewhat lower, it'd still get the job done. He cast it a few more times, getting better each time.

"Alright!" He said before flipping the pages.

Before he tried another spell from the list, he had to test one thing:

Can he even hit the target?

To find that out, he tried out the red sparks spell. It's just a spell that sends out a beam of light at the target. No attack power. Uses very little magic power.

"Vermilious!" He chanted, aiming at the target.

"...Damn," he muttered after looking at the results, his voice filled with bitterness. He had completely missed the mark. Looking at his trembling hands which once used to be able to even throw knives with accuracy, he sighed. For now, he can't learn any shooting beam type of spells like stupify or expelliarmus with this shitty aim.

But, not all hope was lost. There were still spells that he could perform.

The smoothening spell or the polishing spell. It temporarily makes the object very smooth by layering the spell magic on top of the object. The spell effect can be stacked.

"Lubricous nitorem."

Once again, no need for direction. This is another spell he can use very well. This is going to be a very useful. He quickly learned this and its countercharm as well.

Now, for the next and probably the last spell today: Electric Zap.

He really really really liked this one.

It was one of the more unique spells in the book. You just chant the spell repeatedly. After every chant, the charge keeps accumulating on your wand. The amount of charge you can accumulate depends on your mental strength.

He thoroughly read the theory. One benefit of these books was that the theory and explanation was quite precise and practical. After building up his intent a for while, he gave it a try.

"Electrica Impulsa," he muttered, and was rewarded with a small shark travel up his wand.

He grinned. Putting more power, he tried again. In his second try, the spark a much more power than the previous one.

"This really is quite interesting..." he muttered.b

A few minutes later.

*Crackle* *Crackle*

*CRACKLE*

"THIS... IS... AMAZING!" he exclaimed over the loud crackling noise, looking at his wand crackling with an incredible amount of power accumulated on it. He was in a tremendous amount of pain right now. It was almost similar to Cruciatus.

And it was because using magic hurts even when he used to use a little bit of magic. Right now, he'd used up all of his magic and was holding it all together with his mental power.

The number of times an average wizard could stack up the charge with this was 3 times before it blows in their face because they can't control it.

'How… much... have I already loaded...system?' He asked the system while the whole room was lit with a dazzling blue glow.

[Axel, you've chanted the spell for exactly 34 times by now. It is recommended that you don't go any further.]

Axel was already feeling light-headed. Looks like this was the extent of his magic...for now. Point: his 'magic' power. He still had some mental power to spare.

'Hey system! How do I cancel it?!' He asked.

[There's no way you can release it here without blowing things up. You need to release it out of the window.]

'What?! This thing can be released as well? I thought this wasn't a ranged attack and I have to touch my wand to them in order attack?' He asked.

[Yes, but the amount of magical power you've put in it has made ranged attacks to be possible.]

'Alright,' Axel didn't delay any longer. 'How do I do this?'

A moment later, a bright blue bolt of lightning flew up into the clouds, leaving a loud sound of thunderclap after it.

Axel stood there, swaying back and forth, as he struggled to keep standing. This... the system was right. Mental power can be huge boon. He's isn't actually as weak as he thought.

A beautiful but malicious woman's image came to his mind.

"Bitch… who said I'm weak?" He muttered before he feel to the floor, already asleep/unconscious.

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