Study Days at Hogwarts

  Chapter 822 Dark Horse

When having breakfast the next day, Albert flipped through the latest issue of "Bullfighting Daily" and found that his odds had actually dropped. To be precise, the odds of winning the gold medal had dropped to 6 times. Obviously, "Bullfighting Daily" 》 found that someone had put a large sum of Galleons on it, and they were so frightened that they quickly lowered the odds.

  Even if the "Bullfighting Daily" has an abnormal brain, it will realize that something is wrong when it finds that someone has poured a large sum of Galleons into it.

   So far, basically no one thinks that No. 17 (Albert) will win the Barnabus Finkley Gold Award for Excellent Spellcasting Technique. Even if there are people who bet, they are all retail investors, and the amount is very limited.

  However, there are actually quite a few people betting on it now, and they still invest a large sum of Galleons at once.

   What exactly does this mean?

  No one knows better than they who started the game.

  Actually, what Albert didn’t know was that his odds had been lowered three times.

   The first time Bard invested 500 Galleons in it, the organizer saw that there were other people planning to bet a large sum of Galleons to win the gold medal on the 17th, so they were so frightened that they lowered his odds to 7 times.

  Later, the "Bullfighting Daily" found out that someone had invested hundreds of Galleons in it one after another, betting that Albert would win the gold medal, and had to lower the odds again.

  No way, there must be a demon if things go wrong.

  The odds are so high, if you really lose, you won't lose all your underwear.

   "Those guys are really timid." Bud put away the newspaper, smiled and said to Albert: "I'll help you with that."

   "It's normal to smell something wrong. The purpose of opening a gamble is to make money. Who wants to trade at a loss?" Albert didn't take this seriously, and continued to read the relevant reports of "Bullfighting Daily".

  The Spanish magic community paid a lot of attention to Barnabus Finkley's excellent spellcasting competition. Currently, the most promising gold medal winner is Mr. Animagus who is good at transformation magic.

  Of course, Albert's enthusiasm is also very high, but he thinks that these popularity are deliberately stirred up by "Bullfighting Daily".

   Is this digging a hole for yourself?

  Honestly speaking, Albert really doesn't have any psychological pressure to grab the wool in the gambling field, and there are not many such opportunities.

   Once the identity of the prophet is spread, you can't do this, otherwise it will easily attract people's hatred.

  When Albert was flipping through the newspaper to check the list of sixteen players, he noticed that there were only three players under the age of thirty.

  Among them, there was a contestant named Noel who seemed to have just graduated from Beauxbaton School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Albert still remembered that this person took out a handkerchief from his pocket during the first round of performances, and turned out butterflies all over the sky, and finally performed a trick for everyone to gather the butterflies on their hands and turn them into handkerchiefs again. Many viewers were impressed.

  However, this person's appearance is relatively ordinary, and he exudes a decadent aura, which is really not very flattering.

  The other one is the mature wizard who was behind Albert. It is said that he is a native of Spain, and his name seems to be Anthony.

  In the first round of competition, he showed everyone the changes of water polo through deformation and spells.

   The difficulty is not high, but it shows off its spellcasting skills very well, so it gets a very good evaluation.

   is currently one of the most qualified to compete for the championship.

  At about ten o'clock, the bar owner Diana came to inform the players to go to the second floor to participate in the competition.

"see you later."

   When Albert got up to leave, he found that many customers were waving at him, cheering him on. Obviously, many people pressured Albert to pass the second round.

   Albert smiled and waved at them, and followed the crowd to the second floor.

"You are so popular." The decadent man named Noel suddenly said to Albert: "I heard Louise mention you, she always said you are a genius, after seeing you, I suddenly understood that Louise Why did Si reject me?"

   "No, I think you probably made a mistake. I already have a girlfriend, and Miss Louise knows it too, and has met my girlfriend." Albert looked at the decadent man in front of him, and corrected him.

  He felt that Louise's refusal of this guy in front of him was entirely due to the decadence in him.

  If this Mr. Noe can be more confident, he won't be easily rejected. After all, excellent people always have their own shining points.

  Noe looked a little embarrassed, and he realized that he seemed to have made a mistake.

  The two followed the crowd into a living room, which was surrounded by more than 20 chairs in a semi-arc, and some of the chairs had numbers on them, obviously to let them take their seats accordingly.

  The five referees have all taken their seats. After entering the living room, the contestants each choose their own number to sit in. Albert also walked to the chair with the number 17 on it.

  As soon as he sat down, he noticed the envious eyes from the next door.

   "I'm afraid this person is sick." He muttered and focused his attention on the stage in front of him, completely oblivious to the fact that the famous female singer next door was looking at him curiously.

As for the middle-aged wizard who is good at Animagus, he has now stood in front of them, with a sullen face, nodded to several referees, and began to show his best transformation magic. Turning the table into a lion is almost the same, it's just a gradual process.

The man was like a conductor, every time he waved his magic wand, the things in front of him would be transformed into various shapes, living things and dead things would be cross-shaped, and finally turned into a knight's armor, slightly moving toward the referees. After bowing it disappeared.

   After Mr. Animagus's display was over, warm applause gradually broke out in the living room.

   Sure enough, the sixteen contestants who can appear here are not easy.

  However, the scoring session after the performance was a bit unexpected. The score of the highly regarded Mr. Animagus was not as high as expected.

   Two sevens and three sixes.

  This is the evaluation given by the five referees: Barely pass.

  The contestants below all began to whisper.

  Albert guessed the reason for the low score, probably because he didn't show his spellcasting skills in the performance just now, or this person's level is very average.

   Next, it was Albert's turn to play.

  He took a deep breath and flicked his wand lightly.

  Countless blue sparks flew all over the sky, and then as Albert stretched out his left hand, the sparks all over the sky began to converge into a blue bellflower flame on his palm.

   Albert stretched his left hand to his mouth, and blew lightly on the flame. The blue bellflower flame was actually surrounded by a water polo.

   Following Albert's fingers, the water polo slowly floated into the air.

With Albert's wand waving in an elegant arc, the surface of the water polo gradually froze and was covered with a thick layer of frost, as if turning into a blue ice egg, and the orchid flame inside seemed to be dancing. life.

Before everyone could react, the ice egg suddenly exploded into countless shattered ice, and a fire bird with blue bellflower flame broke out of its shell. As Albert waved his movements, more and more flames melted into the fire. In the bird, let its body expand gradually, as if the firebird has grown up.

   With Albert's wand waving, it rolled up blue bellflower flames and passed over everyone's heads, and finally turned into sporadic blue flames, gradually disappearing.

  Suddenly, the surrounding area was terribly quiet, and there was a crisp applause, and more and more sporadic applause, and finally a city, even a few referees raised their withered palms and applauded enthusiastically.

   Everyone realized that they had underestimated the No. 17 player. The opponent had high attainments in both silent spells and wandless magic.

In the end, Albert scored an eight, three nines and a ten, and directly crushed Mr. Animagus, who was originally expected by everyone, with a score of 45 points, and that score was like a mountain pressing down on everyone heart.

  Although the others have not yet shown their skills, they all realize that it is very difficult to surpass Albert in points.

  Mr. Anthony, who was sitting next to Albert, had an ugly face, as if someone had stuffed a bunch of **** into his mouth.

  Of course, he is not the only one with the same ugly expression, there is also the special reporter of "Bullfighting Daily" who took pictures and recorded by the side. Their faces were ashen, apparently they hadn't forgotten that their newspapers had hyped up Albert, they dug a hole and buried themselves in it!

  Albert is obviously qualified to compete for the final championship, but the player who was favored by the people at the beginning was ruthlessly crushed by the opponent.

   If he wins the championship, or even ends up with a gold medal...

  The special reporter's expression became more and more ugly, and he wished he could rush out immediately to deliver a message to his own newspaper, asking them to quickly lower Albert's odds, otherwise he would probably lose all his underwear this time.

   "How did you do it just now?" Yanila blinked and asked, she had never seen such magic, it was really unimaginable.

  Albert smiled slightly at the other party, but made a boo gesture to signal the other party to seriously watch the performance on the stage.

  Yanila curled her lips, but she had to admit that she still underestimated the guy in front of her. He might really win the Barnabus Finkley gold medal for excellent spellcasting.

   At least, the champion can't run away.

  Yanila still remembered what happened last night. Bud took a sum of Galleons and asked her mother Diana to help place the bet, and all of them bet on Albert to win the gold medal.

  From the drop in the odds this morning, it's not hard to see that it's not just his mother who was entrusted by Bud, and the Galleon used to bet is very likely to come from the guy in front of him.

  The expression on Yanila's face suddenly became very tangled, and she no longer paid attention to the game above, but stared straight at Albert's side face, not knowing what she was thinking.

  It wasn't until a player made a mistake on the stage that the girl turned her gaze back to the stage.

   Yes, the mature man Anthony made a mistake.

  Because he accidentally caught a glimpse of Yanila staring at Albert's side face in a daze, his anger fluctuated violently, resulting in a magic error.

  Anthony finally finished his performance, but the score was not much better than that of Mr. Animagus, and finally ended sadly with 35 points.

  That mistake did cost him a little bit of points.

   "It's useless for you to stare at me like this. I already have a girlfriend." Albert met Anthony's eyes and reminded helplessly.

   After finishing speaking, he opened his pocket watch and showed the other party the engravings inside.

  That is a painting of Albert and Isobel.

   The look on Anthony's face was brilliant.

  Because of Albert's move, he told him very bluntly: I have a girlfriend myself, and she is not inferior to Miss Yanila.

  Actually, Albert can fully understand the other party's mood, but that guy seems to have gone in the wrong direction. Wouldn't it be good to try hard to win the gold medal?

   Oh, I almost forgot, the championship and the gold medal were won by him.

  However, this guy in front of him must not know!

  If you don't know how to work hard all day long, you know that envy and jealousy are bad. You obviously have a very handsome face, but you don't know how to use your strengths.

   Don't you know that licking a dog never ends well?

  Besides, you have the nerve to hit a girl who is almost half his age, and Albert despises him from the bottom of his heart.

   Ignoring the loser next to him, Albert continued to watch the performance on the stage. However, he found that not many wizards actually achieved high scores, and most players only hovered around 35 points.

  Except for Albert, the current highest score is 42 points. He is a wizard in his forties, and his acting method is also very special.

He didn't know where to get a doll for training, and then used all kinds of magic on it in front of everyone. A bunch of simple spells fell on the unlucky doll, and the movements were quite neat. He has his own unique insights into casting spells, and seems to be a guy who is very good at fighting.

   Albert suspected that the other party might be a character similar to an Auror.

  There is really nothing to say about the fighting skills.

  Another standout is Noel, a decadent man. This guy created a sea of ​​roses, and then turned the petals into butterflies, creating a storm of butterflies, giving Albert the feeling of rainstorm pear blossom needles.

  Albert felt that turning roses into butterflies was purely redundant, and this kind of attack was actually very easy to resist, as long as the protective cover was propped up, the problem could be solved.

  However, Albert felt that the opponent's high score should be related to his spellcasting technique. After all, this game was more about casting spells than showing magic.

   It's just that Albert really didn't understand the other party's spellcasting technique.

  Finally, there was a middle-aged woman who passed the 40-point threshold. The magic she performed was also mediocre, but she also got a high score of 41.

  A total of four players were selected for the third round.

  The last round of competition will start tomorrow.

  After the game, Albert also got up and left, ready to talk to Bud. This time the game made him realize that his understanding of the game seemed to be biased.

   When he was about to leave with the flow of people, he found several reporters coming towards him, as if they were going to interview him.

   No way, who made Albert the biggest dark horse in this game.

  However, Albert was really not interested in the interview, and he didn't give them a chance, so he slipped into the crowd.

  (end of this chapter)