The Max-Level Muggle-Born: Hogwarts Isekai

Stepping past the disabled gate was like entering a different world. The air inside the Restricted Section was tomb-still and cold, carrying the dry, dusty scent of decay and potent, sleeping magic. Unlike her cautious exploration of the main library, Evelyn moved with a swift and certain purpose here. She wasn't browsing. She had a specific target.

In the game, there was only one crafting manual that contained the recipes for Legendary-tier wands: Artifice of the Ancients. She knew exactly where it was kept—on the third shelf from the bottom in the "Obscure Arts" subsection, shielded by a particularly nasty combination of wards to protect it from casual browsers.

She moved down the aisle, her eyes scanning the shelves. A book bound in what looked suspiciously like dragonhide hummed with a low, dangerous heat as she passed. She ignored it. Her focus was absolute. She found the spot, a small volume tucked away between larger, more ostentatious tomes. It looked plain, its magical signature almost completely muted by a powerful concealment charm. A perfect hiding spot.

She knew from the game's lore that two traps protected it. The first was a Curse of Babel carved into the shelf itself. She disarmed it with a whispered, "Lingua Inversio," a counter-jinx she had used a thousand times. The faint shimmer of the ward died. The second trap was on the book itself: a tactile illusion that would make the cover feel like it was burning with acidic fire to anyone who touched it. She pointed her wand at the book and muttered, "Fallax Tactu." The Illusion-Negation charm settled over the book, neutralizing the fake sensation.

With the traps disarmed, she carefully slid the book from the shelf. The chains rattled softly in the dead silence. The cover was plain, made of worn black leather. She placed it on a nearby lectern and opened it directly to the section on advanced wandlore.

The pages were filled with elegant script and diagrams so precise they looked like architectural blueprints. This was where the book diverged from everything she knew about modern wandmaking. This was Ollivander's heresy.

Garrick Ollivander, the premier wandmaker in Britain, operated on a philosophy of mysticism and destiny. "The wand chooses the wizard," he'd say. He believed in a near-sentient bond, a partnership between user and tool. To Evelyn, the gamer, this was a frustratingly inefficient system based on luck and abstract compatibility. It was a build path with too much RNG—too many random variables. Why would you leave your most crucial piece of gear, the very conduit for your power, up to the fickle whims of a stick?

This book offered a different path. A better one. The ancient artificers who wrote it didn't believe in waiting for a wand to choose them. They saw magic as a chaotic, primordial force to be tamed. They believed in forging a wand so powerful and binding it so completely to their will that it had no choice but to obey. It wasn't a partnership; it was domination. It was about creating a perfect conduit for a user's intent, a tool so exquisitely crafted it became an extension of the wielder's own soul, not a fickle friend.

She scanned the list of components, her gamer's mind immediately sorting them by tier. Phoenix feathers and dragon heartstrings were "Rare" quality—good for the average wizard, but not for her. The book detailed "Legendary" and "Mythic" components that Ollivander would never dream of using, considering them too volatile, too dangerous.

For a wand core that could handle the immense strain of max-level magic without fail, it suggested materials with inherent magical aggression and resilience. A whisker from a living Cerberus, attuned to the boundary between life and death, perfect for channeling multi-faceted spells. The petrified nerve of a Gorgon, still thrumming with an echo of its petrifying power, ideal for curses that could stop a heart. The horn of a Basilisk, the king of serpents, whose very substance was so suffused with magic it was immune to all but the most potent of spells.

For the wand's body, the book dismissed standard woods like willow and oak as inert and lifeless. It called for woods bathed in magical phenomena, a branch from a tree that was itself a magical creature, like the violent and unpredictable Whomping Willow, whose wood would lend a savage, untamable quality to any spell cast.

It was a process not just of building, but of conquering the very essence of magic and bending it to her will. This was the path she needed. She would not be "chosen" by a wand. She would forge her own.

She began to memorize the key diagrams and recipes, her mind a perfect, high-capacity hard drive. The complex runic arrays for the binding process, the alchemical formulas for treating the wood, the precise temperatures for fusing core to casing—it all flowed into her memory, sorted and stored for later access. Core: Cerberus whisker, for now. Wood: Whomping Willow. Binding agent: powdered Moonstone for stability and... interesting, Mermaid tears for emotional resonance, to prevent the wielder's own magic from shattering the violent components.

Her primary objective for the night was complete. She had the knowledge. She carefully closed the book, slid it back into its place on the shelf, and silently reactivated the wards she had disabled. No one would ever know she had been here.

As she slipped back out of the Restricted Section, a new notification bloomed in her vision.

[Quest Objective Complete: Discover Forbidden Wandlore] [New Quest Objective: Acquire Legendary Wand Components]

A slow, satisfied smile touched her lips. She relocked the outer library door behind her and turned to head back to the dungeons, the thrill of a successful mission humming through her veins. It was time to go monster hunting.

She took one step into the darkened corridor and froze.

A sudden, gleeful cackle echoed from the ceiling above, startlingly loud in the oppressive silence. She looked up. Dangling upside down in mid-air, his face contorted in a wide, malicious grin as he floated through the stone ceiling, was Peeves the Poltergeist.

"Ooooh, a little Slytherin sneaking from the library!" he sang, his voice a gleeful shriek. "Got little secrets in your head, have you? Naughty, naughty! Should I wake the whole castle? I think I should!"