Good or bad, does it matter?{HP}

Zhangjiajie County. Hunan Province.

On a high plateau, with a beautiful view of many high, snow-capped mountains with no end in sight, there was a small village belonging to wizards. This was the place where the only official entrance to the Tianzi Mountains was located, it was surrounded by a massive barrier that did not allow monsters to escape from this territory.

The village itself was small and resembled an excursion town, where there were: about fifteen shops with ingredients, both herbs and animals, potions, as well as various amulets, mainly protective amulets used in repelling animals and dispelling illusions.

There was a small four-story pagoda, which was a hotel, where wizards of various appearances could be seen, from Europeans to Asians, and in this place, you could rent a horse with wings, on which, for ten kanji, they allowed you to fly around the mountains.

On a rather crowded street, Severus was heading towards a small gate, from under his robe, a pair of curious eyes looked out.

"Severus, well, tell me what you saw there," Now only Merlin knows for how many hours Nagini has terrorized him, she was unable to contain her curiosity after she saw his gloomy eyes and felt those emotions through their connection, since then the Maledictus has been after him.

"You will not leave me alone, will you?" the Prince groaned tiredly, mentally sighing, reproaching himself for momentarily losing control over the barrier that did not allow the familiar to hear the thoughts and feel the emotions of the partner, which was also the reason why this snake simply did not leave him alone.

"Yes!" Her firm, sharp answer elicited another pained sigh from the wizard, who did not want to tell his companion anything, so that she would not worry in vain, because he simply would not allow something like this to happen in the future and if necessary, he would even take the house and the surrounding area with him.

Anyway, creating an artifact that allows you to store such a large area is not a problem, and he also has a source that produces magic. In extreme cases, he can always use a couple of magic storages created by him for extreme cases, which will last for a year, and the transition to the rank of "Archmage" should not take more than a couple of days, and the preparation is already actively underway.

"I thought that I would have to "torture" you much more."

Unable to restrain himself, Severus smiled, hearing the words of this impudent reptile, who at times, in this regard, even caught up with him.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but not now; I will tell you when we get back, and for now, let's concentrate on the main task."

" Okay, but don't forget!"

"Okay, okay..."

"Don't say "okay, okay," say "okay, I'll tell you"! And I know your "okay, okay," you'll chatter me away about something again, and I'll forget," Nagini muttered, with a bit of displeasure, because something like this had happened before, and more than once.

"Okay, I'll tell you," he quoted her with a grin, and then added with a bit of sarcasm, "My Lady, are you satisfied?"

"Enough of the sarcasm."

"Okay, I won't... for now."

"Shhhhhhh," a very displeased hiss was heard from under his cloak.

"... and... thank you, I really feel better..." he looked tenderly at the pair of eyes with black, vertical pupils, looking out from behind his shoulder, but in response, he heard only a displeased snort and she darted back while exuding relief, all the anxious feelings in her heart slowly began to recede.

"I also wanted to ask, why are we going there? You already found Qilin and Phoenix."

"I want to see the place the old man talked about, where a hundred wizards went down and not a single one of them ever came back. But don't worry, I'm not going to take any risks, if I sense any danger, we'll leave right away, and I'm not going to stay in this country for long. We'll stay here until the evening: over the next two days, we'll visit all the museums and Muggle collectors, and at the beginning of the third, I'll meet one person and as soon as I get the dragon egg, we'll immediately return back to Britain," already approaching the iron gates guarded by a dozen crime fighters, he straightened his robe and looked to the right, where there was a small gate specially designed for loners, near which two more wizards stood, in black suits and hats, with the hieroglyph "義" on their chests, which has many meanings, some of which were: honesty, loyalty and justice.

"I thought you wanted to stay here for a week…"

"I changed my mind, I have other plans."

"I see…" she almost immediately guessed why the seven days had been reduced to five, but she did not raise the topic again, because he had promised to tell her everything after returning to the hotel.

________

They passed through the gates without any problems, simply paying ten kanji, but in addition, to the Prince's surprise, they also gave him a map, although ninety percent empty, the most dangerous zones were marked in it, and it was not difficult to understand it, unless of course you suffered from topographic cretinism.

He did not linger at the entrance, where there were already about ten people standing, dressed in rather thick, dark outfits, with daggers on their belts, and immediately headed towards that gorge, and the wizards discussing the plan of action did not pay much attention to him, because loners walking through such a dangerous place were not a big rarity.

The gorge towards which the Prince was walking was located almost in the very center of Tianzi, three kilometers from the oasis in which, according to the old wizard, a huge Sea Serpent was swimming.

"Although the atmosphere is rather gloomy, still, we have arrived at a good time…" Examining the bare trees and bushes, through which there was a perfect view of the rest of the forest, he exhaled cold smoke and smiled slightly, feeling how Nagaina dived back under the cloak.

"I don't understand where that old man could find herbs?! There is not a single living blade of grass here!"

"In another part of the forest," he answered her first question, pushing aside a small branch, "I read in a book that the weather here moves in a circle, when it is warm on one half, it will always be cold on the other and it changes every year, like outside."

"Um, why did they do that?"

"Some herbs and monsters require certain climatic conditions, and because of the crooked barrier, which was created only to contain magical creatures so that they would not go to terrorize Muggles and violate the status of secrecy, external climatic conditions could not affect the territory inside, which is why many herbs and animals simply died out. And one unknown wizard, in the third century BC, in a single year created a spell that was able to simulate the weather, but only winter, and covered half of the territory under the barrier with "sky", due to which many species of plants and monsters survived, and five years later, he created the second half, but this time "sunny" with short rains and made them spin clockwise. That's the story of this place," he finished, looking up at the bright blue "sky" covered with light clouds, "But I must admit, for a job done in a hurry, it's really amazing... few, even in my world, were capable of such a thing with a core at the rank of "Master", and even "Archmages" are no exception..."

"And how do they still work, after so much time has passed...?"

"Do you remember the crystal in the "Magic Jungle"?" in response, she sent him an image of her serious face, where she nodded, "Here, most likely, it's the same, he tied them to some object, adding to the weave of runes, a certain combination responsible for self-restoration, thanks to which, both the sky and the barrier are still standing, but this is just my guess, everything can be different, because this is magic, and with it, almost everything is possible."

"I see…"

"I was also very interested in how he did it, that the spell has survived to this day."

"If they are really contained in the object, then how will you know where they are?" the puzzled voice of the snake sounded, and the wizard himself, having climbed a small slope, thoughtfully looked at the five-tailed white fox frozen twenty meters away from him, who also did not take its wary gaze off the man.

"It's quite simple, first you should check the two most dangerous places: Gorge and the oasis where the Sea Serpent lives, he could well have hidden it in their lair, as those who hid the crystals in the "Magic Jungle" did." he finished calmly, and then, not paying attention to the magical creature, he simply walked on, slightly changing direction so as not to provoke the beast, "A fourth-rank monster and by the unstable magic surrounding it, we can conclude that it has recently entered this rank, that is, comparable in strength to the same "Masters" who have only entered the rank of "Master". But that's also not bad, but still, let's hope that at least seven-tailed foxes do not live here; these creatures, with their illusions, are even capable of catching an "Archmage", and nine-tailed ones are at their peak, and could even catch peak "Archmages" with their illusion. And I don't even know my limits in this area, but there is no point in taking unnecessary risks, because illusions don't work on Devils anyway, and even a nine-tailed one, if I can catch one with my current powers, won't help at all." Passing by the wary magical creature, a miserable ten metres away from it, he headed further into the forest, under the bewildered gaze of the fox, who was already preparing for battle, sensing a real threat from the unknown man.

But the animal did not tempt fate, but quickly turned around and ran away…

_________

The rest of the journey, one could say that it was not calm; in these couple of hours, he met many kinds of animals, one of which even attacked him but was sent flying head first into a strong tree trunk.

But there was one change, it was the weather, the temperature on average was -10 ° C and gradually rose to almost +24 ° C, and in the sky, there was pleasant, sunny weather, thanks to which, the trees came to life and regained their beauty, and the earth blossomed, covered with lush green grass and even Nagini decided to get out and bask in the bright, warm rays of the sun, breaking through the thick crowns of the trees.

Finally, pushing aside the last branch, he saw a large, almost empty stone area with a long Gorge leading beyond the horizon, on the edge of which, oddly enough, stood wizards, no more than a couple of dozen, divided into groups of up to five people, but at the same time, each tried to maintain a certain distance from each other and mainly studied the Gorge , using various artifacts and spells.

"Interesting.…" Taking a few steps forward, Severus froze in front of the cliff and, with slight interest, began to peer into the darkness, through which it was impossible to see anything.

"Maybe to hell with it? It looks somehow scary.…" looking down with apprehension, the snake hissed, darting back under the robe.

"Agreed, but that makes it more interesting. Don't you want to know what's there at the bottom?"

"Not a bit! Let it remain a mystery, covered in darkness!"

"Don't worry, nothing will happen to us while I'm here, but if you're scared, I can leave you..." but he was simply not allowed to finish, a strong poke in the side and a very angry face frozen in front of his face.

"Just try and I'll bite you from head to toe," Nagini hissed threateningly, causing a couple of chuckles from the Prince.

"I had no doubt, my Lamia..." Gently running his palm over her head, he simply stepped forward and...

"SEVERUSSSS!" but apart from the named person, no one heard her heartbreaking scream, and the wizards studying the Gorge looked in shock at the man falling down, from whom a strange hissing sound was heard and whose silhouette, after a few seconds, disappeared into the darkness.

"Definitely a psycho!" and this opinion was shared by all the assembled wizards...

.

.

.

.

Thank you all for reading, you support means alot to me.

Please keep supporting by voting with powerstones and reviews.

You can read 34 extra chapters on [email protected]/lucifer09