"As you wish, distinguished wizard. Please follow ." After taking the key, the goblin hopped down slowly from his high stool, rounded the counter, and led Kane to a room at the very edge of Gringotts that featured a rather grand door.
"May I ask how much wealth you intend to deposit for your initial opening?" the goblin inquired.
"Let's round it out to an even one thousand Galleons. Aside from that, there's so loose change; leave half as it is, and convert the other half into British Pounds.
There shouldn't be any restrictions on exchanging Galleons for Pounds, right?" Kane followed the goblin into the room.
Unlike the splendor of the bank exterior, the interior of this room was rely an underground railway station.
Exposed tracks of all kinds, unmaintained gyroscopic mine carts, and dense clusters of control levers gave the room a sowhat slipshod appearance. It was practically a different world from the outside.
"Of course not, Mr. Wizard. No one refuses to trade paper for gold." The goblin walked behind a number-rolling machine that resembled a three-barrel slot machine.
"Do you wish to roll a random number yourself or select a specific one? I cannot comnd the efficiency of selecting your own, as the number you choose may already be occupied by soone else."
"973?" Kane gave a random string of digits. Although he didn't have any specific requirents for a vault number, if he didn't pick sothing, wouldn't the goblin have spoken all those words in vain?
To his surprise, the goblin pressed the button three tis on his side of the machine and let out a startled, wonder-filled cry.
"Well then, Mr. Wizard, shall we proceed to the Dumbledore family vault first, or open and activate your own vault?"
"Let's open mine first. If there's anything good in Dumbledore's vault, I'll just pocket it directly."
As Kane spoke, he and the goblin climbed into the gyroscopic mine cart in the center of the room.
No matter how wildly the connections between the tracks and the cart twisted and turned until up and down lost all aning, the wizard and goblin remained perfectly level and steady inside.
Soon, the cart ground to a halt in front of Vault 973. The goblin stepped forward first, inserting the vault key into the massive door.
The vault door rattled and clicked through its chanisms before the goblin gave it a gentle twist.
The vault door, which looked to Kane like a giant manhole cover, swung open with a heavy boom. Just as he was about to step inside to dump out the contents of Little Pumpkin's belly, the goblin behind him quickly offered a reminder.
"You need to sign the contract before you can store anything inside the vault. After all, the ownership of this vault currently still resides with Gringotts."
Kane turned around. "Then go ahead."
The goblin nodded, waving his hand to manifest a paragraph of text in midair. There were only words—no extra decorative patterns, and not even a hint of color variation caused by magical fluctuations.
It made sense; a goblin conglorate like Gringotts, with chains across all of Europe, wouldn't resort to the devil's bargain style from fairy tales to squeeze out a profit.
Kane read it over front to back twice, and after confirming there were no ambiguities or hidden traps, he nodded and used his wand to sign his na in the corner of the contract.
"It is yours now."
Kane gave a grunt of affirmation, walked into the vault, and lifted Little Pumpkin directly. Forcing the bag's mouth open, he began pouring everything out from top to bottom.
In an instant, a clattering cascade of Gold Galleons and various colored gemstones spilled forth like corn dropping from a harvesting machine in an autumn field.
Within seconds, it ford a small hill that collapsed outward under its own weight.
"Let's go. To Dumbledore's vault." Picking up a few gems from the floor that might co in handy, Kane left the vault, locked the door, pocketed the key, and urged the goblin along.
"Right away, right away."
The pair soon arrived before the door of the Dumbledore family vault. Kane pulled out the key Dumbledore had given him and opened it. Then, he felt... Dumbledore truly was a remarkably great man.
Because for a Headmaster of Hogwarts, for his family vault to be this absolute visual definition of impoverished... a normal person genuinely couldn't achieve it.
The vault was roughly the size of a football field, and you could literally play football in it because there were practically no obstacles.
Whether it was Gold Galleons or gemstones, there were essentially none to be found.
All that existed were so old pieces of furniture that looked heavily weathered by ti, a few stuffed dolls, a wardrobe full of last-century style won's clothing, and an old bookshelf holding a scattered few books that Kane had zero interest in.
Ah, and a black-leather-bound book being used to level out one of the bookshelf's legs.
"The old Headmaster really wasn't lying to ..." Kane looked around to confirm there wasn't a single coin left, and ultimately turned to leave the vault in resignation.
But just as he was about to step out, he suddenly felt sothing strange tugging violently at his shadow. Turning his head, he saw that his shadow had sohow beco stuck to the black book on the floor, used to prop up the shelf.
There was sothing wrong with this book.
Normal books shouldn't stick to a person's shadow. In other words, Kane's shadow had only been that sticky and bizarre when he was in the Constant; it had beco much more ordinary since returning to the real world.
Therefore, this book looked like it had quite a history.
Hmm...
He crouched down, using the shadows to lift the weight of the bookshelf. The mont he picked up the book, his pupils subconsciously dilated for a fraction of a second. Then, he rubbed his eyes and looked again.
"Old Mac, is your Codex Umbra still in your hands?" Kane asked suddenly.
"Of course it is..." Maxwell materialized abruptly behind Kane, casually making fun of the foolish question Kane had uttered, before suddenly freezing mid-sentence. "...What is that?"
Kane patted the cover of the book. "Isn't it written right here? The Codex Umbra."
Maxwell stared at the book and fell into deep thought. "So, when the Codex Umbra dragged Charlie and into the Constant, the grimoire I used there was rely a twin-like projection? While the true Codex Umbra remained in the real world, waiting for the next poor soul who attempted to possess it?"
"Exactly! And I am that poor soul it was looking for!" Kane held the Codex Umbra up in both hands, looking seconds away from planting a kiss right on it.
Heaven knew how long he had coveted Maxwell's Codex Umbra during his ti in the Constant. Yet, let alone using it, he hadn't even been allowed to touch it.
In the end, he had gone to imnse trouble—from actively lowering his Sanity to try and commune with the shadows, which failed; to learning the ancient knowledge of the underground caves, which was only half-successful; to directly facing the Ancient Fuelweaver to try and rge with it.
He had tried every single thod, stopping just short of eating raw Nightmare Fuel. Aside from altering his constitution and psyche a little bit, it had been of little use.
It was only after going through endless hardships to drag a certain torch-throwing, unlucky scientist off the Nightmare Throne and personally experiencing the authority of the Constant for a period of ti that he had finally gained complete mastery over the shadows and found the path to leave that realm.
And now, he had found the Codex Umbra being used to level a table leg in the Dumbledore family vault.
How is this not a reunion with an old friend in a distant land?
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