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Quinn stood in front of the full-size mirror in his, Eddie's, and Marcus's dorm room while twisting and turning his body. He was looking to the mirror to see the state of his body.
"Alright, no pain, no scarring, the coloration is consistent; everything seems to be back to normal," noted Quinn as he jumped, flexed, and moved his body to check if his body was functioning normally.
The Leviathan's Underpass incident had been three days ago, and it had taken Quinn this time to heal himself while pretending that nothing was wrong with him. With copious use of glamors and illusions, Quinn was able to hide the fact that he was walking around with a punctured lung and a ripped intestine amid healing.
After the Time-Turner events, Quinn had pulled an all-nighter to fix enough stuff that would allow him to function without arousing suspicion. For three days, Quinn had spent almost all his time in the Room of Requirements, fully concentrating on healing.
Quinn didn't have experience with healing humans. Sure he could heal minor wounds, but this level of injuries wasn't something he had tackled. So every step he took was planned with caution and executed with excess care, even if it meant that Quinn spent almost every waking second of his day casting Healing magic.
But that hard work and persistence were rewarded with a complete recovery. If someone were to look at Quinn, they wouldn't realize that he was stabbed, cut, and fractured just three days ago.
"Damn, I look good," smirked Quinn narcissistically, flexing poses in front of the mirror.
At that moment, Marcus walked out of the attached bathroom after having taken a bath to see Quinn making poses in front of the mirror while dressed only in his underwear.
"Don't be creepy, and drop that smirk; it's weird," said Marcus as he passed by Quinn towards his wardrobe. "Dress up quickly. I'm hungry; we need to go to breakfast."
"... yeah," said Quinn, clearing his throat as he stopped posing and walked towards his bed where he had laid down his clothes.
Then Marcus saw Eddie, lying face-side down on his bed, not really moving.
"What happened to him?"
"Hmm? Oh, it's nothing. I just put him through an anaerobic course. He is gassed out," replied Quinn, as he buttoned up his shirt.
Marcus lifted his leg and gently kicked Eddie on his bum. Eddie groaned.
"Come on, get in the shower. We need to get going," spoke Marcus as he too started to get ready for the day.
Eddie groaned for a solid ten seconds before pushing himself off the bed. He walked towards the bathroom. As he passed by Quinn, Eddie tried to kick him, but Quinn arched his back forward, making him miss.
Quinn chuckled as Eddie clicked his tongue and walked into the bathroom.
After getting dressed, Quinn and Marcus went down to the common room to wait for Eddie as he got ready.
"Good morning, Luna," greeted Quinn and sat beside his favorite Ravenclaw, excluding himself, of course.
Luna lifted her head from this week's copy of Quibbler to face Quinn. "Good morning..." She then stared at Quinn for a good few seconds before asking. "It seems you are feeling alright."
Quinn sat down beside Luna and raised a brow in inquiry. "What do you mean? I was always alright, Luna." Inside he was feeling a little worried.
"You weren't feeling well for the past three days, but today you seem fine," answered Luna.
"Why do you say that?"
Luna took out a package from her bookbag and turned to Quinn. "When talking to the clients in the office, you were less... Quinn-like, it wasn't that different, but I noticed it. Second, you were smiling and speaking less than usual, so I assumed you weren't feeling well."
She placed the package onto Quinn's lap and said, "This is your copy of the special issue of The Quibbler. It goes out next week, but daddy sent two in advance; one for me and this one for you."
Quinn stared at Luna in amazement as the blonde went back to reading the special issue of Quibbler while holding it sideways because of the sideways layout of one of the articles inside.
He had thought that he had successfully pulled acting normal, but it seemed like someone observant like Luna, who spent a lot of time with him, noticed that something was wrong.
'I still have a long way to go, it seems,' smiled Quinn, but then another thought entered his mind, and it made him think, 'Maybe it's a good thing.'
Quinn took out a chocolate from his pocket and held his hand in front of Luna. "This is for you, Luna. But don't eat it now, okay?"
Luna glanced at the chocolate, picked it up from Quinn's hand, pocketed the small chocolate before going back to reading.
Marcus came back from checking the in-house library to see if it was updated. "There are two new books: one on Arithmancy and the second on Astronomy... Why are you smiling?" asked Marcus when he noticed a broad smile on Quinn's face.
"It's nothing," replied Quinn as he put the special issue of The Quibbler into his book bag.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn stretched inside the Aquatic Vault's stone cave with a severe expression on his face.
He raised his eyes towards the triangular entrance and walked towards it to start the trials. As Quinn walked towards the entrance, he smoothly raised his hand to touch the orb of water, which provided him with the safety teleportation insignia.
The water orb was absorbed into his body, and the blue insignia appeared on his body.
"Let's do a speed run."
As Quinn stepped into the triangular entrance, he began transfiguring himself. The insides and outside of his body wriggled, and the underwater respiratory system began to form. By the time he was teleported, Quinn had already taken the first gulp of water, which activated the system.
...
Quinn opened his eyes. He felt the water around him disappear and saw the raging vortex beneath him.
Without using any magic to slow himself down, Quinn assumed a diving posture and plunged into Poseidon's Wrath with zero hesitation.
Inside the violent water, Quinn raised his hands wide and exerted water magic. Immediately the rampaging water started to curve around him, leaving behind a much gentler flow for him to stand in.
His eyes sharpened as he looked towards the center of the vortex, and even though he couldn't see the center because of the moving water, Quinn knew it was there, and he had to get there.
Out was the gradual path switch approach which Quinn had used when he had been helpless against the roaring currents.
But now?
Quinn looked at the gentle stream of water surrounding him.
Now, the angry maelstrom bent under his will, under his magic, under the control he was able to exert on anything water.
Quinn contorted his body slightly, and with that movement, the magic started to build inside him. It rushed, ready to perform supernatural feats, and with a command from Quinn, it released into the world.
He shot forward, and the arctic blue magic rushed ahead and around him, forcing the water to calm down for Quinn to cruise through the path as if he owned it.
Poseidon's Wrath, which required Quinn to go in circles around the vortex as he got close to the center, was conquered as Quinn paved a straight route directly to the center.
When he came out to the center with speed, Quinn dropped straight down, without bothering to slow himself down, and entered Tohem's Delight without an intermission.
...
Quinn enjoyed the calm embrace of the chasm of darkness.
But he instantly broke the calm by creating spherical waves of water to launch a search operation to the next trial.
Tehom's Delight shook as wave after wave of deepwater vibrations were sent out from Quinn, who stood straight in the water, already used to the unusual calmness of Tehom's Delight. He could shake the effects if he concentrated.
Within a few seconds, Quinn got back the vibrations, and using haptics and magical senses, he interpreted them to find the location of the next triangular entrance.
'Up,' thought Quinn as the entrance was above him.
A burst of arctic blue magic pushed Quinn up at a jet speed. He left behind shock waves of water in trail.
Quinn didn't slow down and directly entered the entrance, which teleported him out of Tehom's Delight.
...
The light from the crystal lattice assaulted Quinn's eyes, causing him to squint a little, but the moment his eyes adjusted, Quinn focused on his next target.
The well of Hadal Encumbrance that aimed to crush anyone who dared to venture inside. And it waited for Quinn to get inside and face the challenge.
Quinn stepped into the well, and despite it being a deep hole, Quinn walked to the center as if he was walking from the shallow end of the pool to the deeper side.
Ripples shook the water inside Hadal Encumbrance as Quinn sank down into the well.
Instead of just creating a small area of normalized pressure, Quinn normalized the entire well and all the water inside.
The entirety of the pressure that threatened to crush Quinn disappeared as his magic applied dynamic water force to push up against the downward pressure.
His magic overrode the oppressive nature of the trial and forced it to convert into something that Quinn desired.
Quinn stared down towards the entrance at the bottom of the well. The words etched above the entrance stared back at him, which made him recall the jets of razor sharp water that pierced holes in his body.
His eyes closed them as he slipped into the entrance and was taken away to the place that was named The Leviathan's Underpass.
...
The same tunnel greeted Quinn with its white marbled floor and the circular wall of water that encased Quinn inside in a tubular form.
His feet touched the white marble, which had a grainy surface, probably designed to prevent slippage since there was water there.
'I'm back again,' thought Quinn, as he stared straight ahead at the entrance that was fifty meters ahead of him.
Quinn closed his eyes, and water started to ripple around him.
He felt some rage bubble inside of him. Quinn had been channeling anger the entire way. His usual methods of passing the trials were injected with the emotion of anger. And that added an aspect of brute-forcing through his actions today.
Quinn wanted to get here as quickly as possible without wasting time in the trials he had already passed.
'You have caused me a lot of trouble in the last few days,' thought Quinn, staring at the Leviathan's Underpass. It was as if he was talking to the trial.
'I had to mess with time without knowing how it actually works. It could've gone wrong, and I could've lost my life.'
Just remembering the thought of asking someone else —even if that someone else was himself— made his blood boil. That, in consequence, made the rippling more and more pronounced.
'You made me use a debt that I wasn't planning to cash in. I had to reveal a part of my life that I didn't want to share.'
Ivy Potter and Hermione Granger's debt had been gained while under the influence of the sin curse. And it had been obtained through blackmail, which wasn't Quinn's preferred means of gaining favors.
He liked people to think that they were simply helping Quinn back when he helped them out. Quinn preferred when the other party thought they were doing things with their own free will and not because he held something to their heads.
Calling that debt not only meant that he had been backed into a corner but it also revealed something that he had been keeping under the wraps.
Last year, he had to reveal the second vault to his family, and while he didn't regret it, Quinn didn't want more people to know about the cursed vaults. But then, this happened; Ivy and Hermione ended up seeing him in his most prone state, and even though they never found about the vaults, it was too close for comfort.
It pissed him off.
"Let's get this started."
Quinn stepped forward, and the spherical waves rippled out from him, initiating his sonar vision. The waves went out, bounced off the water walls, and came back to him to whisper about the things around him.
Ten steps in, Quinn felt four chaotic swirls twisted into existence in the surrounding water; two behind him, one above him, and the last right in front of him.
Quinn did a lazy wave, and the water swirls flashed in arctic blue before fizzling into oblivion.
"More!"
From then on out, with each step Quinn took, more and more swirls started to appear at an increasingly fast rate.
'You get a boop, you get a boop, you get a boop, everyone gets a boop!' thought Quinn. He had his hands behind his back as he walked forward.
Quinn destroyed the water swirls that were supposed to shoot pressurized jets of water before they could get them out.
From outside of the water tunnel it looked like Quinn was walking on the white marble while several artic blue lights flashed all around him.
After passing the quarter mark, Quinn cancelled out thirty water swirls every few seconds. His Occlumency was working overtime to decipher the information from the sonar, and his magic casting skill was being pushed to the limit by targeting thirty randomly emerging targets.
'Hmm...'
Halfway through the second quarter, Quinn had to handle forty targets every couple of seconds. It was getting difficult to consistently destroy all targets.
'Need to change tactics,' decided Quinn; he was getting into the territory in which one miss would hit Quinn with a pressurized jet of water that would rip any part of his body.
So right after he stopped a wave of swirls to annihilate him, Quinn raised his arm up, and a dome of transparent arctic blue briefly flashed around him.
'Let's see how the defense works.'
Quinn stopped walking, and just when the arctic blue light disappeared, another forty swirls appeared, and for the first time today, forty spears of pressurized jets of water shot out.
All forty water spears collided against Quinn's dome, and every contact point glowed in arctic blue while ripples went out on impact.
'Alright, pretty stable integrity. Nothing seems to be getting past,' noted Quinn and once again started walking.
What started at four swirls had now become fifty swirls and thus fifty simultaneous hits against his dome of protection. Fifty hits every couple of seconds were so abundant that Quinn's dome of protection was fully glowing in arctic blue.
The color wouldn't even get to fade before another volley would light up the dome.
Quinn finally crossed twenty-five meters which marked the halfway point of the fifty-meter path. Then, the barrage of pressured water stopped.
'... What?'
He immediately became cautious and pushed magic into the dome of protection, making it glow a fluorescent arctic blue all around.
The sudden stop of attacks didn't fit well, and Quinn's hunch proved to be correct when ten bigger, more contorted swirls of magic appeared around him.
These new swirls looked more menacing, and looking at them closely, Quinn could see that water was being funneled and sucked into the swirls, making them wider and more contorted.
Then the attack came.
Ten beams of pressurized water came out of ten swirls.
'Ooh,' voice Quinn as he felt the push of the beams against his protection.
Unlike the previous swirl attacks, which shot spears of water before disappearing for new ones to appear, these were continuous sharp emissions of water endlessly assaulting Quinn's dome of protections.
The power of impact was much higher than the previous type.
'But... it's not enough.'
Quinn stood up straight and once again began confidently walking ahead.
For each step he took, five more water beams would be added to the tally, and within eight steps, Quinn was again back to fifty attacks, but this time, he was facing a continuous assault.
'This is still not enough,' thought Quinn.
Just as Quinn had predicted, with every passing trial, things got easier for him.
Not because of the trials getting easier. No. The trials were getting tough in their own way. It was because of Quinn's decision to apply water magic to solve the trials.
The second he entered, Quinn employed the sonar vision he developed for Tehom's Delight. He was able to tell when and where the attacks were coming and thus had an easier time defending against them.
Before deploying the shield to defend, Quinn had been on the offense, fizzling out the swirls before they could shoot out their attacks. He had learnt to manipulate water from Poseidon's Wrath. As he had to learn the art of controlling turbulent water, the spears of pressurized water became simply another form of that.
If Poseidon's Wrath was an application —where moving water was used to sweep everything in its path— then, the swirls in Leviathan's Underpass were applications where moving water was being used to cut through anything placed in front of them.
The dome of protection which Quinn used was also water magic. The swirls were a physical offense where water was being shot at high pressure to form concentrated beams of destruction.
Unlike ice, where the molecules were densely packed, water had an element of flexibility. Quinn's water magic dome, when assaulted, transferred the energy from the incoming water beam. It employed the flexibility of water to carry that incoming energy, divert it away across the dome's surface, and finally released it into the surroundings.
With every trial, Quinn had gotten better at using water magic. This year he had studied a lot of water magic, and because he had to go through different water terrains every time he entered the Aquatic Vault, Quinn had been able to gain tons of experience with water magic.
And all that experience was coming into play right now, which allowed him to stroll through Leviathan's Underpass.
Quinn couldn't see anything because the fifty water beams obstructed his view, but under his dome, Quinn felt safe, so he continued to walk.
Quinn noticed when he walked into the fourth quarter as the fifty water beams suddenly gained a ton of strength.
'Oh, my, if these hit me, my body won't be solid anymore,' thought Quinn, but continued to walk. 'What would it be? Instant gory mush.'
The first few shots at the start of the path, which were much weaker than the current attacks, had disabled Quinn. If he had stayed there for a few seconds more, he would've been dead.
It made Quinn think about how much magic could achieve.
Then suddenly, all attacks stopped, and Quinn found himself in front of the entrance at the end of the tunnel.
'So, it's done, huh,' thought Quinn.
He looked back to see the white marbled floor and the opposite end he had started at. If Quinn was honest, he expected more out of the trial that had almost killed him.
'I guess the element of surprise was the thing that doomed me.'
After thinking that, Quinn turned back to the triangular unnamed entrance. He took a big gulp of water and went through it.
He disappeared from Leviathan's Underpass.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
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Quinn West - MC - I am gooood looking~!
Luna Lovegood - Observant - Knows her boss.
Eddie Carmichael - Chaser - Uuuuggggghhhhh.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - is the end and the reward
