.
After another water teleportation, Quinn arrived at an appropriately lit area, and immediately his eyes hurt, causing him to wince.
"Ugh, should've seen that coming," grunted Quinn and squinted his eyes to let them adjust to the new lighting. After a few seconds, when his eyes adjusted to the light, he opened them up and looked around.
"Much better."
Looking at his surroundings, Quinn found he was standing on a white marbled floor and was inside a cylindrical room with walls that matched the white marble floor.
When he looked up, Quinn saw that the ceiling of the room was around twenty feet high. In the walls of the cylindrical room were crystals, inlaid in a grid pattern that went up to the ceiling, bathing the room in bright white light.
The next feature of the room that caught Quinn's eyes was the circular hole in the marbled floor. Quinn measured with his eyes and guessed that the circular floor had a fifteen-feet diameter, while the hole in the middle of the floor was of a ten-feet diameter.
Quinn walked closer to the hole and squatted near the edge.
"More water, huh," Quinn breathed out and touched the water with his hand, and at first touch, nothing stood out to him.
"What is the deal with this one?" asked Quinn to himself, and he got the answer when Quinn turned his head and looked at the wall behind. "Ah, there it is. Let's see..."
.
「<-~ HADAL ENCUMBRANCE ~->」
.
"Hadal Encumbrance, now what in the name of Tehom does that mean?" sighed Quinn as he moved closer to the words etched on the wall with a bold and grand font.
"Encumbrance, now that is a big boy word," chuckled Quinn and crossed his arms as he stared at the wall. "An impediment or burden. Yeah, that checks out. At least it isn't something like delight. This gives me so much relief... And, there is Hadal. What does that mean? Pretty sure a mythological reference."
He turned back to the 'well' filled with water and wondered, "Now, what is the impediment or burden inside there." He walked to the edge and looked down to see if he could see the bottom of the water-filled hole, and surprisingly, Quinn could see the end clearly.
"Oh, there is the exit. Oh my, what a... pleasant... surprise," spoke Quinn as he stared down into the water. There saw the triangular exit on the floor of the cylindrical well. "I am getting weird. Why can't I just feel safe when I see positive signs. The side-effects of being a veteran are so stressful."
Quinn squinted to read the wording of the next door, but the text was too far away for him to make out the words.
"I guess I would just have to dive inside to see the words clearly," hummed Quinn and then rubbed the royal blue insignia on his arm, wondering about his next plan of action.
"Well, let's start slow," decided Quinn, and dipped his legs inside the water before slipping down into the blue waters.
From the second his body submerged into the water, Quinn put himself on full alert and very slowly let himself slip down the water.
'Hmm?! This...'
Immediately, Quinn felt something off. As Quinn continued to sink inch by inch, the pressure around his body started to increase at an accelerated rate.
The density of water causes ambient pressures that increase dramatically with depth. But right now, Quinn could feel that same pressure increasing unnaturally, something that wouldn't happen at the shallow depth Quinn was currently at.
'Underwater atmospheric pressure is increasing!' thought Quinn, and he understood what the trial title's meant. 'So this is the encumbrance, huh. Certainly, this is a burden.'
He looked at the distance he had sunk and then at the depth that Quinn had to sink to get to the bottom. He had barely sunk down five percent of the total depth, and already Quinn could feel a considerable amount of pressure.
'T-The pressure at the bottom must be incredible, huh,' thought Quinn, but then a smirk appeared on his face. 'But this is not that serious, is it?'
Quinn cast magic, and water magic showed its charm to create a sphere of water around him. The pressure that Quinn was feeling disappeared completely. It was like he was swimming at the base sea level.
"I can use water magic to adjust the water pressure," smirked Quinn before a serious expression appeared on his face. "Now, let's see how deep I can go."
Quinn had observed the increase in the pressure in his five percent descent, and if the development in water pressure was linear, then with Quinn's calculations, he didn't believe that he could cancel out it after a certain point.
"At least I would get some data to work with." Quinn gulped in some water and restarted his descent.
...
Ten percent mark: Quinn didn't break a sweat and continued on.
"What did the ocean say to the shore?" "Nothing. It just waved." "Then it became salty because the land didn't wave back."
...
Twenty percent mark: Quinn had to put in some conscious effort to cancel out the pressure.
"A cube of ice flexed on a glass of water by saying, I was water before it was cool."
...
Thirty percent mark: Quinn began feeling some difficulty in canceling out the pressure.
"The hipster fish didn't swim in the river because it was too mainstream."
...
Forty percent mark: Quinn had his eyes closed to concentrate and was solely focused on resisting the pressure.
'How do you make holy water?' 'You boil the hell out of it.'
...
Fifty percent mark: The water sphere around Quinn maintained at normal atmospheric pressure and started to ripple at the boundaries.
'R.I.P boiled water, you will be mist.'
...
Sixty percent mark: The protective sphere around Quinn had reduced to half the size it was in the fifty percent mark and was rippling wildly at the boundaries, and it looked like it was going to collapse.
'...'
...
Quinn didn't descend beyond the sixty percent mark, deciding to stay at the spot. Any more than that and Quinn wouldn't be able to keep normal atmospheric pressure.
It would start to slip, and the pressure would increase. Some slippage wasn't bad, but it turned out that while the increment in pressure was linear, the slope on the graph was too steep. If Quinn went down from his current spot, the pressure would start to slip too quickly and cause complications inside his body.
Nitrogen narcosis, the 'narks,' starts with the perception of euphoria and over-confidence but then leads to numbness and memory impairment similar to alcohol intoxication. Those symptoms were never a good sign and especially not in the current situation.
If he took the chance and couldn't handle the pressure and then tried to come up a bit too quickly, Quinn would suffer from decompression sickness, or the 'bends' and excess inert gas left the solution in the blood and tissues forming bubbles. Since bubbles could be developed in or migrated to any part of the body, they produced many symptoms, and its effects may vary from joint pain and rashes to paralysis and death.
His body could suffer from Bone degeneration and could injure while he was inside the water. Those injuries might cause him to lose control of the pressure sphere and cause further complications.
And above all of that, there was a danger of oxygen toxicity resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen at increased partial pressures. Severe cases could result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs, and eyes which would be fatal in his current environment.
Immediately Quinn swam back up, and because he was at normal atmospheric pressure, he was able to come out quickly without complications that deep divers needed to look out when emerging from deep down below.
"... Sixty percent cleared, not bad for the first try. I was totally expecting to escape using teleportation," laughed Quinn after taking deep breaths to recover from the relatively heavy magic exertion that was used to hold back the pressure.
"How much was that? Six hundred times the normal atmospheric pressure? How much is that? It is definitely more than the sperm whale can handle," shrugged Quinn because he didn't know the exact pressure values. "I need to see how much pressure is that in terms of underwater depth levels."
Overall, Quinn was feeling really good because, in a single day, he was able to clear Tehom's delight and had made substantial progress with Hadal Encumbrance. This level of progress was first for Quinn.
"After the water wave sonar progress against the Kraken, things are going good for Quinn. Good job, buddy," laughed Quinn as he patted himself on the back before triggering teleportation insignia on his arm.
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
Quinn was reading his ass off in the Hogwarts library about how to deal with water pressure. He had books on water magic sprawled in front of him. Quinn had already gone through his own ever-growing collection and the books he could find in the Room of Requirements.
The amount of information he had read on water magic increased by the day, and Quinn enjoyed studying water magic more than any magic he was learning these days.
Quinn was so immersed in his reading that he didn't realize that someone had walked near his table.
"Quinn."
The person frowned when Quinn didn't respond and continued to read.
"Quinn."
The person called out again, and once again, Quinn didn't respond. So the person crossed to Quinn's side of the table and tapped him on his shoulder.
"West!"
Quinn trembled in his chair at the touch on his shoulder. His concentration snapped, and he returned out of the world of him and the book in front of him to hear someone call him.
He turned and raised his head to see the person who called him.
"Why would you call me by my last name?" asked Quinn with a frown of confusion of marring his brows.
"You didn't seem to respond to your given name. So I thought you forgot it," humphed Daphne Greengrass with her chin raised.
"Alright, calm down. No need to be snarky," replied Quinn, and gestured her to take a seat. "You just caught me at the wrong time. I wasn't cognizant of my surroundings. Please take a seat."
Quinn took out his fake wand, and with a lazy swing, the books closed and set themselves into neat stacks at the side of the table. Another fake wave and a transparent dome manifested around their table. Starting from the top, and flowing down to the floor, before stabilizing and no longer visible.
"What was that?" asked Daphne as she sat down in the chair opposite Quinn. "The dome that just appeared over us."
"That was a simple privacy ward," replied Quinn as he placed his fake wand back into the wand holster. "To be more accurate. It was a sound-isolating ward. Any sound that is made inside the cover of the dome won't get out. We are going to talk, and I don't want Madam Pince hounding at us because we were making too much noise."
"All sound?" inquired Daphne as he put some books on the table.
"All sounds," nodded Quinn before elaborating. "Well, if we go above a certain limit, the ward will break, and sound will go out. But I don't think it is humanly possible for two of us to produce the decibels to break the ward I cast. At least without magic, that is."
"I can teach it to you. It is actually simple," offered Quinn with a simple smile on his face.
Daphne stared at him but didn't give responded. And Quinn didn't notice the look in Daphne's eyes because he was looking at her books.
"Oh my, that book has potion recipes for that are on the level of fifth-year and sixth-year students," commented Quinn when he recognized the book. He had referenced that book in his first year of Hogwarts. "Now that is some advanced reading. I have read it so ask me if you have any problems."
"... You probably think that I won't be able to understand without your help, don't you?" asked Daphne with her eyes narrowing a fraction.
Quinn, who had just offered help, stopped and stared at Daphne, confused at her words. But he could tell that Daphne wasn't happy with him.
"I am sorry? What do you mean by that?"
"Bubble-head charm, sixth-year charm, do you remember," answered Daphne, her words to the point and concise.
The stone grey-eyed boy thought about the keywords, and it took him a moment, but he recalled what Daphne was talking about.
"The day you girls came to my office after you saw me in the lake," spoke Quinn.
He remembered that he ended up implying that the girls wouldn't be able to learn the sixth-year spell as they were in the third year. But he only said that to dissuade them from going into the lake and move away from the lake topic.
Daphne didn't say anything and just stared at Quinn, making full eye contact.
"Well, I am sorry if I ended up offending you. It was wrong of me to imply that," apologized Quinn because if he was, to be honest, anyone with decent enough magic knowledge could cast charms above their grade level with a focus.
And now that Quinn thought about it. To him, who liked magic a bit too much, that sounded like a pretty intense insult.
"I did think about what I said after you left, and from I know about you. I was pretty sure that you won't forget about it and thought you would prove me wrong."
Quinn pointed at the books that Daphne had brought and continued,
"And looks like I was right. You proved me wrong by learning outside of what they learn in the classroom. Not many people study ahead of the year material, and you taking the initiative, learning more about magic, impresses me a lot."
Quinn smiled broadly and wholeheartedly praised her, "So, Daphne Greengrass, I was wrong, and you can accomplish anything you want."
A small smile surfaced on Daphne's face, "Good thing you understand."
"It's a good thing, indeed," nodded Quinn in agreement.
...
A distance away from Quinn and Daphne's table, two people were looking at the pair.
"Both of them are smiling," said Tracey Davis, looking at the pair.
"Yeah, they are," nodded Astoria Greengrass as she stared at her sister. "Daph smiling in public. Now, that is rare."
"What do you think they are talking about?" asked Tracey, curious about what her best friend and her favorite Ravenclaw were talking about.
Astoria shrugged before asking, "Does my sister like Quinn? You know as in like, like."
The sudden question surprised Tracey but then gave it some thought before answering: "I am not sure. But between like and dislike, I will say that she definitely likes Quinn, but that is obvious. As for if she 'likes' Quinn, hmm, that is a difficult question. She hasn't talked to me about any of that stuff."
Astoria nodded, and the two continued to watch as Quinn chuckled, and Daphne still had a small smile on her face, but things changed quickly.
"Oh, why is Daphne pulling out her wand? She isn't smiling anymore," Tracey asked at the sudden change. "Quinn is raising his hand in surrender but is still smiling. What did he say?"
"... Ah, I might have told him about the time when Daphne sneaked into the kitchen at night for ice cream and got caught," replied Astoria, and then immediately froze when she saw Quinn raise his arm to point in their direction.
"Crap, she saw me. Try to slow her down for me," asked Astoria before running away to escape her angry sister, who had gotten up from her chair and was looking mad with anger.
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
Quinn West - MC - Immersed in water magic.
Daphne Greengrass - Smart Slytherin - "Astoria!"
Astoria Greengrass - Lil' sister - "You will never catch me!"
Tracy Davis - Confused - "... What? What happened?"
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
