Chapter 144 - 144 Mount Olympus
Chapter 144: Mount Olympus
"Minister Abbottel, why are you so unconfident?" The young Rolf jumped up and patted Abtel's shoulder, saying to him in an old-fashioned manner, "I grew up listening to the stories of Greek myths and legends, maybe there are some ancient and early great sorcerers in your magical world that have been hidden and have not appeared?"
Abbottel laughed bitterly and shook his head, "I would rather believe that there are wizards from other places running over to fight ..."
"Mr Scamander, what do you think?" He turned his head to the older man next to Rolf who was frowning in thought.
Newt's eyelids lifted slightly as he glanced at Abbottel, then turned his head to give Rolf a worried look.
"I want to go into Olympus and see." He said softly.
"That would be great, if you were the one to go into the mountain and explore it yourself, you would surely be able to find the truth about Olympus!" Naturally, Abattoir begged to differ, and excitedly gave a wink to another junior behind him.
The little brother gave an "OK" gesture and pulled out a small golden statue from a box he had just brought over.
"Mr Scamander, this is the key to the door that leads directly to Mount Olympus, produced by our Ministry of Magic!" Abbottel had obviously prepared for this and took the small golden statue and was about to hand it to Newt, "We don't have many wizards here who can make door keys, and this thing is in short supply right now."
Newt and Rolf looked at the golden statue in front of them, which resembled the legendary Hermes, and could not help but fall into deep thought.
What was obvious was that in Greece, things like door keys were indeed in short supply.
This small statue of Hermes in front of me seems to be cast in gold, and the purity is also very high, just such a statue may be able to have one or two pounds so heavy.
According to the more conventional price of gold, 10 galleons 1 gram of gold to calculate the price, such a small withered statue is feared to have eight thousand galleons, converted into pounds is as high as forty thousand pounds!
The Greek Ministry of Magic used such a valuable item as a door key for processing and production, which has already proved the scarcity of door keys in this place---.
In comparison, if it was in the British Ministry of Magic, a basic travelling item like a door key could be made by almost every small clerk in the Magic Traffic Management Division.
And given the nature of door keys, which are used once and then thrown away, most of them are made from old shoes, rolls of newspaper, broken teapots, and other useless scraps. The advantage of this choice of materials was that the Ministry of Magic didn't need to recycle the used-up door keys, greatly reducing the time cost.
Therefore, looking at the small apocryphal statue of gold Hermes that Abbottel was holding in his hand, both Newt and Rolf were showing looks of sympathy and pity.
"Eh ... where is something wrong?" Abbottel looked at the two Scamander with a confused expression, "Don't you guys even need a door key when you go out?"
Rolf opened his mouth, wanting to open it to explain how common such door keys were in England and Amerika.
But Newt rubbed Rolf's head and interrupted him.
"Rolf, we're guests, don't embarrass Mr Abbottle too much." Newt whispered, with a gentle face.
Looking at his very considerate grandfather, Rolf nodded obediently.
Newt revealed a smile and looked towards Abbottel who was still in a daze.
"Mr Abbottel, I can understand your difficulties." With a gentle expression, he opened his mouth and asked, "Since your door keys are so rare, why don't we just phantom shift to Mount Olympus?"
Abattoir's expression froze on his face.
"Mr Scamander, do you mean to say ... Phantom Shift to Olympus, a hundred miles away?" He asked, his face stiffening.
"Yeah, what's the problem?" Newt asked curiously, "That shouldn't be too far of a distance, should it?"
Abbottel covered his face in pain.
Rolf watched Abbottel's expression and carefully tugged at his grandfather's dirty trench coat from the side.
"Grandpa, you need to stop talking ..." he whispered, "I now think that you are the one to blame for embarrassing Mr Abbottle."
Newt: "..."
...
Newt, Rolf, Minister Abbottel, and his two followers, the five of them ended up using the apocryphal image of Hermes to get to the outskirts of Mount Olympus.
This is because Newt, in order to take care of Minister Abbottel's emotions, pretended that there was also no way to phantom shift to such a long distance ... although it is not too easy to say whether Abbottel would believe his well-intentioned lies.
Several people stood on an empty road and saw a bleak mountain peak in front of them, shrouded in a thick mist.
Based on the parts that were not covered by the mists, it was clear that Mount Olympus was extremely majestic and magnificent, with handsome, upright mountains, and from halfway up the mountain, one could vaguely see the towering snow-capped mountains that pierced into the mists.
The dark grey of the bedrock and the white of the snow work extremely well together, perhaps only nature can blend such a very different but matching landscape.
The mountains are misty, and from time to time a white light shines, driving the mist into a pure white. However, amongst the white light was often mixed with some vaguely visible black aura, adding a bit of evil aura to this mysterious mountain range with a bit of softness in its domineering aura.
"I didn't expect that the movements of white light and black Qi in this area have become more frequent now." Abbottel said with a grave expression on his face, "When I came over a few days ago, alternating flashes of white light and black Qi would only appear once every half a day, but now it's almost non-stop all the time ..."
Newt frowned, looking at the mist-shrouded peaks in front of him, his face gradually sinking.
"Minister Abbottel, this white light and clouds are by no means triggered by the Thunderbird." He said softly, "I once lived with a thunderbird for close to half a year, and I know very well that the clouds induced by a thunderbird's natural magic are mostly dark and heavy rain clouds, and the light emitted is also electric with a slight blue colour ..."
"So we've ruled out the first possibility?" Abbottel asked.
"Basically, we can rule it out." Newt nodded, "But we can't rule out the possibility of a special Thunderbird mutating."
"Well, so the second possibility you mentioned can still be retained." Abattoir concurred.
He took a couple of steps forward and scrutinised the thick mist for a while before turning his head and asking curiously, "So are you more inclined to be the second or the third possibility?"
"There's still too little information for me to jump to such hasty conclusions." Newt shook his head, "I'll have to go into the middle of the mountain and gather more information before I can."
Newt looked at Mount Olympus, where half of the mountain's body was hidden amongst the mists, a gust of joy and inquisitiveness surfaced in his eyes.
At the same time, Rolf, who was standing beside Newt, the same emotion surfaced in his eyes.
"Grandpa, it looks like it's time for us to go on an adventure together!" Rolf jumped up excitedly, "I'm only twelve years old and I've been given the chance to go on an adventure, I told you that I would become a great Magical Zoologist like Grandpa!"
However, just as Rolf was jumping for joy, Newt cocked his head slightly and looked at his young grandson quizzically.
"Who told you I was going to take you on an adventure with me?" He asked softly.
Rolf's celebratory movements came to an abrupt halt.
"But ... but ... with Grandma Bunty out of the picture, aren't you just going to have me as your little assistant?" He stammered a little as his emotions fell too far.
Seemingly thinking of a possibility, Rolf suddenly opened his mouth wide, "You wouldn't want to go into Mount Olympus alone where the situation is unknown, would you?!"
"Of course." Newt rightfully straightened his dirty, but adventurer-looking trenchcoat, "I didn't venture out alone much when I was younger, and I've long since become familiar with it."
"But you're not young anymore!" Rolf said eagerly, "You can't go alone, Olympus needs me! The discipline of protecting magical animals needs me!
"
"Rolf, you're still too young for me to let you follow me on this adventure." Newt said, "Besides, I'm not dead yet! The discipline of protecting magical animals still has to be held up by me, so it's not too late to take over after you graduate."
Newt gave a rare jokey smile and slipped a tie embroidered with a golden pattern into Rolf's hand.
The next moment, with a distortion of the air in front of Newt and Abbottel, the puffed-up Rolf disappeared into the outlying lands of Mount Olympus.
"I'm sorry to make you laugh, Minister Abbottel." After sending off his unapproachable grandson, Newt breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Abtel, "Rolf is still too young to be involved in an adventure with such an unspecified situation."
"Understood, understood!" Abbottel nodded repeatedly.
He then looked at Newt's hand, which had just handed out the tie, and opened his mouth slightly, but never got the rest of the words out.
"Is there something you want to tell me, Minister Abbottle?" Newt asked curiously, seeing Abbottel's desire to speak.
"Ahem ... there's nothing important ..." Abbottel coughed a little awkwardly, "Just wanted to ask if Mr Scamander just handed Rolf a door key as well?"
"You are not mistaken, Minister Abbottel." Newt smiled softly, "It's still a door key that Albus gave me decades ago to return to Hogwarts from anywhere in this world. I haven't been able to use it all these years, and it sort of just came to me today."
"Erm ... made ... decades ago anywhere in the world ...?"
Abner gulped, feeling like he'd seen less after all these years of being in this little part of Greece.
Newt smiled at the sight.
In fact, he had been surprised at first at the extent to which the door keys Dumbledore had made were effective, and how long they could be retained.
This was because normal door keys tended to only be used within the country, and most of them had a shelf life of just a few days. After that time, the magic contained in them will gradually dissipate and they will eventually be turned back into useless old shoes, rolls of newspaper and broken teapots. ...
As for cross-country door keys, they require not only Ministry of Magic approval, but also more detailed magic casting; cross-continent door keys are even more complicated - generally only the top group of wizards can make cross-continental door keys, and they only take effect for a few hours at most.
Cross-country and cross-continental door keys require extremely strict approval, as well as extremely high fees, which is why the number of black merchants peddling door keys in the magic world has always been high.
Moreover, the door keys peddled by those black merchants usually have no quality assurance, and often have accidents such as being in the wrong place, being too bumpy, or even throwing wizards out of the door key in the process of using it ...
Dumbledore never had this problem with the door keys he made.
The most powerful arch wizard in the wizarding world had demonstrated an extremely good ability to make door keys as far back as the time of the Global Wizarding War sixty years ago, using them on several occasions to save Newt and his friends who were fighting Grindelwald from destruction.
The door key that Newt used to teleport Rolf away, for example, was obtained from Dumbledore decades ago and has not lost its usefulness to this day ...
Newt and the Greek Minister of Magic beside him were both thinking wistfully about having the door key while walking side by side in the direction of Mount Olympus.
"Drip-drip-"
Just then, several loud car honks sounded, interrupting the two men's thoughts.
Newt turned his head to see a black sedan with its headlights on, driving slowly behind the two.
"Hey - two guys in fancy dress in front of you!" A middle-aged man rolled down his window and poked his head out of the car, "Do you two have any quality, walking in the middle of the road, and when you hear the horn you don't get out of the way?"
The man was speaking Greek, and Newt looked at Abbottel beside him with some bewilderment.
Abbottel's face became extremely embarrassed and hurriedly took Newt's arm and dragged him to the side of the road.
"I'm really sorry about that, we were too preoccupied with our conversation." Abbottel smiled at the man.
The man looked at Newt and Abner, who had moved to the side of the road, and let out a "hmph", sticking his hand out of the window and raising his middle finger in frustration.
"You guys watch yourselves from now on." He tapped the grey shell of his car with his middle finger, "See this? This is a BMW 850Ci! The fact that I can afford this car means that I can casually clean up after you two wacky transvestites!"
With those words, the man, still holding his middle finger outside the window, started the car with the ignition with his other hand and sped away from in front of Newt and Abbottel, leaving them with nothing but the roiling dust they had raised.
Looking at this muggle so provocative, as the Greek Minister of Magic, the "powerful" Abbottel's face reddened with anger.
And although Newt couldn't understand what the man said, he could still understand the middle finger and the tail end of the behaviour, and even the always good-tempered man was slightly disgruntled.
But both men restrained themselves from making a move on the muggle with their magic. It was a matter of principle for wizards in the magical world.
However just because the two of them didn't make a move, it didn't mean that others wouldn't ...
"Bang!"
A loud bang came from not far in front of the two.
The two of them looked up in shock and saw an impossibly handsome silver car and an equally handsome man sitting in the car.
That man had long silver hair that was even more dazzling than the body of the car ...