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Chapter 88: Speculation about Magical Portraits

Initially, the stairs in Hogwarts Castle would not move.

However, the wise Ms. Rowena Ravenclaw believed that an unchanging learning environment would constrain people's minds and dull the curiosity of young wizards. So not long after, the other three founders were surprised to find that they wanted to study in Huo

Finding an unenchanted staircase in Gwarts is simply more difficult than making a soundless bird sing all the time.

What's even more desperate is that after finishing the stairs, Ms. Rowena has begun to turn her attention to the door in the castle. Fortunately, the three founders who finally realized something was wrong joined forces to stop her behavior.

Since then, the common rooms of Slytherin House and Hufflepuff House have been moved to the basement floor of the castle, so that at least the students will not miss breakfast because they can't find their way. As for what caused all this

The culprit, Ravenclaw House, does not live in the main castle at all.

On the contrary, Godric Gryffindor, who is full of adventurous spirit, simply blocked the entrance to the first floor of Gryffindor Tower after personally trying the changing castle stairs several times, so that the students of Gryffindor College

You have to go in and out of the common room through a hole in the wall on the eighth floor of the castle.

After a long time, the little lions of Gryffindor have finally become the group most familiar with the secret passages of the school. Of course, there is a price. Whenever there is a meal, the absence rate of the Gryffindor table is always

The first among the four houses; at the same time, the one with the most absenteeism and tardiness is also Gryffindor.

Of course, these boring old events may only be recorded in the pile of historical documents in the library that no one has ever borrowed. But most of the young wizards at Hogwarts don't know, and they don't care why.

The stairs in Hogwarts Castle move. To them, this seems to be as normal as the sun rising in the east every day.

Why are you talking about this suddenly? That’s because——

"So where is this place? It should be the fifth floor... right?"

It's another three-way intersection that looks familiar.

Elena looked around uncertainly, then stood on tiptoes on the edge of the corridor railing, carefully counting the floors downstairs one by one.

Why hasn't a wise headmaster thought about adding floor markers and classroom name markers to Hogwarts Castle over the years?

It turns out that most of the portraits and ghosts in Hogwarts are not that reliable.

Except for those characters who appear in the original work with obvious self-awareness, most of the ghosts and dynamic portraits are not so much a continuation of life, but rather echoes of the traces of wizards who once lived in this world.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I believe you will spend a very meaningful time here."

In the picture frame on the wall behind Elena, a middle-aged man dressed as a medieval nobleman put down the monocular in his right hand and nodded kindly. This was the third time he said it. In comparison, what he said just now

For a portrait of a barbarian warrior who can do nothing but roar, this is quite polite.

"Thank you, but I'm lost now. If you could tell me how to get to the stairs to the sixth floor, I would be very grateful."

The silver-haired little Luoli turned around and sighed helplessly, her eyes moving back and forth in the corridor. If she could become the principal of Hogwarts one day, the first thing she would do would be to introduce an "elevator" similar to the one in the Ministry of Magic in the school.

". Then on each floor, guide labels are posted at regular intervals.

"Stairs? Oh, yes, the moving stairs in Hogwarts are quite interesting." The aristocratic man in the painting raised his eyebrows, smiled gently, and whispered in a tone similar to reading a story.

Said.

"Did you know that in this era, many buildings have already had stairs that move by themselves? According to their form, they are divided into elevators, escalators, and moving walkways... Which one do you think is more suitable for Hogwarts?

?”

Instead of complaining about the wrong answers given by the characters in the portrait, Elena looked around, made sure that the direction she was about to go was not where she was when she came up, and continued to ask questions absentmindedly.

"Sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about."

The medieval nobleman frowned, his face a little confused, but there was still nothing inappropriate in his behavior.

"Then let's change the question," Elena tilted her head and suddenly talked about something unrelated to the previous topic, "The cat sits on the blanket because it is warm. What is warm?"

"I think, of course, it's because the blanket is very warm." The aristocratic man in the painting replied with a top hat.

"Congratulations, you passed part of the Turing Test. Your intelligence has surpassed 30% of the portraits I have encountered." (Click here to see more about [Turing Test])

Elena shrugged and praised a few words in a formatted tone - unlike artificial intelligence, many of the portraits that seem to be traces of a living person can pass through some of the original "human" memories.

to answer logical questions.

but……

The silver-haired little witch blinked her beautiful lake-blue eyes lightly and continued casually.

"In addition to blankets made of animal fiber, there are also many blankets made of acrylic and viscose fibers. Acrylic is a fiber that is similar to wool in appearance, feel, elasticity, warmth and other aspects, and is processed by spinning. Viscose fiber

It is a cellulose fiber obtained by using "wood" as a raw material, extracting and reshaping fiber molecules from natural wood cellulose."

"Excuse me, which one do you think is warmer, acrylic or viscose?"

Based on Elena's incomplete summary of experiments along the way and JKR's description in the original work, in her opinion, the magical portraits that have appeared in Hogwarts Castle can be roughly divided into four categories.

The simplest category is the animation that is common in later generations.

They just keep repeating a certain scene, such as the portrait of a goblin being repeatedly beheaded, or the photos saved through a magic camera.

The characters inside don't actually have much interaction with the outside world. As the "playback progress bar" is reset, some behaviors will start again and again. The entire behavior is an independent closed-loop display window, regardless of whether it is noisy or shaking next to it.

, provocation, or even temptation, cannot affect the characters.

There are not too many of this type in the castle, but Elena guessed that the chocolate frog card may also use this kind of magic - after all, if the character on the chocolate frog card can answer the question, then it is estimated that all wizards

When traveling around the world, it will be like in [Yu-Gi-Oh!] or [The Witcher 3 - Gwent], everyone carries hundreds of wizard cards with them.

The second type is much more common, just like a simple artificial intelligence.

You can ask them some simple questions, and according to some mysterious magical principles, they will respond with some simple responses: such as blinking, smiling, getting angry, and some answers stored in their question bank.

Elena estimates that this may be a bit similar to Siri, which has not yet come out. To be precise, in most cases, let alone Siri, even the magical [artificial] customer service of QQ Xiaobing or Goose Factory is far away.

Not as good as.

Not to mention the Turing test, even slightly more difficult mathematical problems or brain teasers will cause them to report various errors.

The third type, and the most common type, is what Elena calls "memory echoes" such as the aristocratic man in the portrait in front of her.

In Elena's opinion, they are a bit similar to the memories extracted by Professor Dumbledore when using the pensieve in the original book - retaining the original character's personality, a small amount of memory, and perhaps a few memories to a certain extent.

Diandian is a mysterious existence called "human nature" between soul and memory.

Among them, the part of the portrait that retains a relatively complete "human nature" can even pass part of the Turing test smoothly, and can at least give correct answers to some questions that require common sense or moral values ​​in human society.

Of course, it is quite common to answer questions like this.

After all, they don't really think like humans. If they are unlucky, a lost hybrid Veela often needs to ask several portraits to get guidance on the path to the upper level.

The easiest way to distinguish this is...

"Sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about."

After hearing Elena's question using "acrylic fiber" and "viscous fiber" as key words, the aristocratic man in the portrait once again repeated the sentence he just said a few minutes ago - even if it was just in the previous sentence

The girl has already explained the meanings of these two nouns.

"It doesn't matter, I'm just passing the boring time of searching for directions. Sorry, anyway, thank you for your help." Elena smiled and waved her hand, without explaining too much, relying on the knowledge of the women inherited from the Kaslana family.

Intuitively, choose a direction and move forward.

Yes, they are just an intercepted "memory echo" after all.

No matter how much time passes, no matter how new things come into contact, they can no longer learn and understand, and integrate into the original "echoes of past memories" that are like encapsulated precision instruments.

For the entire world, from the moment they began to move in the painting, or even earlier, time has stood still forever and will never move forward even a microsecond.

This even applies to the portraits of the previous male and female principals in Dumbledore's office. What they leave behind are just the valuable experiences and ways of thinking of each passing person, not what Elena originally thought.

An imaginary, so-called immortal soul.

Of course, there is a fourth kind...

In the true sense, when it comes to the soul level, all the science of that past life has not yet been touched. It is just a mysterious field through some incomplete inferences and conjectures.

The silver-haired little witch's eyes flashed. Thinking carefully, the treasures in Hogwarts are not necessarily hidden in secret rooms. However, more speculations are that only after officially starting magic learning, can they go there?

Once verified.

The most important thing now is to find the way to the principal's office quickly.

If she accidentally let that spicy old carrot know about her fatal weakness, God knows what terrible tricks she would come up with.

While thinking about it, the little mixed-race Veela raised her head, looked at the new portrait next to her and asked politely.

"Hello, I'm lost. Can you tell me how to get to the stairs to the sixth floor?"

————

————

Ahhh, I got lost again. I was buying fruit next to my house, and then I wanted to take a shortcut... I think I got lost mainly because I was typing while walking.

Fortunately, there is mobile phone positioning, thanks to technological progress, and thanks to modern society.

In fact, in my opinion, according to the original description, there is actually a fifth form of magical portrait.

I didn’t split this 3,400-word chapter into two chapters. Come and praise me! Come and praise me!


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