It is indeed fascinating.

The tail swung and hit the ground with a grunt explosion sound, sparks flew everywhere, the walls of the maze were protected by magic, the sparks fell over and went out in the blink of an eye.

But the roads in the maze were not protected and were burned black.

Although its abdomen cannot be seen, there are obvious protruding spines on its shell. This is a male blasting-tailed skrewt.

As Harry approached.

The blasting-tailed skrewt finally spotted him and rushed towards him violently. Its irregular legs gave it an extremely fast crawling speed, and its tail was emitting sparks with a puff, pushing it forward a long distance each time.

Agility that does not match the size of the body.

In the blink of an eye it was in front of me, raising its tail and spewing out flames fiercely.

Harry dodged sideways, raised his hand and put Quinn on himself.

The flames were very hot, almost as fierce as a charcoal fire, stirring up a heat wave that distorted the air. Even through Quinn, he could feel the heat burning his face.

An attack failed.

The blasting-tailed slug became even more angry. It raised its tail and lashed out fiercely. The venom on its hook splashed on the ground. With a hissing sound, it corroded a shallow pit in the charred ground and raised a layer of light gray air waves.

Harry looked in surprise.

A highly corrosive venom, which was rare in his current collection. Hagrid really cultivated an incredible creature.

He waved his wand.

With two whooshes, vines flew over and lifted up the creature.

But it is a creature bred based on "Hagrid's aesthetics". Its existence is to interpret the word "ferocious". The vines cannot bind it. The thorns on its shell move like saw teeth and cut the vines in half in the blink of an eye.

Harry waved his wand again.

The remaining material of the vines turned into steel in the blink of an eye.

The serrations on the shell made a harsh, sharp "crunching" sound, sparks flew, and it was not in vain. Its thorns were quickly worn out, but in the blink of an eye, the shell squirmed and new thorns grew.

Although steel is hard, it is worn away bit by bit by it.

With a few whooshes, more vines flew over, turned into steel, and tied it up.

Harry made a second conclusion in his mind.

An extremely strong shell that regenerates quickly.

This is a material that has never been recorded in any illustrated manual. Harry needs to slowly figure out which materials can be used and which cannot be used, and how to dissect it so as not to damage the potentially useful parts.

At present, the blasting-tailed skrewt is a very rare creature.

Although……

At the beginning of the school year, Hagrid was able to take out several boxes, but as the school grew, accidents were inevitable, and this creature had a habit of attacking its companions.

In Hagrid's hands, there were only ten.

Harry aimed at the skrewt and cast the spell: "STUNN!"

With a bang——

The shell shrank and easily deflected the spell.

The magic resistance is no less than that of dragon skin.

Harry was even more surprised. He waved his wand and took out a bottle of water of life and death from the Sorting Hat. Two vines stretched out and turned into a pair of hands. They forcefully pried open the mouth of the blasting-end skrewt and roughly stuffed the potion into it.

In the blink of an eye, it fell asleep without any resistance.

This creature's resistance to potions is somewhat average.

Harry put on dragon-skin gloves, took out a dagger, then put it back after thinking that it would be difficult to cut open the shell of a skrewt with an ordinary dagger, so he took out the sword of Gryffindor.

Outside the maze.

Ludo's voice was piercing, and he stamped his feet anxiously: "What is Mr. Potter doing!"

"Oh my god, what is he doing?"

"With such a big lead, he is not in a hurry to find the Triwizard Tournament trophy, but instead studies creatures like the blasting-end skrewt?"

"I remember that the Blast-Ended Skrewt is part of the Care of Magical Creatures course at Hogwarts this year?"

"Mr. Potter must have had many encounters with it."

Maxim and Karkaroff frowned.

In the audience, the friends and family of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang erupted in boos.

The dark side of home court!

After Ludo finished speaking, his face turned pale, and he realized that he had spoken out of turn and said something very serious.

There is always "insignificant help from the professor" in every Triwizard Tournament, but it is never and cannot be brought up on the table.

"Mr. Bagman, I think you have misunderstood something." Dumbledore coughed lightly and cast a "loud voice" spell on himself. "The blasting-tailed skrewt is indeed part of the study of protecting magical creatures at Hogwarts this year."

"But this has nothing to do with Mr. Potter."

"I think you must have somewhat taken for granted Mr. Potter's age because of the presence of Mr. Krum and Miss Delacour."

"He is only fifteen years old and is in the fourth grade this year. They used to take care of him for about a month when he was a cub, but for the sake of fairness, after he enters the growth period, creatures like the blasting-tailed skrewt will only be cared for by students in the sixth and seventh grades."

"And I assure you, Professor Hagrid has never told Mr. Potter any information about the blast-tailed skrewt in private."

Hagrid said nothing, of course.

Before the second round of projects, he was deeply trapped in "one-sided lovelorn" and couldn't extricate himself. After Harry comforted him, he was deeply immersed in many things such as learning English and writing papers.

Exploding tail skrewt?

It was not until Dumbledore mentioned it that Hagrid realized it belatedly and showed an expression of "Oops, I didn't tell Harry about the weakness of the blasting-end skrewt in advance."

Flitwick leaned over and lowered his voice: "You really didn't tell Harry? He has been with you all this time."

"I forgot." Hagrid was ashamed. "Harry has been teaching me how to read and write papers. We haven't had many opportunities to chat."

Flitwick tilted his head back and looked at him oddly. "So you didn't give Harry detention, Harry gave you detention?"

Hagrid was startled and nodded miserably.

Flitwick looked at him, his eyes turning pitying.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, who were not far away, also cast the same look. Only Snape was sarcastic - listen, how incredible this is, a professor at Hogwarts has to start learning his mother tongue from scratch.

Ludo was still stamping his feet.

He just hated that his voice couldn't be heard.

Hurry up!

Mr. Potter, please hurry up. It has taken us almost five minutes to get out of two alleys, and we are still nearly four-fifths of the distance to the top three trophy.

At this rate, it would take more than twenty minutes.

The money you earn will be less.

In the maze.

Harry slowly dissected the skrewt.

The glass container was still big enough to contain its venom. In addition, he also took the heart, bone spurs, and shells. In the end, only a pile of useless flesh and blood was left on the ground.

He continued to move forward.

We also encountered many creatures, but we didn't see rare ones like the exploding-tailed skrewt.

Red hats, Boggarts, trolls...

These are all common creatures in the Forbidden Forest. It seems that the Ministry of Magic was a bit lazy when building the maze and did not transport too many magical creatures unique to other regions from other places.

The only special creature encountered was the Tebo warthog, a magical creature that only appears in Africa.

This did not sit well with Harry.

However, he kept Ludo's instructions in mind and simply shaved the warthog's hair, took a pound of blood, and let it go.

This tall creature was as timid as Yaya. It fled in panic and disappeared in the blink of an eye - this was a unique magical ability it possessed, allowing it to become invisible when in danger or fighting.

Its blood is one of the important ingredients for brewing invisibility potion.

Although many wizards often use its skin to make protective vests or small round shields, Harry has dragon skins and has harvested the shells of blasting-tailed skrewts, so he has no need for its skin.

After he went deeper into the maze and walked along a straight and narrow path, he finally saw a very interesting creature.

A lion with a woman's head.

Judging from its size and the long mane on its chest, there is no doubt that its gender is male.

Sphinx.

An ancient, powerful creature.

"The first little wizard." It spoke, a woman's head, uttering a hoarse and low male voice, "When you see me, it means you are very close to your goal."

“You can find your way again.”

"You can also choose the fastest way, which is to go through me."

It got up from the ground and completely blocked the road. "You may have heard of the legend of the Sphinx. If you want to pass by me, you have to guess my riddle."

"You only have one chance."

"If you don't guess correctly, I will pounce on you. Of course, I won't kill you. Before I bite you to death, I will declare your project a failure."

"If you guess correctly, I'll let you go."

Outside the maze.

Ludo stepped onto the stool, raised his hand and glanced at the time.

Although he wasted some time at the blasting-tailed skrewt, Harry only took the wrong path two or three times on the rest of the way, and he easily dealt with the creatures that blocked his way.

Only thirteen minutes had passed.

His voice became even more excited: "The audience may not know, but I can tell you that the distance between Mr. Potter and the Triwizard trophy is only a sphinx."

"This mysterious creature from Western Asia is famous for confusing passersby with riddles."

"But we all know that Mr. Potter is very talented at solving puzzles!"

“He even spent only one day on the second round of the golden egg puzzle.”

"It can almost be said that Mr. Potter has already won the Triwizard Cup."

His face was extremely ugly.

Karkaroff and Maxim curled their lips, and even Dumbledore was a little unhappy - he always hated people who were dominated by desires but could not control their desires.

The three magic schools, even Gryffindor and Slytherin, united to boo Ludo.

But these disgusted voices did not have any effect on him. His voice was still excited, and it seemed to carry the crisp and pleasant sound of gold galleons colliding: "Let's take a look at Miss Delacour and Mr. Krum again."

“They have a good idea.”

"It's just that the maze is very dangerous. Only warriors who are strong enough can move freely in the maze. It's been thirteen minutes, and they haven't been able to explore the whole way."

"Perhaps, when they have finally set up the trap after all the hard work, they may find that Mr. Potter has walked out of the maze with the Triwizard trophy and become the final winner."

And the large amount of gold galleons he wanted.

In the maze, the Sphinx lazily lay down again. It had not yet sensed any danger from the little wizard: "Well, little wizard, have you made your choice?"

Harry said slowly: "Well, I'll give you a question first."

The Sphinx tilted its head and looked at him, with a somewhat pitiful expression.

"Tell me, does it hurt when the wand hits you?" Harry raised his wand and the sword of Gryffindor in his other hand. "Or does it hurt when the sword hits you?"

The Sphinx was startled.

It immediately stood up with its fur standing on end, arched its back and pointed it at Harry, its whip-like tail hanging quietly, the tip of its tail scraping the ground.

Danger!

The little wizard who seemed harmless just now has become extremely dangerous at this moment.

What's with those eyes?

Harry thrust the sword of Gryffindor back into the Sorting Hat and pulled out the snake-bone sword: "If you don't like that sword, I have another sword for you to choose from."

The white bone sword exudes a creepy aura.

The Sphinx took two steps back and stared at the sword in disbelief and amazement: "Is this... made of basilisk bones?"

As a creature from West Asia, the Sphinx is very familiar with the basilisk.

The first basilisk was born in the West Asia. The inventor of the basilisk, the famous black wizard in history, the despicable Hypol, was an ancient Greek wizard.

"My second year trophy." Harry said calmly.

The Sphinx took a few steps back.

It is a very dangerous creature, comparable to the basilisk...

Even bigger than the gap between Red Hat and it.

The basilisk would not answer its riddle, but would only figure out how to swallow it in one gulp.

"I'm in my fourth year, by the way," Harry kindly reminded it.

The Sphinx was silent for a while, then suddenly raised its paw and clapped its hands: "Congratulations, little wizard! The correct answer to the riddle I was going to ask is 'fourth grade this year', and you have already learned how to answer it!"

"I'll let you pass now."

It stood up, stretched out its front legs, and tried to make as wide a passage as possible.

Harry didn't leave in a hurry. He stared at the Sphinx's trembling hind legs and said thoughtfully: "I remember that the heart of the Sphinx is a very good material for potions?"

"No, you can't!" The Sphinx's eyes widened and he shook his head in panic. "Your Ministry of Magic said you would protect my safety."

“This will cause huge problems!”

Harry was still studying him.

Outside the maze, Ludo and the officials from the Ministry of Magic were getting a little restless.

Is the tragedy of the first round going to happen again?

Even if they rushed in now, they would not be able to stop him.

"Never mind, I promised Mr. Bagman," Harry sighed.

Inside and outside the maze, several creatures breathed a sigh of relief.

"But can we keep in touch?" Harry asked enthusiastically. He waved his wand, and the parchment and quill flew out of the Sorting Hat. He wrote down a string of addresses, which floated into the Sphinx's sideburns. "Let's get in touch during the summer vacation."

The Sphinx smiled dryly.

Harry walked past it and continued inside.

The Sphinx fell to the ground, its hind legs no longer able to support it, and it relied entirely on its determination to survive.