Chapter 1: The Orphan

On the night of July 15, 1991, in London.

In a narrow alley, a blond boy was facing off against a large, mangy black dog.

The boy held a short metal stick in his right hand, which seemed to have been taken from some kind of machinery, with the broken end still jagged.

The boy shifted his right foot back, crouching into a fighting stance. Behind him were several large trash bins, overflowing with garbage and emitting a foul odor. However, the target of the confrontation between the boy and the dog was clearly this pile of garbage.

Not far from the alley, in the darkness, two figures were observing the scene.

The older man with a long white beard whispered, "Minerva, do you think he can scare the dog away?"

"We can't just stand by and watch the child fight the dog; he'll get hurt! Professor!" The tall woman beside him seemed very upset, her lips tightly pressed together, the wrinkles on her face trembling as she spoke. She even drew her wand, ready to step forward.

The old man with the white beard extended his hand to stop her, "Wait."

Meanwhile, in the alley,

The large black dog, unable to withstand the hunger in its belly, lunged at the boy with its mouth full of sharp teeth, drooling.

On the other side, the boy, eyes fixed on the approaching shadow, suddenly dodged to the right, avoiding the dog's lunge. At the same time, he swung the metal stick. The initial speed of the stick was not fast, but it suddenly accelerated mid-swing, leaving a trail of afterimages as it struck the large black dog.

The large black dog yelped and fell to the ground, quickly getting up with its tail tucked between its legs, limping away from the alley. The boy's strike had broken its right front leg.

"It seems our little Michael has won," the old man with the white beard squinted his eyes, smiling.

In the alley, Michael did not seem to be content with just scaring the dog away. He quickly approached the large black dog, raising the metal stick in his right hand and striking the dog's waist.

The large black dog, with its right front leg injured, moved much slower, and with its back to Michael, it could only hobble forward.

With a thud, the large black dog fell to the ground again.

Michael, now sitting on the dog, struck its head repeatedly with the metal stick.

After some time, Michael, breathing heavily, stopped his actions. The large black dog beneath him was already silent, its head a bloody mess, a small pool of blood slowly spreading beneath it.

After catching his breath, Michael stood up, holding the metal stick in one hand and dragging the large black dog with the other, walking into the darkness outside the alley without a glance at the trash bins they had just fought over.

Not far away, the two observers were speechless. The events of the past few minutes had been completely unexpected.

These two were Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall, the headmaster and the head of Gryffindor House and Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

They had originally thought that Michael, a boy not yet 11 years old, would try to scare the dog away or drive it off, but they never expected him to choose to kill the large black dog and even prepare to make it his dinner.

Professor McGonagall turned stiffly to Dumbledore, "He's been a homeless orphan for five years. If he were soft-hearted, he might have died long ago. He's still a child, Dumbledore." Her tone was persuasive, as she knew Dumbledore well. Michael's actions would undoubtedly upset him.

"Don't worry, Minerva. I can see that the boy is not inherently bad, and we are here to guide him," Dumbledore said without turning, continuing to look at the darkness where Michael had disappeared.

Our Michael, apparently unaware that two wizards had witnessed his actions, was now humming a tune as he walked down the empty street.

Michael had come out to look for food. His original target was the trash bins in his territory. In these Western countries, where resources seem abundant, residents often waste food. Thanks to this bad habit, Michael always found something to eat every day.

This time, Michael's luck was good, as a large black dog had appeared to serve as his dinner. With a better option, he naturally wouldn't go through the stinky trash bins. Even as a homeless orphan, he had no right to be picky, but being clean was still better. Being too dirty could lead to illness.

Indeed, Michael was an orphan. In theory, he should have been in an orphanage, but Michael knew that not all orphanages were as good as they claimed. In reality, many orphanages engaged in human trafficking.

Their clients were varied, including couples with serious criminal records and no marriage certificate, who could still successfully adopt children. Most of these people did not meet the adoption criteria, especially in the UK, where the criteria were extremely strict.

But as the saying goes, money can make the devil do your bidding.

As long as you paid, those cumbersome and strict regulations would open a window for you, and the size of the window depended on how much you paid.

Michael had never stayed in any of these orphanages, but he knew all about them. In this world, everything required money, and to enter a good orphanage, you needed money.

For a street orphan like Michael, no matter how long he had been homeless, even if it was just one day, his "value" would plummet.

Now, only the government-built free welfare orphanages were willing to take him in, and that was only after he was caught by the "social welfare department," which was actually the "municipal department," and went through the proper procedures.

But these orphanages, well, how to put it.

As the municipal department personnel would say, "You street rats, you deserve to rot in such orphanages."

The treatment of orphans in these places was something Michael couldn't bear to recall, and the most desperate part was that no one would want to adopt the children in these orphanages, even if they did, it would be with ill intentions. Everyone in London knew what kind of children were kept in these orphanages.

So, to avoid being caught by those "hyenas" and thrown into an orphanage, Michael had to stay away from the city, building a shack in a forest on the outskirts. He named this shack, which he built himself, the "Garbage House," a fitting name as it was indeed made of garbage.

Now, Michael, having eaten and drunk his fill, lay on an old mattress inside the Garbage House, staring at a wind chime hanging from the ceiling.

After staring at it for about 20 minutes, the wind chime suddenly began to sway and tinkle without any wind.

Looking at the wind chime, Michael's face broke into a radiant smile. This was the first time in six months that he had voluntarily activated his power, making the wind chime move.

Michael believed he was a psychic. Whenever he was emotionally agitated, supernatural phenomena would occur around him. Sometimes a glass in his hand would suddenly crack, and sometimes a fire would break out nearby.

The severity of these supernatural phenomena depended entirely on the intensity of his emotions and was completely uncontrollable. This was why Michael had moved to the small forest. If these supernatural phenomena were frequently exposed to others, he would surely be investigated, and the outcome might be dissection and study.

Since Michael discovered that his powers were linked to his emotional fluctuations, he began to learn to control his emotions. He found that by controlling his emotions, he could, to some extent, control his powers and make them work as he wished.

Clearly, his efforts over the past six months had not been in vain.

During the fight with the large black dog, he had successfully activated his power. At that moment, all he could think about was killing the dog, and his metal stick seemed to be imbued with some magic, becoming incredibly fast and powerful.

"Then the next step can proceed,"

In the darkness, the boy's eyes gleamed. Soon, the small house was filled with the sound of light snoring. The two consecutive activations of his power tonight had exhausted the thin, frail boy.