Chapter 4: 4
It was early in the morning, the bed was warm, and I didn't want to move at all. Magic... energies... I'd have to get a better grasp on those aspects by scouring the elf's memory. Or at the very least, some sort of compilation from that pile of images. Of course, some familiar magic might be of no practical use in this world, but even a modicum of understanding could contribute to the quality of my being here as a wizard.
Finally awake, dressed and washed up, I went down for breakfast. What was the date? Hmm, not much to check on, maybe in the paper. But the end of July was certain.
I was pensive at breakfast, but quickly decided not to get too deep in thought, my parents worried that I would start 'dumbing myself down' again.
"I was pensive," I smiled modestly in response to the concerned looks. "So much different information to comprehend."
My parents smiled coyly with obvious relief. It was worth paying more attention to them - even though I did not have children, but more than once or twice I had dealt with parents saddened by their child's state of health.
After breakfast, I went to my room to think quietly.
Magic is multi-faceted and all-encompassing, but on closer examination a few conclusions can be drawn about its mechanics, though not its mechanics, but its essence. A wizard, an elf, some other creature or an artifact - all of them take magic either from external sources or from internal ones. For example, the energy of fire from a bonfire. Energy of air, what a surprise, from the air. Internal sources - from the connection of the soul or the simplest spiritual-material construction with the energetic dimensions of the world. Yes, strictly technically, energy from connection with the dimensions is not internal either - its source is external. But I did not come up with this classification, especially the methods of application are significantly different.
External energy is completely inflexible for use in volitional manipulations. Unintelligent magical beings use it to fuel themselves, because in some, such as fire salamanders, the body itself converts the energy into an effect. For this reason, the vast majority of mages and wizards encountered in shard memory use various seals, circles, rune chains and other products of cogitative calculations to channel the desired energy and create a spell. Of course, you could power a fireball with any energy, not fire at all, but it's the energy of fire that pours into the structure with little resistance, consumes less of it, and produces better results.
Internal - energy that the creature draws from another dimension. It has the same sub-species gradation, but there are a number of conditions. Initially only a few creatures are capable of this, and if they weren't met by wizards, they wouldn't even know about the other energy dimensions, but that's not the point. A wizard must first be 'wired' into a dimension - initiation. But this can be done in two cases - if one has the ability to project dimension energy into the world, and if one has affinity with that energy. If these conditions are ignored, the consequences can be dire both for the young or not so young talent and for those around them. But if it so happens that the wizard fits the conditions and undergoes initiation, there are a number of undeniable benefits.
Unlike external energy, which is taken from a phenomenon already embodied in reality, whatever it may be, internal energy has no embodiment at the moment of projection into the world. Because of this, it is easily manipulated by the will and is suitable for witchcraft based on bare will and fantasy. It is true that the type of such witchcraft is rather tightly bound to the type of energy - fire to fire, water to water. But using them in seals, runes and other constructions can achieve versatility. And there is no need to explain the advantage of a bottomless source of energy in the form of another dimension, the possibility of scooping which is limited only by will, imagination and the state of one's health. However, there are also disadvantages.
Because of the malleability of the inner energy to the will and the rather easy embodiment of aspects of reality based on desire and mind, the use of the inner energy is fraught with certain difficulties. If you lose mental stability, get a blowout of energy. Get emotionally unstable, get a blowout of energy. If you use substances that affect your nervous system and over-excite you get a blowout. What's the danger?
Inner energy absolutely has to be embodied. Like any other energy, it follows the path of least resistance, and in the case of magical blowout it is the conscious or subconscious wish of the magical being. I cannot count how many times it has happened that little wizard children with access to the inner energy have burned down or drowned houses or entire streets out of resentment - fire, water, wind and earth are the most common energies, and their visual manifestations are the most easily accessible to the conscious and subconscious mind. And there have been cases with the energies of life, light, darkness, death - that's scary. Life is far from just healing. Such emission is capable of transforming all around into horrible chimeras, a mixture of the living and the lifeless, cover everything around with some incredible crap that grows out of people and other improvised materials, at the same time eating the wizard himself, mutating and changing him. Such places can then only be scorched, and the young talent is often beyond saving. Light can literally reduce everything around it to quarks and photons, leaving behind bubbles of empty space, an order that leaves a lifeless desert of quartz sand. Darkness is unpredictable and universal, but most closely follows the thoughts of the host, and death, at times, leaves around the wizard throngs of half-dead human beings-people who have gone mad from intolerable pain and suffering.
It is a terrible picture, but this kind of magical burst can happen only to small children with an immature psyche, rich imagination and huge potential, and to bring an adult to such a state is extremely problematic, but not impossible. It is true that a similar thing happens when you ignore the presence of affinity with energy or the presence of the ability to project it into the world.
So what do we have in the end? I need to diagnose myself with the help of universal constructs and find out the peculiarities of the physical body. Based on the available information, it will be possible to plan what to do next.I only need to restore these constructs through associative chains. I know for a fact that the elf has used them more than once, which means that they are there, in the depths of memory.
"Hector," Dad came into the room. "Mum and I are going into the city. Are you coming with us?"
Yeah, that's right. We live in the suburbs. At least what I know about Crawley makes him too... flat, in my opinion. By "city" I mean something much more urban. Or may be father meant something else?
"I wanted to finish up some notes, to be honest," I pointed to the notebook where I'd written down some of the magic stuff I'd remembered. "I think we can go one of these days. There's so much to get to grips with."
"Well, suit yourself," father smiled. "We'll buy some goodies then. But... What do you like?"
"Anything not oatmeal."
"Ha-ha-ha," Dad laughed heartily. "Gotcha, gotcha. You're just like me on this one. I hate oatmeal. Well, I'll get some more meat, then."
Only fools think that because elves live in the woods, respect nature, and in these matters are like crazy vegetarians, they don't eat meat. They do, and how! It's just that the process of hunting, harvesting and processing isn't as... Not as ruthless. And the dwarf's shards on the word "Meat" make themselves heard. I'd say if you add 'Elle' to the mix, there'd be a feast, a brawl, and, in the morning, a bill for the tavern's mayhem, and a taste of that nasty anti-hangover medicine made from the special subterranean mushrooms.
I shuddered at the memory, and my father left the room. Well, let us continue to piece together the crumbs of fragmented knowledge into something more coherent. Though the method of diagnosis is ingrained in the subcortex, as they say.
In the silence and solitude, I concentrated on the feeling of energy in me and around me, and with the familiar effort of memory, I pulled it out. As I thought, my body was connected to some dimension from birth and had a predisposition to it as well. I don't think my parents, being ordinary people, had anything to do with it, which meant that it was a peculiarity of this world. OK, let's move on.
I projected a circular elven seal onto my chest and channeled energy into it. The seal filled easily enough, glowing faintly green. It took about a minute, after which a fairly detailed information about the body appeared literally out of nowhere in my head. The physical state was already known, so nothing new. Magic is what's interesting. I turned out to be a wizard with internal energy, just as I'd assumed. So all roads were open.
I could not recognize the type of energy, but I was familiar with only half a dozen out of the endless variety of them, and because of the scrappy memories, the familiarity was not particularly versatile, so it is not surprising - in this case it is important to calculate the properties so as not to establish a connection with the dimensions of incompatible energy. My energy was very, very flexible, elastic, I would even say neutral-universal. The likes of which I was familiar with and the elves called it 'Creation'. Neither fish, nor meat, nor bird, nor mushroom - about the same could be said of her. You can do everything with it, but worse than with specialised energy. Universal. Although, skewness can be created by the mind and specificity of thinking, but it has nothing to do with the energy itself.
Energy neutrality is good news. It means that there is no skewness in predispositions in any direction. But it also means that I can't become the archmage of my usual directions, because the predisposition affects the efficiency of "scooping" the energy of the dimensions. I can't be a neutral, with which I already have a connection, for as long as I can, as strange as it may sound. But it's possible that in local realities, initiation would prove to be a rather useless thing - you can do pretty good magic on neutral energy as it is. But there is at least one direction, the very essence of which will help me undeniably.
Life. Elven knowledge and memories are powerful, useful, and the energy itself will allow, without any arcane contours or constructs, to influence the body, to improve, to heal myself and others. Or cripple with terrifying efficiency. On the plus side there will be improved interaction with plants and animals not of the opposite energetic orientation, but encountering crystalline or other inorganic life forms with a bias towards energy of order, is virtually impossible. Yes, yes, it is not at all the energy of death that is the antagonist of life. Order is the rigid structuring and ordering of chaos, of which life is a part. Yes, even if everything around was swarming with such life forms, it doesn't mean that they would kill me just because of the energy spectrum, that's one. And two - life energy is good for carbon and nitrogen-phosphorus organic creatures anyway.
So, life energy goes first, it's decided. Plus the body will also help prepare it for other energies and sorcery in general. But the rest is an open question. The point is that having energy doesn't make me superpskillfull or superpowered at all. Having energy can only enhance witchcraft. The trouble here is that there's not much that can be learned from the shards - there' only general, superficial theoretical speculation for the most part. And I am not sure that these layers of knowledge can be recovered at all. This means that I have to get used to the local world first and only then make any plans. All the more so, after "life" is bound, I will have to wait six months to a year.
Of course, there is also the issue of physical training. The physical condition will be improved by them, which will be reinforced by the energy of life. Unfortunately, there is no magic that can turn a magician into a healthy individual with a perfectly correct body - any result will only be a temporary panacea. There is only one correct course of action - hard work and training, while magic will support, speed up and protect from injuries and mistakes.
The only physical training available to me is elf training. The thing is that in my reminiscences only elven complexes for physical improvement were the most complete, and gnome and human ones were the simplest idea: "We must pull iron! More iron! You have to pull it more often! And then you grab something heavier and hit the bastard!".
I spent most of the day thinking about magic and trying to dig deep into my memory. My only goal was to retrieve as much specific knowledge and spells as possible, but I could pull out no more than a dozen. The saddest part was that this was the limit - I knew for sure that I couldn't get anything else out. Everything else was too blurry, with huge gaps in both theory and practice, and something told me I wouldn't be able to complete them in this lifetime.
It was dinner time, so I sat down with my parents.
"Hector," my father said when he had finished his meal. "Professor McGonagall is coming tomorrow, the twenty-first of July. You remember her, don't you?"
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"She's going to accompany you on your shopping trip to school."
"Good."
"We've arranged with Headmaster Dumbledore that you'll be admitted straight into third year at Hogwarts, but on one condition. You have six months to make up for lost time."
Father didn't look very happy with that arrangement.
"Not a problem, Dad," I nodded, and my parents immediately stared at me in surprise. "I have a perfect memory. If I don't understand it, I'll just remember it."
"Surprisingly," Mom smiled. "Hermione, your sister, has a perfect memory, too. Only for books, though..."
"But, however," father showed a slight annoyance again.
"Is something wrong?" - I asked, in order to understand what they did not like.
"Well, how may I put it... You see, son, you may say that you have just recovered. You haven't seen much, you don't know much. You haven't had much contact with your peers..."
"Robert," Mum looked at Dad with a slight reproach.
"What? " he looked back at Mum. "I know what a full board school is like."
"No need to worry," I interrupted this faint indignation with a little smile. "I will learn the nuances of social interaction very quickly."
My parents clapped their eyes in surprise. My remark had obviously put them in this state. But I declare with full responsibility that though I myself know the meaning of these words, as well as many others in the language, I have honestly heard them, have honestly read a lot and understood them, and with a clear conscience I can use complex formulations for communication. After all, even all those years of being in a vegetative state, I have seen or heard a lot, one way or another, and my brain has processed it.
"I can manage," I nodded.
Dinner was finished and I headed off to my room - there was still a lot of reading to do. The only thing that really saddens me is the old-fashioned computer with no internet. If it were otherwise, I could find a pile of literature and refresh my knowledge at least to check what was left in my head from the late twentieth century actuality.
Closer to the night, I wanted to start working on the energy of life without too many eyes, but I changed my mind. The process could drag on, and according to my parents, I had to go shopping with McGonagall tomorrow. Haste could only be detrimental, and I need to get a better handle on the memory of the shards. Yes, it's there, it's ordered, but memory is a strange thing. Even with elven mental techniques, you can't just go through it. You have to run chains of associations through your mind and follow them to get somewhere. If there is anywhere to go at all. Or sleep. Yes, it is sleep that can help clear up all this clutter.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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