Home. A new home. What could be easier than buying a new house when you have literally infinite money? Nothing! Although, looking like this, I won't be able to buy real estate; it would be weird at best, and at worst - they'd start a hunt for me. I don't need such problems, so without any preambles or hints, I immediately turned to Borgin for help.
"Mr. Borgin? Your favorite seller has arrived!" I announced, appearing in the most unlit corner of the shop, my silver eyes flashing like high beams in the night.
Shuffling was heard on the other side of the shop, and as I walked through the pile of shelves, the sounds grew quieter and quieter until they completely stopped. What was Borgin doing? I don't know. I'm not interested in his secrets; I'm interested in my own profit.
"Mr. Elliot. Glad to see you. I see you're in a good mood today." Borgin's voice grated in his greeting of the great me. He had that same strange, funny, but stingy smile on his face, and illusions of gold coins flashed in his eyes every now and then. The old man has completely lost his mind; he apparently sold the gold for a high price.
Oh, and he called me Elliot because... Because we agreed on it. It's just more convenient for me to use this surname - an ancient family, and in the world of drones, an ancient family. And here, mine is so ancient that it goes a millennium into the future and comes back.
"My mood is definitely good, but let's get straight to business." I leaned on the high table between us and began to examine my fingers.
"I need a place to live. Neither in Diagon nor in Knockturn. I need housing in the Muggle world. Your task is to find me a dwelling that the Ministry's lapdogs won't stumble upon in their investigations, even if they walk on its porch. It should look as ordinary as possible. I'll take care of the enchantments and everything else. Understood?" I looked up at the shop owner, who suddenly became a realtor for a 6-year-old boy. Yes, it was obvious Borgin himself didn't mind this turn of events.
"O-o-oh. Mr. Elliot." he smiled sweetly, turning around and starting to pace slowly back and forth, tapping out a hard, slow rhythm with his footsteps.
"This will require figureheads, magical contracts, and... certain expenses. Muggle bureaucracy is quite a hellhole... But..."
"I'll pay with gold cubes. Only after your part of the deal. Deal?" I held out my hand to Borgin. He hesitated for only a moment and shook it in return.
"Excellent. Register everything under the name... Henry Elliot. Let it look like an empty spot on paper to everyone. Like an empty plot of land."
"Consider it already done, Mr. Elliot. Anything else?" he asked, looking into my eyes. I didn't think that by giving Borgin enough gold, you could buy him. It's so... surreal.
"No. But I expect the result of our deal in a week, no more." Receiving an understanding nod in return, I smiled and disappeared, appearing in my old room.
Before leaving, I need to get rid of everything I've piled up here. With a wave of my hand, I removed all the gold from all surfaces, replacing it with the ordinary metal or wood it was originally made of.
Lacquered oak doors and the bed frame with nightstands turned back into their cheap, shabby counterparts. The silk on the bed became stiff linen again, the mere sight of which made the body itch.
Carpets disappeared, the expensiveness vanished as if it had never been there. A few dozen seconds later, I was sitting in an empty room with old furniture, just like when I first moved in almost a month ago. So much has happened during this time. Now I just have to wait for Borgin to sort out the house, and I can leave this awful place.
۞⦰۞
A week passed... quickly. Borgin sent a reply by owl with a brief note in his style and a portkey that looked like a potion cauldron, only the size of a keychain.
After reading the letter several times, cracking up every time at the part where Borgin complained about Muggle bureaucracy, I finally decided to use this strange... method of spatial relocation. They say it feels like being dragged through a hose. I'm ready to test that. Although after traveling via singularity, I don't think anything will surprise me.
But first, I need to hand over my current room.
Getting up from the floor where I had been sitting for the entire last week—leaving a blackened spot where I had stayed. All this time I was busy with meditative file sorting and playing Minesweeper with a million by million grid. That's how bored I was.
Leaving the room, I quickly went down to the ground floor of the pub. Looking around, I saw Tom. I tossed the key to him across the pub, saluted, and immediately left the building onto the more or less clear street of Diagon Alley. It was definitely clear—there weren't that many people. The biggest crowds here are during Christmas or right before September 1st.
Taking the portkey in my hands, I didn't say any phrase. With a slight push of magic, I completed the enchantment, and a moment later, I felt all those descriptions of Apparition. And while I was being squeezed through space, I managed to invent several tortures related specifically to this method of travel. How unpleasant it really is, exactly like being pushed through a stiff rubber hose. Without lube.
After a couple of seconds of... not the most positive sensations and three volumes of swear words, I found myself right in front of the gate to my new, so to speak, home. On the gate itself hung a sign with the street "13 Blackwood Lane". A small house in Kent, not far from London at all. You can get to the Leaky Cauldron by train in about twenty to thirty minutes. Or just teleport.
The structure itself... looked neglected. More precisely, it didn't look it—it was neglected. All two floors, laid out in dark brick, were entwined with a huge amount of ivy and other vegetation. The garden had long been overgrown and resembled wheat fields with very tall plants. A small sapling peeked out from behind a funny little fence, bypassing the metal bars like water.
Through the ivy, parts of the house could be seen—a grayed and already partially rotted door with a crooked mail slot was the most noticeable element of this little house. It was complemented by dusty windows, some of which were broken, and a general aura of "Don't approach—you'll die." To ordinary people, it was an abandoned building; to Ministry radars, a bore.
Well, Borgin tried, I admit. He really found a place that literally screamed that some retired colonel lived here, who wanted nothing from life but rest.
And that's not far from the truth. Some guy used to live here who started slacking off on tracking the growth rate of the greenery. Then he died, and his relatives completely forgot about the house. And then I showed up, such a convenient buyer, and literally stole this house, only through Borgin's hands.
I already paid for his services. He must have been surprised when several gold cubes appeared right in front of him.
Entering the gate, simply jumping over it, I found myself in the notorious yard of this structure. As I said earlier, the grass here was the size of a person—that is, taller than a six-year-old me. I don't want to change my height... Because in that case, I won't be able to mock the wizards, and that's the only thing keeping me in some sort of rut right now.
Walking through the thickets of grass, ivy, bushes, and other highly unpleasant, annoying plants, I ended up right on an equally unkempt porch, with an equally terrible door that used to be white but had now acquired a heavy dark shade.
Touching the blackened handle, I expected a lot. That it (the handle) would fall off, that the door simply wouldn't open, and so on... But no, as soon as I touched the piece of metal, the door, along with a piece of the wall, fell inward into the house, kicking up a huge cloud of dust that instantly blocked my entire view. All this was accompanied by a crazy crash and crackle.
I was left standing at the entrance with the door handle in my hands.
"Can this be considered an invitation?" I asked casually, as if paying no attention at all to what had just happened. I had to stoically ignore the taste of putty in my mouth that appeared after I inhaled some dust.
Tossing the handle somewhere into another country, I stepped inside my new place of residence. Reflecting its external condition, the interior differed neither in beauty, nor decoration, nor care. Blackened wallpaper, like everything in this house, hung from the walls, begging to finally be burned in the fireplace. Speaking of the fireplace—it had practically turned into brick dust. Soot from it was almost everywhere.
In the corner of the living room stood an old sofa, which could no longer be called one. It was too worn out, looking too much like... a moldy piece of bread. I won't even venture to guess what color it originally was.
The carpet was entirely moth-eaten, leaving only a slightly light silhouette on the floor; the same was true for the lampshade, of which only the metal frame remained.
On the dresser in front of the sofa in the opposite corner sat an old TV. So old that I had only seen them during my childhood, when I was still human. And even then, those TVs were considered highly outdated—CRT projection TVs with lenses. It would be nice to revive it and see what I could do with it.
Going into the kitchen, I saw the same depressing picture as in the living room. Almost all the wood had rotted to fucking hell; only the sink remained in place, and even that was darkened by time. Some shelves that should have been attached to the walls had fallen down and were now lying on the floor like a useless pile of building materials.
Through the tightly closed curtains above the kitchen counter, broken glass could be seen.
I went back to the living room. There were stairs to the second floor, but I didn't even try to go up there. I knew I would find everything in exactly the same condition as down here. Maybe even worse.
Despite all the fragility and general... abandonment of the house, I liked it. There was a pleasant semi-darkness, the kind you see early in the morning in the middle of summer. It was very quiet here, not even the birds were singing, but every now and then I felt that it lacked the ticking of some antique grandfather clock. There was a... magnificent atmosphere here, and I didn't want to ruin it.
Quietly stomping my foot, I forced several nanobots to get out of my body and start eating everything they sensed in their path: wood, metal, concrete. It doesn't matter, the main thing is that it works. Practically immediately, the floor beneath my feet began to transform. The nanobots ate the old boards and replaced them with my GMO analogs, which were both stronger and more beautiful.
The withered sofa was turned into its ideal version, which, probably, will never lose its shape now. The dresser, the walls with wallpaper, the cracked ceiling—in the blink of an eye, everything changed to... new, beautiful. There was still a feeling of abandonment here, but that was because of the specific lighting.
Turning around, I saw how the door, which had been lying on the floor along with the wall, dissolved and reassembled itself already in its proper place.
After a few... dozens of seconds, the house was completely rebuilt. From the outside, it wasn't visible, since the ivy filled almost all the walls of the house, hiding its real look from the outside world. That plays right into my hands. This little house... will become my main habitat. I don't want people knowing too much about it. At least no more than I wish them to.
The nanobots that the house now consisted of were completely unusual. Now every nanite created by me is half-magical and stuffed with such a number of runes that to Ministry sensors and even to magical artifacts, this house looks like a black hole. Not a drop of magic, simply none. Zero. Nothing.
This plays perfectly into my hands. I can set up a nice base here, especially in the basement, and start conducting various experiments so as not to waste time. But after some thought, you realize that everything comes down to knowledge, which I lack entirely. Potions, Artificing, Alchemy (I don't know why I'd need it). All these disciplines are useful, but the lack of knowledge... gets in the way.
Sitting down on the brand-new sofa, I pondered where I could get all the information I needed. With some parts it's clear, like alchemy, which I can freely get somewhere in France. It's clear that no one will give me anything advanced, and that's also one of the future problems.
Artificing is in England, or rather, I am... a member of an Artificer family? The Potter family is a family of artificers. I can get the necessary books from, I don't know, a bank account that the old Potters definitely opened. I can scour all of England and try to find Potter Manor. Or just... ignore the Potters and start cranking out artifacts using reverse engineering and the trial-and-error method. Given my computing power, it won't be that difficult.
Potions isn't even funny. Going into Knockturn Alley and taking a whole stack of books on this undoubtedly important discipline won't be that hard. Even easier than reassembling a radio with my current abilities.
"But I need control..." slipped out while I was thinking about the prospects of obtaining various knowledge. Each of these disciplines required control—some more, some less, but the fact of magic control requirements remains. So I need to start... training. So as not to accidentally turn a pebble into a thermonuclear warhead, a necklace into a black hole, and magical soup into an acid lake.
The AI idea generators had already thrown in a lot of different things that could be applied to elevate my control to an absolute degree. For example, use a method like in Naruto. First, move leaves across my body, and then try walking on walls and water. Adapting these techniques for magic won't be hard.
Or create bracelets for myself that will forcefully stop my energy and magic flow.
Or those couple of ideas I mentioned when I whipped up the thermonuclear Lumos.
Wait, why not... combine them all? Yes, I will suffer; yes, it will be hard—but it guarantees me victory. Moreover, difficulty and suffering are words that became native to me during those 20 years of life on Copper-9 with a constant fear of death. Live a few years without controlling my energy? Ha-ha-ha, funny, I'll learn to control it in a couple of years...
Getting up from the sofa, I took one last look at the vintage TV and walked over to an inconspicuous door in one of the living room walls—the first entrance to the basement. Opening the white wooden door slightly, I slipped inside and closed the door behind me, making sure no one had followed. Going down a couple of dozen steps, I found myself in the aforementioned basement, which, at the moment, had absolutely no light, and I could only see thanks to my night vision. It had already been rebuilt to my needs, so it was completely empty, whichever way you looked at it. This will be my place for meditation and control training. Weird, but okay.
I sat down in the lotus position right in the middle of the basement and thought for a second again. I need influence in this world. A lot of influence. If I want to gain the knowledge I need without resorting to not particularly morally healthy measures. The more famous I am in the underground world, the more respect I'll have, and if the "Darks" find out who is actually supplying them with gold, they'll bow at my feet to get me as their ally or business partner.
Let's see what happens to the human market when I... start taking active steps in the name of my egoism.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The nanites immediately sprang into action, covering my arms and legs. My clothes disappeared, revealing an asexual humanoid body to the world. Definitely, I was deadly pale, but not because I was walking in a corpse's body (which wasn't far from the truth), but because I simply had no other choice. I consist entirely of nanobots; I categorically do not give a shit about the appearance of my body as long as it doesn't affect its efficiency.
A few seconds later, the nanobots on my arms and legs turned into red bracelets that glowed dimly from rune magic and the overall complexity of the artifacts themselves. At the same time, a few leaves from my domain flew out of a portal and slowly landed on my body. I said I would combine several ways of improving control. So I'll start with the leaves and with slowing down the energy flow... slowing it down by a couple of thousand times.
No, that's not an exaggeration. And no, I wasn't trying to make it harder for myself. Everything is much more prosaic—I lacked the control to make these bracelets weaker. Simply put, I poured way too fucking much magic into them, and therefore my magic has now turned not just into jelly—but into dried cement that I'll have to chip away with my will.
And so I just sat there... trying... This state could be compared, weirdly enough, to severe constipation. Neither here nor there. A solid wall, not energy.
If previously magic and energy reminded me of thermonuclear plasma, with its total unpredictability and absolute danger, now this very plasma decided to suddenly stand still and turn into a monolith.
With all my computing power, I kept the damn leaves on my body, not even trying to move them—it wouldn't have worked anyway, and I had no desire to pick leaves up off the floor.
This, by the way, was the first time I had to use my full computing power, and not even for calculations, but for processing and generating outgoing signals with which I tried to control the energy.
The runes on the bracelets hanging like dead weight on my arms pulsed in time with my heavy breathing. I didn't need it; the nanobots had long since taken control of all biology and turned me into an immortal mechanism that required nothing but energy, but... This only forced me to increase my efforts. Because managing energy will open the door to many disciplines I've always wanted to try.
Attempts to "push" the energy with my will yielded practically no result. My desire just bounced off this frozen river, like an echo in a spacious room, and disappeared without a trace.
The first day could not be called anything but a "disappointment". I sat with my eyes closed all day and tried to imagine the energy as a constant flow. Not the plasma it was before, but just a warm stream flowing through pipes, like water. But no matter what I tried to do... The energy simply resisted. It wouldn't give me the desired result. I felt the nanobots trying to help me, shuffling their little metal legs, attempting to move the energy with physical effort. This created a very noticeable high-frequency hum. But no matter how hard they tried—the magic in the bracelets blocked practically everything. My will simply hit a wall, like an invisible wall in a game that prevents the player from seeing what they shouldn't see. Only if players would simply walk away from the wall and most likely forget about it, I... I spent countless hours "hitting" this wall, trying to inflict at least some damage on it. Every such "hit" echoed in my head... with a slight vibration, as if all my computing power felt a severe overheating.
By the end of the day, I didn't even try to get up. I won't leave the basement until I achieve the result I need, no matter how much time it takes.
The only thing I did was whisper under my breath: "This is unfair." The Lord of the Void cannot move even a fraction of his energy. Sounds like the beginning of some offensive joke. But instead of giving up, I only became more intrigued.
It was a challenge.
The second day began almost indistinguishably from the first. Only with the amendment that I was already in the basement and trying to meditate. During these hours of fun pastime, I managed to cycle through several emotions: despair, rage, and so on. Ultimately, I reached determination, and I had so much of it that I had nowhere to put it.
Now instead of mindlessly beating an immovable wall, I tried to do everything in a more elegant and precise way—I tried to "seep" right into my energy using my will. I imagined myself as the thinnest thread trying to penetrate through the tiniest crack in the cement. An hour passed—nothing, absolutely nothing, not even an echo of any force. Two hours—something twitched, but I might have just imagined it. Three hours—I was hit by an insane headache; it throbbed in time with the pulsation of the runes on my bracelets. It felt as if the nanobots had started to overheat and transfer all the heat straight into my soul, but I kept going. Four hours—finally, some progress, the energy stirred; I managed to move this huge chunk of concrete a whole millimeter, only for it to return to its place and solidify even more. When I realized what happened, I almost started swearing. It was such a pitiful progress that I wanted to smash the wall. Just smash the wall, but not with my fist, with my head. By the evening of the second day, I began to feel my mind literally bursting at the seams. My body wasn't tired, but my mentality wasn't as strong.
The third day passed in the same manner, but I tried to visualize everything I was trying to work with. I imagined magic as lines of code, endless lines of code that needed rewriting. Every touch of my will was not just a command; it was an order, but the bracelets on my arms and the leaves all over my body simply answered me with an echo of my own will, which didn't even reach the target, let alone do any work. I tried to change the frequency: sometimes slow, like a pot on a gas stove on moderate heat, sometimes fast, like an electric shock. Nothing worked until...
Noon, a breakthrough! I felt warmth in my palms, the magic moved again, by another millimeter... But like last time, it didn't last long. A backlash occurred, as if I was bitten in response to my rapid development; my head instantly exploded with pain, bringing back memories of my suffering in the drone body in the icy hell of Copper-9.
I sat like that for another five hours. Shift, backlash, pain. Shift, backlash, pain. This is how my entire training went. Even the nanobots themselves started screaming about overloading, but I simply ignored everything happening in reality. All movements of energy were more important to me. By nightfall, I managed to move the flow by a centimeter.
On the fourth day, I felt like an experimenter. I started conducting experiments with breathing. During preparation—inhale, during the next push—exhale... It's weird for my already fully rebuilt body, but what won't you do to improve magical control. By evening, I managed to move the flow two centimeters relative to its original position. Only after every push came a wave of pain, as if the energy was billing me for what I was doing. For forcing it. The energy is not just a barrier that learns to resist, no. It's a barrier that immediately becomes stronger with every harder hit.
Fifth day: remembered the rest of my abilities. Started urging myself with the void, remembering Vetull; he was so... strangely positive, yet calm. As if he didn't care about anything in this life at all. Calling up these pictures in my memory, I noticed more and more details. That's when I realized that the void not only destroys, but absorbs too.
This time I decided to try specifically to "absorb" the energy, and not try to push it away. First hour—silence. Nothing. That was to be expected, it was a new training method after all. Second hour—I felt a slight tingling in the palm area; this already spoke of some kind of progress from the control side. Third hour—another breakthrough. I managed to direct the flow by three centimeters. Only the backlash was much harsher; my temples instantly exploded with pain, and the nanobots registered significant overheating of the frontal lobe and, accordingly, the temples. It was two thousand degrees above normal...
On the sixth day, I combined all previous methods: visualization + breathing + void. And this proved its effectiveness almost immediately; a couple of hours later, I managed to move my energy another five centimeters, which became my personal record for the time being. But the energy and magic, respectively, didn't quite like my actions. A massive surge of energy occurred; the bracelets on my arms heated up to a red glow, as did my arms inside them. You could see the air shimmering above me. The energy didn't want to simply submit. How did this work before? I didn't use the energy; I just channeled it through the Solver, through the lasers, and so on. But at this moment, when I specifically needed control, I realized that I couldn't control it. Never. And I also realized that energy wasn't so soulless; something clearly didn't want me to learn.
The seventh day came, and I completely focused not on my entire body at once, but on one arm. I used the same method as on the sixth day, only this time I did it more intensely, roughly, with persistence. I need to prove to the energy that I wasn't born yesterday, even though it sounds extremely nonsensical.
I managed to move the frozen flow another ten centimeters, only the body didn't appreciate such jokes and started shaking a little, not from tension, but I don't even know from what. By evening, I was able to "push" the energy through the entire arm, causing a slight glow on my fingers. This little light illuminated the complete darkness around me, revealing a dim view of the basement for the first time. But the price of this breakthrough was an hour of headache that made me think my brain was being boiled in water.
The second week of my control training began. Progress became much faster than I ever expected from myself: now I could control the energy in both arms, or rather not control, but direct the flow into my arms, developing my magical channels, which I spontaneously remembered. Then came the understanding of where all this pain was coming from.
It worked out with my arms, but not so much with my legs—the energy was still resisting. Every day, all day long, I meditated, sometimes taking breaks because of the simply insane sensations of pain that rolled through my entirely non-biological body. It was at such moments that the magic began to "respond" to my attempts at control. It flared up on its own, as if testing my endurance. Testing my soul and body. Once, such a flare occurred that melted part of my palm, but after that, I started to feel, however weird it sounds, the "taste" of magic. A metallic one, like blood, but mixed with ozone.
During the third week, there was another breakthrough. I finally managed to pass magic into the lower part of my body, or rather, my legs. The flow of magic was so slow and viscous, like... maple syrup, that even watching it induced boredom. So I decided to add a little movement to my life—I finally decided to get up from the spot I had been sitting on for several weeks. A corresponding dark spot-dent remained on the floor, fully repeating the shape of my folded legs and... ass; you could take a cast of it.
First of all, getting up off the floor, I decided to stretch my body a bit. Ran around the basement, did a little workout, did squats, push-ups, even created a pull-up bar in the wall and did a hundred or two pull-ups. It would seem there is no sense in this, but actually... There could be a joke here that there really is no sense, but there really is. I needed to get used to the new flow of energy.
After the workout, I went to test my... so to speak, abilities. It's weird doing this literally after a workout, but such is my choice. And after an hour or two of testing, I found out that not only my control of energy grew, but also my control over the nanobots. The effectiveness of these meditations was squared by this fact.
I went back to meditation, but before that, I pulled a pillow from the living room and brought it to the basement. After all, meditating on something soft is much more pleasant than on bare concrete, even though I should be ignoring it, considering the density of my body. By the end of this week, the energy flowed through me like blood in a human's veins. Only whereas humans don't feel it—I do. The viscous movement of every particle of energy.
During the fourth week, I felt like an experimenter. After a short session of meditations in the first half of the week, I got up and started trying to direct energy into my fists, legs, and so on, giving my body some enhancement. A light touch of a finger to the wall, not using strength at all, but only magic, leaves a pretty good dent in the concrete. Jumping and running also became stronger. The speed was insane; it felt like I was rubbed with turpentine and given a hearty kick in the ass. But my head ached unbearably after all these experiments.
The end of the first month of training. I started using delayed magic in my, so to speak, everyday life. I spent four times less time in meditations than before. Now just six hours, instead of twenty-four.
I learned to use pure magical telekinesis, moving objects without my hands. First a pen, then a glass... Then I was able to open a door and so on. I also learned to turn on the light with the power of thought, without using nanobots or the Solver. The progress is noticeable.
The second month arrived. The fun began; meditation time decreased even further—to three hours. I devoted the rest of the time to practice. The same enhanced punches or running, only no longer in the basement, but in the test domain. There I can go all out, ignoring the integrity of everything around me. The punches were already leaving pretty good craters, and a light jog almost reached the speed of sound.
The rest of the time I learned to control the flow itself. I imagined myself as an infinite dam, and the energy as a river. I had to open the sluices correctly, which is what I was learning. After just a couple of days of such training, I was able to create my first spark. A light spell that gave me unforgettable impressions in the form of a migraine.
The third month rolled up. Magic no longer resembled syrup flowing through veins; now it was water, moving just as easily and freely, with the amendment that I was the one controlling it. My speed exceeded Mach 3, punches broke off chunks of rock in the test domain, and with a spark, I could now ignite a log without intermediate steps in the form of paper or kindling. A log right away. After such training, I caught severe hallucinations, as if Cyn was talking to me again. As if I was back in the icy hell... But I had to ignore all of that.
The fourth month I dedicated to precision. Levitating in the air, I tried to engrave runes right on space, on the surrounding gas, and so on. Turned out shitty. But I managed to create the first "Lumos". A normal Lumos, not a thermonuclear one like last time. I still have that melted spot on the training ground. The firefly burned right in my palm; it didn't try to blind me, didn't try to burn me. It just was, and performed its function.
The fifth month became the month of so-called "Tetris". I tried to combine magic and my energy-dependent abilities. The first was the Cube. Magic + Cube = explosion... Uhh... Somewhere I definitely made a mistake, because it was supposed to turn into magic in a crystalline form... In short, I got scattered all over the basement, and the windows on the first floor of the house got blown to fucking hell. I had to restore myself and restore the house. I still lack control, definitely.
The sixth month became another month of control. I went back to meditations, dedicating 16 hours a day to them. I tried to force my magic... to stop, yes, exactly to stop, to completely hide myself, hide my presence from anyone who might be interested. I can do this for hours, but the hallucinations from this only get stronger. So I try not to do it too much.
The seventh month became the very month that I could have called the final one, but alas, no. The runes on the nanobots came alive, immediately picking up the wandering magic and energy, enhancing the overall flow of everything in my body. I can now levitate without strain, absolutely. If before it required concentration, now... a desire, and I float. Only my body begins to overheat a bit... A couple of hundred Kelvins higher than necessary.
On the eighth month, I grew to love gambling. I started trying to accelerate the quantum chips in the nanobots using magic, giving it the appropriate color. And it really worked; my infinitely fast thoughts became even faster, the world now seemed to move backwards, but... Again, a migraine, and pain in my whole soul. Unpleasant, to say the least... That's an understatement.
Once, I passed out.
۞⦰۞
"And here I am again..." I uttered with resignation, seeing the familiar starry sky of my subconscious, which still broke through the giant trees. Turning my head slightly to the right, I saw the completely unchanged Clone, sitting in a rocking chair and sipping aromatic coffee.
"Why did you drag me here again?" I inquired, getting up from the grassy and cool ground. I remembered how our last conversation ended.
"To congratulate you on your success in trying to control your magic. I'm generally surprised you didn't melt, considering the control and volume you had." the clone answered, not even turning his head in my direction, still admiring the forest distance and sipping coffee. It felt as if he hadn't even called me to the subconscious at all.
"Alright, so what do you need?" I rolled my eyes and created another rocking chair next to him, flopping into it like a tired old man. The clone closed his eyes and smiled, even wider than before. I don't know how he does it, but the smile was still polite and calm enough... maybe even a little concerned.
"I wanted to warn you not to overdo the training, otherwise... there is a chance you will turn into nothingness, along with your soul, and me with it." He took another sip of coffee and left the mug levitating in the air. I arched an eyebrow but didn't pay attention to the Clone's strange behavior. After all, he is me, probably.
"So you're just afraid of dying, got it." I affirmed, smirking slightly.
"Correct, but I would choose a more cultured form of that word." he replied with words full of apathy, not even glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes. How boring he is. The best version of me.
"And it's time for you to go." I didn't even want to answer, nor would I have had the time to, because in the next second, I was already lying in the basement of my little house, while magic coursed through my channels in red-hot tourniquets. That was a short conversation. We're done experimenting with the brain.
۞⦰۞
The ninth month arrived, and I continued my magical training. Taking into account the mistakes of the previous months, and the eighth in particular, I didn't try to brute force the magic to work the way I needed. I just learned to "breathe" it. During inhalation, I allowed the aether to be drawn into my body and become part of the flow, simultaneously "warming" it up, turning it into mana. During exhalation, I created a thin film of mana around myself. A weak magical shield, practically zero effort.
In the tenth month, I just honed everything else. The flow of Mana became like blood in the veins, so native and warm. A wave of the hand, and I summon a random book using "Accio", without a wand and without words, just by the power of thought. But it wasn't without visions; I saw the good old spire of corpses. Sad nostalgia.
The eleventh month turned out to be truly fun. Training took up most of the day; the rest of the time I practiced upstairs, cleaning the house and so on and so forth. Only once did the flow of magic for a second become that same thermonuclear plasma it was before putting on the bracelets. In an instant, my entire property, from the basement to the top of the chimney, was covered in runes that I definitely didn't draw.
By the twelfth month, I became a master. I combined magic and the Solver, simplifying teleportation a hundred times over. Previously, I had to create a wormhole to move using the Solver, and now... Heh... I combined Apparition and teleportation, allowing me to compensate for spatial resistance and convert it into pure magic and energy in a 5/2 ratio. That way I spent much less energy, and the teleport was more accurate and many times faster.
Beginning of the second year. First month. Magic became a full-fledged part of me, but my mind lacked this, so I continued to spin the flow practically always. Or rather, not practically, but always. I had long since moved away from dragging leaves across my body; it was too low a level for me... And because of this, I deliberately knocked myself out to try to control magic while talking to the clone. Or rather, just peacefully sipping coffee.
In the second month, I started making methods of destroying everyone whose face I didn't like. I combined the singularity of the Solver and magic. The result was magical nullification, with which I could absorb the magic of other people, thereby turning them... into dust, most likely.
Another month later, I could already move tons of earth and other heavy things with the power of thought, without using the Solver. That's why my training ground looked like a battlefield, as I tore out chunks of earth and scattered them in different directions.
The flow restriction bracelets could no longer do anything; my will was simply stronger than before. Now I felt much stronger than before. All thanks to them... Heh-heh-heh-heh.
The fourth month passed in pure meditation. Magic came closer and closer to its old state of thermonuclear plasma. It became faster, more maneuverable; I only had to think about it, and the necessary spells instantly formed in my hand or on any part of my body.
The fifth month was no different from the fourth. The same meditations.
Sixth month. Decided to hit spatial magic - created domains within domains. Although it's hard to call them domains, rather small spatial pockets with stasis. But they're convenient for storing things for quick access. I sent my sword into one of these pockets; now it can be summoned with a single desire... Although I will still carry it around for everyone to see, because I'm a scum who loves striking fear into others.
Seventh month. Watched hallucinations like cool TV shows. I already didn't give a shit that it was partly my hellish life in the ice of Copper-9, which left me quite a few traumas, not only physical but also mental, but... the training was so harsh and monotonous that I simply got bored.
In the eighth month of the second year, I learned to control the backlashes. The pain was no longer felt; I no longer lost consciousness without my desire to do so. In general, control over my body increased multifold, even though this is quite debatable, considering what my body consists of. In my case, body control is a highly ephemeral thing; I don't move at the speed of light yet to micro-manage dodging sunbeams. My current level is parrying raindrops.
Ninth month. Drawing runes even while knocked out, chatting with the clone about how nice the weather is outside today. It really is nice; you rarely see a sunny day, even if it's on the outskirts, but still London. Here it and St. Petersburg are similar. The sun is something new for both.
On the tenth month, I felt like an artificer and started enchanting random trinkets. Perhaps these trinkets will go to Borgin, because to local wizards, these trinkets are not fucking trinkets at all. A ring that can hold off several Avadas? What if there are two or three such rings? Yeah, I also think their price will skyrocket boundlessly from that. And Borgin will drool golden saliva.
By the eleventh month, I was tired not only of the training, but of the hallucinations as well. As soon as they appeared, I immediately cut my computing center off from everything happening and just drifted with my mind in the black nothingness, refusing to fall into the subconscious. I was so sick of it that I couldn't even think. Different thoughts about technologies I might never create kept popping up again. I wanted again to... I wanted nothing.
And finally. After two years of training, just as I promised myself, I became a fucking magister. An archmage. A supreme... The essence doesn't change. Pure magic control is now enough for me to never use the Solver or the Cube. And if I find the right runes, I'll be able to... open portals to other worlds. And I haven't even taken the bracelets off yet. And if I do? Then what? The death of all living things? I am extremely strong... Or am I? I don't even know anymore. At the very least, my control over both types of energies has become simply magnificent. And two years flew by unnoticed... I should remind everyone of myself.
But one thing is for sure: I. Need. Connections.