24 24 - Getting Stronger, Unlocking Everything.

Blearily, I opened my eyes, only to close them again as they hadn't adjusted to the brightness of the room.

After a few seconds, I was awake enough to be aware of my surroundings and more importantly, myself.

Immediately, I felt a difference. Every time I breathed in, I felt energy coming into me, swirling throughout my body, and leaving once I breathed out, actually everything seemed brighter and fuller than before.

There was always something like this, but it was a lot less noticeable than now. No books that I read about mentioned this, but it wasn't all that important at the moment.

I immediately entered my mindscape which I could do within a few seconds at this point, and as soon as I did so, a large smile formed on my face.

My magical core was now the size of a baseball, which wasn't a huge increase but an increase nonetheless, not to mention it had the potential to increase in size as I used it more in the future, but even more importantly, it was far more dense than before.

I could feel the power inside the ball and I already knew that I could cast far more spells than before and far stronger ones too.

Even better, I could see vein-like strands extending from my core which were starting to branch out from my chest towards my shoulders and slightly above my stomach.

This wasn't supposed to happen until my final magical maturity when I reached 17!

Once you reach your final magical maturity, your magic starts branching outwards through your body, allowing you to cast spells a lot faster and easier than before, it also makes your magic flow through your body more smoothly and easily.

This also has the benefit of reinforcing your body, giving you more strength, endurance, reflexes and even life-span than a normal person, the further you come along magically, the more these attributes become pronounced.

Of course, it's not a huge increase, but my strength could probably match that of an athlete-level adult muggle, even though i'm just 13.. the constant exercises that I did probably helped with that too.

At this point, my System decided to make its presence known which I had mostly ignored up to this point, only using it to absorb books on runes and spells so that i could assimilate the knowledge better than just memorising it.

The first sign of it, was the large amount of pain in my head which almost made me cry out before I numbed it with occlumency.

After a few uncomfortably long minutes of my brain feeling like it was being carved into, I was finally able to concentrate again and immediately realised what the pain was all about.

I had new knowledge! I now had an almost instinctive understanding of the Ignis Family Magic. I knew multiple spells that I hadn't even thought of before.

One enveloped an area in darkness and started eating away at everything inside of it, another did the same thing but with healing, healing most injuries on the people inside of the area.

I even got knowledge on a Runic Language, which apparently, out of all the families that knew this language, only the Ignis family survived this long. A new Runic Language that nobody else knows about!

I also got some new understanding of the Ignis Family traits. We are known to possess Aerimouths and Natural Rune Masters, which are people who have an instinctive understanding of runes, which I unfortunately didn't inherit.

[You have finally reached your second magical maturity. You are now eligible to become Lord Ignis and have unlocked new abilities.]

'Hmm, the system seems a little more.. human.. than before.'

'So, System, what new abilities have I unlocked?'

[You have been given knowledge of the Ignis Family Magic and Household]

'Yea, I noticed that when you carved it into my brain.'

Apparently the system didn't hear my internal rant and continued, [The system has developed your magic into your body as it deemed your body ready to do so.]

'So that's why it happened now instead of when I reached 17.'

[Finally, you have unlocked a separate spatial area 3 x 3 Cubic Metres long. This has been named 'Inventory' and will increase in size as your magic develops.]

'An inventory? Hell yea!'

'I wonder how it works.'

Picking up a pencil that was on the desk in my room, I tried placing it in a separate space while thinking 'Inventory'. When that didn't work, I tried pushing my will magically while thinking 'Inventory' while holding the pencil, and luckily enough, it worked.

I thought about what I should do next.

'Tempus'

The date and time appeared in front of me, showing that it was 6:47am.

I easily noticed how I didn't even feel a pull on my core when I cast the spell.

Deciding to experiment a little bit, I tried casting lumos with the usual amount of effort and concentration that I used before and instantly, the entire room was filled with a huge amount of light.

Quickly casting 'Nox', I looked at my finger in awe. 'I'm so much more powerful than before, not only is my core far stronger than before, but it happened so much faster, I didn't even feel it travel from my core to my hand, it just appeared.

'This must be because of my magic branching out from my core into my body.'

Ignoring the urge to squeal like a school-girl, I instead opted to go for the much more dignified response of raising my fist in the air and shouting "Woohoo!"

'Ahem, anyway, what should I do now?'

There were multiple things that I could do at the moment, but I decided that I would make my way to Gringotts as soon as possible and explore my families vaults and properties. 'They've got to have manors, right? I could live in a manor, and have it all to myself! I wonder if I have any house elves?'

Writing a note that I had gone out for a bit just in case someone at the orphanage needed me, which would be limited to Miss Laura, I decided that I would test out a new spell that I had learnt earlier today from the System.

It was something that I was looking forward to using, it was a unique way of teleporting. It was similar to apparition, but better in almost every way.

First, it couldn't be traced by the ministry.. well, they could detect the magic, but couldn't tell who it came from, and the magic was only traceable once I had reached my destination.

Luckily, it didn't release much magic and so wouldn't warrant any investigation unless I used it in a restricted area or something. Another advantage was that it didn't really feel like anything instead of the horrible squeezing feeling of apparition.

You couldn't get through wards though, and it was a lot harder to learn than apparition but.. considering the knowledge of how to use it was engraved into my mind, that wasn't much of a down-side for me.

The only other problem was that, even though it only released a small amount of magic that was traceable, it still required a large amount of magic to use, almost 3 times that of apparition, but overall, I think it was a great boon compared to having to apparate.

Concentrating on the entrance to The Leaky Cauldron, I cast the spell and found myself directly in front of the entrance, unnoticed by any muggles due to the notice-me-not charms all around the place, along with the fact that it was soundless, as opposed to the loud 'crack' of apparating.

Traversing down the Alley, I found myself in front of Gringotts Bank. Making my way inside the building, which was absent of any other wizards or witches due to the time, I made my way towards the front teller and decided to have a bit of fun.

"Greetings Master Teller, I was wondering if I could use your services?"

The goblin looked up sharply at that, probably due to the fact that I was speaking in the goblin language.

"And what sort of services were you looking for, Young Wizard?"

"I am aware that I am eligible to become the Lord of my House."

The goblin raised an eyebrow, "And what is your name?"

"Leo Ignis".

"I will get Riptooth right away, Heir Ignis." He said before marching off, presumably to fetch my account manager.

'I'm surprised that he knew my account manager by name, must be a pretty high level goblin to be remembered like that.'

After a few more minutes, the goblin I was speaking to previously was heading in my direction with the unchanged face of Riptooth next to him.

Once they had reached me, Riptooth took the lead of the conversation, "Mr Ignis, you're here to become the Lord of your Houses, I presume?"

"You're correct, Riptooth, and please, call me Leo."

"Very well, Leo, please follow me."

Much like last time, I was lead through seemingly identical corridors for a while before we reached a corridor that was more fancy than the one I came to the last time I was here.

Riptooth made his way over to a random door on the left side and opened it, motioning for me to enter.

After I did, Riptooth told me to sit in one of the comfortable looking seats and then told me to wait while he brought the necessary items.

After almost 30 minutes of waiting with the only sounds in the room being a ticking clock and my own breathing, Riptooth finally returned holding an onyx colored box that was shaped in a perfect square along with a similar shaped box that was a dull golden color with dark red lining.

Making his way over to his desk, he placed the boxes on the desk and handed me a dagger.

"Please cut your finger and allow a drop of of blood to hit each box. If you are an imposter, you will be promptly punished, if you are of Ignis and Merrygold blood but are not eligible to gain Lordship, nothing will happen, and if you are deemed worthy of gaining Lordship, the boxes will open and you will become Lord Ignis and Lord Merrygold."

Nodding while internally ranting about how everything required blood, I made a small cut on my finger and let a drop hit each box before wandlessly healing myself and observing the reaction of the boxes,

After a few moments of nothing happening, two simultaneous but different unlocking sounds were heard and after a second, the boxes opened, revealing the contents inside.