Before the Dawn!

{Potter Manor, Unplottable}

{7:43 P.M, 30th August 1991}

Alex sighed as he comfortably leaned into his bed, he had decided to give himself a day off since he was supposed to begin his magical journey at Hogwarts tomorrow. The past month had been tiering as well as rewarding.

His arrival back into the Wizarding world was a loosely kept secret, at least his photo wasn't stamped onto the first page of the Daily Prophet.

His pet project this past summer had been to learn as many first-year spells as he could, which not only allowed him to level up but also gave him an indication as to how the magic tier system of his gamer powers worked.

'Spells,' Alex thought with the intent to see the spells tab. A transparent window appeared in front of him allowing him to track his progress. The Tier I spells were the easiest to learn, they barely took some intent and wand movements to cast. Tier II spells were a little harder, he had to precisely work through his wand movement and intent for them to work.

Tier III spells were the ones that gave him the most problems, even after following the instructions to the letter, it took some time and a lot of iterations to successfully cast the spell. He wasn't sure what the problem was but his mana felt sluggish to move around his body as Tier III involved a lot more mana nodes than the first two categories of spells.

'Yeah and these spell tiers in just our first year are all over the place, who even designed this stupid curriculum,' Alex thought as he went through the list of spells he had learned.

...

[Spells Tab]

...

[Tier I spells->]

[Color Change Charm]

[Wand-Lighting Charm]

[Wand-Extinguishing Charm]

[Verdimillious Charm]

...

[Tier II spells->]

[Levitation Charm]

[Softening Charm]

[Unlocking Charm]

[Locking Charm]

[Mending Charm]

[Verdimillious Duo Spell]

[Match->Needle Transfiguration]

[Small objects-> Birds Transfiguraion]

[Solar-Lightning Charm]

[Smokescreen Spell]

...

[Tier III Spells->]

[Fire-Making Charm]

[Knockback Jinx]

[Verdimillious Tria]

[Severing Charm]

[Animation Charm]

[Ice Jinx]

[Switching Spell]

[Object->Snuffbox]

...

The list was surprisingly long even though most of the spells he had learned were useless outside of classes, he just learned them with the idea of gaining full marks in the final exam. The leveling system that he had access to was also focused on gaining experience from learning and leveling up spells.

Tier I spells were especially ineffective in that regard, not only did they provide just 1 exp when he first learned them, but also leveling them up had no profits either. He just learned them and set them aside.

'Maybe I should level these spells to level 2 at the very least so that their mana cost comes down.' Alex thought. He could do that today instead of resting, but he wasn't feeling like it right now. Plus he knew the stronger version of the Verdimillious Charm, and mastering the color-changing charm wasn't on his bucket list. 

Tier II spells were surprisingly effective, they were mostly helpful utility spells that he could use. The main spells that he might use outside of classes were all Tier III spells, the unlocking charm, and the meding charm from Tier II.

There were several rules to using magic that he had found out while exploring magic in the past month. The simplest one would be that the higher Tier spells used more mana nodes spread throughout his body and thus cost more mana.

In addition, since the spells used the mana present in the nodes when he used them, it was almost impossible to fire the same spell in quick succession without taking a break for a second or two. Alex simply labeled this phenomenon as the cooldown time of spells.

Most Tier II spells used 2 or 3 mana nodes around his arms, but Tier III spells at the very least required 7 mana nodes to work some even taking as far as 13 mana nodes. 

Not that the difficulty scaled in any way for wizards other than him needing stronger intent to get the spell to work. Each spell with its incantation to the wand work was encoded with a formula that the wand communicates to his magic driving the mana to form the spell. Alex guessed that's why compatibility was such an important factor when casting spells from someone else's wand and without at least some form of connection, the wand would just be a piece of wood.

All magic was driven by the wands with wizards and witches working as nothing more than a mana battery. That revelation had been unsettling though the accidental magic skill was Alex's only hope to gain some form of autonomy over his own powers. 

He refused to be ruled and to be dependent on just his wand, but he still had to use it to grind the spells for now. For convenience's sake, he had selected the levitation charm. Since just keeping it active didn't take much focus, Alex could read through the theory of other spells while draining his mana.

Draining his mana had two effects, one was that it was a renewable resource of energy that could be turned into EXP for any spell, and secondly every time he emptied his mana completely, although he would be a little woozy for a bit. But his total mana also gains a +1 increase.

Alex opened his status page to check on his progress, his level had improved after learning all the spells that were a part of his curriculum. Though it was still a lot less than what he was expecting. He just gained 3 levels from learning all the magic that a first-year student should know.

...

[Status]

[Name: Alexander Fleamont Potter]

[Age: 11]

[Level: 4 (121/200)]

[Mana: 571/571]

[Race: Wizard]

[Title: Heir to the Potter House, Wizard]

[STR: 5/20 {Race Limit}]

[REF: 19/20 {Race Limit}]

[AGI: 7/20 {Race Limit}]

[DEX: 13/20 {Race Limit}]

[INT: 27]

[WIS: 23]

[Points:15]

...

While the different Tier spells were a little more mana-consuming, even Verdimillious Tria the most efficient spell cost 15 mana per use in the beginning. But learning 1 Tier III spells gave him 25 EXP each. Alex wasn't sure if there would be some dungeons he could grind, but if he had to level up by grinding spells then to reach Dumbledore's level would take a long time.

While the Tier I spells didn't give a bonus at leveling the spell up, Tier II spells gave a +2 EXP for every level gained in a spell, while Tier III spells gave a +10 EXP for every level gained. The time consumed-to-advantage gained ratio had been a bit screwed but Alex had worked through this.

First, he needed to figure out how effective it even was to level up a spell to its maximum limit. Since Mana was his limiting factor in gaining strength he needed to be careful at which spells he learned. The levitation charm thus came into the picture, Alex liked the spell because it gave him almost telekinetic-like powers. And while a part of him fantasized that he would be able to use it wandlessly at max level, nothing as it happened though.

...

[Levitation Charm (Tier II): Level 10 {Max}]

[The Levitation charm was one of the simplest magic that used continuous mana consumption. One of the easiest tools to drain your mana at a lower level, the control and stability of the charm depends on the caster's focus.]

[Mana Cost: 1 Mana/10 Sec]

[Level 5 Bonus: Can be cast silently]

[Max Level Bonus: Chance of a successful cast wandlessly increased by 5%]

...

The first bonus that appeared when the spell leveled up to level 5 wasn't bad, to be able to use spells silently when he gets them to level 5 was okay. But he should be able to do this when his focus increases or when he learns Occlumency, for some reason Alex felt like he had been cheated a little bit.

What Alex was interested in was the Max level bonus, although 5% wasn't the best outcome, it gave Alex a way to get started on controlling his mana. He had a skill called accidental magic, the skill would level up whenever he was successfully able to cast use accidental magic to get a desired effect.

The success rate of that skill was abnormally low, but if he focused on replicating the effects of the Levitation charm, the success rate should increase by 5%. 

'As long as I can get the accidental magic skill to level 100, it should transform into Wandless magic.' Alex thought sarcastically, it was an impossible task before but the max level bonus made it somewhat possible. Plus after a bit, he had figured out another niche way to shorten the time even more.

No matter how efficient his levitation charm had become, it still cost way more mana than a Tier I spell. So Alex had focused on maxing out the Lumos charm which was quite a lot easier.

In addition, the success rate of casting a wandless Lumos was surprisingly higher than that of a levitation charm. Without a wand to work as the brains forming the spell, his magic had to instinctively perform the spell.

It made sense that only spells he had mastered to a certain degree were a bit familiar to him, enough that when he wanted them to work desperately, sometimes his magic worked instinctively to fulfill his desires. And instinctively casting a 1-node spell was easier than trying to instinctively cast a 3-node spell.

'I still have a long way to go though...' Alex thought as he stared at his perks tab.

...

[Wanded Magic lv 26{1312/3000}: The ability to use a wand to perform magic. As your affinity with your wand increases, spell casting becomes easier.

All spell effects +26%

Mana Cost -26%]

...

[Accidental Magic Lv 3{14/15}: The ability to channel your emotions to perform magic. The greater the emotions and intent the stronger the chance of success.

Chance of desired effect happening: 3% +?%

Mana cost: +97%]

...

---------------------------

AN - I wanted to skip to the Hogwarts phase but I have to write a couple more chapters to make sure I don't neglect the relationships or lack of any that Alex had. Plus there is one thing that no one wants to leave behind. 

The gamer system part would wrap up within the next chapter, after that Alex would focus entirely on exploring Hogwarts, his new house, classes, and maybe quidditch.