3 Chapter 3 Jack of All Trades

After receiving the pop up, Harry felt a connection to the new cat, or Flerken as she was apparently called. Harry was more than a little concerned since he had every textbook Hogwarts required on magic beasts and Flerken was not listed in any of them.

Through the connection he felt Goose's intention. Which of course translated to 'Carry me human.' Harry had to stifle a smile at that one. If given a human voice, Harry imaged it would be that of a upper society middle aged woman. He purchased a nice carrier for Goose who easily entered thinking, 'Acceptable, for now.'

With that Harry had finished his shopping for school supplies. Harry was tempted to get some Ice Cream at that place across from Gringotts but he didn't want to push his luck. Harry instead lifted Goose's carrier and returned to the Leaky Cauldron and headed for London.

Once back among the streets of the mundane, Harry realized he didn't really have much to do for the next five and a half weeks besides put the entire Potter Library into his inventory.

*Ping*

[New Quest: Jack of All Trades

-Acquire four different Paths

-Get each of the four Paths to Rank 5]

Harry raised an eyebrow before shrugging in acceptance. That worked. His Scholar and Warrior Paths were both pretty close to Rank 5 and he had confidence in getting them up soon. A fourth Path however would be tricky. He actually had no ideas what Paths were possible. Crafter was probably a Path but getting that to level 5 in a month wasn't likely. There was probably a Path for businessmen but he'd have to make a lot of money really fast to level that one up. Might be possible but he hoped for something better.

While Harry was standing there, someone bumped into him and said, "Watch it kid."

Harry looked up and was about to ask where the man's own eyes were but noticed him talking to himself. No, he was talking on a phone, one of those hand ones his uncle said he wanted. Harry wondered what would happen if he put something like that into his inventory.

Goose meowed with the intention, 'Feed me.'

Harry looked down and said, "What would you like?"

Goose meowed and thought back, 'Chicken.'

Harry thought the cat/flerken might be surprised that Harry was responding to it, but it seemed to this cat that this was nothing out of the ordinary. Kinda made Harry wonder what was out of the ordinary to her.

Harry opened his map and found a grocery store a few blocks down and headed that direction. Harry still had most of the 300 pounds minus the bus fare he started with so getting cat food wouldn't be an issue.

At this thought Harry realized something very odd. He wasn't hungry. His stomach felt empty which was why he thought of ice cream earlier sure, but the pain of hunger wasn't there. He figured he would address that after feeding his flerken.

The store did in fact sell cat food and Harry was happy he found the kind made with real chicken. After purchasing a bunch of it along with a month worth of other flavors Harry entered an alleyway free of witnesses and subtly conjured a plate. Conjuration was something he practiced more than any other discipline as he would often conjure weapons and shields while fighting monsters so conjuring a plate wasn't an issue. He opened the food and set it on the plate before letting Goose out and saying, "Here you go Goose."

Goose meowed as she approached the food and conveyed through the bond, 'Well done human,' before chowing down.

Harry looked through his map of London while Goose finished eating. Those electronics were interesting. From how his mother described them, they were like muggle magic only more easily explained. If non-magicals could learn it, Harry figured he could too. On the map he saw a larger store he hoped would sell a few pieces of electronics and decided to head there next.

Four hours, two outlet stores, a trip back to Gringotts, and two book stores later, Harry had what he needed and a headache.

The first store that he asked for electronics at he found that they had large things like TVs and small things like phones and lots of computers. Most of which was outside Harry's price range so he had to return to Gringotts and get some of his galleons exchanged into British Pounds.

Harry then returned but went to a different outlet store that he heard had a better variety. Harry purchased a simple calculator, an expensive calculator, and something called a Blackberry. After his purchase Harry placed them all into his inventory and found another problem. Harry could now tell exactly how each piece was put together and the number of screws within and could even tell what information was stored within. The problem was that he still didn't know how any of it worked! The programming language was not one he knew so he had to find a book store which then directed him to another book store to buy a dozen books on the subject.

What gave him a headache was that even after getting the books into his inventory, he still didn't know how the electronics worked. Sure, he could list off the contents of the books verbatim, but that didn't mean he understood it. It was like buying a book written in French then buying a book on French to English translation. Having both didn't immediately mean he could read the first book as there was no automated cross-referencing.

Harry sighed at how badly he underestimated the work needed to learn a new skill. He felt he could still do it but he would have to do it consciously and not assume it would happen automatically for him.

Once ready Harry said to Goose, "We're heading home but the ride won't be comfortable."

Goose, who had been pleased to be chauffeured around the city after being in a cage for some time for some reason, expressed a sense of disbelief at Harry's comment. Something on the line of, 'Oh really?'

Harry initiated the portkey that Rocksheer gave him which made him feel like he was being dragged by his belly button through a tornado at two hundred kilometers an hour.

When Harry saw the ground again he set a stance and landed alright. He figured if he hadn't trained in martial forms he'd have landed on his butt. James had told him it would be uncomfortable but Harry didn't feel too bad. He chalked it up to his Gamer's Body.

Harry looked at Goose and said "You alright?"

Goose appeared completely unshaken and quite clearly conveyed back, 'You've obviously never traveled by turning yourself inside out before.'

At that Harry had to question whether or not his interpretation of Goose's messages were accurate. What kind of travel requires turning yourself inside out?

Harry looked around the area that was his new home. It was a high rise cliff face overlooking the sea. There was actually a break in the cliff face behind him which prevented this section from being approached on foot without advanced means. Harry took the ward key from his inventory and activated it. A moment later the empty space revealed a two story Victorian style house.

Harry said, "This will be our new home for the next month, Goose."

Goose seemed noncommittal about it. Like she'd seen better but had seen worse as well.

The house itself had a welcoming room, a living room with a fireplace, a dining room, a kitchen, and the downstairs had a guest room. The upstairs had the master bedroom and three other bedrooms along with the library and several bathrooms of course. Harry went to the kitchen first and conjured a litter box and sand along with a plate and bowl. He used a weak water summoning charm to fill the bowl before letting Goose out and saying, "I'm going to look upstairs."

Goose started drinking and Harry headed up to check the library. He was not disappointed as it had seven bookshelves lining the walls with six rows of books each, all of which were full. One by one each was removed from the shelf and placed into his inventory.

Contained within were family spells, historical events, alliances, and of course a highly detailed genealogical record.

What surprised Harry and made him realize he would need to return to the bookstore later was the lack of an encyclopedia or dictionary.

Harry returned to the living room and used a small incendio charm to ignite the fireplace before he sat on the comfy chair nearby. Harry was looking into space as his mind was actively going over the tech books he bought. He was tempted to pause but he couldn't feel the warmth of the fireplace when time stopped and if he paused he might be tempted to stay paused until he mastered everything which was not a good idea. He needed to acclimate himself to a proper day and night cycles after all.

His cross-referencing was interrupted by a warm fuzzball jumping onto his lap. After laying down Harry heard Goose send the question, 'Do you not eat?'

Harry realized only then he had in fact forgotten to buy any food for himself during the whole day. That wasn't healthy was it?

*Ping*

[FAQ Updated

Food and Sleep

Your body can sustain itself on ambient energy and does not require sleep or nourishment. When injured or depleted of health, stamina, or magic reserves, eating and drinking can directly restore reserves or increase the rate of recovering. Sleeping can be initiated in a sleep environment and will automatically restore all depleted reserves after 4 hours if uninterrupted.]

After reading the conveniently timed pop up, Harry answered Goose back, "I can eat but I don't need to. I'm not a normal human."

Goose shifted to get more comfortable and conveyed through the link, 'If you're a normal human than I'm a normal house cat,' as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Harry started petting Goose as he went back to learning the mysteries of a calculator. The fact that a calculator calculates base ten math yet the programming seemed to be based off the number eight was harder to work through than he thought. He was glad that his three times higher than an average adult stats seemed to let his mind brute force his way through the required comprehensions.

It was about morning the next day he finally got what he was looking for.

*Ping*

[Tech Path has risen to Rank 1]

Harry gave a content sigh that he finally had something of a foundation in tech. At least he knew how the basic calculator worked now. The advanced one however was about fifty times more complex and could even have additional functions manually programmed into it. Harry felt he could program something simple into it but not much for the moment. However, he at least had some confidence he could do this. If nothing else, at least the lines of codes he knew were contained within the electronics were no longer complete gibberish.

The problem now was that he was bored. He was no longer capable of looking at another line of code or tech book. He needed something else to break himself in.

Harry opened up the Menu and looked through the settings. This was a new feature which was grayed out during the tutorial and couldn't be adjusted. The settings included sound, visual, format, and controls.

Sound Settings actually allowed him to change the relative volume he heard of specific sounds such as voices, music, and other things. This meant that Harry could have a music player play at low volume and use the settings to increase the volume of what he heard while setting all other sounds to zero. He could even set everything to zero and make himself deaf. He could already think of a few applications for deaf on demand.

Format and controls simply showed how everything displayed and how he interacted with it. The control allowed for Touch, Voice, and Mental controls but to be safe Harry changed it to Mental only so he didn't accidentally move or say something that could affect his pop ups.

Display however was far more than it initially looked. Pun intended.

Harry could give himself night time vision by adjusting the lighting though he'd have to manually change it back or he'd be blinded in the day. He could adjust specific colors or set it so that everything he saw was green. However the function on the display setting that Harry found the most amazing was the Energy Sense prompt. Harry turned it on and suddenly he had a new sense.

Harry himself was basically composed of energy imitating matter and since he absorbed energy to live and could dominate and absorb energy to level up, he wondered why he couldn't sense it before. Now he could.

In the space he felt more than a dozen distinct energy types and there were likely hundreds more hidden below the surface. In his living room he felt four types that were more prevalent than others. The most common seemed to be the ambient energy of empty space. He had no idea what it really was or what it did though. The second most common was the heat energy coming from the fireplace.

The third energy type actually originated from himself and seemed to be embedded in the house as well. This energy Harry did have a reference for from the Potter Library. One of his great great uncles in the early part of the twentieth century had studied physics and called this energy Exotic energy. He said it occurred naturally in very small quantities in nature, specifically around ley lines which he called intersections, though he did not reference what they were intersections of. Exotic energy changed the laws of physics slightly though the more around, the greater the change. It was considered uncontrollable and a nuisance, yet witches and wizards not only controlled it, they naturally produced it as well.

And of course the fourth energy in the living room came from Goose. This energy actually seemed similar to the ambient energy of empty space, it was just a different color. Harry looked at a few other items and concluded that other objects had very little energy within except for heat energy for temperature and exotic energy for some of the magical items.

Harry took the simple calculator out of his inventory and noticed he could also sense electrical energy. He didn't see it with his eyes either, it was more of an awareness he gained. Harry wondered if it was a good idea to keep this on as it could easily be a distraction, but decided it was too useful. He figured he always had this ability but it had been turned off until now. Harry wondered what type of energies filled the Tutorial area as if that was the land of the dead, there wouldn't be empty space or heat would there?

Harry figured the reason this setting was off during the tutorial was that the only energy in the tutorial was Death energy. Death energy was only good for the dead and it would be better not to get used to feeling it for someone who was to return to life.

At that realization Harry suddenly understood why his level went back to one after the Tutorial completed. Besides necromancers and those who intended to desecrate the death, Death energy wasn't compatible for living beings.

*Ding*

[INT +1]

[Intelligence has reached 40.

Battle Meditation Unlocked.]

Okay, that was new.

Harry opened up the new section of his menu and reviewed the details. It seemed Harry could enter a state where he could absorb ambient energy to level up, but doing so required dominating it so within his trance the energy he absorbed would take the form of a monster and he would have to battle and defeat it on a mental plane to absorb it. Luckily if he lost he wouldn't die but he would take damage so he shouldn't do it unless healthy.

Harry wondered who thought this system up and if they were a genius or insane.

Harry decided to try it out and hope he didn't die. He was given a selection of energies to choose from but it looked quite foreboding.

[Dimensional Energy: Recommended level 50~200

Heat Energy: Recommended level 1~10

Exotic Energy: Recommended level 10~30

Flerken Pocket Dimensional Energy: Recommended level 250~300

Time Energy: Recommended level 300~500]

Harry glanced back down at the sleeping cat that apparently had a pocket dimension and again wondered what exactly it was.

Harry selected Heat energy of course and felt his mind clear and go far from his body.

He found himself in a white, empty space that seemed quite hot. Harry noticed movement and saw a snake that appeared to be made of flames. According to one of the books Harry had in his internal library, it was a Ashwinder, though a small one. Harry used a weak, silent Aqua Eructo charm which summoned a stream of water from his hand and doused the flame snake. Although it was a fourth year spell, the spell could be used at various levels of power so Harry could use it at a low level for now.

The ashwinder was quick but the water spray was quite wide. It didn't douse right away but Harry kept up the spell and before the snake could get any closer to Harry it died and dispersed into particles of light which Harry absorbed.

Two more ashwinders approached and Harry had to move while casting. Harry tried Diffindo at one of them which, although a second year spell, in the fourth year they teach you how to make it stronger and Harry used the fourth year version. The spell struck one of the snakes while the other got out of the way but the snake it cut in half continued slithering towards Harry.

Harry decided to give up practicing his spells and just finish it for now. He used an Extinguishing charm which basically was a one hit kill for ashwinders and started to grind in earnest.

Mostly. The small Ashwinders barely gave any energy and it would likely take two hours for Harry to get to level two. But since every level beyond one would protect him from dying a pointless death, it was worth it no matter how mind numbingly boring.

Goose woke up during Harry's battle meditation and noticed the heat from the fireplace going into the human. It was getting a bit too warm for comfort so she jumped off Harry and went to another couch which was on the other side of the fireplace.

Suddenly a snake made of flames came out of the fireplace. The rug it slithered on was smoldering and Goose figured the human had no awareness of what he was doing.

The ashwinder's instincts were to find a dark place and lay eggs which would later erupt into flames. The fact that this may burn the house down wasn't something it care for. Goose jumped in front of it which caused the ashwinder to hiss a threat at the orange cat.

Goose's mouth opened and over a dozen purple tentacles launched out, their total volume several times greater than Goose's. The ashwinder recoiled back and tried to get away but a moment later the tentacles had the fire snake wrapped up without getting burned and retracted back into the orange tabby cat.

Goose burped with a small flame and thought it was spicy but not bad. For making her work, she wondered if she should scratch the human. However, she remembered the last human she scratched who still hadn't recovered and thought they were quite a fragile species. Then again this one wasn't a normal human. Goose decided she'd let it go this time but next time the human would get scratched.

Harry got up an hour later after gaining a level and putting the stats toward Wisdom. Wisdom lowered the difficulty of spells and Harry had trouble using spells above fourth year with less than 40 wisdom. Harry wondered how this translated to other people as he doubted that fifth year Hogwarts students all had wisdom enough to make the four times wiser than an average adult.

He then noticed the scorch marks on the rug and asked Goose who was on the couch, "What happened?"

Goose conveyed back, 'The fireplace worked overtime because of you. An ashwinder popped out. I dealt with it this time. Now feed me lunch.'

The fact that Harry was being scolded by his pet, and he was now seriously questioning which of them was the pet, was disconcerting. The fact that his cat seemed to understand exactly what an ashwinder was and how the fireplace could have produced one even moreso. Harry felt he would regret asking how Goose dealt with it so didn't ask. That wise decision was thanks to his increased wisdom.

Harry knew that ashwinders were born of magic fires but fireplaces had safeties that prevented them usually. However Harry absorbing its energy seemed to have had an effect.

Harry got up and said, "Thank you Goose. Now what would you like? Chicken, fish, or beef?"

Goose approached the kitchen and answered back through their connection, 'Beef.'

Harry opened two cans and set them on Goose's plate. Just like when Goose asked if Harry ate or this ashwinder thing, both let Harry know Goose did in fact give a damn about him, even if it was only because Goose considered Harry 'her human.'

Harry spent the remainder of the day going back and forth between learning tech and battle mediation. When he went outside he found several other types of energy to absorb including Sun energy, Electromagnetic energy, and Nature energy. Nature energy was for levels 5~40 and Harry found it a much better source than his fireplace as the nature energy monsters were normal animals similar to the monsters he faced in the tutorial and could be defeated with magic or conjured weapons.

The levels of the monsters seemed to scale up with him, so after a few days he reached level 10. In order to add more variety to his time and because he felt guilty for not doing so already, Harry added physical exercise back into his routine. The village trainer had him do it every day but Harry had been slacking and now he felt bad about not taking advantage of what he had. In the tutorial, stamina would recover at a slow pace but here Harry could eat or sleep to restore it meaning he could work out far more.

Harry started Pausing more and would use Paused time to comprehend how tech worked until he couldn't take it anymore then would go outside and use Nature energy battle mediation and once that was over he would exercise till he dropped and eat or sleep. Once he woke up he would pause and do it again.

One of the more advanced practices Harry's parents insisted he learn was apparition. When needed Harry would apprarate to London for groceries or another book or some tech gadget he wanted to figure out.

Harry left the door open for Goose to enter and leave as she wished which the Flerken did take advantage of.

Two weeks after Harry started, he faced a small problem. The advanced calculator died.

Harry had been spending time practicing his programming skills by trying to set up various things in the advanced calculator including trying to make a simple video game. When Harry placed it back into his inventory, he noticed that the base programming code seemed corrupted. Harry had to go back to London and buy another and compare the two to get an idea of what happened.

Unfortunately the answer was what he had been fearing. Magic fried it. Harry knew Exotic energies would change physics but he wasn't using magic around the calculators. They were always in his inventory which wasn't actually magic so they weren't affected. Harry had only taken the Blackberry out twice and it still worked so that pretty much concluded that the Inventory was not magic.

After thinking about it for a while Harry figured that the ambient exotic energy he was emitting was enough to fry it over time. This wasn't acceptable as it would prevent him from living properly in the non-magical world.

Harry shifted through the spells in the grimoires in his inventory and thanks to his INT getting to 75, Harry's speed of thought was faster than a computer's search engine. A 2004 computer anyways.

He found three different possibilities. The first was a practice which would hide his magic, making him seem like a non-magical though of course he couldn't cast magic in this state. He also found an experimental set of runes in one of his ancestor's grimoires that had an effect of expelling ambient exotic energy. If used on tech, it would prolong the shelf life as long as magic was not directly used on it. The last was a different set of runes that would freeze the state of something. If altered, it might prevent degradation due to exotic energy on tech.

Harry would try for the first two for now and the third later since the third required more experimentation. He had three more weeks until Hogwarts and didn't want to stop studying tech just because the castle would fry the ever loving daylights out of anything more complex than a toaster.

Harry also had the goal of getting to level 30 before Hogwarts since he wanted at least a hundred points in both Wisdom and Intelligence with the rest going to Agility. He wanted to have the spells for every year down as fast as he could which would allow him to make the most of his Hogwarts time.

Once Harry got into his groove he was able to level up once or twice a day. Thanks to continued exercise and martial practice against monsters, Harry's martial path finally ranked up to five and many hours of studying various high school and college books got Harry's Scholar path up to rank five as well. By the final week Harry had gotten Tech to rank 4 and since his 3rd blackberry had a successful rune pattern inscribed it could be used for practice without dying. Blackberries one and two were not so fortunate.

Harry spent pretty much the remainder of the last week entirely on tech. He regretted that his house had no phone line because even if he could use a portable generator to charge things, he couldn't get a computer and the internet. At least for now.

*Ping*

[Tech Path has risen to rank 5]

[Quest Complete: Jack of All Trades

Reward: Necklace of Chosen Path]

Harry collapsed in mental exhaustion and let out an exasperated, and slightly overly dramatic, sigh of relief. Today was August 30th so he finished with no time to spare.

Since it was in his inventory Harry knew what the Necklace was and what it did. When he equipped it he had to select a path and the rank of that path would increase by three. He could unequip it and re-equip to select the same or a different path. Very useful. The odd thing however was that he had no idea how it worked.

Several of the books Harry bought had enchantments on them that prevented wear and tear and while in his inventory Harry understood these and could easily replicate them as long as he knew the steps used to make them. The same was true for the necklace he bought from the goblins that cast a glamor that changed his hair color. Harry could make his own now though it wouldn't be easy. At least he felt he could brute force the process if need be. The new necklace on the other hand didn't give him any info on how it worked and Harry couldn't think of any way to replicate the effect. Oh well.

The next day Harry got an empty trunk from a closet in the house and got Goose's carrier. He said to the Flerken, "Today we're heading to Hogwarts, a magical school."

Goose entered her carrier with a sassy meow that implied, 'Watch me care less. Just watch me.'

Harry shook his head and wondered what kind of thing would have to happen for his cat to get interested in something.

Harry set the ward key to hide the house again and apparated to King's Cross station. He was wearing the goblin necklace which for some reason he couldn't wear with the Necklace of Chosen Path. Harry figured it was a game thing, can't wear more than one necklace at the same time and all that.

Harry scouted the location earlier so he was able to apparate directly to the loading area which thankfully didn't have anyone looking to question how an eleven year old was apparating there to begin with.

Each magical walking around contained a source of exotic energy according to Harry's new energy sense. The old style train on the platform even had plenty of it infused into the frame itself. Deciding not to stall any longer, Harry took Goose and his empty trunk to the entrance of the train.

And was stopped by a pop up.

[Hogwarts Express Ticket required for Entry. Do you wish to use the ticket?

Yes | No]

Harry remembered the ticket he got with his letter but it was still in his inventory. Harry had set the prompts to only work through thought to avoid accidents and thought aloud 'Yes.' A moment later Harry felt he exotic energy trace on the ticket change. Before he could take another step forward, he was confronted by yet another pop up.

[Dungeon Generation active.

You are about to enter Hogwarts. Please Select Difficulty.

-Easy

-Normal

-Hard

-Hell

Rewards scale to match difficulty.]

Harry's only thought was, 'What the hell?!'

[Hell difficulty selected.]

'Noooo!' Harry had to prevent himself from crying out!