Chapter 5
== ROR ==
James stood holding the letter in hand, crying his eyes out, the second time since transmigrating. First when he transmigrated as James Potter, having lost his family at that time was a big blow to him and now this.
His Letter read,
We regret to inform you that Lord Charles Potter, Head of House Potter has passed away, according to the Lordship by-laws visit your nearest Gringotts branch to take the lordship on July 31st, should you not accept the lordship then, you will waive the rights to take the Lordship on your 15th Birthday and will be awarded Lordship on your 17th Birthday,
Regards,
Grandhook
Inheritance Services
Gringotts
This was signed with Gringott's sign of seal.
His worst thoughts came true when he received this letter he truly had hoped this was some kind of a prank, but this was a nightmare.
He just received his cheat system and lost his father, he was very happy just in the morning planning on making a bid to gain strength, no one gains Strength for self, strength gained for self is not strength at all. One of the few reasons for the strength had passed on, he would rather have his dad with him than the System.
He curled himself on a cushion facing the fire and wept.
After a few minutes, once he had got his emotions out of his system, he started contemplating his next course of action.
REVENGE
Justice is sought if his father was alive and hurt, but now seeking justice is not JUST.
With the loss of his father, he knew that all the hyenas would start looking at his family business, and the prosperity of Potters. The prosperity of the Potters is no longer a blessing but rather a curse.
There were a few ways to sort it out but all came with its own set of disadvantages,
Seek protection from his mother's family the BLACK, this would lower his mother's prestige in other's eyes as seeking help is one thing but to seek protection for your newer family from your older family is tantamount to calling yourself weak.
While this may just be spoken in hushed tones behind our back anything that makes his mother look bad is a no-go.
Next is to call out our alignment, currently, the Wizagonement is divided into three major power blocs,
The Light Bloc led by Albus Dumbledore, comprised light families and many elected individuals who made up the majority of individuals, the vote count allotted to each family was decided on various factors like the age of the family, contribution to the field of magical world etc. However the elected individuals all had the authority for one vote.
Currently, the highest vote was held by the Croaker family, a traditional family fully made of Unspeakables, they formed the neutral bloc.
The Dark Bloc was led by many families like Malfoy, Selwyn, Tenebro etc with no single major voice
Finally, the neutral bloc was led by the Croaker family made up of Greengrass, Boot, Flamel, Marchbanks and many more.
Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones and a few other strong families were never a part of any alliances and just followed their hearts. They never supported one bloc and always voted based on their thoughts. No smaller families were part of this group as they would have already been absorbed into the other three blocs. You needed strength to remain completely neutral, as no Bloc would accommodate otherwise, all three blocs made sure to include small families in their group hook or crook.
What differed were methods.
The Light Bloc would promise protection, and safety and play on your happy emotions in support, the neutral Bloc would promise knowledge in exchange and freedom in your choices and the Dark Bloc would threaten and scare to get you to join.
All three are poisoned chalices,
Light Bloc would need your money and participation in its efforts which may include your involvement in the Order of Pheonix, being part of the Order and fighting to protect is not a bad thing as it is honourable to do so, the problem comes in Order being led by Albus Dumbledore who is never active and fights the passive war. And any of his allies will be so blocked in the work for their master, that they barely have any time for themself.
The neutral Bloc would be completely give and take, not very cohesive enough but you would be expected to give more but get very little, and again completely held by the Croaker family very similar to the Light Bloc.
The Dark Bloc is a complete no-go, moving into any Bloc now after remaining away for more than a century doesn't reflect well on his family, they will smell blood and will be targeted regularly.
Thankfully many old alliances will help protect us from the brunt of the enemies for some time, they would hesitate to move against us for some time but should they know about his intentions to take revenge the culprits would rather burn their resources to kill his family rather than wait.
In the end only thing that would keep us safe is strength, thankfully his mother was a Mage herself, but she lacked the fame.
It's a double-edged sword being unknown in Strength will help keep our move hidden, but being unknown will cause a lot of idiots to take a potshot at us.
Now James was sure that he would need to increase his strength fast, he needed money and that too fast. He was initially planning to take it slow as it's very difficult to hide your strength if you break through to Warlock level there would be a magical phenomenon, so breaking through is not helpful in Hogwarts, and hiding your skill level is difficult as well, a master can never hide as an adept or even expert, you can easily identify a professor from the student however young he may look.
The magic would feel different, a stunner thrown by an expert can only be reverted by an expert or above which can call out on the skill level.
He started walking three times across the door asking for the lost and found room,
The Room materialized a magnificent door which looked more than 40 feet in height and 20 feet in width, he pushed and walked inside the door, and he walked into a grand hall filled to its brim with shelves, mirrors, cabinets, and pieces of furniture.
The Grand Hall was so vast it could compare to the Great Hall of Hogwarts, but surprisingly this was completely brim of many miscellaneous items.
He was running short of time, as he could be picked up anytime soon, he wouldn't be able to go through the items one by one, but since the golden Galleons are needed, he swished his wand, poured as much magic as possible and called out
"ACCIO"
The cabinets, shelves, and trunks started rattling. There was a continuous shaking in the hall as Galleons started rushing towards him. The Goblin gold is generally enchanted to make it resistant to magic to avoid anyone calling accio on the Galleons, but since this room has been used to store stuff of students for more than a thousand years even more, the enchantment has been reduced and Galleons started flying.
He collected the Galleons and placed them in the system, The System started flashing and updating the Galleons count.
He called out
'System'
[James Potter: Wizard]
[Coins: 47834 Galleons]
[Core level: 3]+
[Charms: Level 4 (Journeyman)]+
[Transfiguration: Level 7 (Adept)]+
[Potions: Level 3 (Apprentice)]+
[DADA: Level 4 (Journeyman)]]+
[Occlumency: Level 3(Apprentice)]+
Raising the core level now is not beneficial, the opponents will start sending at least warlocks. Better to be underestimated rather than being taken seriously, until he was confident.
Seeing this, he felt better about raising the Transfiguration to a respectable level as he felt this was the best bet for now. He needs to raise it ASAP till he has enough money which will be released to him once he takes lordship.
He clicked on + next to Transfiguration, he had a beautiful out-of-world experience as his level raised to Level 8 and his Coins were reduced by 5000. If it takes only 5000 to raise it in the Adept levels, he felt confident enough to raise it to the expert level, he spent a total of 15000 Galleons to raise his Transfiguration to Level 10.
Thankfully his Core Level could still be upgraded.
[James Potter: Wizard]
[Coins: 32834 Galleons]
[Core level: 3]+
[Charms: Level 4 (Journeyman)]+
[Transfiguration: Level 10 (Adept)]+
[Potions: Level 3 (Apprentice)]+
[DADA: Level 4 (Journeyman)]]+
[Occlumency: Level 3(Apprentice)]+
Raising the core level was needed, but not here in Hogwarts, breaking through would let his opponents know his intent, which would set them against him. He was not ready for full-on war now.
Keeping that in mind, he hoped for the best and Clicked again on Transfiguration, which took 10k and updated the coins in the System to 22k, thankfully the Core Level Upgradation was still available.
He immediately went into a trance, as the System did its magic while raising his transfiguration level to that of an expert, He was in this state for more than five minutes as the mysteries of the Transfiguration were inculcated into him, and he understood his father's words now, yes reaching the expert level would help us understand mysteries.
He understood on a high level that magic is part of the smallest of the smallest and largest of the largest, giving him a new perspective of Transfiguration, he could be now able to inanimate to animate transfiguration particularly well.
He felt that he could also increase his skill level in other fields naturally, as this opened his vision to a vast universe. It's like after understanding some part of Graduate level work you would feel a qualitative change in your school-level subjects. Sure subjects could not be related but what has changed is your vision, your mind has opened up many possibilities.
He saved at least more than 2 years if had tried increasing his skill in Transfiguration naturally, which was still good.
He immediately pointed his wand at a rundown desk swished it and transfigured it into a Stag, which started prancing around behaving like a real Stag. You could still do this Transfiguration in the earlier stages, but the animation will be mechanical and need manual input to move around and perform actions, this is a big no in duels as splitting your thoughts during fights can lead to death.
This is one of the reasons, people rarely spend time on Transfiguration, it is useless in the earlier stages, but in the later stages it can become a game changer, provided you have a good imagination.
Thankfully for him, this was tailor-made, he need not invest much time in learning new spells as the existing spells were more than enough, and his imagination was top-notch as he grew up with Manga, Anime and so on. He just needs to limit his imagination as to what can be done.
His final values read,
[James Potter: Wizard]
[Coins: 22834 Galleons]
[Core level: 3]+
[Charms: Level 4 (Journeyman)]+
[Transfiguration: Level 11 (Expert)]+
[Potions: Level 3 (Apprentice)]+
[DADA: Level 4 (Journeyman)]]+
[Occlumency: Level 3(Apprentice)]+
He was now confident to fight it out with any peak Warlock, as he was sure he could hold out against them till he got help. He could even win against someone who is even experienced Warlock.
Again the core levels till Warlock level were all about Quantity, being Mage and above gives rise to Quality. If now his core could hold 200 units of magic, growing to Warlock level would give him access to more than 1000 units of magic. It's a huge quantitative increase, if before he could use 20 spells, he could on reaching Warlock level call out more than 100 spells. This is a massive increase in a battle, if now he has to be careful with his expenditure he need not be very careful once he reaches Warlock level.
He needed a measure of his skill level now, so he immediately started moving towards the ROR and asked the room to provide him with an Auror level Dummy and initiated the duel.