Chapter 114

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The wizard's soul in an ordinary human body was capable of minimal magical manipulation. Still, it literally drained the body, and in a couple of days, it couldn't stand it and died with severe physical exhaustion and even getting old. Curious. At the same time, a normal person in a wizard's body exhibited the magical activity of an infant - despite the adult mind, the person was almost incapable of witchcraft, and the slightest emotional outburst led to accidental wandless magic.

In addition to experimenting with soul-swapping, Ecrisdis, through unspecified rituals and methods, performed the resurrection of the murdered. Perhaps he used Horcruxes because he used Herpo the Foul's work, or perhaps he used Dementors, planting the souls they ripped out in temporary vaults through rituals, not the point. Resurrection with the creation of a new body, rather than transplantation, possession, and other transplantations, let the full potential of the knowledge and skills reflected in the soul be restored as quickly and as fully as possible. Ecrisdis tested six methods of recreating a new body around the soul, and they all gave equally good results.

It was these studies that interested me the most. Why? Oh, it's quite simple! I perfectly remember the moment when I appeared in front of the Old Man and how this Old Man handed over to me someone's "blood." It seems to me that he tied it to my soul. Perhaps this is the reason why manipulation with blood exhausts me more than with magic? I'm hungry after a passive enhancement with hemomancy, but after magical training, I'm no more hungry than usual. The active blood manipulation empties my "stomach" at an enormous rate, but I'm used to it. I don't focus on it, but before Hogwarts, it was very tangible.

What does this imply? My abilities are not reflected in my body? Have no physical embodiment? For the same reason, I've taken over from the basilisk only the ability to talk to snakes, but that's a mental ability, so it relates to the mind, which is projected into reality through the body anyway, except, I guess, for brain injuries. Yes, the Spirit Sword has unknowable abilities being part of my soul, but I need to project it into reality in order to apply those abilities. All of my special abilities belong to the soul and are indirectly related to reality. But then the question is, "Why didn't I die of exhaustion during the various experiments, like the test subjects of Ecrisdis?" The answer is obvious: it's magic, Max. What else could it be? Maybe that's why I didn't have accidental wandless magic as a child for a long time, but at the same time, I am not the weakest wizard. I dare to hope.

I have one idea in my exuberant head, though I don't know how to make it a reality - to "remelt" myself. The only thing that really inspires concern is the absorbed soul of the basilisk. How exactly is it absorbed? I mean, is it mingled there, dissolved, or whatever? Or is it like plasticine - a piece stuck to the side, and that's it?

I had no doubts about the possibility of such a "remelting" because the "Bone, Flesh, and Blood" ritual in the canon can be considered a similar procedure, which is the recreation of a body for a particular soul, with very little dependence of the result on the source materials. "Ancient dark magic, oooh..." there it is, in the Forbidden Section!

All in all, a lot of unknowns and no information about experiments with an unusual soul. Experiments... It seems to me that there is simply no time for them. What if the first full moon irreversibly changes the soul? Which means I need to develop my own ritual or spell. But the problem is that I am well aware of my mental capabilities and don't consider myself a genius, which means I won't have time to develop a complex ritual, potion, or spell. If it were easy to develop a new potion, there would be plenty of masters in this field, but random experiments in the style of twins disgust me because it is not about swollen tongues and changes in the color of my hair but about my soul. The spell can be created, and the methods of making it are taught in the senior class - runes and arithmancy to help. But then again, if it were that easy... even if it were possible, I'm sure the output would be such complex construction. The number of wand swishes, words, and mental constructions would be so many that either the spell would be impossible to do or impossible to keep everything in my head. Or both. That leaves the ritual.

What is ritual? Images of all sorts of demonic stuff instilled by fairy tales and movies, crazy chants in incomprehensible languages, pentagrams, naked dancing, and other stuff pop up in my head. To some extent, it is, but not quite. In essence, a ritual is a spell made up with the help of material objects. At the expense of various geometric shapes, runes, magically active substances, and of course, the wizard recreates a magical construct, whose complexity as a whole, and in the order of action, the activation of certain elements at different stages is too great to fit in the human mind and be recreated on the bare will, imagination, gestures, and words.

What is more difficult to create - a spell, a potion, or a ritual? All are equally difficult, but ritual is much easier to implement. But again, I ran into a shortage of brains. I need more brain processing power to master runes, arithmancy, and other things on a deeper level and do a lot of calculations.

I need more brains... Brains! And then I had an idea that I had to try out anyway. How long before the students arrive? Two days? Wonderful. I quickly folded up all my writing activities, pens, and notebooks, in which I wrote down my thoughts in short summaries to make it easier to structure them, threw the belt of the bag I always carry on my shoulder and quickly left the library. Dinner time was coming up, but I will not be in the Great Hall tonight, which meant I needed to visit the kitchen first.