Chapter 3

I arrived at the magic platform without a hitch. My compartment neighbors were enjoying their vacations, waiting to see their parents and making plans for the summer, and I was rereading the results of my months of work. I had read both books by the founder of the Faculty of Wise Men and had written down the most important things. In fact, the booklet was a very useful collection of exercises to train the mind and develop magical power. I was glad to learn that the trick of human magicians was unlimited development.

Yes, at the beginning, even the strongest wizards were often at the average level of other magical nations. Yes, no expressed talents and even less affinity for anything that wizards did not have. Only the most miserable wizards could reach the divine level by working on themselves every day. Thanks to such persistent, I would say "stubborn" personalities, we are now the dominant species, and in other realities, if we believe the founder, we are usually not on the last ranks. Parallel worlds were mentioned in passing, but the information made my heart beat faster.

There are three main methods of evolution. The first is to appropriate other people's things. The upside is rapid growth in strength and simplicity. The downside is that it's dangerous. You can be punished by the magic itself and the victim of a posthumous curse to catch, and do not like such smart people around. I wonder why all of a sudden? The second way — rituals and training. Here everything is clear, every magical holiday has its own set of rituals, plus daily thanksgiving, cleansing and other various ceremonies. It's a bit like praying. Although it's more likely that Muggle religions took their cues from wizards.

After all, the first witches were still in caveman times. In general, this approach is reliable, correct, but let's say, not very effective in terms of speed. This is the case: if you walk more quietly, you will go further.

The third approach can be called extreme. The thing is that magical exhaustion is not muscle fatigue. The body gets used to regular stress, and over time it stops causing problems. In principle, it is impossible to adapt to magical exhaustion. Therefore, practitioners of the third method of development must regularly enjoy sensations on the one hand and walk on the edge on the other.

This kind of masochism is dangerous because it is possible to overdo it. In general, the skill lies in grinding to zero, but not crossing the line, when the lack of magic is compensated for by recycling other layers of aura into it. In principle, this is not difficult to feel — as twisted, so stop sorcery, swallow the potion and fall asleep. Unfortunately, few people are able to stop in time. Still, regular masochism is not very conducive to sanity. The Founder recommended combining the second and third approaches at a ratio of three to one, so that the roof would not leak, and progress would be noticeable.

The second book was very informative and interesting, but for me personally there were two artifacts that stood out. The first was a simple leather cord with a long chain of runes drawn with the blood of a mage. And not just any mage, but the one who would use it. I have no idea how this miracle works, but it sucks mana out of you, and in return it gives you absolute memory.

Not always, unfortunately, but as long as the head is on and the energy is available. A pleasant bonus — over time, the wizard adapts, and after five or six years of active use, becomes the happy owner of perfect memory. Combined with a number of exercises from the first book, I cherish the hope of shortening this period.

The second artifact causes joy and euphoria, but it's not easy to make. It's essentially a grimoire, as far as I can tell. It requires the skin of a magical creature, preferably, but not necessarily, any kind of skin, human, dragon or otherwise, anything will do, you can even use different ones. The main thing is the quantity, though of course the quality can be substituted.

The base is required to keep in a simple potion brewed on the blood of the future owner, after which it is the same to draw a ritual figure with a very complicated geometry and many hundreds of runes, forming dozens of chains. Again, size is important, the bigger the better. The last stage is the imposition of a not too complex set of spells. Mostly transfiguration and mental magic. The result is a pseudo-living book that has a blood-like and familial connection to the creator.

It seems, what's the point of all this? Oh, it's simple, every entry in the Grimoire becomes available to its owner. There's also the equivalent of a search engine. Much more advanced than I had in my previous life. After all, the artifact is pseudo-intelligent. So, in my humble opinion, it's a vital tool for any mage. Of course, I'm not going to rewrite nearly twenty thousand books by hand. I thought about copying not only the Room of Requirement, but the entire Hogwarts library, and I searched for the necessary charms. I found them easily. There are a lot of options and approaches.

There are tons of spells to choose from. Simple ones, which are a magical analog of the usual photocopier, working with a single page or spread, are not too suitable, but do not require any special strength and skills. The higher similarity spells are quite interesting, they can transfer both form and essence, and if you have enough power, both at the same time. In fact, it would be possible to process dozens, if not hundreds, of books with a single spell. It's too bad I don't have them yet. Maybe I'll be able to conjure something up in five years or so, when I can build up my magic muscles.

In addition to the methods of acquiring a personal library, there was also a method of quick reading. The ritual used in it is supposed to be used to learn the essence, but the founder's books mentioned a non-standard way of using it. Candida gave a curious example to illustrate the wrong approach in the field of self-education. There was a clever man who decided to read a hundred books at once. But he was frankly lazy to work on them. So he thought of using a ritual.

What can I say, well done, he read. The poor guy had a stroke because of the amount of knowledge that fell on him all at once, but it was no big deal, magicians were generally resilient, they reanimated him. The problem is different — without a developed memory, the experimenter learned significantly less information than if he had honestly flipped through all those books, at least diagonally. Such pies with crows. It seems to be free, but to make it so, you have to work hard on yourself.