Chapter 34

The wait for noon to arrive was agonizing. Breakfast was a torturous affair but I managed to put on a facade of being normal. I was tempted to force myself to sleep till the last minute but I doubted any spell or potion would have worked on me when I was in that frenzied state. I had never been more grateful to the diadem than I was in those few hours, because it was the only thing keeping me relatively calm and rational. My Occlumency for some reason wasn't as good as it should have been and I had a few suspicions regarding that, chief among them my use of Integrators.

My restless state made it impossible for me to read so I went off to the RoR after a hasty breakfast to blow off some steam. I wasn't in the state where I could do delicate spellwork so I resorted to just blasting my magic out. It was crude and essentially useless but it helped to calm me down. Finally, I could feel the time of the big event nearing. Wishing the RoR to turn into a chamber that could help with my maturity, I cast a ton of obscure wizarding wards and charms ranging from silencing, notice-me-not and other hiding spells. I also used intent laden pure magic to make up for any possible weaknesses in my earlier defense and by the time I was done, it was almost noon. One particular ward I was especially proud of was a sort of channeling ward. If I were to expel large amounts of magic during my maturity process, this ward would gather that magic and make it flow back to the RoR. I don't know if it would show any results but I was hoping pure magic could maybe make the RoR more awesome.

I sat down in the centre of a ritualistic circle that was supposed to make the process easier and more beneficial. Perhaps it was different in Ravenclaw's time because nowadays magical maturities weren't that big of a thing and they didn't require all these elaborate prerequisites. Anyways, as the clock struck twelve, I tensed in preparation for... something to arrive or some change to occur. But the minutes passed and nothing happened. I was about to think this was all a miscalculation on my part or something when I felt it. I could feel my magic changing, flowing through my body, bubbling underneath the surface almost itching to break through. And I could also feel something...else, something that felt...wrong. Before I could focus on this part that made my instincts go haywire, I heard a sort of click in my head and then a surge of pure, unadulterated magic burst out of me. For that instant, I could feel my magic connecting to the magic of the world and in that moment, I felt like an ant. No, I felt like a being even lower than an ant. I was nothing in front of that awesome, overwhelming power...

The glimpse of that absolute power made me a lot more motivated to start training earnestly, systematically. My goal was no longer to just be happy being a genius in the Wizarding World or exploring my unique magic system, now I wanted that power, and more. I wanted to see if could reach a level where I could destroy stars with a thought and create planets with another. Kind of a far-fetched dream, but I hoped it was possible. And if it wasn't, at least I would know magic had limits too.

By the time I came out of my ruminations, my magic power seemed to have settled and it seemed to have increased in potency and quantity. I could feel the vast amount of power begging to be used, to be unleashed. Reigning in my desires to do just that, I instead focused on what I had felt earlier, the part that had a sense of..wrongness in my magic. But even after a lot of perusal, I couldn't feel anything. It seems as if the problem had been resolved by itself.

I was now a lot more confident with my prowess. I had already decided I would stay at Hogwarts only for four years, mainly so that I could grow from preteen to a young adult and not to mention, the number of opportunities I had to get stronger. Dragons, dementors, acromantulas, and who knows what else I would find in the Forbidden Forest.

Voldemort would of course perish at the graveyard in what would be my NEWT year and Potter's fourth year so he wasn't much of a concern for me.

After graduating with the highest grades ever, which were going to be pretty easy as far as I was concerned, I would perhaps stay in Hogwarts an apprentice or something to transition into an adult or maybe I would start my world tour earlier, I hadn't yet decided.

I would then go around using the Integrator on exotic creatures and perhaps my Integrator would advance by then to higher heights, making it possible for me to do lots of things with it.

And what comes after that, I hadn't planned yet. That would be left to future Matthew. Right now, I had to attend dinner and then acclimatize myself to my improved magic during what was left of the vacations, which was barely a week.

After a sumptous dinner, I made my way back to the dorms instead of rushing off to the RoR to get some more practice in. Now that I had acquired a certain amount of power, I could afford to relax, relatively speaking, and enjoy my school years, which were already a vast improvement from my previous life.

Sure, I would still practice magic and my martial arts like I used to but now I would no longer train like a maniac. The use of the Integrator had resulted in me no longer needing to exercise to maintain my physical attributes so all I had to was practice my martial arts forms, and since my magic repertoire was vast enough to get Mastery in the wand subjects and my theory wasn't lacking either, I could afford to slow down my magic practice as well.

And that night, I slept better than I ever had since I had come in to this world.