After I found out that what we are currently learning is spellcasting and not magic I was surprised. It wasn't explicitly mentioned anywhere, but I was able to build a theory from all the scraps of information I had found until Sunday night.
Now while lying in bed, I started to organize all the information gathered so far.
Magic is not spellcasting, but spellcasting is magic.
Spellcasting is an easier version of magic.
Magic consists of many things and thus branched into many fields. However, all magic is cast mostly in the same way, by channeling magic.
At least 30% of the magic process is always channeling magic. Other parts can differ greatly depending on the branch of magic being used.
Wands are actually unneeded tools created to make using magic easier.
It is not much, but that is enough to topple my understanding of the world. My knowledge was based solely on films and I knew that it wasn't accurate, but not that much!
Apparently, magic wands are a European instrument for channeling magic that became vastly popular in America, because it makes channeling of magic easier and faster. However, other continents and regions don't consider wands mandatory part of wizard equipment.
I pieced it out from wand making books and some history books, where wizards from Japan and China were mentioned. It was never specified that they did not use wands, but from the description of some of their actions I understood simple truth, they used hands to do magic.
That made me remember, that Dumbledore did not use any words as well after sorting ceremony to call music or other magical stuff, so chanting spells is unneeded to do magic. That got me thinking about why we are using wands or chant words if we can use magic just via hands, silently.
That led to me reading the book of charms for the first year and in actuality, it does not explain one bit how to do magic or how it works! However, it explains how to cast some specific spells by spelling out Latin words and doing specific gestures with wands.
At that point, I understood, that I needed to practice and experiment with spells, but I was too tired to go out of bed and looking for stuff to experiment with or place where I can do so safely. Moreover, it was very late, so I needed to go to sleep because tomorrow a new study week is starting.
That's when I thought about the spells menu.
'Spellbook'
Then I focused on the only spell in it.
'Tutorial'
[Please follow all the instructions shown. After the system is sure that you can successfully repeat spell for 10 times, the tutorial will be deemed complete. The tutorial will start shortly.]
〖 Tutorial〗
〖 Repeat gestures shown before your eyes and says 'Incendio'〗
I saw kind of hologram of a hand with wand doing some gestures, moving in a specific way and directions and words 'Incendio' were said during these movements. Words started with movements and ended with them as well.
After that, the wand spits fire from the tip.
I tried time and time again while paying attention to my feelings, body, and wand in my hands. At first, I haven't felt anything but as time passed. I was doing better with the spell and even succeeded once to cast it… by luck. But anyway! Soon, I noticed that if I do move correctly and follow with words, my spell is cast successfully, however, if do a mistake right at the last moment I feel slight discomfort inside my body.
That is not solid proof, but my theory so far is that spellcasting makes the process of magic simpler. Rather than consciously controlling magic, your precise gestures and words have the same effect. And wands make that process so much easier by simplifying channeling of magic.
Basically, you have no idea how magic actually works when you do it. Thus, you just know how to cast a spell and nothing more. This is why I call it spellcasting for now. I have not found any official terminology for that. Learning pure magic without wands is indeed harder. I am studying topic with system abilities, for 2 days straight with an adult mentality and I barely scratched the surface, while following some commands I was able to nearly master casting of one spell in a span of… an hour? Maximum hour and a half.
After thinking, theorizing and practicing spell for a very long time, it was around midnight. That is when I received another notification.
『 Magic Theory 6 ➔ 7 』
Then I noticed how late it is and decided that it's time to sleep.
*Morning, next day*
Breakfast went calm and Gryffindor was informed of their flying lesson in the coming Thursday. Well, not that it matters to me. I was still engrossed in understanding how magic works.
I decided for myself, that I can't let myself fail and need to concentrate on subjects at hand and then go into personal researches. Otherwise, fail will be my only result.
I concentrated on my studies and finishing all the books of the first-year program. And compared to books I read before, I was not reading them for skills or research. I was really studying and memorizing them to pass exams with ease. That meant I spend more time on each book and have to reread them to further memorize the content.
As a result of me, having a clear goal, time was passing horrendously fast. Sometimes, I wished to have more time in a day. I was getting notifications left and right, while studying, but I mostly ignored them, because there was only herbology skill with new abilities, while other new skills needed to reach a minimum of 15 to grant an ability. As for upgrades I needed to reach 25 or 30 in corresponding skills.
Thanks to rigorous training, by Wednesday evening I got to level 5.
『 Level 4 ➔ 5 』
I have put a point into Magicka once more and decided to check what progress I reached in my skills and if there were new abilities opened. After all, so far I gained access only to tier-one abilities in these skill trees.
Let's see my progress in these 3 days.
'System show me how much my skills changed since Sunday. Show only those that changed please.'
[Okay. Information is being gathered… Done. Here it is.]
『 Studying 18 ➔ 20 』
『 Herbology 16 ➔ 18 』
『 Alchemy 17 ➔ 19 』
『 Magic Chanting 1 ➔ 5 』
『 Magic Gesturing 1 ➔ 5 』
『 Astronomy 15 ➔ 18 』
Wow. That is good progress. I even found a new skill, astronomy. And reached the 20th level in Studying. Will I get advanced tier 2 skill? Let's see.
'Skills progress'
〖 Skills〗
I looked at the studying constellation and saw 2 new bright stars connected by dim lines to the first star in the constellation corresponding to ability 'Remarkable Comprehension'.
I focused on one of the new stars.
〖 Fast reading 0/2〗
〖 You read books very fast, close to what subvocalization limit is without losing comprehension.
Note: Comprehension here is not information comprehension, but a comprehension of words you've read.〗
'Um… system what subvocalization means?'
[Most people when read pronounce words inside their mind, which slows their reading speed substantially but increases comprehension due to double intake of information.]
'So what is subvocalization limit?'
[It is limit at how fast a person can read while still using habit of reading aloud in mind. It is close to 600 wpm. 'WPM' means words per minute, by the way.]
'And what limits are without subvocalizations?'
[Speed of reading is equal to the speed of thinking. So technically limited only by your brain capabilities, but practically around 10000 wpm, while still having partly comprehension.]
'Wow. The skill has an upgrade, so does it mean after upgrading I can get rid of the subvocalization?'
[That is…]
'No need to hide this information, because it is pretty obvious anyway.'
[Still, what skill provides in its upgraded version you will find out after achieving qualification for upgrading.]
'Che… Whatever. Not like I care. Anyway, what is the second skill.'
〖 Better memory 0/3 〗
〖 Improves your memory in both memorizing and recalling capabilities.〗
'Interesting. Astronomy and herbology skills left, but I bet after these abilities they would look subpar but doesn't matter. I will still take a look.'
I continued inspecting my skills.
As I thought, after checking abilities from Astronomy and Herbology, I understood that they were amazing, but useless to me currently. Therefore, I ignored them for now and decided to get 2 abilities from studying skills.
But before that.
'Save progress'
〖 Save〗
Now I can get abilities.
〖 Better memory 1/3 (45)〗
〖 Fast Reading 1/2 (65)〗
By the way, it is insane that to improve fast reading ability I need to reach 65 in studying. The heck?
Anyway, Wednesday is finished. Tomorrow will be a long day, especially with learning how to use brooms. I have magicka at 4 currently so I should be okay with broom controlling… Hopefully.
Now, it's time to sleep.