A month passed since my discovery. I successfully raised my legilimency high enough, to start training mind defense.
Confused? I was as well. Apparently, legilimency has nothing to do with mind defense. I found out about it back in Hogwarts, but the basic idea is that legilimency is for attack and occlumency is for defense. However, there are only two ways to train occlumency.
One is for professional legilimens to attack your mind, while you try to you defend. This way you can train your brain through constant practice and make mental defense an instinct.
And second is what happens with the majority is to learn legilimency and then use that knowledge to train occlumency.
Honestly, the concept of the basic occlumency sounds very easy. You just need to clear your mind, but the actual application is tremendously hard. Moreover, just keeping it clear is not enough, because this way legilimens will have an assurance that you are hiding something. And that will lead to him pushing only harder. Human is not some machine. Sooner or later, anyone breaks under pressure.
Therefore, the only real way to use occlumency proficiently and seamlessly is to forge false memories that will suffice to fool any invader.
Moreover, occlumency is not a spell or some special charm. It simply a tactic against legilimency. That is why it is both very effective and very hard to train. To master it, you need to have an iron will and strong control over emotions. So, talent in magic won't help here in any way. Thankfully, I have the system, so I can master anything under the heavens.
In addition to this, you need a good amount of knowledge to forge memories that will be realistic enough to fool anyone. That is when legilimency knowledge comes in.
Anyway, it is very complicated, so let's skip explanations and come directly into the learning part. Thankfully, occlumency has not many books describing the process or technique, because again it's only a tactic/idea of what to do. It is not an actual spell.
There are some books describing tips and tricks to it, but no actual learning guide. Due to that knowledge received from legilimency books is enough to start training occlumency.
Plus, honestly speaking I was hoping for some ability inside occlumency to help me out with training, like how the majority of first-tier abilities increase efficiency and speed of skill raising.
Unfortunately, my occlumency started at 0 as well and honestly, I didn't want to spend the whole summer just to raise to 15. So, after some deliberation, I decided to buy the books about the topic. It was a quick process. I just went to Diagon Alley, exchanged some money and bought the books.
To mask my identity as strongly as possible I put on hood and Kakashi style mask. Together with the bracelet, I should be both unrecognizable and unperceivable. Although, my bracelet wasn't some mighty artifact it was strong, nonetheless. Plus, I made a pair for it. Bracelet for my other hand with the same enchantment, to strengthen the effect.
This way, visiting the Diagon Alley is not a problem. Shame I couldn't use a broom to travel there. It would be too conspicuous. I need to find out how modern wizards and witches travel on brooms without problems. Other than travelling at night, nothing else comes to mind.
My research on the ritual was going smoothly as well. Every day, I was leaving home after breakfast and returning by the time of supper. I was more comfortable experimenting outside of the house, plus the "official" version known by Grangers was "I am working to earn money for the next year".
Some may say to stop worrying about useless things and just take their money to save my own for personal things, but I can't. Not due to some special or even good reasons, but simply due to… my abhorrence to responsibility.
'Taking money from somebody is always accepting the responsibility that comes with them, unless you earn (*Cough* steal *Cough*) the money yourself.'
If you borrow money, you have a responsibility to return it. If random people gift you something, it's your responsibility to answer equally. If parents give you gifts, you take responsibility to make sure that when they are old, they never need to say "I am in need of …".
Every time you receive someone's goodwill, you are ought to return it equally. That was how I was raised and that is my "ninja way".
'Oops, wrong universe.'
Anyway, that is my decision and I know that other people will certainly judge me, but thankfully, I don't need to worry about that. I mean, I am not going to write a biography anytime soon, so this stupid secret will die with me.
But I digress.
I am really close to changing ritual to a more efficient structure. If only I had Heaven's library, work would have been faster probably, but well...
'That's a wrong universe as well...'
Thanks to an unending spree of experiments, I was able to increase so many magic-related skills, however, I lost so much experience in the process due to the danger of these experiments.
For example, once, I blew up my hand when I tried to apply enchantment to it with the transfiguration theorem while channeling 2 energy sources in it. Even though I increased my understanding of enchantment, magic theory and channeling by 1, it's not worth a hand in this case, so I had to return.
That also helped me in understanding that real practice and trying new stuff is the fastest way to grind skills, however not the best choice for gaining levels, due to all the return-loss stuff.
Nevertheless, the experience I received normally was more than enough to achieve a level up. That was a piece of truly great news for me because I got another skill point. I crossed the threshold for gaining tier 2 ability in enchanting long ago, but I was saving a skill point in case of emergency.
That is the ability by the way:
『 Enchanting 』
〖Concentrated enchantment〗
〖In the process of enchantment, you do not radiate magic you channel. So, everything channeled will be spent on the enchanting. This will make all enchantments stronger and more long-lasting.〗
Plus, currently magic theory is around 47 and I bet when it reaches 50 it will open tier 3 abilities, which should be pretty amazing.
Returning back to ritual, I was able to find a few changes to make ritual faster. I have a valid way to remove the need to wait for a thunderstorm to drink the potion and how to change energy absorption to speed up ritual completion. However, I still have no good ideas about the leaf of mandrake.
Having a leaf for a prolonged amount of time, inside of your mouth is highly problematic. You have to be careful with eating, people will notice it if you talk. In addition to this, one mistake with that leaf and you have to restart the whole process.
*Sigh*
'I need to experiment some more.'
*After another month*
I was finally able to modify ritual sufficiently enough for me to go through it unnoticed. The problem with the leaf was dealt with as well. I found out that leaf is needed to consume my energy and unique signature, while not giving my body any unique properties. So, what I did is I made and enchanted a small amulet to collect energy into it.
How?
Thanks to the ability I took after the level up I was able to enchant items without worrying about the "Trace". In the beginning, I wasn't sure if "Concentrated enchantment" will help with that, but after a few test-runs, I confirmed that enchantments from now on will be untraceable.
But I digress once more.
To make sure I can use that amulet further in the potion, I used the natural ingredient as a material. Crystalized food salt (NaCl) to be precise. That was the easiest material to procure, which doesn't spoil easily, but can be sturdy at the same time (if made correctly).
Moreover, it can be further used in the potion with ease.
Enchantment to collect energy was pretty complicated, but thankfully I wasn't really limited by the size. It will be mostly under my clothes. Plus, I also enchanted the chain, which I bought in the local smithy, on sturdiness to make sure that the ball of salt won't crumble or dissolve due to things like sweat or body's heat.
That concludes my solution to mandrake leaf. Now to the month duration and thunderstorm.
I was able to shorten the ritual duration to roughly 2 weeks. As for the thunderstorm, I have completely failed. At first, I thought that the simple presence of huge amounts of electricity will be enough, but I was wrong.
'Don't ask how I tested it...'
It wasn't the rain either. Anyway, I decided to just leave be the way it is.
I mean, saying the spell every morning until the lightning storm is not that big of a sacrifice to become an Animagus.
As for occlumency, it was growing insanely fast due to books. To make sure occlumency grows faster I even stopped studying legilimency for now and concentrated purely on occlumency.
Although I am still not that good with all that mental defense stuff, at least invading my brain won't be a walk in a park. This way I can fool a legilimens more easily. Hopefully…
The ability of the first-tier in occlumency tree looks interesting as well, but I decided to wait for now. You never know when you might need the skill point.
Besides, only a few weeks left until the third begins, so better have some more potential jokers.
*Progress*
『 Level 18 』
『 Magicka ➣ Improvement : 16 ➔ 17 (talent = 2.292) 』
『 Number of skill points: 1 』
『 Alchemy 31 | Sneak 25 | Speech 31 』
『 Studying 36 ➔ 39 | Wand Making 26 』
『 Herbology 29 | Magic Channeling 36 ➔ 41 』
『 Magic Chanting 29 | Magic Gesturing 29 』
『 Magic Theory 43 ➔ 47 | Astronomy 27 』
『 Riding Expertise 21 ➔ 20 | Crafting 23 』
『 Playing Games 15 | Enchanting 28 ➔ 34 』
『 Cooking 23 | Training 22 | Physical Activities 17 』
『 Programming 26 ➔ 25 | Dancing 0 』
『 Legilimency 22 ➔ 25 | ❃Occlumency 21 』