Today was a marvelous day. Why? Well obviously because of my plan or, to be precise, the Sabrina's plan came to fruition. Speaking of her, she was an incredible find and bearer of my second ring, Mind Ring.
Rings, as you might guess, are not something that can be easily made. Every ring connects you to a special system that covers the planet with a global enchantment and allows instant magic empowerment. This removes the necessity to put hundreds of enchantments on one object. Rather than that, there are some commanding and transferring enchantments on the rings, that when necessary connect to specially enchanted satellites, which provide magical energy to activate the rings.
And because my naming sense sucks, I just called it the Ring System.
Specifically, the Mind Ring gives you access to a nearly unlimited amount of processing power. In addition to this, it provides fast magic-based healing and more minute control over the brain.
Unfortunately, the ring is very volatile and useless to people with low IQ.
You see IQ is a software, not hardware (in terms of mechanical computing). So even if I give a calculative power of a quantum computer to a person with an IQ of 100, his IQ won't increase. He may have a better memory, and a few other perks, but ultimately he will remain more or less normal. That is of course if he stays sane after using the ring.
IQ is how your brain works, not how good it is. And if a person could make our human small brain work in a way, that outputs 200 or more IQ, than using a ring won't be a problem for him. For everyone else, the ring will probably break the mind into pieces.
And Sabrina was a perfect candidate. Her IQ was so high that existing tests couldn't accurately measure it. Her worst results were in the range of 240s and her best results were around 310. Plus her mind was already broken and still had such a high output. As for why it was broken, well...
Due to her high intelligence, she quiet quickly understood the uselessness of living and on her own came to a philosophy, known as nihilism.
Because she rarely interacted with other kids of her age, she soon became ostracized. Moreover, she was different from everyone else not only mentally, but also physically, thanks to her foreign ancestry. All this led to bullying and loneliness.
And despite her IQ, loneliness still hit her hard, especially as a kid. After all, loneliness isn't a mental issue, but a genetic mechanism, that forced people to stay together to survive.
In the end, by the time she reached her 10th Birthday, the girl's mentality was a goddamn mess. With multiple identities living in the same body, each having imaginary friends to cover for loneliness. Her brain was simulating each of these personalities and these simulations were so real, that at some point imaginary friends of one personality started clashing with friends of another personality. Moreover, some of these friends could temporarily transform into a personality and vice versa.
Confused?
Now imagine me, when I glanced into her mind with my legilimency. I wouldn't say I was in any danger, after all, my occlumency is above 50, but still... I got quite a scare.
You may ask, "How the heck did I discern such a genius?" Well, I noticed her accidentally while traveling through China. To increase my Occlumency and Legilimency, I on a constant basis read thoughts of everyone around me, while simulating one random scene in my Brain. That's when I noticed an insane amount of voices when I barged into somebody's head. It was Sabrina's head.
The existence of so many personalities simulated by the brain at the same time is a marvelous peculiarity and first sign of ingeniousness. After a few tests, I knew I wouldn't find a better bearer for this ring.
Thank god, she was an orphan, so I just adopted her. Thanks to my already growing connections in the Chinese government and the Ministry of Magic, it took less than a day for her to become my "daughter".
During the last year, we were very close, like a real father and daughter. She knew about my identity and actions so far.
Of course, I wouldn't tell her anything about the system or Athena. But, I did tell her as much as possible and was as honest as possible about my life until the moment of meeting with her. After all, I genuinely wanted her to become my companion and strategist. Plus, lying to a person with such a high IQ would be a bad idea.
Even though she knew I wasn't speaking the whole truth, she was quite understanding and accepted me as a father figure in her life. And, my high-level speech played an important role at that time.
"Master?"
"Hm?"
"You've become absentminded. Is something bothering you?"
"No, I was just thinking about you. Your birthday is soon. Are you ready, Sabrina?"
"You are being hunted by a secret super organization wielding some futuristic armor and weapons, and you are worried about my birthday...Seriously?"
Magnus laughed and simply said:
"Well, but of course. My daughter will be soon 15teen. As for the Order, a few years ago, I would have been afraid of them. However, those times are long in the past. I have enough power to crush these forces, once and for all. Plus, we have an advantage. We know about them, but they have no knowledge of us."
"Still, at the very least you have to be a little bit more cautious ."
"I am being cautious. If not for you convincing me in your plan, I would have already gone to their main base and killed those 2 idiots."
"What, am I going to do with you...?"
"What do you even mean? What's there to be cautious about? I have satellites monitoring the planet, incredible magical power and knowledge of my enemies' existence. One of them is a person who came from a world of incredible technologies, while another one is apparently some kind of a god."
Sabrina didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she simply asked:
"When your enemy's a god, maybe... just maybe, you shouldn't underestimate your enemy?"
Magnus only smiled and started patiently explaining:
"Sabrina, as a wizard, I know a thing or two about the world. He's not a true god. Just a fake one. Moreover, he's not a god of this Universe, based on the energy signatures he emitted while using his powers. This specific parallel of the Universe was frozen in one timeline. This means 2 things. First, they won't be getting any support. And second, I become incapable of leaving this world," but then Magnus's smile became savage, "However, now... I know that there are only 2 members of the Order who came after me. They were the ones who underestimated me. So, it's not me who should fear them..."
Sabrina looked at him and smilingly nodded.
"Indeed."