After Red woke up, the infirmary bustled with activity. It was completely crowded the next day; even Myrtle had come to visit, but Madame Pomfrey enforced the rules: only 6 visits per person. Things had to settle down. There were many girls who wanted to visit Red, now awake, so they had to take turns as much as possible.
Unfortunately, despite visits being allowed, Madame Pomfrey intervened when she saw how crowded the infirmary was with the constant coming and going of girls. In the end, only one hour of visits for Red was allowed to avoid constant crowding.
Luckily, Red was no ordinary person and, despite not having fully recovered, could still perform some tricks. While Pomfrey wasn't looking, Red created a clone that was reduced by the girls using the 'Reducio' spell, and they carried it in a bag as if it were a doll to 'the lair'.
The plan worked perfectly, and now the girls didn't need to visit the infirmary; they could meet a sick Red at their usual meeting place instead.
...
-Red POV-
The end of this school year arrived, and the events of the past few months only heightened the emotions of the children and teenagers at Hogwarts. Not every year a dark wizard... wait, this is Hogwarts, something like this happens every year... Anyway, as I was saying, the end of the school year came.
Harry woke up the day after me, but that didn't worry me much. What really troubled me were the girls who looked at me again with a mix of love and hate.
It's hard to explain; because I was sick, they all treated me as if I were made of glass, but at the same time, they wanted to hit me for getting into another crazy adventure. Well, some for doing it and others for not having made them part of it.
They all knew what had happened, perhaps even better than the rest of the school, which received somewhat distorted versions thanks to the constant exchange of information by word of mouth.
Hermione took care of telling the story, perhaps even exaggerating it a bit, but not like Ron to magnify the achievements, but to intensify the feeling of danger and desperation. In fact, since she could, she stuck to my arm and held it as if she were afraid of losing me most of the time.
Here I am, sitting on a bench in the middle of the lair park, recounting the events once again, having to explain my decisions many times and other things. It was all very... complicated from several aspects.
Harry may have the support of the reckless and ignorant Gryffindors who admire him, but I have a group of girls who truly care about me and who know about my "hibernation" state, so to speak, thanks to Hermione's words.
I wanted to reassure them, to tell them everything would be fine, but I wasn't very convincing now that my body was so stiff and clumsy. I needed help even to take a sip of water. Some were more upset than others, and I had to pay special attention to trying to comfort them, like Pansy, Susan, Hermione, or Gemma.
We kept discussing the topic for quite some time. Some feared, others were thankful for the training, and others had their own concerns, like Lavender, who was drafting "Red Weasley: The Philosopher's Stone and The Mage of Death" after I told them the story.
If it weren't for the arrival of the night, who knows if we would still be talking for several more hours? They were all very considerate and let me rest, although they more or less forced me to undo the clone so as not to strain myself too much, and sent me to sleep, although I could see reluctance in their faces to leave me alone.
...
I really didn't need to sleep, and if I did, I would simply create a clone and let it rest in my place. My condition is not due to injuries, but to the experiment I conducted with the Philosopher's Stone, and just like with the Invisibility Cloak, the adverse effects would resolve over time.
After waking up, not only did I create a clone to be with the girls, but secretly I also sent some [messages] and created other clones to send them to other people.
Elise received one of them; she was very happy to see me again after feeling my state through our connection for so long without receiving a minimal response from me. My clones were in a situation almost identical to that of my real body, perhaps a bit stiffer in some aspects, so I didn't do much after arriving where Elise was.
She laid me down in the middle of the meadow within my personal space and lay down beside me, very close to me, enough to feel her warmth almost all over my body and for her to give me licks on the face from time to time, taking care of me. It was a beautiful moment; Andra and Eileen were also there, but they didn't bother us and gave us our time alone. The good thing about this personal space is that it has pleasant environmental conditions. You can change and add natural cycles and other things, although I didn't want to spend my money on that at the moment.
I also sent a clone to Tonks; luckily, I sent her a message beforehand to prepare her, as we didn't want Andromeda to discover my health condition and be able to tell us something. I already suffered many of her scoldings when we worked as temporary aurors. I briefly told Tonks what had happened, so she wasn't surprised by my condition and helped me hide from her mother.
Like Elise, she took me to bed and lay down beside me. There we talked about what had happened, although I didn't tell her everything, but enough to satisfy her curiosity. She's somewhat rebellious but reliable, so I had no problems talking to her about my future plans, although things got a little awkward when I mentioned that I wanted to introduce her to Elise.
She wasn't in the best mood about that, unsure how to feel about it, "the girlfriend meeting the lover" or "the girlfriend meeting the other girlfriend." I think it will be much more interesting and overwhelming when she finds out she's a unicorn... well, problems for future Red.
I didn't send a clone to Ginny and Luna; I didn't want to worry them seeing my lack of mobility, so I just sent them a message saying I was busy, but I would soon be back home. Knowing that I had used my clones to be with them for most of the school year, the latter didn't have much merit, but it's always nice to know you'll be back.
In addition to those clones, there was one in particular that was alone in a secluded place to test some things. Actually, I wanted to do it with my main body, but I didn't want to attract attention in the infirmary.
This clone, although not in the best condition of mobility, could still handle the rest of the abilities almost perfectly, so I used it to check if my work bore fruit.
A bloodstream flowed before it, and I concentrated heavily on the feeling of my blood magic. I had to feel what was new in it, the difference from before and what it could do now. I knew it wasn't the same, and not just because of my physical condition.
This was like learning to whistle, you had the ability to do it, but you didn't naturally know how. I could only learn it through trial and error at this moment due to the lack of instructions. After a long time, I managed to grasp the feeling and materialize my thoughts into physical results.
I saw how the stream of blood in front of me, which had always been in motion, compressed into a point and from a large blood mass turned into small, if not tiny, drops of a different liquid. I not only realized it because of the different consistency and appearance, but because I lost control of that liquid, which was different from blood, and it fell to the ground.
I did it! The elixir of life! Now I could create the elixir of life through my blood magic! And considering the qualities of my magic, that meant... I had infinite elixir of life!
I was very happy to achieve it, although I didn't need it in the slightest, as I discovered my own path to healing and longevity. It was not yet fully developed as in the other timeline, in which it had not even been considered perfect, but it would work in the future. But anyway, I had the elixir of life, and there were many uses for it. Now, without the existence of a known Philosopher's Stone, only I was the sole producer of this, and that meant one thing: Monopoly!
I also tested some other acquired characteristics, and one of them was auric transmutation. It was something different, but after the elixir of life, I think I got the hang of it. Transmutation had two ways of being employed. One was to use my blood magic to enhance it and turn an object into gold permanently.
Although there are some complications with this; not all materials are easily convertible. Some are simpler than others, in addition to the costs, and particularly everything organic is at least 10 times more difficult to change than inorganic matter.
The other way is that I can transform my own blood from my blood magic reserves into gold, which is theoretically much easier than an external object, but the cost is higher, as there is the cost of blood converted into gold and the cost of conversion.
Overall, both transmutation and the creation of the elixir consume a lot of my blood magic. It's not cheap at all, even if I spend all my reserves on creating elixir or gold, I wouldn't get a large amount, at least not proportional to my reserves. The good thing is that I don't have to worry about consumption, as my magic regenerates infinitely as long as I'm alive; not even in my worst moment does it stop generating, although it's slower.
Furthermore, I gained new abilities that would help me with that, and these came with their respective level upgrades, I suppose for different reasons. Absorbing the Philosopher's Stone, achieving auric transmutation, creating the elixir, and achieving the previous with my own magic instead of the stone.
[Acquired: Alchemist Essence (Level 1)]
-Transmutation: 5% reduction in cost or 5% increase in production.
-Guaranteed probability of creating alchemical artifacts: 1% (indistinguishable from normal success or failure in artifact fabrication).
↓
[Alchemist Essence (Level 2)]
-Transmutation: 10% reduction in cost or 10% increase in production.
-Guaranteed probability of creating alchemical artifacts: 3%.
-Probability of increasing quality/level in alchemical artifact production: 0.0001%.
↓
[Alchemist Essence (Level 3)]
-Transmutation: 15% reduction in cost or 15% increase in production.
-Guaranteed probability of creating alchemical artifacts: 5%.
-Probability of increasing quality/level in alchemical artifact production: 0.001%.
↓
[Alchemist Essence (Level 4)]
Transmutation: 20% reduction in cost or 20% increase in production.
-Guaranteed probability of creating alchemical artifacts: 7%.
-Probability of increasing quality/level in alchemical artifact production: 0.01%.
This is awesome! I think I even want to be an alchemist now. Maybe I can even level up as an alchemist more...
What I need now is a way to replenish my reserves quickly. To generate acceptable amounts of gold or elixir, I must completely spend my reserves each time. Perhaps starting with animal husbandry in my personal space to drain the blood from the animals and offset the expense.
I plan to produce a lot of gold; the [merchant], the [archmage], and the [fief] are bottomless pits for my finances. They all have many benefits, but I require spending a lot to obtain them. Now I had a way to balance my expenses.
One good thing is that with auric transmutation, I could generate gold that I could sell to the merchant. Then, when I sell too much and the gold loses its value in the store, I can look for a way to convert that gold into coins to use for buying, or alternatively sell that gold directly to the goblins at Gringotts to earn galleons. The same goes for the elixir of life; I can generate it and sell it in the store until it loses its value, then find a safe method to market it in the real world and continue to profit.
No matter how, but now I've secured a great source of income. Perhaps somewhat slow due to consumption, but very important.
I could also do some other things, like seeing if I can use the enchantment table to remove the effect of the elixir of life and add it to my blood magic so that it also has an effect on prolonging life...
I don't know, it's risky. Every time I add something, I feel like something in me changes... What I did was risky, both this time and the previous one. I don't know how much this affects me, and although the archmage's words reassured me a bit, I don't know if I should take it so lightly... But, what else can I lose? It would be interesting to see what happens with the Mirror of Erised.
Anyway, I couldn't try it for a while. The archmage made it clear that what I did was taking advantage of a game glitch and that it was only possible because the conditions were met. If anyone tries to apply an enchantment from the table to their body, they will almost certainly die. But I had an escape by applying the enchantment to my blood magic, which is part of who I am, but partly an extension of me.
I can only add more effects without killing myself after my blood magic grows. In a way, my blood magic is a blank canvas that constantly grows, and each enchantment is paint. If I release the paint on the canvas, it will stain; if I have more paint than canvas, I will die. That's why, after filling a part of the canvas with paint, I have to wait for the canvas to grow and another white section to appear to paint.