"Why aren't you dead yet?"
In the darkness, only a head remained.
His body had been cleanly severed, his heart removed, his tongue cut out, his eyes blinded. He couldn't see anything.
Facing the head, a mass of pitch-black sludge changed shape, "You can't speak, you can't see, you can't eat, you can't move, you can't enjoy anything. All that's left is pain. Why don't you just let go?"
"Give up, this is despair. You have no chance of turning things around!"
[No]
"Fine, then let's also take away your hearing, and your sense of touch. This world will be nothing but silence and stillness, and you'll be nothing but a brain in a vat."
The voice faded away.
The last of his sense of touch disappeared.
In the void, only a consciousness hummed.
[I am still thinking.]
[I still exist.]
[Even without a body, without a heartbeat, left only with a head, I still exist.]
[I understand now.]
[This is not reality.]
[This is an illusion.]
Crack.
A fissure opened in the darkness.
[That thing called despair can take away all my senses and inflict endless pain, but it can't stop my thoughts.]
[Because this is the deepest part of my consciousness, the singularity of an idealistic world. It's within the horizon of a mental black hole.]
[Here, I am the absolute master.]
[I am the only rule of this idealistic world.]
[Then...]
[Let there be light.]
...
On the stage, Professor Sprout watched as Murphy and Snape each drank the potion, worrying.
After Murphy drank the potion, he remained standing still, while Snape gasped violently, as if undergoing tremendous pain.
This pain seemed to spread outward, dark magic spreading, causing the temperature around the stage to drop, the plants nearby visibly wilting and decaying, even the sky turning overcast.
"Is this... a magic rampage?" Professor Sprout hurriedly instructed the students to back away from the stage, to avoid being harmed by the chaotic magic of the two.
"Madam Pomfrey, what should we do now?" Professor Sprout was uncertain, "Should we try to wake them up?"
"Alright, I'll think of something. That potion is very dangerous. If it drags on, it could cause terrible psychological damage..."
However, before she finished, Murphy suddenly opened his eyes.
"Let there be light."
He said.
Suddenly, a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, like a sword dispersing the gloom, shining on everyone. The temperature seemed to rise in an instant, easing the anxious mood of the crowd.
Murphy took a deep breath.
He glanced at the timer on the table. Though he had experienced what felt like a lifetime in that illusion, only a few minutes had actually passed.
"Professor Darkholme, how do you feel?" Professor Sprout hurriedly asked.
"I'm fine," Murphy said, glancing at Snape, who was drenched in sweat and looked like he could faint at any moment, "Madam Pomfrey, let's start treating him now."
With the power of the Memory Potion and the Despair Potion, for someone like Snape with severe psychological trauma, it was almost fatal.
Even if he survived the potion's effects and woke up, he might suffer from severe depression. If not treated promptly, the poor fellow might be ruined.
...
However, even with Madam Pomfrey's best efforts, Snape didn't wake up until the evening. During that time, although he was awakened, he was still immersed in endless sorrow, almost crying himself into exhaustion.
Fortunately, thanks to Murphy's suggestion, he was transferred to a private ward in time, avoiding embarrassment in front of the students and faculty.
Murphy unquestionably won the duel, but at the moment, he had no time to gloat over Snape.
In the mental illusion created by the Despair Potion, he realized a unique concept.
"Assuming the essence of magic is truly idealistic, then its purely idealistic scope must be very small, unable to interfere with other wills."
"But within this absolute idealistic domain, where it doesn't interfere with other wills, it acts like a wish-granting machine."
"This point of absolute will is a realm where will supersedes everything and determines the material world."
"Within the horizon of the mind, all external things lose their meaning, whether material or magical, nothing can invade this domain—unless the will actively accepts it."
If this hypothesis is correct—and it seems highly likely—then is it possible to establish a path to divinity based on this?
This is a purely idealistic path, different from the Path of Transfiguration and the Path of Curses. Its essence is "there is nothing outside the mind."
Murphy decided to call this path "Path of the Mind."
Its direction is clear: to expand the "horizon of the mind" of the "point of absolute will," encompassing a broader area, allowing "wish fulfillment" to extend to a larger external world, thus enabling the external world to be transformed by one's will.
This is similar to the "domains" often found in fantasy novels.
If the range of the "horizon of the mind" is a physical range, it might be very small, possibly at the molecular, atomic, or even quantum level.
But since it's a range extended from an idealistic singularity, it might not necessarily be physical. It could also be conceptual.
For example, 'life' is a concept, and in a certain sense, this concept is broader than 'animal,' which is broader than 'mammal,' which is broader than 'human,' which is broader than 'Homo sapiens,' which is broader than 'Briton,' which is broader than 'Londoner.'
From this perspective, concepts also have their scope.
Perhaps one could start with smaller conceptual scopes and expand their own "domain."
For instance, Murphy can control lightning based on the power of the Thunderbird. What if he expands the concept of lightning to the adjacent "electromagnetic phenomena"? Could he directly control various electromagnetic phenomena, like Magneto?
This expansion of conceptual range certainly won't be as comprehensive as the expansion of physical range.
Suppose the horizon of the mind could expand to a physical range of two meters. Within these two meters, it would be his microcosm, where the laws of everything are determined by his word. This comprehensiveness and power can't be matched by conceptual expansion, but conceptually, it might be easier to operate.
After all, if understood from the perspective of the Path of the Mind, magic and spells can also be seen as the intersecting effects of different mental domains.
This means that all existing magic can be viewed as applications of the Path of the Mind.
Even dividing six major magical realms based on the six-dimensional attributes of magical power could be feasible.
Compared to the Path of Transfiguration and the Path of Curses, the Path of the Mind has a lower barrier to understanding. To some extent, it can replace the difficult-to-understand Path of Curses, providing a programmatic direction for wizards' research.
In this way, he could even utilize those useless ones.
Truly a cause for celebration.
...
After the duel, Murphy spent several days refining the theory of the Path of the Mind. He planned to write a paper and publish it in Magic Weekly, summarizing the fragmented magical research of the wizarding world under the framework of the Path of the Mind.
But before he could finish the paper, he received a message from Bulgaria.
Barty Crouch Jr., with a respectful bow in the crow vision, said, "Great master, we have found an opportunity."
"The body double plan can now be implemented."
___________________
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