Chapter 3 - new life (1)

You know, I think this is the first time I've talked with someone for a prolonged period. Now that I think about it, my first friend is a soul stuck between life and death. It reminds me of that saying, "birds of a feather flock together," hahahahaha.

Seeing me laugh, Harry suddenly looked at me and asked, "Why are you laughing?"

"It just occurred to me that my first friend, much like me, is a soul that didn't want to stay alive," I said with a grin, which he matched before laughing as well.

"Now that I think about it, how long have we been here?" I asked him.

It's true; we've shared everything about ourselves, inspected our souls, and even devised a way to review and project our memories. We also figured out how to sense emotions simply because we thought it would be funny to feel secondhand embarrassment after a funny story. "Guess what, it was," I said, but now I'm starting to get confused about what to do next.

"I don't know, but I'm starting to think your theory about me willingly giving you my identity was what we were supposed to do," he said. That was indeed what we were meant to do, and I knew it from the moment I arrived here. I just wanted to see what would happen and if there was another way because, as a soul without an identity myself, I understand what that entails.

"Yeah, so before we start, is there anything you want me to do in your stead?" I asked him.

"Oh yes, just pull Dumbledore's beard for me once," he replied. I knew he was going to say that.

"So let's get this over with. I, Harry James Potter, willingly give you my identity with all that it entails. May you have a better life than I," he said. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by feelings I couldn't quite place; they vanished as quickly as they came, but being momentarily disoriented was enough for me to miss my first friend's last moments here—and now he was truly gone.

You know, I thought I would be sad, but I don't know what I feel. Looking around, I realized I was still in the same place, so I began searching for the mutated baby soul thingy, which was still at the foot of the chair. Crouching down and touching it, I used my energy to scan it. It was a piece of the soul of one Tom Morvolo Riddle, aka Voldemort, that Harry had spoken about. Seeing the opportunity, I devoured it like I had with the other souls, but not before using my energy to filter out everything else. What was left was a black blob that I discarded.

I was then shifted into a dark, gloomy room where I found the body of Harry Potter—or my body now. I really need to solve this dissociation problem, and fast. I touched the body, and that's how I found myself in a dark, fractured space that looked like a failed imitation of the void. After looking around for a bit, I instinctively knew I was in my mindscape, so I started observing, probing, and studying it for a while. Mindscapes for wizards are metaphysical places that represent one of the two connection points between the soul and the body; the other one is the magical core. By connecting these points and the body with each other , you achieve what they call the trifecta: body, soul/mind, magic.

Now, with this new discovery, I started to work on how I would achieve that. Since my mindscape already had a rudimentary level of formation, I began what I called "Project Void Mind," which is a sophisticated way of saying I tried my hardest to make my mindscape a real representation of the void as possible. Some might ask why; the answer isn't that complicated. Just because I survived there for a little while by luck doesn't mean others can. Consider the confusion and panic of someone entering my mindscape only to be trapped there, trying to navigate a place where sense, common or otherwise, is on vacation.

I mean, I did try my hardest to transform my mindscape into the void as I perceived it: no space, time, gravity, or direction—just a massive black void of nothingness and confusion. After completing that, the only thing left was to make it more refined and harder to access. What remained was sorting my memories and feelings, and that's exactly what I did. I created an office table with a chair in the middle of my void, sat down, and started to create a book.

The book took many attempts to create because I was trying to make it semi-physical using void energy. In the end, I succeeded. God, having intuitive aptitude is fantastic! After creating my book, which I dubbed "The Book of Knowledge," I redesigned the desk and chair for maximum comfort. Once I was done, I began sorting my memories, checking and deleting any emotions still attached to them. My intention was for the life I lived before waking up to exist only as an informational reference and nothing more.

Surprisingly, this took the longest. Who would've thought sorting memories would be so bothersome? You have to go through every single memory, double-check for any lingering feelings, put them in the memory book, and then repeat the process. After sorting through everything, including the new memories I gained with the identity of Harry Potter—which, let me tell you, took the most time and hassle—it was finally time to fix my emotional center.

The representation of my emotional center in my mindscape is a small, cracked ball the size of a baseball, with different colors swirling around. I took all the emotions I had gathered from my memories and started injecting them into my emotional center. After a while, I was done. The ball of emotions was now bigger, and most of the cracks had disappeared. Relief washed over me, and I finally felt complete. I'm now Harry Potter, and I'm going to turn the world upside down.

Now then, let's start by checking on my soul first to see what's happening there. So I went into my soul; you know, now that I think about it, shifting between my mindscape and what I dubbed as 'soulscape' is like what I imagine shifting perspectives in stories. Heh, if my life is being written as a story, this information would be very interesting for all the isekai enthusiasts. Anyway, now that I'm looking at my soul, I can safely say that with a few finishing touches, my soul would be completely healed. But first, I want to organize this place. There are still the memories I took from Voldemort locked here, and I haven't thoroughly checked them again before sending a copy to my mindscape. Some might ask why? Well I'll explain—

You see, usually all memories are stored in the subconscious of a person, and when I say all, I mean all of them from birth to death. Now, how does the soul of a normal person carry these memories after death? The answer to that is when a person dies, and 'they see their life flash before their eyes'. That's the process of memory transfer from the body to the soul, thus answering one of the mysteries of death, memories, identities, and souls. Now, I'm not a normal person, not by a long shot, and that also complicates the situation of my soulscape. My soul was damaged, and thus I only had very limited access to this place before. Now I have an almost complete access. I say almost— because I still need to do some things to gain full access to my soulscape, and thus the ability to manipulate my own soul as I please, but that's for later.

. I now need to sort this memory and highlight all important information before sending it in its entirety to my mindscape without leaving a copy. You may ask why? Well, because I still need to study it thoroughly later to start forming conclusions, and having it in my soul might affect how I see certain things.

The difference between these memories and the memories I gained before was their size and circumstances. Before, I was without an identity, so whatever influence these memories had on me before was reset after acquiring my new identity. That's the feeling that distracted me before. Now that I finished my job here, I'll go check on my emotional center in my soul before starting the shielding process. The emotional center here has been reset and repaired too, so all is good. What I need to do from now on is to continue to strengthen my soul by saturating it with energy and having it adapt to it. Hehehe having a soul that can adapt is cheating.

Now, for protection, the shield I need to put on my soul has to be the best, so I let my instincts, which have been upgraded after acquiring intuitive aptitude, take the wheel. The result was a very thin layer of void energy that envelops my soul with two very simple functions: adaptation and upgrade. It will adapt to anything and shield from everything. As long as my soul isn't obliterated in one blow, the shield will adapt to the blow and upgrade my soul in the process. Looking at the result, I can only marvel at what you can do with void energy 'this energy is still a mystery to me until now but using something and figuring how it works is two different things'. I don't know if this would be possible with any other energy, but I guess I'll know more in the future.

Now that this is done, it's time to check if my magic core is ready. Having two magic cores merge together is suicidal, but my own magical core is just better, and now that I stopped using void energy, the process is smoother and faster than before. Observing the process in which my void core all but devoured the other core is a fascinating experience that has given me a lot of insight into magic.

Firstly, magic is a piece of creation. Now, most would argue, "How can that be?" Well, it just is. Now, if you ask about different kinds and the like, that's just the aspect it takes depending on who uses it. Secondly, different people understand and use magic differently depending on a number of factors, such as talent, age, knowledge, species, etc. Lastly, wizards have access to an aspect of magic that, in the right hands, can be considered either overpowered or weak, with no middle ground.

--….

pat reon / hunter20