Maybe I shouldn't have burned the apartment down, but I decided to play it safe and cover my tracks. I feel sorry for the owners of the apartment, of course, but I feel even more sorry for me. And I don't think a dark wizard on their doorstep is better than a fire. I had little money left, so I decided to take a risk, because I had nothing to lose anyway. And I robbed a bank. Well, how did I rob it? They gave it all to me themselves. However, let's take it in order: I bought a robe with a deep hood in Diagon Alley and put it on, with a muggle-repelling charm cast on it, as well as a potion that is similar in effect to the subordination spell, Imperio. Then I went to a branch of Barclays Bank and asked to call the senior manager who is responsible for large deposits, because cashiers in large banks only manage cash desks and usually do not have access to the safe, which is logical. When I entered the negotiation room with a middle-aged man, I sprayed him in the face with a potion from a spray bottle. It has a weak and short-lived effect on magicians, which is why it is not prohibited, but it is more than enough for ordinary people. So I filled my bag with expanded space with about ten million dollars, which would be much easier to use in other countries, and calmly left. Already in Thailand, I read in the newspapers about my adventures in England, where I was called a "hypnotist in a robe." Moreover, because of the spell, no one saw me, and thanks to the gloves, I left no fingerprints. Did such an obvious crime bother me? Not at all. I did not kill or wound anyone, and the bank is unlikely to go bankrupt - for them, this is a month's profit. I am like Robin Hood, I robbed the rich to give the money to the poor. And am I not poor? No housing, no money - poorer than ever! Now, with the insurance of the emblem, I was much calmer, but staying in London would have been stupid, and so I went to Thailand. If I were to die, then at least in the warmth by the ocean, and not in cold and damp London. At first I wanted to go to India, but quickly remembered that this is where, according to the legend, I was supposed to go. Okay, it's probably worth thinking about what I did all that time after I rented a small villa:
Three months passed, and Ariel should have safely settled in France. I didn't contact her, otherwise all my attempts to maintain confidentiality would have gone down the drain. I also couldn't give the money, but for another reason: the magicians would quickly figure out that the money did not belong to me and was obtained dishonestly, there are simple spells for this. And the fact that, in fact, I stole it, not Ariel, will not bother anyone. However, I left seven million in offshore accounts - maybe in the future I will withdraw them and use them only in the ordinary world. If it happens, this is the future. So I continued to master magic, sometimes falling into a stupor from how different the systems of magic were in modern times and in ancient times. I will start with the fact that no one now teaches how to awaken true vision, instead they use expensive enchanted glasses, the secret of which is known to one and a half people in all of England. Let's go further, meditation and absorption of free ether from the elements and the surrounding background, not to mention the dematerialization of matter into ether, no one knows either. Well, it is clear that no one has even heard of the Hands - the most powerful spells of archmages that can affect entire continents. But let's finish with the bad and start with the good, wands are a truly brilliant product of modern times. Let them not give extra magical powers, limit the magician himself, not allowing him to swing the nous well, and if it was lost, an ordinary wizard became completely defenseless. Moreover, it was not easy to lose it, but very easy, not only are there many ways to disarm a magician, but the wand itself is quite fragile. However, even with all its shortcomings, one of its advantages crossed out everything - it is the ability to perform quick rituals. To make it clearer, I will give an example. The magicians of Sumer have three most common ways to cast spells:
Rituals are the most economical way in terms of energy, but also the most difficult in terms of requirements. Not only must the magician first calculate the ritual, often taking into account the position of celestial bodies, the weather in Zimbabwe and the number of hairs on one of Nurgle's sixteen armpits, but also often extremely difficult conditions are required in terms of time, place and necessary ingredients of the ritual. But with the help of rituals, a magician can really do anything, a student can kill a god, although this would require a monstrously complex magic circle and somehow persuading the god to climb into it, but when has everything ever been easy?
Word magic is a medium-cost and powerful method. You read a spell, put in ether and get a result, what could be simpler? Its advantage is its versatility, and even a water mage can cast fire spells, albeit with a large expenditure of ether. And the disadvantage is the duration, some spells need to be cast for tens of seconds, or even minutes. So what should you do? Ask the enemy to wait? No, the Sumerians got out of this too, and learned to read spells into their memory - there they are in a folded form - and then, having filled them with energy, instantly release them. After that, the spell disappears from memory and must be read again. But you can't put many spells in it, unless you, again, are at least a master, who can put in a dozen personal defenses. Lerakh was a master, but a weak one, so he could not fit more than two defenses in his memory. No, you can imprison a spirit, a mage's or a demon's soul in your staff or rod, but even in this case, nothing will save you from being read, because if you spam the same spell, the enemy will simply put up a suitable shield and will watch the idiot with a grin. Moreover, try to imprison someone in a staff so that this someone does not eat you or seal you. Therefore, mages often fought not until exhaustion, but until the moment when the spells in their memory and tools ran out.
Direct control is a way of volitional control over your magic. A fire mage can create a fireball by willpower, a mental mage can read and inspire thoughts in others, a metamorph can change his appearance, and so on. Its disadvantage is, firstly, long training and practice, secondly, the lack of universality, because you direct most of your efforts in one or two, maximum three directions, gaining affinity with them and losing with the opposite ones. And thirdly, it is the most expensive, at least at low and medium levels of mastery, which you can reach in a couple of decades. Word magic has been honed for centuries, and therefore the costs for it are relatively small, that is, a fireball with its help can spend from two to ten times less ether than with direct control.
And what is the genius of the wand? It is a quick ritual! Moreover, a hybrid one, combining word magic and a rune that you draw with waves of the concentrator. Thanks to this, the ether costs are absolutely negligible. They are even less due to the fact that many spells have been used for centuries and have literally pressed into the reality of the planet, or the infosphere, as it is also called. And the concentrators themselves in the form of sticks are, in comparison with staffs and rods, a surgical knife, while the first two are two-handed and one-handed swords. And now such a decline in the art of magicians is clear to me: they simply do not need to develop their shells, because even the weakest magicians with an awakened Nous can cast spells.
I didn't want to give up the advantages of either. Mastering the Sumerian system takes many decades and depends not only on talent and work, but also on the speed of development of the seventh shell, which is pretty standard for me - better than Lerakh, but not much better. All hopes are on the past ritual, because by merging with the shells of the unborn embryo and absorbing the magic of the mother, I will be able to change my potential. You can master the basics of wand magic in a couple of years, and become a master in it in five or six, which is monstrously fast in comparison, although the "ceiling" of development is much lower. Therefore, with the wand bought in Ollivander's store, I learned to draw zigzags and lift objects with Leviosa or turn matches into needles. So I meditated, gradually pulling ether from air, fire, earth and water. It worked best to pull from the earth, but I tried not to go too deep into one element, adhering to universality. The first month, however, I couldn't cast spells and directed all the energy generated by the soul into the rupture of the third shell, healing the soul. The miracle didn't happen, and the scar still remained on the soul. And whether it will ever heal or not is the question. After that ritual, I swore off soul magic, at least in relation to myself - it's too painful and affects the personality. Yes, it was as if I had lost a lot of color in life and became more cold-blooded, a very unpleasant feeling that haunts you constantly. If it weren't for the magic training, I would have definitely fallen into depression.
And so, lying on the beach and sipping whiskey with ice from a glass, I saw with true vision a huge protuberance of dark energy approaching me. Here comes my customer, he found me after all. And I performed the ritual of cutting off the flesh! Moreover, fearing magical marks, I destroyed Lerakh's book! My soul bled, because despite the problems it brought, this book became my teacher and gave me the opportunity to master magic, despite the fact that by modern standards I would not have been able to do this. True, there was something strange about it. Until the last moment, I did not want to destroy it, I constantly came up with excuses to leave it - and this was the final reason to get rid of it. I do not like when they try to manipulate me. Still, as I expected, Gaunt is a dark magician, and even of enormous strength, compared to me. I think he will pull for a strong master or even a magister, if you compare him with the average Sumerian magician. In general, according to Sumerian terminology, magicians are divided into the following groups in increasing knowledge: Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, Magister and Archmage. Although there is no direct dependence on magical power, if you reach the rank of Archmage, then you definitely have enormous power. To put it simply, a student is just beginning his journey in learning magic from his teacher, and this is the level I am at. The apprentice level means that the magician has already been recognized by the teacher and can continue independent research in the chosen magical arts, of which there were sixty in Sumer. Masters were achieved after mastering one of the Arts, creating a Masterpiece - a self-created spell or method of using magic. A Magister is someone who has achieved the title of master in three arts. And about archmages it was written only that they possess colossal power, and I suspect that you need to either reach the limit of knowledge in your arts, have enormous power, or gain mastery in at least five arts, but I can only guess. Sumerian magicians valued knowledge most of all and freely exchanged it, thanks to which Lerakh's book contained many spells, exercises and rituals that are not related to artifacts. In contrast, at the moment, secret knowledge is kept very carefully, many Arts are forbidden, such as necromancy, soul magic, demonology and even blood magic. And fools, they do not understand that if they are faced with the threat of an influx of undead or an invasion of demons, then all they can do is raise their hands up and wait for their souls to be devoured, because they will not be able to resist, simply not knowing how. I hope they are not such idiots and they have some specialists, they just keep them secret?
- Mr. Gaunt? Good afternoon. Why do you have such a grimace of rage on your face? The first time we met, you gave the impression of a gallant and courteous person, - I asked with a certain laziness. I was already tired of being afraid, and my cold-bloodedness was making itself felt, that's why I was behaving like this. Although, perhaps, this is due to the cyanide capsule that I bit through, or the timer that was counting down the last seconds beneath me. But this is not certain. However, all possible options for combat disappeared when I saw the enemy's level of strength.
- Muggle! - the man growled angrily, his robe fluttering in the invisible wind of ether emanating from his body. - You dared to deceive me?! Do you know how long I've been looking for you? If you give me the book and the translation now, you will die an easy death!
- Oh, how scary, - I said, smelling the rotten smell of his lie - he did not even think of keeping his word. However, magic potions in the ordinary world are still a scary thing. A couple of drops of liquid Imperius, and here, the man tells you everything you want to know. Including where to get a couple dozen kilograms of high-quality explosives with a timer and detonator.
"Why are you smiling?" the man became wary, renewing the protection on his body and already casting some kind of spell.
But it was too late, even before the red beam that burst from Gaunt's wand touched me, twenty kilograms of TNT, written off from a military base in Thailand, exploded under me with enormous force, scattering striking elements for four hundred meters around. It was not for nothing that I chose such a deserted beach, where there was no one else. Naturally, Gaunt did not have time to do anything except put up additional protection for himself. And I died quickly and painlessly, not allowing my soul to be captured, as I wanted.
***
An even more angry dark wizard emerged from a twenty-meter crater, a couple of meters deep. There were no injuries on him, but for him it didn't matter at all. He was tricked by a Muggle, a MUGGLE, damn it! It's unclear where to look for the priceless tome now, maybe he destroyed it altogether! Especially considering that the beacon was gone and they had to look for the bastard in a complicated, dangerous and humiliating way - using Legilimency and Imperio on representatives of the Muggle and magical world authorities, because the hair taken from his former apartment was not his at all. Did someone help him? Unlikely. He checked all his friends and acquaintances. Where did he get such skills? There was only one answer - it was all the tome! It was worth spitting on caution and just Imperizing the bastard to the point of feeblemindedness! The only thing that made me happy was that he still died, even if not by his hand. Tom Riddle needed to kill someone, or no, torture them to death! But damn it, it's too early!
***
I woke up not in a new body, but next to it. Which is not surprising, because only a third of the pregnancy period had passed. However, the connection held me tightly, so I could not "fly away" more than a meter. The shells of the child's soul were already forming, only instead of the atman, the fourth shell, there was my emblem, and I was thinking about what I saw in Gaunt's astral body. I saw this for the first time. No, the Darkness is a terrible thing, of course, but it is not evil in itself. You can go dark from killing maniacs and demons, for example, is this evil? Hardly. No, it was the rot permeating the man from top to bottom, indicating that he often lied, including to himself. But this is not the worst thing, if the astral body of all people is usually similar to their physical one, then his was not only similar to a snake's, but also all in cliffs, as if it had been chewed and spat out. My emblem scar looked like a surgeon's cut, what did he cut himself with and why so much? It's not clear. By the way, about the scar - it was from it that a thin glowing line of communication with my new body came out. And it was through this connection that I felt that the emblem was already at the limit, it was being washed away by a powerful stream of Ariel's mana! Taking a closer look - I did not need to activate true vision, because in my state it is normal, I saw that the inflowing energy was trying to change my vessel! Damn veela, why are you fulfilling my request so well? You overdid it! If this continues, I will be a girl! This will not happen, my pepper is dear to me as a memory! So I immediately began to absorb the ether in the state in which I was, and I tell you, it is fucking difficult, much more difficult than in the body! But the astral energy flowed like a river, and I was able to stabilize the emblem with its help. From that moment on, my great struggle for Vladimir Jr. began!