Chapter 2
November 3, 1981
Hadrian stood before a full length mirror and pondered about his looks.
He was handsome. His bright blue eyes were quite striking and his black hair, while short, was neat and straight.
Maybe a little boyish, his current body was, in fact, just 18 years old, and his lifestyle was not that active, so he was somewhat pale and not all that fit, but, if he was completely objective, he was handsome.
So he could not understand, how, or why, his local counterpart had thought that he would not ever find himself a lover.
With a sigh, he returned to dressing himself, putting such thoughts behind.
Now that both sets of memories have finished combining, he had to take full stock of his resources.
First, and most immediate, was his personal abilities.
He was a fully certified wizard.
That meant, if his memories of what magic was capable were right, that he was practically fully self sufficient.
There were spells that made it so most everyday chores were capable of being accomplished in mere moments. Food could be multiplied and there was even a spell that put food in stasis, making it so that even a sandwich could stay fresh for over a decade. Transfigurations can be made permanent with some effort, so clothes and basic necessities can simply be magic'd up.
In fact, now that he thought about things, Hadrian was forced to admit that only shelter was an indispensable expense for himself.
Everything else he had a spell for.
With grin, Hadrian went into his kitchen to prepare for himself some food.
Being that his basic ability to survive was guaranteed, he now pondered on how to prosper.
Almost immediately Hadrian was forced to accept the fact that he had to leave the MACUSA.
The American Wizarding Government, although somewhat more progressive than what was show of the British one in both the books and movies, was, in his opinion, a bad one.
The only progress allowed in the American Wizarding Society was the progress decided by the MACUSA Government.
If a Wizard, or Witch, wanted to invent a new spell, or enchantment, or potion, they had to ask for Government's approval.
And his local counterpart's studious nature made sure the current Hadrian knew that to work for the MACUSA was not something he would accept.
The number of contracts he would have to agree to was enormous.
Quite a few being, in fact, magical contracts, with quite severe consequences for anyone foolish enough to break them.
Sitting with a simple breakfast, Hadrian looked out the window into the quiet street of Levington Alley, Chicago's magic quarters.
Hadrian White's parents having passed away less then a year ago, he knew his lease on his place of residence was ending just this month.
His local counterpart's mourning depression had made it so that he had quite a few things to put to order now, having put things off until the last possible moments recently.
He would need, in the next few days, to look into how to move abroad, to sell anything that he did not need nor that he decided to keep, to see about his finances.
He also needed to decide what to do with his parent's shop.
The thought of White's Magical Emporium, forced Hadrian's mind to skip.
White's Magical Emporium being a magical pawnshop, there were many miscellaneous items with varied worth.
But it was the thought of the amount of books in the shop's backroom the made Hadrian forget the last few bites of food and race into the shop under his apartment.
Looking into the 7 shelves of books, many being rare books at that, made an exultant grin appear on Hadrian's lips.
When he had just woken up, the thought of using the Library of Heaven's Path briefly crossed his mind, but to get the best effect from his given Cheat, he would need quite a few books. All kinds of books. The more the better.
Although his family was magical, he was not in anyway a member of a rich pure-blood family having access to a family's library, so aside old school books, he he did not have many avenues of acquisition that morning.
The only way to have access to the amount of books he desired was to wait a few hours and go to the local bookstore.
It completely passed him by the fact that he had quite a few books on hand.
It was time for him to get a head start on his way to greatness.
Passing his hands on the spines on the books in front of him, Hadrian became aware of LoHP's presence on his soul. Feeling copies of the books manifest themselves at his will gave him a ticklish feeling.
Being able to sense his soul, on the other hand was exhilarating.
Five minutes later, Hadrian sat down on a nearby stool and entered the LoHP for the first time.
Library of Heaven's Path, November 3, 1981
Looking around him, Hadrian was stunned at how simple things looked, being able to see only simple wooden empty shelves.
It was a library.
It did not take long for him to understand.
It was a library.
There was no need for windows. For there was no outside to look at.
There were no signs. For he was instinctively aware of every part of this space and where it was in relation to his mental self. And he could simple will himself anywhere while here.
The where no chairs to read on. For he was the only person capable of being here, and he was simply a mental projection, he was simply incapable of becoming tired while here.
The only thing detracting from his awareness of endless shelves, was the knowledge that with a simple thought he could either leave or enter a different space, that Hadrian believed it was the 'Training Room' that his Goddess (Knowing about her, he decided to simply worship her with good humor, he was certain she would get a laugh out of it) told him about.
But first things first.
Hadrian moved over to the Unsorted shelf.
Seeing well over a hundred books for him to read, he mentally rallied himself, and took a random book to read.
30 hours later (3 hours Real World)
Putting down the last book on it's designated spot, Hadrian was forced to conclude that being in the Library was awesome.
He was simply incapable of becoming bored or mentally exhausted.
Even the driest of books was a breeze to read, even more so since his enhanced mind made speed reading super easy.
Having sorted all the books available to him for now, Hadrian was now aware that the Library's ability to detect flaws was amazing, and also frustrating.
The amount of spells that had actual fundamental flaws in on themselves was extremely small, due to the simple reason that spells were designed to be extremely limited in capacity.
This last book for example was a book on farming magic. Using the basic knowledge due to his previous education and everything he read just in this session on the Library led him to being able to cover quite a few of the flaws in the instruction on the spells, but the spells themselves, by being very specific on their intended purposes, cut down quite heavily on how much he could improve them.
With a sigh, Hadrian left the LoHP for the real world.
The bookstore has, he believed, opened it's doors to business.
November 8, 1981
After his trip to the local magical bookstore, where he spent 30 minutes simply passing his hands over the books and buying a simple cooking book so that his conscience would be assuaged, Hadrian had a moment of brilliance.
Magic was not the be all, end all of the word.
After going to a no-maj bookstore and the local college's library, where he spent over three hours simply wondering the place under a minor attention diverting spell, Hadrian returned to his apartment to knuckle down.
Now, five days later, and thousands of books sorted, Hadrian was forced to admit.
What the Wizarding world was capable of was amazing.
But it was also so little.
And it was stagnant.
And the reason why the magicals the world over could not truly advance anymore was twofold.
First, was the fact that everything was functioning on an analog scale.
Spells could only be as complex as a caster was capable of understanding them, giving everyday magic a kind of hard limit.
And although he got access to a few Occlumency books, he now knew that mind magics did not give any kind of improvement to the mind. It was a purely defensive magic.
Many of the more complex magic, he found, had also certain conditions to the caster's mind.
Only geniuses with natural eidetic memories were capable of casting things such as the spells needed for the creation of artifacts such as the Goblet of Fire or Time Turners.
The Wit Sharpening portion was created, specifically, to bridge this gap. And still falls short of it's intended function and the foreign magic of the potion could also interfere with the intended spellcasting.
Second, is the fact that there is no real assisting magic casting tools.
Wands, Staves and other such magic foci are simply not enough.
The currently use magic foci were the equivalent of a smith's tools. Simple and to the point, while also being limited to the magical's skills. It does not aid in any way in the casting of spells.
They, in fact, serve as capacitors to store extra magic during casting so the extra power is used to patch over any mistake on a magical's spellcasting, because most witches and wizards does not have full understanding of the spells they use, otherwise wandless magic would be a lot more common.
Hadrian was forced to admit that his first priority was that he would need to create either the equivalent of Nanoha's Devices or some kind of Mental Cultivation Technique.
Looking at the two Blank Books he had available at the moment (one was freebie, the other was because this was still his first week in this world), he knew that it would take years for him to achieve the necessary steps to revolutionize magic.
*Sigh* "Well, before i use either of you two, i think i will have to go a little farther afield on my book acquisitions"
Being in the early 80's, and the knowledge of computing needed to create a Device was not yet available, Hadrian could only put his hopes on a Mental Cultivation Technique.
Finding some stores with books on mental techniques was also hard. Memorization tricks were not yet well know nor widely published, so no books on the creation of a mind palace, even if purely mundane.
His focus on his next book run was now non mainstream knowledge.
Finding a store specializing on Eastern Medicine was his lucky find of the day.
Several meditation guides showed some promise to a initial technique being possible.
Being the early 80's, new age shops were his next target, even if he did not have much hope for what he could find within.
Going to the local teaching hospital also netted Hadrian some books on psychology,
psychiatry and neuroscience beyond general medical knowledge.
Now armed with a new batch of data to sift through, Hadrian returned to his apartment to once again hit the books.
November 9,1981
After sorting his new acquisitions the previous day, he decided that the Mental Cultivation Technique could wait until later, after he found a new place of residence, and a simple test of what the LoHP could do could be done this morning, so it was that his first Book would be Magic for Dummies: A Basic Guide to Spellcasting.
Feeling the book changing, becoming thicker and larger, Hadrian also felt a sensation of every book he sorted before being searched by something ethereal.
Holding onto his excitement, he opened the book to see what he could learn from it.
A magical person have many avenues of utilizing magic, but is also limited heavily when it comes to learning new spells.
The easiest way to learn a new spell is to see a spell with their own eyes from a distance of no more then 8 meters, where their own magical senses gives them the feeling of how the spell is constructed.
Once a magical person has that feeling, even if only a subconscious level, their own magic tries to emulate it.
What limits a person is that the people that they learn magic from are rarely masters of magic themselves, so the spells are patched up by the extra power utilized in the foci, making it so some trial and error must happen before success is achieved.
By studying the theory of spells, their subconscious also learns what the missing pieces are, and magic, being connected to a person as a whole, knows everything a person knows, so it learns what is missing from the conscious effort from the caster.
This leads to any spell a witch or wizard uses utilizing, by average, more then 20 times the minimum magical energy needed for each spell.
Hadrian, having read many publically avaliable books on magical theory, knew that much of what he was reading was know, even if only as supporting facts.
By connecting such facts, much of magical education could be made better by hiring better and more capable teachers, for he knew that many of his previous teachers on Ilvermony could not, in anyway, be considered Masters of their field.
By utilizing Masters, magical education could be accelerated quite a bit and the minimum capabilities of a graduate could be elevated by whole lot.
For a witch or wizard to achieve great things, the right teachers are a necessity.
Looking back on history, something made easy due to reading so many books, every great wizard/witch was an apprentice to another great wizard/witch.
But the book also went into many small tricks to enhance one's personal ability.
From bits of magical knowledge that act as universal 'patches' to spells once learned to visualization techniques to whole categories of spells.
One example was a visualization trick that would basically guarantee the successful casting of any fire spell of Journeyman level and below.
That's another thing, there being levels to spells, at least to this particular book.
This book, being pretty basic and much generalized, divided spells into 10 general levels, levels 1 to 3 being Basic spells, levels 4 to 6 being Journeyman spells, levels 7 to 9 being Master spells, and level 10 being Grand-master spells.
Basic spells being everyday magic.
Journeyman spells are where trade specific magic being found.
Master spells are where the necessary understanding of magic takes a sudden surge, such magic being not only difficult to use, but also rare due to the fact the needed knowledge to create such magic being difficult to accumulate to the general populace.
Grand-master spells being, beforehand, only theorized possible.
Only the fact that Hadrian knew that the LoHP could highlight the flaws on all knowledge found within it informed him that such magic was possible, even if this particular magic classification was somewhat arbitrary.
Moving himself to the Training Room, Hadrian then tested all his previous spells now that he had a new perspective to magic.
Almost immediately he could feel both a diminished energy cost and a lesser strain on concentration.
Spells that beforehand he had to fully focus on he now could cast with a wave of his wand without the enhancing of both incantation and wand movements.
Minor spell modifications were now possible, such as changing a single target spell to an area of effect one.
After a couple of hours, Hadrian's grin was affixed on his face.
His basic magical capabilities having been enhanced to a level that, disregarding the higher level spells, was equal to new Masters of their fields.
Leaving both the TR and the LoHP, Hadrian decided to celebrate this by making himself a somewhat extravagant breakfast.
It was only the arrival of the newspaper, which he had been ignoring the previous days, that alarmed him somewhat.
Because, in the funny pages, it mocked the British's trials and acquittals of 'upstanding pure-bloods' after their terrorist leader 'Dark Lord Voldemort' was blown up by baby Neville Longbottom, the so called 'Boy-Who-Lived'.
AN: As you can see, this is a Neville BWL story. The reasons for it shall be shown in the next couple of chapters. I also am taking some liberties to the HP magic system for my own (nefarious) plan.
So, be warned.
P a treon . com *slash* daofatherdarkimperial/div
