Welcome, welcome, everyone!

After a full week of our lovely site working like shit, we are finally back. To be honest it was a welcome break from everything and it gave me some time to do more planning and research for my stories.

As you all expect this chapter we will follow with the conversation from the last chapter and then... well you will find out when you read it.

I saw a few questions asked through reviews and I think that I answered all of them. Please check your PMs. If I missed your question, just ask it again or send me a PM. I always try to answer them.

To people who ask about the changes to canon and appearance of things from MCU. The first year of Hogwarts will change some things that you will see soon, but until year two there won't be much that happens with MCU. Think of this year as an introduction.

That being said I hope you all will enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 9. Progress

"Those infinity stones, what are they exactly?" Salazar asked after I finished recounting what happened in the wizarding world when his portrait was hidden behind the shelf.

I sighed and relaxed back in my chair, "Infinity Stones are six immensely powerful objects. Each of them is tied to a different aspect of the universe. Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind, and Time. From what I remember they were created by Cosmic Entities. What those Entities are I don't know. Never researched that far."

I probably would have if I fucking knew that I would be put in the MCU. It was really frustrating, but it couldn't be important if I didn't remember it.

"So you want to gather those stones?" the ancient wizard asked skeptically.

I shrugged lightly, "I don't know about gathering them all, but if I could get my hands on even one of those stones, then maybe I could somehow use it. There is only one important problem with those objects," at my pause, Slytherin raised an eyebrow motioning me to continue, "Remember what I said just a moment ago? Those stones represent an aspect of the universe. No mere human can control them. If I were even to touch one of those stones now, I would probably die. Yes, I have magic, but I doubt it would help that much. Of course, there is also the possibility of creating some sort of artifact that would be able to channel the power of the stones, but I doubt that you have the skills required to do that as I certainly don't have any."

Salazar looked thoughtful for a moment before he finally spoke, "So before we can even think of getting the Stones, we need to make you powerful enough to use them... I can think of a few methods, but I would like to hear your ideas first."

"My ideas eh?" I said quietly, mostly to myself, "As I told you, this universe posses a lot of superpowered individuals. Some of them were born this way, but others were created with science. Gamma radiation that created Hulk, Extremis virus, or Super Soldier Serum. All of those things would take me one step closer to the power I need... There are also the Inhumans that live between humans or in their safe-heaven. Unfortunately, I have no clue how I could go about stealing their power or even gaining it by myself. Terrigenesis doesn't just work on anyone, you need to have a gene for it."

Of course, I knew a few more methods that could help me, but I really didn't want to describe all of them now. Besides those were ideas that I would use if my primary plans didn't work.

"So you only thought about muggle ways to attain what you want?" Slytherin asked slightly annoyed.

I snorted in response, "Of course not. I am well aware that I don't possess the required abilities to use these things. Science was never my forte. Besides, I am a wizard now and I know that magic isn't only about spells. Rituals, potions, runes, and more. I am sure that I will find ways to make myself stronger with those."

Salazar nodded in acceptance, "Good. For a moment I feared that you would throw your magic away like an idiot. I might have lived centuries ago, but from my own experience, I know that there is almost nothing that magic can't do... During my life, I loved discovering new rituals and finding out what else they could do. Trust me when I say this if you have the required ingredients then a well-prepared ritual can accomplish almost anything."

I breathed a sigh of relief, "That's good to know. For a moment I thought that I would really need to learn all of this science shit or kidnap someone who would do everything for me."

Not that I was against those things, but I had magic so I shouldn't need to use science for all of my goals. Besides if I kidnapped some important scientists I was pretty sure that I would have some people after me.

The ancient wizard laughed loudly, "If you think that creating a completely new ritual is easy, then you will be sorely disappointed. Runes, potions, the knowledge of ingredients, each of those subjects is needed if you want to make a ritual that won't kill you. Even with my knowledge I won't be able to help you with everything, after all, I am only a portrait, so you will have a lot to learn. Now get the book from the highest shelf on your right. It is quite thick."

I quickly stood up and began to search for the book. A few times I took the wrong one, but finally, I found the book he told me about. It definitely was old, but still well preserved.

I dropped it on the table, opened it on the first page, and raised my eyebrow incredulously, "It is written in Latin," I said dryly.

"Yes, it is. Will it be a problem?" the ancient wizard asked challengingly.

Of course, it is! I know that I would probably end up learning a new language soon, but still... Fucking portrait.

"No," I replied in defeat. At least Latin would help me with both learning new spells and reading more books in this room. I only hoped that Slytherin wouldn't tell me to learn another language after I learned this one.

"This book will teach you everything you need to know about rituals in the beginning. It was written by me and then updated by my descendants so it should be mostly up to date. At the end of the tome, you will find one very important ritual that you NEED to perform," Salazar began explaining when I started to skim through the book in hopes of finding anything that would make sense to me. I was unsuccessful...

"Why?" I asked simply.

"It is a ritual that I created after I examined some of the people that performed many rituals on their body and found out that they can have various negative effects. My ritual will prepare your entire being to accept any changes made by the future rituals you will perform. Of course, I doubt that we will get rid of every possible negative outcome, but it will at least greatly reduce them. You don't need to worry, it is perfectly safe and ingredients for it are very easy to find. Now tell me, what is the date?"

I raised an eyebrow at the sudden question, "The beginning of November. Why?"

The portrait smiled widely in response, "Great. You have time to the winter solstice to learn everything that's in the book and prepare the ritual. Any questions?"

My mouth opened in shock, "What?! You expect me to learn a new language and everything that's in the book in a month and a half? Are you mad?"

The portrait shrugged casually, making me even more frustrated, "It either that or we wait the whole year for another solstice, the ritual won't work without it. Your choice."

"Fucking great," I murmured, "Alright, I will try. Still, the book is quite thick so I doubt I will succeed. Besides if I want to have any chance to make it in time, then I will need to stop my other studies."

And wasn't that the sad truth.

The ancient wizard waved me off, "As long as you try, you will succeed. You told me that you already mastered first-year material so stoping your normal studies for a while won't hurt you."

He of course was right. I had no problems with mastering any new topics and it only took me a bit more time to learn how to use some of the spells that could be used wandlessly and silently. I could sacrifice those few weeks to learn an art that would help me in the long run.

"I will do that," I finally replied after a long moment of silence, "Now if you could tell me if there are any other exits from the Chamber. I don't fancy going back through the pipe. It would be pretty tiring and frustrating."

Even now I was cursing my stupidity of not taking a broom with me. Of course, I could go back with the help of some spells, but as I said, it would be tiring.

Thankfully Slytherin nodded, "There are two more. One is located in the chamber where my basilisk sleeps and it leads to the Forest near Hogwarts. The second one is in the storage room and should take you to the first floor. All of the exits are hard to discover so you don't need to fear anyone seeing you. Now go, it has been a few hours and people might notice that you are gone."

With that said I quickly followed the portrait's instruction and soon I was back in the castle of the first floor. The sun was already rising and even though I had my concealment spells activated I wanted to get back to my dorms as soon as I could.

One thing was certain, it would be a long day without any sleep...

With nothing too important happening in the castle, the weeks again began to went by quicker than usual. While most of the first years were worried about the end of the term exams, I was trying to accomplish the task given to me by Salazar.

It was hard learning the new language, but thankfully my deadline and occlumency made me work faster. Also, Hogwart's library had some good books that helped with learning the language a lot.

I knew that I was still bad with using Latin and there was a lot that I still needed to learn, but at least after a few weeks, I could translate the ritual book to an acceptable degree. Then I had only two weeks left to master what was inside the book and prepare the ritual.

Yeah, it definitely wasn't easy, but with Salazar's help, who explained everything that I couldn't understand, I was mostly done with the preparations. Well, the ancient wizard also showed me a spell that could create an illusion over the ritual book so no one would ask me what I was reading. A very useful piece of magic, I was quite sure that without it I wouldn't be able to accomplish my goal.

Finally tomorrow, the winter break would begin and two days later I would perform my first ritual. I really hoped that it would work.

I really wanted to go back to the mundane world, but I didn't want to waste my opportunity and I still didn't possess the ability to apparate. It was definitely something that I needed to learn as fast as I could.

After all, it was only now that I realized how closed off from the rest of the world I was in Hogwart. I had no methods of finding out what was going on around the world and it really troubled me. I needed to know if something important happened.

That unfortunately created problem that I didn't know how to deal with yet. I knew that wizards found some ways to make the smallest pieces of electronic work in magical areas, but it wasn't enough for me. Even if I learned how to apparate, I wouldn't be able to use this ability as I still had the trace on me.

Salazar thought that he would have an idea of how to deal with the trace problem after we completed the ritual, but he also told me that it wouldn't work for teleportation. So, for now, I was pretty much out of ideas on how to deal with it, and unfortunately, I didn't have enough time nowadays to think of a solution.

Still, my talk about the trace with Slytherin finally showed how exactly wizards were able to use magic.

According to Salazar, one of the other funders, Helga Hufflepuff, was also interested in what made wizards and witches special. What was different about them that we could perform magical feats that normal humans could only dream of.

It took the female funder a few decades to discover the secret to magic and even then she wasn't sure about her theory.

I already knew that magic was both in my body and around me. What I didn't know was how those two worked together. Apparently there was no such thing as a magical core and instead, our whole bodies or souls - Hufflepuff wasn't sure which one was it - were capable of storing the magic that flowed around the world.

So even though witches and wizards didn't produce their own magic, we were still able to store it and then manipulate it with our wills. This at least explained why some people were more powerful than others and why you got tired after using too much magic. After all, not everyone could store the same amount of magic and absorb it at the same frequency as different people.

Of course, there were types of magical arts that manipulated the magic of the world, but even then a small amount of internal magic was used. It was very confusing.

There was a lot more to the subject that Helga discovered, but even Sazalar didn't memorize all of it. Apparently the ancient wizard decided that it wasn't too important if the wizarding world lived without such knowledge for years and survived.

I didn't know if I agreed with him, but he was the more experienced wizard here, so for now I would go along with it. Slytherin promised me that even though rituals used both internal and external magic, I didn't need perfect knowledge of how magic worked to use them.

Oh well, it was not like I could argue with him on this. Hell, I didn't know if the ancient wizard wasn't making the whole story about Hufflepuff up. It wouldn't really surprise me, the old wizard had a very particular sense of humor...

I sighed and finally banished those thoughts from my mind. They were only taking me away from my studying, I needed to figure out a few more details of the ritual. The ingredients were ready - apparently, it wasn't that hard to steal them from other students or Snape's cabinet - and now I only needed to complete a few more runes.

The ritual book only had a small introduction to runes, so I was pretty much working without any knowledge on the subject. At least Salazar knew that there was no chance for me to master something so hard and began helping.

At least I would have time to study them after I was done with this shit...

"Logan, do you mind if I sit down here?" a familiar voice asked and I cursed myself for not paying attention to my surroundings. I was definitely ranting too much in my mind lately, but I blamed it on the low amounts of sleep I was getting to work on the ritual.

I finally looked up from my book and saw the small Harry Potter standing there with a book in his hands.

"Suit yourself," I said politely motioning to the empty seat.

The boy nodded in thanks and quickly sat down. I was a bit surprised that he was alone, but I didn't really care what the Golden Trio did with their lives as long as it wouldn't mess my plans.

Still, I was a bit curious why he even was in the library, "So what are you reading there? The term is pretty much over and not to be rude, but I didn't take you for someone who would study if he didn't need to."

Harry froze for a second and I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the reaction. Was the Golden Trio already messing with something they shouldn't?

"It is nothing really," the boy tried to play it off, "I was just curious about something I read on Chocolate Frog Card."

Wait. The months went by so quickly that I almost forgot about the Philosopher's stone. Huh... and the kids were already investigating it. Well, let's find out what they already knew.

"Oh? And what is it? As you can see I spend a lot of time in the library so I might know something," I said casually, not even looking up from my book.

Only after a long moment of silence I looked at Harry and saw that he was very hesitant to answer. Finally, he probably realized that it would be weird not answer to such a simple question.

"Dumbledore's card said something about him working with Nicolas Flamel and I was wondering what is so important about him."

So they were only beginning their investigation. That was good as I really didn't remember the exact timeline from the first book. It had been many years since I read it and most of the fanfictions just skimmed through those events.

I drummed my finger on the table, humming quietly, "Flamel, Flamel. I know that I read somewhere about him, but all that I can remember about him is the fact that he is an alchemist. Nothing else, sorry. Ask some teachers, they probably know more and it will save you the time of looking through tones of books."

With that said, I gathered my things and after a quick goodbye, I walked out of the library. I needed to speak with Salazar about a few things.

"Are you ready?" Salazar's portrait asked me as I stood in the ritual room of the Chamber of Secrets. He told me to move his frame so he could inspect my preparations and spot any mistakes. It definitely was a good idea as I made a few of them.

"As ready as I will ever be," I responded as I looked at my work.

From what Salazar told me, this chamber was created by him to be used for multiple rituals. The floor in the center was made of a material that absorbed magic and could be easily repaired after the user finished inscribing runes on the floor. Also, the room was protected by more runes so no magic would leave this room. That way no one would know what happened here.

Every rune was connected and after I would prepare the ingredients, they would be filled with magic.

"Then get to it, there's no time to waste. And remember don't fight the magic or it will hurt more than normal," Salazar instructed for the last time as I walked towards the middle of the room where a small crucible, filled with boiling water, waited for me.

With a final sigh, I crouched next to the crucible. After taking a small silver knife in my hand, I made a small cut on one of my fingers and let the blood drip into the water.

"Ten drops of blood to open your body."

It was the only ingredient that didn't require me to steal from other people. The next one was a bit harder to get, but I found it in an abandoned potion kit.

"The hair of the Sphinx will free your mind."

Thankfully from what I found, their hair wasn't rare so no one would miss it. It was the next ingredient that almost stopped my progress.

"And finally Tears of the Phoenix will cleanse your being."

Yeah... It took me two weeks of planning to steal a few drops of the very magical ingredient. Thankfully the amount needed was pretty small so I hoped it would take some time for Snape to notice it missing.

With the ingredients done I stirred the mixed elixir a few times before pouring it into the inscribed runes. It took a moment as I needed to be very careful and not miss even a drop of the potion.

After my task was done, I moved the unneeded items to the side and finally settled myself before two larger runes in the center of the room.

They would activate the ritual after I poured magic into them as Salazar instructed me a few days ago. It would be my next step to obtaining my goal. A goal so far away.

Smiling lightly at the thought I put my hand on the runes and activated the runic circle.

And with this single action, Pain was the only thing I knew...

Here we go.

More discoveries in this chapter and we get our first ritual.

I tried to explain how magic works in my story a bit more, but as it was an explanation created by Salazar, you will never know how true it is (Heh). Anyway, my idea might seem similar to the magical core, and well... what can I say, it is just how it will work in my story. They still use the magic that flows through the universe, but they can store it in their bodies. I need it to be internal energy that wizards and witches can use so the fusion with Sorcerers from MCU would make more sense.

I really wish that J. K. Rowling told us more about magic, but well. I work with what I have and create the rest. If you don't like it then it is not my problem.

With this subject done let's move onto something else.

The next chapter will be probably the last of the First-year and will come out not sooner than the next weekend. I have other stories that need some love. Sorry.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you think.

Have a good day/night.