The clash with Slytherin, that "information war" whispered about by the rest of the school, was to Alan nothing more than an amusing bit of extracurricular practice.
A test of his past-life knowledge of social psychology—a rather dull experiment.
His true battlefield, his real arena, was always on deeper, more hidden dimensions.
At the very depths of his Mind Palace, the hall built from pure will stretched to infinity. Countless fragments of knowledge on ancient runes were no longer lifeless symbols but streams of light, billions of them, surging, colliding, and recombining under the drive of his consciousness.
A central bottleneck gradually surfaced.
Runes, in essence, were nothing more than an instruction set.
A highly condensed carrier of intent.
For such "code" to descend from the realm of ideas into reality, for "intent" to transform into actual magic, it required a medium—something that could stably carry the concept and serve as a physical interface to transform it into a magical effect.
His first idea had been to make a complex magical creature model for his sister, Lilia—an alchemical raven that could move on its own.
But that concept, now marked in his mind, was nothing but "flashy and hollow."
What he intended to create was something more essential, more pure.
A rune of protection.
It was no moving toy, but an eternal concept—a rule that could truly shield Lilia.
The ambition of this project far exceeded the realm of ordinary alchemy. It demanded a core of extraordinary energy. Common magical ingredients could never hope to bear an "intent" as high-level and abstract as protection.
His mind sifted through the ocean of materials knowledge, and at last, one name was locked in place.
Luminous Moss.
A humble, inconspicuous plant—but one that carried strange, vital energy.
One weekend afternoon, Alan's figure appeared at Hagrid's hut.
"Luminous moss?"
Hagrid's massive body looked about to overflow from his overburdened armchair. He peered at Alan curiously, his voice booming.
"Oh, that stuff! Loads of it in the Forbidden Forest. At night it lights up in patches, right pretty, that. What d'you want it for, Alan? Decoration for your dormitory?"
"No, Hagrid. I need it for an experiment."
Alan's phrasing had been precisely simplified.
"I want to try… planting a 'thought' into a piece of wood."
"Plant a thought… in wood?"
Hagrid blinked his beetle-black eyes, his massive face radiating pure confusion.
"You could understand it this way," Alan quickly constructed a metaphor Hagrid could grasp.
"You plant a seed in soil, and it grows roots, sprouts, and develops in line with its 'idea.' What I want is for a piece of wood to have an idea of its own."
Alan's tone was calm, his logic crystalline.
"For example: Protect my master.
And the luminous moss will serve as the soil and nourishment to let that thought take root in the wood and draw strength."
Hagrid's face twisted into a half-understanding expression. But his fondness and trust for Alan outweighed any lack of comprehension of such advanced theory.
He agreed without hesitation.
The giant led Alan to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The air was thick with damp earth and humus. Squatting beneath a thick oak, Hagrid's fan-sized hands moved with surprising delicacy, carefully scraping away a layer of softly glowing green moss from the roots.
Its light was not harsh—gentle, rhythmic, pulsing with life itself.
The moss was sealed into a tiny glass jar, like a handful of living stardust imprisoned within.
With the energy core secured, Alan immediately returned to the castle. He shut out all outside interference and once again plunged his consciousness into the endless halls of his Mind Palace.
"Protection."
This abstract concept was placed upon the analysis platform within his mind palace, where his mental power ceaselessly dismantled and reconstructed it.
"What is the essence of protection?"
He asked himself within his mind, his voice as cold and precise as a surgeon's scalpel.
The first logic module: Recognition.
It must establish a precise judgment model, able to distinguish between harmless physical contact and attacks imbued with malice. It must recognize what is a potential danger, and what has already become an active threat.
The second logic module: Trigger.
Once the judgment model outputs a "danger" signal, there must be an energy mobilization mechanism instantly activated. The supply of energy cannot tolerate even the slightest delay.
The third logic module: Execution.
The activated energy must then be funneled along a preset pathway, efficiently transforming into the final magical effect. Should it become a barrier? A deflection? Or something even more complex, such as causal interference?
Each step was gradually transformed into a set of symbolic magical codes.
He began running simulated compilations within his mind palace.
Hundreds of rune arrays were constructed.
Some arrays contained fundamental conflicts within their energy models. The instant two opposing rune instructions came into contact, they triggered a violent energy explosion in the simulation, blowing the entire array into a heap of meaningless symbolic fragments.
Some arrays contained fatal flaws in their logical pathways. The energy would spin idly within them, unable to reach the execution end, until the core energy was exhausted and the whole system fell into silence.
The process was tedious, long, and consumed an enormous amount of mental energy.
But he was immersed in it, his spirit locked in a state of exhilarating concentration.
Each failure, each simulated "explosion," was not a defeat, but a set of invaluable error data.
Through these repeated attempts, his understanding of alchemy — and indeed of the very foundations of the magical world — underwent a brand-new transformation.
He had always believed that alchemy was about turning stone to gold, altering the shape of matter.
Now he realized — that was the lowest level of alchemy, the work of craftsmen.
True alchemy was not about changing matter.
It was about granting matter a concept.
It was about imposing meaning upon matter.
A simple stone, by definition, is merely "a stone."
But when an alchemist fuses his will and knowledge into it, forcibly engraving the concept of indestructible upon it, that stone ceases to be ordinary. Its definition has been rewritten.
A bottle of ordinary clear water, by definition, is just "water."
But when imbued with the meaning of healing, it becomes holy water.
So this was the true essence of magic.
It was never about mysterious talent or sudden inspiration.
It was the act of using will and knowledge to rewrite the very definitions of reality!
The moment this thought took shape, all the chaotic, conflicting, and disordered rune-data streams within Alan's mind palace suddenly froze.
In the next instant, they were no longer frantic stardust. They fell into place with unprecedented order, coalescing into a grand, rigorous star-map that shone with the brilliance of pure logic.
He felt his mind had never been so clear.
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