• Dumbledore's Personal Lab, Headmaster's Tower, Hogwarts •
• October 1st, 8:00 pm •
[ Albus Dumbledore ]
"Hmm, mmm~~" I hummed a tune from a song I couldn't clearly remember. All I recalled was the melody and that one lyric—'I am only human after all.' Still, that didn't stop me from humming it as I floated languidly around my lab.
I wasn't really wasting time, as most would assume if they saw me. In fact, I was doing the opposite.
"..."
Okay, that was silly—but I find myself growing more prone to silliness these days. I think it stems from the constant stream of positive feelings flowing into me from the world—the universe? Reality?—constantly, and without interruption.
If I had to describe it, I'd say it feels like having an eternally happy puppy, always waiting to play. I hadn't noticed this immediately after my divine metamorphosis; it took a few hours to discern the new senses that came with divinity. But now that I can feel it, I can't undo it.
I can block almost all my divine senses when I want, but this worldly feedback just keeps coming, making me silly and whimsical.
"Sigh, being a god is such a hassle," I complained with an eye roll, hanging upside down. My body twisted, shifting into my child form as I crossed my legs and rested my chin between my thumb and index finger. It must have looked ridiculous, but I felt like it.
Yet, no matter how ridiculous my actions, I was worried. Gaining divine energy was changing me, and the change was very noticeable. I wasn't worried about whether I'd still be me or some other existential crisis from my past life—no. I knew I would remain myself, no matter how much I changed; my soul wasn't being altered in the slightest.
Instead, it was existence as a whole that was gaining more weight, clarity, and definition—and that was doing things to me.
"It's not like I can do anything about it," I shrugged, realizing there was no point in worrying. I had been hasty in choosing divinity, and now I had to take responsibility.
It comes with the territory, you know. Gods may sometimes choose to look human, but they are not. They are more like manifestations of concepts that exist in the world. And now I am one—a fledgling demigod, sure, but divine nonetheless.
I can tell there hasn't been a god in this world before. I somehow understand that it's still a—how to describe it?—a virgin world. Yes, that fits. I was the first being to gain divinity here. This, of course, had its pros and cons. If the danger of the merger weren't present, I could have taken my time to become this world's only god. But I didn't have that luxury.
Which is why I had to resort to creating the Faith-Siphoning System. It will help ward off otherworldly gods for a time, while also allowing me to feed on and use the world's faith to bridge and acquire all kinds of divine domains—something that will be extremely helpful in the future.
'But that's still in the future,' I reminded myself. 'I still have to wait for my divine avatars to completely set up the Faith-Siphoning Net across the world first.'
Being a divine, with the world bending over backwards to please you, was awesome. I solved the clone problem without even trying. I simply conceptualized a solid, illusionary clone of myself and used a burst of divine energy to manifest it. The best part was that my magic reactor replenished the spent divinity so fast I thought I was hallucinating. I created a few dozen and sent them out to finish setting up the Net. Now, I could relax.
"Life is such a beautiful thing," I muttered, my voice childlike in this form. "I just need to live, and my divine energy grows. Spend it, and it replenishes before I even feel the side effects… I am so overpowered, and I love it."
'No, stop thinking that. I'm not strong enough to destroy pantheons by myself yet, so I am still weak.' I shook my head, refusing to let my ego inflate. I needed to do much more to be truly overpowered. Best not to get ahead of myself.
I took a deep breath and settled down. That was enough fooling around for today.
With that done, I readjusted my position—floating normally again, reverting to my usual forty-year-old appearance—and focused on the various-sized Archive screens floating around me, monitoring events in real time.
I zoomed in on the one watching Slaviel, checking his progress, and nodded. Good. He was already gathering all kinds of monsters, killing the strong and volatile ones. That was good; I had plans for those monsters.
I turned my attention to the screen on my left. It drew closer, zooming in on what Moody had been doing since I left him. I scrolled through the data, reviewing the feedback, and smiled. Good. He'd pulled himself together.
I'd been surprised to learn the reason for his breakdown, but I should have expected it. I wasn't yet proficient enough to avoid such incidents—plus, it all led exactly where I wanted him to be. It might have been manipulative, sending him out to attract attention, letting him get a reality check among other things, but I believed it all worked out for the best.
Now, he would return to his past self—a more competent, less paranoid, more prepared self—ready for what I needed him to do. Plus, he would be working on techniques that would allow virtually every wizard who practiced them to advance further.
"I love it when plans come together," I smiled conspiratorially, dismissing the screen and zooming in on another.
This one showed the general Hogwarts chat, where something interesting seemed to be happening.
—Hey, you lot, have you seen the ranking list? I was going through it again to see if I went up a number or two after training yesterday and today, right? Turns out, I actually went down two hundred ranks. How is that possible, huh?
—Which ranking list are you using? There are a lot of them. There's the school one, the country, regional, continental, world… Some are for students only…
—Oh, I did not know that. Let me check again.
—Don't bother. We're at the bottom of most of them. Even the one that compares our statistics with Japan's—the majority of us are at the bottom.
—For real? Let me check…
—He's right. I just checked, and we only have about ten students in the upper ranks. The rest of us are at the bottom.
—Can you lot stop saying 'bottom'? I don't like it.
—What do you want us to say? That's the truth.
—Still don't like it.
—Ugh, grow up. You don't want to be called 'bottom'? Then maybe train to reach the top.
I smiled, watching the students argue about the ranking system. With a thought, I willed a blessing of motivation and a blessing of high recovery upon Hogwarts as a whole. It would be helpful for them to see tangible gains from their training, especially early on. It would reinforce the idea that wizards and witches grow more powerful through study and practice.
I didn't stay on the chat for long—most students weren't active anyway—so I dismissed the screen. The next one zoomed in, enlarging as it came forward.
This one brought more interesting news. I clicked on it, opening the live feed function.
Inside a brightly lit room that appeared to be a debriefing or meeting room of some sort, three people in suits sat around a U-shaped table. The perspective I was watching from belonged to a man standing in the middle.
"So, what does the analysis department say?" asked one of the men seated on the left side of the table.
"They said they can't decipher anything other than the fact that Dumbledore somehow succeeded in creating a fully functioning, computer-like system that connects to the world directly through their minds, Sir," answered a young voice.
This was a guy named Alan, a special operative in the Wizard Response Unit—U.S., of course. I knew his name; I could know everything about him if I wanted, but the information wasn't important right now.
"Did they say anything else about its functions? Can it be used to spy on us? Is it safe to use? Can it be replicated and weaponized?" asked the man on the right, his voice deep and rough.
"They don't know, Sir," Alan answered. "All they told me after twenty-four hours of testing and observation is that there don't seem to be any side effects or outside interference. They've requested permission to connect themselves so they can try to learn how to replicate it."
"So we're back to square one, then?" sighed the oldest of them, seated in the middle. "Okay, here's what we'll do. All low and medium-rank agents are permitted to connect. Higher-ranking agents and officials are not to touch it until we can be sure it can't be used to spy on us or leak national secrets."
"Are you sure that's wise, Sir? Those MACUSA officials won't abide by this. They'll see it as us trying to interfere with their part of the government."
"Yeah, you know we only have about three-fifths of the current MACUSA in agreement with us. If we try to pass—"
He didn't get to finish his sentence before the old man raised his voice. "What are you two talking about? Why would we care if MACUSA agrees with us? I'm talking about our special organizations and governing body. I couldn't care less what happens with the rest of them."
"But, Sir…"
I didn't listen to the rest, dismissing the screen again. It was the same old tale: they wanted to know how it worked so they could create their own and use it however they wished. Heh. As if it were that easy.
I combed through numerous screens afterward, sifting through data and sometimes just watching live feeds of people arguing over how to gain exclusive access to their part of the system. I laughed slightly, watching them scramble. These were the people in charge of the magical governments, the same people who had tried to delay me from setting up the Archive in their schools just a week and some days ago. Now, they were trying a new approach.
I saw how German officials were all connected and using the Archive while still doing their best to stop the public from getting access—though their efforts were growing more difficult by the day, especially as news of its functions spread.
"They can try to suppress it all they want," I shrugged. "They'll still fail. You can't stop people from trying to take shortcuts to power."
I shook my head and sighed in exasperation. Why couldn't they just shut up and follow my lead for once? I really needed Gellert to start making his move quickly, so he could scare them straight into my arms—though I wasn't sure about the entrenched opposition in some countries. Those were the same people, or the descendants of wizards and witches, who had switched to Gellert's camp just before I went out to duel him. So yeah, they were mostly sour and filled with grievances because of that.
"Heheheh… can't wait to see what happens." I was amused and slightly hopeful for the future. Of course, Gellert would still need another two days before he was ready. It was taking time for him to truly heal from all the damage his body had endured, as well as the lingering side effects of the broken Blood Oath.
I could have healed him instantly, but that would have alerted him. It was better to keep my interference to a minimum in this case. I couldn't expect everyone to be gullible enough to fall for half-baked explanations. They needed to experience things and rationalize them themselves; that way, they would be less inclined to doubt my words in the future.
"Anyway, enough of that," I muttered, shaking my head. There was no point in repeating the same thing over and over. I just had to let things run their course. It was why I hadn't followed up with the Flamels yet, either. Sometimes, people just needed to do their own things without me butting in.
That didn't mean I wouldn't keep an eye on them. I needed them for my plans, but that was for later.
With my daily snooping out of the way, I began to focus on the present. Looking down at the wooden table I had been floating above, I saw vials and measuring cups, crucibles and a cauldron scattered about, as well as a small leather bag spilling seeds onto the half-scrawled magical circles drawn in the center of the table.
I dragged my hand down my face as I floated down. This experiment had been a failure.
I was trying to create a tree seed tied to my divinity—something that would allow me to grow a tree bearing fruits imbued with concepts. Like Devil Fruits, but without the side effects, and tied to me so that their power would return to me upon the user's death.
The idea came to me when I noticed I was receiving a steady stream of faith through the Archive since I woke up. I thought: Why not create something native to my world, tied to me, empowering myself with the weight of legends and myths while also elevating the conceptual weight of our world?
Easy, right?
No. It was not.
I already had half of my mind working on theorizing how to create chakra, cursed energy, nen, and other energies ever since I ascended. I hadn't originally planned to develop half of these energy systems, but now I could tell that if I didn't, we would not survive the merger. Our world was far younger and far less powerful compared to the others, so I needed to load it with different data and information to make up for the conceptual weight needed to come out on top.
Worlds weren't just planets and universes. They were information, energy, life, death, concepts, and so many other things, meshed together in an absolutely breathtaking way. And if I don't ensure the information particles of my world are the heaviest of all three, I might as well consider my mission a failure.
I couldn't wait until I had my theories on chakra up to standard so I could create it. It would be any day now, seeing as I only needed to figure out the ratio, quality, and quantity needed for the first clash of spiritual and physical energies. Then I would be golden. I could create so many clones to do my work for me.
Divine clones weren't suitable for such a thing, since I had to divide my consciousness between them for them to function. Thank God for my newly upgraded existence; otherwise, I would have been in a coma.
"Damn you, Albus Dumbledore!" I heard Minerva's voice from upstairs, her tone full of frustration.
I'd forgotten for a second that she was there—or that I was hiding from her and all that paperwork and preparation.
"..."
Okay, time to go up and face the music. It was better than hiding down here, trying to figure out why my experiment failed while my mind was working at one-tenth of its original capacity.
I floated up and began heading toward my office. This seemed like a good time to tell Minerva I was now a god—sort of.
"You know, cursing me isn't going to help you finish the paperwork any quicker," I said, more to announce my presence than to bite the hand that was feeding me—or in this case helping me.
"Morgana's tits!" Minerva jumped in fright, her chair sliding back and hitting the wall behind her. "Albus! Where have you been?!" she asked, turning around wide-eyed as she saw me floating a few feet away.
"Oh, well, that's a long story. It starts with me as a young wizard going out into the wide world and ends with me as a fledgling god," I smiled and said, doing a full horizontal three-sixty.
"If you're not going to answer, then just say so," Minerva scoffed, dragging the chair back and sitting down.
Now that I really looked at her, she had been a beauty when she was younger. She reminded me of that actress from my past life—what was her name? Eva Green, I think. Still a little foggy up there.
"And when, my dear friend, have I ever lied to you?" I asked as I floated down and sat on a chair I willed up from the ground.
She gave me a deadpan look before huffing and taking one of the papers piled on my desk to read.
"You know that doesn't work on me, right?" I asked, wanting to clarify that the silent treatment she was going for wouldn't work.
She snorted at me—a very unladylike sound—but I just chuckled. It was nice to see she was feeling as young as she looked.
"So, where have you been?" she asked. "You should have been back two days ago."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," I nodded, genuinely apologetic. "I had a hiccup with the plan and kind of lost consciousness for a while in the Arabian Desert."
She whipped her face toward me so fast I winced in sympathy for her neck. She looked me up and down searchingly before asking, "What happened?"
"Well, you know how I said I had things to research before I went out and asked you to hold down the fort?"
"Yes, I've been cursing you all week for that."
"Well, I was looking for traces of gods and to see if there were any places, other than Japan, where natural magic was mutating, etc…" I explained, earning a befuddled look from her. "Anyway, I was successful in my search and kind of gathered these traces, but then I had a crazy idea: what would happen if I merged all these different divine energies together?"
"So you found something interesting and said goodbye to your common sense. The usual, then," she nodded, gesturing for me to continue.
I blinked at her a few times before deciding it wasn't worth arguing about. "As I was saying, I found a place in the desert—just to make sure that if the results were volatile, they wouldn't harm any nearby unsuspecting people."
"Of course, that faulty common sense of yours works backwards," she muttered, staring at me intensely.
"So, there I was, messing around with divine energy traces, and after a while, I figured out how to combine them. It was a very unstable process with a very high margin of error, but I succeeded nonetheless. And then, on impulse, I absorbed that divine energy, almost died, but somehow pulled through. And now I'm a god," I revealed, smiling widely.
I don't know what I was expecting, but the deadpan, flat stare I received wasn't it. Really, she gave me the mother of all deadpan expressions.
"What?" I asked, suddenly feeling like something was wrong. "Here, see this if you don't believe me." I conjured a small ball of divine energy in my right palm, making her frown as she took her wand from her sleeve and began casting diagnostic spells on it.
I was hurt by the skepticism, but I'd allow it for now. She'd earned it. I was sure she felt how foreign and heavy the energy was when I conjured it, but it was nice to see her trying to figure it out.
"Albus! What is this?"
"A divine energy ball?" I replied, slightly bewildered.
She scrunched her face as she looked at me. "I know what you said, but this feels so foreign, and the readings just bounce right off. It's like there's nothing there."
"Well, what do you expect? Divine energy is of a higher order than our magic—or, to be specific, higher than your current magic," I explained, but that didn't seem to help.
"Ugh, you're going to drive me insane," she threw her arms in the air and leaned back in the chair, her face still scrunched in a frown. "So, you're a god now?" she asked, sounding amused for someone making such an expression.
"Yeah, kind of," I nodded in affirmation.
"Well, alright then," she shrugged.
Okay, what was it today? Bewilder Dumbledore Day? Why were her reactions so off-script?
"Just like that?"
"Well, most of magical Britain already thinks you're a god, so it's about time you became one," she replied, her eyes glinting with amusement.
"Just like that? No questions? No asking about what else I found out? What happened? Nothing?"
"Albus," she said, her tone steady and firm, "would you tell me what I need to know even if I didn't ask?"
"Of course," I replied instantly.
"There's your answer," she smiled as she stood up.
"Wait, wait, where are you going?"
"Oh, I'm leaving. I have a ton of work that kept piling up because of you."
"Hey, wait a second." I stood in her way, a head taller than her. "You can't leave me with all of this. Let's sit down, talk for a bit. Tell me what happened while I was away."
"Heh, good one," she scoffed, pushing me out of the way. "We'll talk after you finish going through all of that. Whenever that is." She pointed at the piles of papers, letters, and different documents on and around my desk.
"You're so cruel, Minerva," I slumped down into the now-vacant chair as she walked out of my office, laughing at my suffering.
"I'll get you back for this," I muttered, adjusting my seat closer to my desk as I heard the office door close.
"This is going to be a long day, isn't it?" I asked, but no one replied. Not even the portraits.
X
(Extra Scene)
[Nicolas Flamel]
Nicolas found himself absolutely focused on reading the theories and concepts of instant transmutation, alchemical creations, and alterations. Such wonderful ideas. Wrong, incomplete, and fantastical theories, but all so wonderful nonetheless.
It had been so long since he felt this fire—the inspiration and ideas bouncing inside his skull as he tried to conceptualize these imaginings and bring them into reality.
His eyes darted across the screens of the Archive as he watched his own knowledge being compiled into books. Things he had thought but couldn't put into words were now sitting right there in front of him in the form of books, and he had to say—it was wonderful. Albus might have been onto something here.
He turned his head and saw his wife sitting across from him on a black-and-white couch he had created for her because she wanted to sit on something so soft she felt like she was sitting on air. He still couldn't believe he'd managed to pull that one off.
"What are you reading, Perenelle?" he asked, curious why she was in such a focused state.
"Hmm," his wife hummed, looking at him. "I'm going through the ideas of enchantment magic. There are such novel concepts in here. It makes me wonder just how Albus thought of this," she said with a smile.
"Well, the same way he thought of and created this Archive thing," Nicholas shrugged. "Though I have to give him credit here. He has some wonderful ideas."
"Hmmm, I agree," she nodded. "I was thinking of doing that ascension thing he talked about and trying to use that state to see if I could create this enchantment magic."
"Yeah, me too," Nicholas agreed. "Though I'll be trying to see if I can bring more than one of these ideas into reality. They sound fun."
"They do, don't they?" she hummed. "It's been a long time since I felt this excited about researching magic. It makes me feel nostalgic."
"I know what you mean."
X_
Support me on p@treon/hunter20