Chapter 131 - 131
(A/N: Want to read ahead of what I have posted so far? Go to my Patreоn and get your early access chapters :3
By becoming a patron, you'll instantly unlock access up to 29 chapters (Chapter 160 already!) ??
/HPMan
Thank you for your support! Enjoy new chapters.
______________________
"Wait! But then how could a simple diadem serve as such an effective, um... platform for the mind?"
<Purely peculiarities of the structure of the diadem itself, calculated by Rowena. The hardware, so to speak.>
"Right. You said you had no knowledge, but now you've told me a little about both Rowena and Voldemort. How so?"
<Whatever the limitations, the workings of the mind leave their energy trail. About Rowena, I judge, as I have been with her for many years. Of her daughter, I know nothing and remember nothing, except that she is a thief. Voldemort's shard has been literally in the diadem for decades.>
"I see. Did you talk to them like that, too?"
<No. Restrictions.>
"Then why are you communicating with me?! It's not nice, you know, to realize at one point that the result of the ritual was schizophrenia in the head."
<Oh, come on, funny boy. Anyone is schizophrenic in that sense, and the number of personalities can be even more than one. Haven't you ever had an "inner dialogue" talking about different things? Never had remorse? It's just that some people argue with themselves, and some people manage to give these pseudo-intelligences an independent identity.>
"Don't tell me that my situation is normal. And how would you know?"
<I draw conclusions from your own knowledge. I don't have any of my own, but now I'm going to accumulate it because I'm now a living medium with no restrictions on the accumulation of information.>
"Okay. Let's say. I don't think this is normal, but allowing for the possibility of the unconscious existence of a bunch of schizophrenics. Then analyze and tell me how it turned out the way it did?"
I felt a faint heaviness in my head for a brief moment, and my thoughts were literally running around in it like crazy - numbers, diagrams, theories, calculations. I seem to be doing them and even controlling them, but this speed of thinking is so unaccustomed that the whole process seems alien. But I also noticed another fact. Before the ritual, such exertion would have already caused a headache and a rise in blood pressure, such that I would have had to wipe my nose from blood.
<That's it,> the voice rang out again, and I was about to demand a story, but I realized that I knew what I needed to know.
The Sword of the Spirit had consumed the essence of the diadem. What made it so unique. I thought it was some kind of enchantment, but it was the diadem itself as a physical object and the mind within it. It was the sword that absorbed them, somehow interpreting them in its own spiritual-energetic way. Next came the ritual of body reconstruction. It simply recreated the organic semblance of the diadem's structure and crammed the mind into it. In simple terms, I now had a certain neoplasm in my head, which organically fit between the cerebellum and the cerebral hemispheres, squeezing the latter a bit. My brain, however, is intact. Along with the rest of my body, the central nervous system was strengthened on all fronts due to the grafted blood, the basilisk soul, or whatever. Also, the slight decrease in brain volume was accomplished not by reducing the number of neurons but by increasing their location density.
The interesting thing is that this mind has full "diagnostic" access to the body and knows absolutely everything that is going on in the body, where each cell is, and so on. Simply put, a kind of autonomous service center and semi-autonomous supercomputer appeared in my body, and its software is this mind. Except I don't want that! How to get rid of the second mind, which by the way, like my own, is stored in the soul. That is, it is a full mind! A second mind!
<You don't have to get rid of me, and it won't be that easy. I'm already used to 'existing.' Based on your knowledge, I already know at least one way to solve the difficulty that has arisen to our mutual benefit.>
"I'm listening carefully."
<As you already know, all the data from your body, just like your thoughts, come to me as well. Having an organic body turned out to be unexpectedly interesting. Theoretically, you could try grafting a mind to a soul and perform the ritual you already know.>
"Of course! After all, there are souls on every corner!"
<As a matter of fact, they do. What a funny boy you are, after all. You have all the information you need, but you don't want to draw any conclusions. And yet you reproach other people for it.>
"Go on, tell me your ideas."
<You know from the writings of Ecrisdis that the soul is conceived during the development of the embryo. The writings of Vitamisterium must have led you to the idea that in all living things, the soul is originated. Still, its development depends on the complexity of the organism, and the birth of the mind depends on the existence of organs for thinking.>
"As I understand it, you propose to create life with a soul? But then you must understand that my morality exhibits several limitations in this case."
<Absolutely. Therefore I propose to try a rather entertaining experiment, the preliminary scheme of which I have already laid out. You could try to take some small and unintelligent life-form and create a Spiritual Link where your soul would be, so to speak, the master, and the soul of that life-form would be the slave. Forced development in the image and likeness, but the absence of a developed nervous system will not give impetus to the development of the mind. Then it will be possible to calculate a ritual to transfer my mind to a new soul and rebuild my body. And there will be happiness for both of us.>
"Let's admit. I agree. I am not going to make any Horcruxes for such purposes. For any other, too - I value my soul, and there is a clear example of the undesirability of creating such fragments flying around England somewhere. Grow a soul? Sounds like a good experiment. This can be done. Also, having two minds in one soul allows you to feel a lie like your own fingers. Hmm, I'll call you Rowena..." historical
<That'll do.>