Harry Potter: The Planewalker

Chapter 64: Magic Talent



Christian focused, imagining the connection or link between himself and the Duel Disk. Once he sensed it, he began bewitching the Identifying Charm. He imagined he was a computer engineer coding. He told the disk a series of commands: after the card is placed in the designated location, identify the card and use the Hologram Charm to create the holograms.

This method has proven more effective than his mother's Way of Command, as well as primary and secondary enchantments. Once the process ended, Christian immediately tested it out. He gently placed the Dark Magician card and watched as the card illuminated for a second. Then, a perfect hologram of the Dark Magician materialized before him.

"Success," he said with a smile before trying the other cards, and everything was a success. The next step for Christian was allowing the holograms to receive commands, followed by how the Dueling Disk could keep track of points. There is no issue with the disk displaying a starting point, as that only requires a small charm. However, keeping track and knowing when to deduct 100 or 1000 points will be challenging.

Christian already had an idea for the first task. Professor McGonagall used Transfiguration to grant the enchanted chess pieces guarding the Philosopher's Stone sentience, and Christian will use this spell.

As he thought of seeing her immediately, he heard the elevator leading to the Undercroft and quickly put the dueling disk away. He found his comfortable chair and pretended to read.

"I had a feeling you would be here," said Hermione, with Harry and Ron walking behind them.

"Did you need something?"

"I just finished the book in wandless casting, and I'm about to try," explained Hermione.

"Oh, I recommend you start with the Lumos Spell."

"That's a good idea." Hermione immediately began to concentrate. She tried the first time but failed.

"I told you wandless magic was not easy," said Ron, but she ignored him and tried again, and on her third attempt, she succeeded. She smiled brightly while showing off to Ron and mocking him for not believing in her.

'As expected, her learning ability is better than mine,' thought Christian. Although it appeared she succeeded after the same number of attempts, Christian knew his situation was different. Hermione was used to relying on a wand, while he did not, but despite that, she still succeeded after three attempts, just like him.

Christian divided magic talent into three primary categories: learning ability, magic potency, and focus. Learning ability is how easily magic comes to someone or how easily they can learn spells. Hermione is the extreme in this category, as she succeeded in learning many spells by herself, only reading the school books and having no prior knowledge of the magic world.

Magic potency is the power of a spell. A spell used by a first-year will not have the same effect as a seventh-year spell, especially when encountering creatures with high magic resistance. Magic or spell potency can be trained through raising concentration/focus and accelerating the flow of magical energy in the body.

After observing him in the Duel Club, Christian discovers that Harry's talent seems to reach the extreme in this category.

Focus involves how fast a wizard can mobilize their magical energy, the difficulty of brewing emotions, imagination, or using intent for certain spells. This is a magical talent category that can be trained and improved, and Christian reached the Extreme in this category.

His talent is in the 95th percentile in the other two; he's almost as good as Hermione regarding learning, and his spell potency is innately not as good as Harry's, but he has surpassed the latter after more than two years of training. Meanwhile, Hermione's potency and focus are on the upper-middle end.

Harry's focus is also in the 90th percentile, hence why he could learn and use the corporeal Patronus Charm at thirteen, and his learning ability is also in the upper middle percentile. Unfortunately, he's not studious or disciplined enough to spend hours daily practicing.

As for Ron? His magical ability was above average, which is rare since all the Weasleys showed signs of being magically talented. However, Ron has his own talent, as he appears to possess a strategic mindset that was not developed in the books. Maybe the chess club will change this.

Other categories affect a wizard's magical ability, like curiosity, inquisitive mind, ingenious use of magic, quick reflexes, and many others, but those are the three main ones.

'I should remind her to work on her magic potency,' thought Christian. Despite his talent in this area not being on par with Harry's, the potency of his spells trumped him because of all the training he did. That's why, after making that graph about talents, Christian realized how lucky he was that his mother gave him a year's head up and instilled a strict sense of discipline in him for training.

He also realized that throughout history, many wizards might have the same level of talent as Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort, but they were not willing to put in the work or effort to achieve their level.

After seeing how easily Hermione learned wandless casting, the others tried but failed. Christian shook his head before heading to see Professor McGonagall. He learned from her a Transfiguration Spell that imitates Brain Waves, which can grant objects limited intelligence or consciousness. Then, he focused on integrating this new enchantment into the disk, which proved harder than anticipated.

Time passed, and a few things happened. Harry took the golden snitch in the Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff game in record time. Fate continued to play its game, and Neville beat up Crabbe and Goyle during that game. Harry heard Snape and Quirrell arguing and believed Snape was coercing the latter into stealing the stone.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Ten weeks," she replied. "That's not ages…"

Christian was distracted after hearing that only ten weeks were left before exams. His birthday was approaching, but he didn't care about it. His primary focus was on everything he achieved since January.

His comic, which was even more popular, released a few more volumes. The Dueling Disk was almost completed. The Dueling Monsters could now receive commands, and the hologram attacks looked super-realistic. After gaining low-level consciousness, the dueling disk also acted like a computer to facilitate a smooth game.

Christian eventually used the same spell that keeps records of the House Points at Hogwarts for the point system.

So, the disk's current state required much more work than anticipated and even more enchantments than he thought it would take to do everything he wanted. Finally, it reached an almost complete state, leaving the spiritual pressure of the Duel Monsters, which Christians plan to integrate. Although not required, he wanted to give wizards an experience as close to the comics as possible, thus his focus on hyper-realism.

Sadly, this is where his trouble originated. He knew a Dark Charm with a similar effect, albeit more focused on fear, but he did not want to use it as it could cause him trouble, especially with the media.

Christian could not find the correct spell, so they decided to invent a spell with this effect at Flitwick's suggestion. Specifically, Professor Flitwick and McGonagall would work together, and Christian could learn from the process. Christian will release the game without this effect if that plan does not pan out. Now, he can only wait.

Christian was now a Parseltongue, capable of communicating or commanding snakes. He has been experimenting on whether this language improved the power of charms or dark magic, and so far, only the Snake Summoning Charm (Serpensortia) had an effect. If used with Parseltongue, Christian discovered that he could summon hundreds of snakes together or a large python several meters long.

He has mastered the nonverbal Revelio and will soon do the same for the Summoning Charm. The Dark Lord taught him much about the dark arts and counter-curses.

The only downside to these past months was Snape. He was on his best behavior for a while, stopped bullying Neville, and answered Christian's questions as a good teacher should. However, Christian has noticed he has slowly reverted to some of his old patterns, which is worrying.

'It's about time I finish the translations in Odin's Eye,' thought Christian, excited and worried. On one hand, he's excited to unravel the mystery of that artifact and, hopefully, save his father. On the other hand, he also worries that he will fail and all his work will be for nothing, or another accident will happen to him, leaving his mother all alone. He knew she would collapse if something were to happen to him, as the guilt overwhelmed her.

"Christian, are you listening?"

"Huh, no."

"Hagrid invited us to his cabin. Apparently, he might be raising a dragon," said Hermione.

"Oh, that's illegal," said Christian, still distracted.

Later that day, the four went to Hagrid's hut. While the group was talking, his eyes were on the dragon egg.


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