14 Mindscape & Dungeon Creation

"This is just a theory of mine so I don't know how valid it is," said Harry. "The second phase of the training is absorbing those mana particles into our bodies. I believe that Ron who comes from a warding family allows him to absorb the mana particles at a faster rate than you Hermione who is a Muggle born."

"How do you figure?" asked Hermione.

"Genetics," said Harry.

"I don't understand," said Ron with a puzzled face.

"Since Ron comes from a wizarding family, he's been exposed to magic longer than you have been, Hermione," said Harry. "And since he has the blood of wizards flowing in his vein, I believe his body might react more positively in absorbing the magic that is present in the environment. However, that is by no means an indication that Muggle born wizards like you, Hermione, or a Half-Blood wizards like me is in any way inferior to Pure-Blood wizards line the Weasleys or the Malfoys. In fact, majority of the most talented witches and wizards have either been Muggle-Born or Half-Blood."

"Really?" asked Hermione.

"Of course," said Harry, smiling. "You're Muggle born and with one look one would have to be both blind and a fool not to see your talent. My mother was a Muggle born and anyone who had contact with her when she was alive can vouch for her talent. Then there are the Half-Blood wizards like me, Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore, and even Voldemort and look at how talented and powerful we are. Although I don't register as powerful as any of them right now, but one day I will be as powerful as them if not more."

"Don't say You-Know-Who's name!" hissed Ron.

"Oh get over yourself, red-head," snapped Harry.

"Wait, they are Half-Bloods?" asked Ron.

"Yeah, Snape's father was a Muggle, his mother a witch, the same with Voldemor," said Harry. "McGonagall's father was a wizard and her mother a Muggle. As for Dumbledore, he is like me where both of our mothers are Muggle born wizards. Although, you have to swear to me you will never reveal to them that I know this information about them otherwise they will truly blow me to dust. I'm not supposed to know this about them."

"But how do you even know, Harry?" asked Hermione.

"It's a bloody secret! Now swear to me!"

"I swear I will never reveal this to anyone!" both Ron and Hermione promised in unison.

"You can be quite scary, Harry, you know that?" said Hermione.

"Can you explain the second phase of the training to us?" asked Ron.

"Right, as I said the second phase involves directly absorbing the mana particles into our body consciously," said Harry. "As our bodies are not fully developed yet, we can only house so much magic. Our mana reserve strengthens and expands as we grow older. The magic in the air gets automatically absorbed into our body until it reaches full capacity. Through conscious absorption, our capacity for magic is filled faster. Our mana capacity increases in size the more we use magic. It's like body building. The more you pump weights, the bigger and stronger your muscles become.

I discovered this yesterday morning when I got tired from exercising, I used the mana inside my body to relieve me of my fatigue. Not only did my fatigue disappear but my mana reserves strengthened and increased, although by a very small amount. Also, with the strengthened mana reserves, the rate of mana particle absorption increased as well, whether subconsciously or consciously."

"I see, that is why you were exercising yesterday," said Hermione, deep in thought.

"Yes. Our body is a vessel to contain the magic we have. Imagine a plastic cup and a metal cup; which do you reckon is the stronger one?" asked Harry

"That's a no brainer, the metal one," said Ron.

"Exactly, and it's the metal one that will be hold a greater deal of pressure if you expand their size and pour more water into it," explained Harry. "The same concept applies to training our body to not only strengthen it, but also increase its capacity to hold magic at a faster rate."

"I see ... wait, you said you were exercising yesterday morning, right?" asked Hermione. "What time were you exercising?"

"I woke up at dawn and worked out all the way until breakfast time," replied Harry.

"At dawn?" groaned Ron. "So that's why your bed has been empty every morning ... wait ... you mean we'll have to wake up at dawn too?"

"Of course, how else are we going to train our bodies once the homework starts to pile up?" asked Harry. "Now let's go back and sleep. We need to wake up early tomorrow."

Once the trio reached their dorm rooms, Ron and Hermione fell asleep immediately. Harry meditated first before falling asleep too. He had decided to use the Time-Turner the next day. He had considered to bring Daphne to the Room of Requirement, however, in the end He decided against it as he practically knew nothing about her considering she was not a major character in the canon.

It had to be said that Dumbledore was very efficient in getting Harry a Time-Turner so quickly. But that worked out in Harry's benefit as he could start using it earlier than expected.

When Harry had fallen asleep, he found himself in a large open space that had grass sprouting everywhere. Harry looked around in confusion.

"Where am I?" thought Harry. "I'm sure I just went to sleep."

After looking around, Harry noticed a hut in the distance. He walked towards it and reached it shortly. He notice a man standing in front of the hut and the closer he got, the more familiar he seemed. His body trembled when he finally came face to face with the man.

"Harry, why are you not using the system?" asked the man.

"Dad ... what ...," said Harry in a trembling voice.

"Harry, I don't have time to explain everything, but you need to use the system to get stronger fast," said the man Harry called dad. "I don't know why your appearance has changed, but that's not important. They're coming, Harry. It won't take long before they arrive. You need to use the system."

"YOU STUPID MAN!" roared Harry. "You want me to use something I don't even know what it is?"

"... you're more like your mother than I realised," said the man with a smile. "Harry, the system is something I created so you could use it to speed up your training. Why would you not use it?"

"Dad, I want answers!" said Harry in a demanding tone.

"And you will get them, I promise," said the man. "But only after you are strong enough to come find me."

"I've had the system go offline," said Harry.

"What!" exclaimed the man. "You just got and already ordered it to go offline?"

"The system wasn't giving me any answers and I got pissed off," said Harry, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

"You're more like your mother than I thought," sighed the man. "Both of you hating to be kept in the dark. Let's see if I can get it to go online again."

The man placed his right hand over Harry's head and closed his eyes. Harry stared at his father's face and noticed a deep frown forming. A minute later, removed his hand and opened his eyes. "I don't know what you've done or said to the system, but it's in complete shut-down," said the man. "I've only managed to activate one of it's functions, Dungeon Creation, that allows you to gain fighting experience as well as get stronger. I've also noticed that the Inventory and Status functions are active. You can still use them but anything that was in the Inventory before the system's shutdown will be remain locked until the system is online again. Even though, the available functions are limited, it should still somewhat help."

"That's alright, but I've been meaning to ask, where am I?"

"Inside my mindscape. Now leave. Time is up."

"Wait, before I go, how strong do I have to be before I could see you again?"

"At least level one thousand and you will need to unlock the Dimension Travelling function of the system. Now leave," said the man, waving his hand.

Before Harry could say anything else, he found himself lying in his bed back in the Hogwarts dormitory. He sat up and looked around before heavily sighing. "That stupid father of mine, at least now I know he's still alive. I'm so mentally exhausted."

The next morning, Harry was woken up at dawn by Ron, greatly surprising him. He never expected the red-head to wake up before him. They met up with Hermione at the Common Room a little later and they made their way to the grounds. The three of them did a few laps and Harry taught them a few of his Kung Fu moves. The rest of the day slowly passed and they finally finished their classes. The trio had dinner and after giving Ron and Hermione instructions on their training, Harry was approached by Daphne in the Great Hall to remind him of their study session.

After sending off Ron and Hermione, Harry went to the library with Daphne. The pair decided to study Transfiguration together and each began to quietly study. They would occasionally quizz each other to find out how much they had learnt. Harry was astonished at Daphne's intelligence which was seemed to be on par Hermione's if not greater.Unknowingly, he was enjoying her company and they would even drop a few jokes amidst their studying. Time trickled away and before they knew it. They would not have noticed had it not been for Madam Pince to remind them the library would close in half an hour.

"Daphne, you go ahead," said Harry "There's a few books I need to borrow before I head to Gryffindor Common Room."

"Sure," said Daphne with a smile. "I really enjoyed our study session. Shall we have another one soon?"

"I really enjoyed it too, let's have one on Saturday," said Harry, packing away his stuff.

After watching Daphne walk away, Harry went over to Madam Pince who was sitting on her desk. "Madam Pince, there are a few books I need to borrow from the Restricted Section."

Madam Pince shot a serious look at Harry and before she could say anything, he held out Dumbledore's permission slip in front of her. "I have the Headmaster's permission."

She took the slip and checked it for over a full minute before handing it back to him. "Fine. Go and only take the books you have the permission for."

"Thank you, Madam Pince," said Harry.

Harry went to the Restricted Section and searched for the books he needed. The first book that he needed was the one Snape recommended to him; 'Advanced Guide to Dark Spells.' It took him a few minutes to find it. Then he went through the titles Flitwick had given him, 'A Beginner's Guide to the Dark Arts & Dark Spells', 'Studying & Understanding the Darkest Minds' and 'Advanced Practical Charms Used in Battles'.

Altogether, the four books took Harry almost an entire half hour to find them. If Flitwick and Snape hadn't mentioned in their notes how to find the original copies of the books, Harry would never have known about them. He checked them out and went out.

Harry went out and took some food from the kitchen before making his way to the Room of Requirement. Once he entered, noticed Ron jumping in joy.

"It seems like you succeeded, Ron," said Harry with a smile.

"He's been jumping around like an idiot for the last half an hour," said Hermione with a sour face. "Really annoying."

"Harry, you're amazing!" exclaimed Ron. "How did you even come up with this?"

"It wasn't intentional and I'm not even sure how I did it," replied Harry. "I'll explain the second phase to you guys tomorrow morning. For now, get out and go to bed. I need to start the third part of my training."

"Can't we stay and watch?" asked Ron.

"Unless you want me to accidentally injure you, no. Besides, you both look tired. You need to wake up early tomorrow."

Having kicked both Ron and Hermione out of the Room of Requirement and making sure they were gone, Harry finally cleared his mind and thought of the conversation He had with his father. He had so many questions with no answers and this ticked him off.

After taking a deep breath, he pushed his questions aside and decided to focus on the here and now. After what his father had told him, he decided to use the part of the system that was active. He knew that the system would come back online if he willed it, but he still didn't want to use it. Harry knew that it may sound stupid, but there was a part of him that couldn't accept the full system being online.

Harry didn't know what that feeling was, but he trusted it more than the system, even if the system was made by his father.

"Status," said Harry.

In the blink of an eye, a notification page appeared before him.

[Name: Harry Potter|Age: 11

Level: 3|EXP: (50/3000)

Health Point: 100|Mana Point: 500

Vitality: 10|Strength: 6

Agility: 13|Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 60|Dexterity: 18

Abilities: Sharingan, Mana Sense, Regeneration (x2 Normal)

Skills: Basic Charms, Basic Transfiguration, Basic Potions]

"What on earth! I've got such a shitty strength!" thought Harry. "This body sure is weak. I would have thought my intelligence and wisdom would have been higher. Did I become dumb when my soul got fused with the other Harry? Let's have a look at Inventory."

He called out the Inventory and another notification page showed up. This one was considerably smaller than the Status page and only had three lines written on.

[Inventory:

- Heaven's Path Divine Art Fighter 1-dan Forging Breath Manual x1 (Locked)

- System Credit - x5000 (Locked)]

"Now then, how do I place items in this inventory," thought Harry.

He rubbed his chin for a few minutes, thinking, until he suddenly had an idea. He held a quill in his hand and imagined the quill being placed in the inventory. He felt a faint mana fluctuation. When he opened his eyes, he noticed a third line had appeared on the notification that read "Quill x1".

"Good," thought Harry, nodding his head. "Now let's try taking it out."

Harry followed the same process as placing the quill into the inventory, however, in reverse. The quill returned into his hand.

"Good, I now know how to use the Status and Inventory," muttered Harry, putting the quill away. "Let's see what the Dungeon Creation does. Dungeon Creation!"

Harry waited for a few seconds and nothing happened. He then remembered the slight mana fluctuation he had felt when using the inventory and circulated the mana in his body and tried again. However, once again, nothing happened.

"Maybe the mana needs a release point?" thought Harry.

Harry focused his mana into his hand and raised it above and said "Dungeon Creation."