Chapter 78 - Secret of becoming an Arch-mage

After my first outing at the English section in the academy, I came again and again to look at books on other topics. I skipped most of the books in the section though since they were not needed to me at the moment. I concentrated on general books, books on magical theory and also books on the magical fields that I was already master level in to learn what I had missed in my studies in Hogwarts. The books here were much better than the ones I had used for my studies.

After learning the two languages, Hindi and Sanskrit amazingly in just two weeks time despite not wholly concentrating on it, I started scouring the library and looking through books on Ancient runes, Warding, Curse Breaking, Healing, DADA and Duelling. I did not have time to look into other subjects.

I did find the reason for the weird looking magic cores of everyone around me. I had asked Elder Nainesh about it one day when I saw him in the academy. He was delighted to answer my question. He said that the reason that I felt the cores of everyone in the academy was weird was due to them having revolving liquid magic cores. He said that just before attaining magical maturity everyone undergoes a magical ritual that helps transform their magical core into a revolving liquid magic core instead of a motionless liquid magic core. He explained that there was a reason I did not know about this and told me to look the reason up in the library books.

I looked it and found many things about it and also the reason why this method was practiced. The information about this was not available in the English section for some reason. So I had to look for information in other languages. The Hindi and Sanskrit sections had many books on the topic.

The advantage of revolving magical core was that it allowed more control over magic. As you core size increases, it becomes difficult to draw the small amount of magic that is required for everyday household spells and people have to practice magical control to make it possible. Revolving core solves this problem and makes magic easier to control. Since magic is always moving and not stationary inside the core, drawing magic for spells is much more easier. The difficulty still increases as strength increases but not by too much and it requires only less magical control exercises to solve the problem in doing small spells. This was one reason why revolving magic core is preferred.

There exists another reason that makes having revolving magic core very important. When ones magic increases from 999 to 1000 that is one goes from grand mage and steps into arch mage stage, the magic core transforms into a solid spherical core from a liquid spherical core. This transformation is only possible when one has a revolving liquid magic core. The transformation fails and the core stagnates if the person has a non revolving liquid core. So if one wants to become an arch mage he has to make sure that during his magical maturity, his magic core is transformed correctly.

This knowledge has been lost in Europe.It is due to this that there are no arch mages currently among European wizards. One of the Hindi book on this topic explained the reasons for this. There were two main reasons for this loss of knowledge.

The main cause of this was the actions of the European wizards themselves. The book said that in old Europe this knowledge about the liquid revolving core was a closely guarded secret. The secret could be shared only among arch mages and it was not even shared to the disciples. This withholding of important information controlled who all could become arch mages in Europe. Young wizards had to to join the factions controlled by arch mages or major magical families if they wanted to become an arch mage. Europe had too many arch mages at that time and the major families and arch mages wanted to control this number.

The arch mages used the core transformation ritual on their apprentices on their magical maturity without giving them a reason for it. The apprentices could not question their masters on the reason for the ritual. Only when they became arch mages in the future was the secret shared with them.

This secrecy backfired when all arch mages died out during the fight between the light and dark side and even the last arch mage could not find a way to correct this. He died knowing that there might not be another arch mage in Europe ever again.

The other countries also had a hand in the knowledge becoming lost. I read in the History of magical Europe that foreign wizards dealt a crippling blow to the strength of wizards in Europe. This was the way they did it.

They were quite unhappy with the fact that Europe almost exposed their magical world which could have caused the extinction of magical kind. They were jealous that Europe had more ley lines than them which meant that they had better chances of becoming strong wizards. They were angered by the arrogant wizards boasting about the fact that they were stronger than them. They also saw that the war between the light and dark side in Europe was never going to end and wanted to make sure than large scale battles which risked the exposure of magical world did not happen again in Europe.

After learning all this I was conflicted. I was not happy with the decision the foreigners made but I could understand their reasoning. Arch mages were strong on a wholly different level. The difference between strength of 999 and strength of 1000 was vast. An Arch mage could cause mass destruction with their spells which risked the exposure of magic more during that time. Also I could understand that European wizards were not kind people. If not for the wars in Europe, they most probably would have used the difference in strength to invade other countries and try to rule them just like they had done in the muggle side.

But it did not matter in the end since I knew that no one was able to reach the barrier to becoming an arch mage in all these years anyway. I can be sure that Grindelwald did not reach that bottleneck since if he had then with the help of the Elder wand he would be as strong as an arch mage and would have won the war easily.

The only one I know who had reached the barrier in so many centuries is Voldemort. I know this because after looking through his memories I saw that near the end of the Second wizarding war, Voldemort's strength had stagnated. He tried many rituals to strengthen himself but he could not and had become frustrated due to it. The frustration was the main reason for him making mistakes, believing a prophecy and his defeat in the end at the hands of Harry Potter.

This new information about the magical core explained a small sentence in the contract that I had signed at the time of joining the academy. The sentence said I was not allowed to say anything about the secret of becoming arch mages to anyone who did not know in anyway. The contract made it impossible for me to allow any of my friends a chance to become arch mages.

I was happy that they atleast gave me a chance to gain this knowledge. They could have hidden this from me if they wanted but they did not do that. I was also happy that I made my India visit before my magical maturity otherwise I would not have been able to become an arch mage or a grand arch mage in the future. I could always send my children here if I wanted them to become an arch mage in the future.

For now I did not have any reason to try to release this information. My friends Damien and Elena did not have the potential to become an arch mage. This I knew for sure. There was no way I was going to tell Harry or anyone with high potential near my age group about this for now. I did not want to empower people who may become my enemies in the future.

What I had done for Harry till now and what I would do for him in his fourth enough was itself too much. If I was not there he would not have reached even a third of his potential or lived long enough to see his grandchildren.

I scoured through all the books about the magic core and only when I was satisfied with all the information I had gained and was sure that I could perform the ritual did I move on to other topics of study.