-- Clara POV —
In the cultivation world nothing is absolute. There always exist exceptions to the generally believed rules.
To the uninformed, ascension seems like the wrong word, but it was just a fancy word for stepping into the rank of an adept. I was already ready to do exactly that for a time, after I had learned most existing mortal languages, but I wanted to wait, so I did not end up with a negative aspect like mortal languages.
But I need to start from the very beginning. Ascension, as it is commonly called, is the improvement of your very being, the body, mind and soul, to the first tier and the adept stage. In the far past it was rumored to require harmony between those three elements, but through a million year long study, it was found, that it requires something far more esoteric. Something previously thought to only matter in future stages.
It was revealed, that an aspect is the fuse that allows ones self to transcend mortal limits and ascend to the first stage. The ember of an aspect to be exact. The subconscious enlightenment, that you can use this ember, you have forged with your own effort, to start this metamorphosis. Aspects in themselves are an important part of cultivation, which stumps millions of people, bottlenecking their cultivation at some of the higher realms, as at that point they becomes an additional centerpiece to your cultivation.
This first ember of an aspect is currently known as origin aspect. While it is not required to advance this origin aspect as a centerpiece, it does have certain positive effects.
You can ascend the first tier with multiple aspects or just acquire more at a later time, though their benefits will normally not be as good as the origin aspect, as only one ember of an aspect can be used to ascend to the first tier.
Generally it is believed, that any aspect will grow and change with time, measured in centuries, so the sooner you get them the better. You would hope so.
There were caveats to hastily formed or a large amount of aspects.
Aspects inertly rely on understanding. And depending on your understanding you can form an aspect. My goal is an aspect of languages, being the first one I formed. But if my understanding of that aspect is, that I already know most and believe that there are no magical languages, I will not get an aspect of language, but an aspect of mortal language or similar.
And a large amount of aspects can hinder your future cultivation.
Aspects where also influenced by the state of mind at their creation, bringing both negative and positive changes.
That brings us to the rankings of aspects. They are not absolute mind you, but there are a few guidelines, which were found to be true over the years, as you yourself would know the type and name of your aspects after you formed it.
The shorter and more concise the better.
Any word, which is not the original meaning like language in my case, is a type of restriction. They can in seldom cases have only positive effects, but they were in a minority of a minority of a minority. Mostly they have only negative and a few sparse positive effects.
For example: Butchering knife is a aspect centered around knives, but with the singular goal of butchering. Human slaughtering knife would be an aspect centered knifes, with the goals of slaughtering humans. Slaughtering has slight differences to killing and so forth.
Mortal in my case means, that the aspect only concerns non magical languages, as per my understanding and definition. Which means, that your own understanding defines the aspects power.
I use mortal to differentiate between magical being and non magical being, so for all purposes, german is a mortal language. But it can be used to cast spells, which makes it magical. The moment I understand that, the aspect no longer works for german.
Through tedious training and discipline, I could also change my understanding and meaning of mortal. From a form to differentiation to a form of killable, forgettable, that nothing exists forever. That means it now applies to any language, which could be forgotten, which has another huge amount of problems following it. Does mana, the cosmos, the universe etc. forget in any way? The moment I realize that the answer to that is no, my whole aspect would be useless, until I change my understanding of mortal again. And so forth.
Through this one can naturally change a negative effect to a positive one, but changing your understanding of something cannot be forced and thus normally needs a very very long time, with unpredictable results.
Here the books further differentiate between a prefix and an affix at the end. A prefix depends on your own understanding, like explained before and an affix depends on your will and believe. They do not change or hinder the original meaning. They just enhance it in a way, which is related to the appendix. An aspect named languages of death could, for example, allow you to speak with the dead, extract their knowledge about languages or similar. It is never fixed, but it is always a net positiv.
Another unofficial and frowned upon ranking is complexity. That an aspect of english is weaker than an aspect of languages.
First, if that were true, it is exactly the other way around, like someone said: „Jack of all trades, master of none." Second, even if the name of the aspect is identical, it could have wholly different results depending on the understanding of the wielder, which is normally not identical to someone else.
Back to changing an aspect. It is generally believed to only be possible to change your understanding of prefixes, not to delete them. You will normally not be able to remove the mortal from mortal languages, after the ember is formed. Affixes on the other hand are, not easier, but more prone to change as will and believe are not static.
You could get another aspect like languages, but that will lead to different problems down the line and is normally incredibly hard.
Aspect is also only the hypernym. Its first form is an ember, which can be nursed into a flare, that in turn into an intent. There were more stages I was not privy to yet though, but for most mastering an aspect up to intent is a lifetime goal.
Apart from that, it was confirmed that there is an aspect of aspects aspect…
Normally, forming an ember of an aspect happens subconsciously, at least for the first one. Before the first tier, occlumency can hinder that. This can either stop your ascension from happening, see Dumbledore and Grindelwald, or you can control your ascension, which is what I did, so that I could get a better aspect and I have been holding it back for a while to refine my understanding more. I could wait longer, but I am impatient and my gut tells me it will work out fine.
So, on the 09.11.1993 I took the plunge. The ascension was neither grand nor long, but after I had urged the creation of an ember of my aspect for languages, it just came and went, only radiating a slightly calm aura outwards.
I instantly knew, that I had succeeded. An ember of languages successfully formed, the last of my nervousness dissipating, the adrenaline rush keeping me awake for the whole night.
Another hour later, there was another calming wave, which alerted me to Luna, who was silently meditating on her bed at the other end of our room. I wanted to rush over and observe, but I forced myself to stay still. No sound, no movement, no magic. Her ascension took longer, still only fifteen minutes and as soon as she opened her eyes, I barely brought out: „Congratulations", before Luna tackled me in a hug, both of use smiling from ear to ear.
-- Lagern Ollivander POV —
Hogwarts had changed. The wards were not fully repaired, but they were stronger. It came as a surprise, as previously they were in utter disrepair. Before I could ponder more about that, another man appeared next to me, wearing a purple robe: „Oh, to whom do I owe the pleasure of meeting you here?", I joked, before sidestepping a playful spell which carved a furrow into the woods behind me, before I promptly reversed it back to normal, reviving the creatures which were annihilated just a moment before. "Now, now, there are children behind these wards who want to sleep", Dumbledore said, stepping out of the shadows of the gate. „I take it, that you are not here to see me?", Dumbledore asked: „Rueful indeed, we have so much to catch up on", he joked. Immediately after, he got serious: „To whom do I speak and why grace us with your presence?" He turned to the purple robed man. That man glanced at Hogwarts, probably to gauge if he should even honor the man before him with his time: „Meyers, priest from the church of myths. Here to see one Luna Lovegood due to her ascension." He stated, waiting for Dumbledore to acknowledge him in any way, who turned to me: „And why are you here?", he asked with a raised eyebrow: „Ascension of Clara Ollivander. I presume that you will insist of even more stringent vows than last time?" I threw into the field, hoping Dumbledore would get the clue. He did not disappoint: „Yes, a vow to abstain from harming inhabitants of this castle in any way and", he raised his other eyebrow while looking at Meyers: „A clause expressly forbidding kidnapping should be enough". He smiled from ear to ear. „You are playing a dangerous game, puppy!", Meyers exclaimed, which was answered by Dumbledore: „That just confirmed my good sense of character", Dumbledore downright laughing at this point. I took the initiative to propose a good vow: „I swear, that while visiting this time, I will neither harm, kidnapp or in any other way affect any inhabitant of this castle, except in self defense and that I will protect them from any such attempts from Meyer to the best of my abilities. So I say, so mote it be. Lumos. Nox.", I said, hearing Meyers teeth grating next to me: „And while Meyers might be arrogant and irritable, he is in no way a bad person Dumbledore, though I like to irritate him and would still advise to insist on that vow." He did and after a few more seconds, Meyers relented. Meyers even took the initiative to make his vow a bit more stringent, though the protection part was missing.
Dumbledore started walking toward the castle and said over his back: „I hardly think that the students dorm is a good meeting place. How about a meeting in my office? I will inform them", which was followed by a corporal patronus, imbued with the needed message. „It is quite a coincidence, that both of them live in the same room, do you not think so head Ollivander?", he stated, ignoring the fuming Meyers next to me.
-- Clara POV —
We were still hugging each other as a silvery phoenix flew through the wall, telling us about two persons, who would like to meet us in the headmasters office. Luna looked perplexed, so I explained: „There are a multitude of ways to detect ascensions. There is always at least one person to introduce you to this new world. A guide and first contact, though their helpfulness largely depends on the person and their current mood. One of those two will be the acting head of the Ollivanders, as Hogwarts is currently under his jurisdiction and even if not, the Ollivanders are notourious to guide their families members, ignoring rules and regulations. Not that there is much to explain, but it is, was and will be tradition I guess.", I paused, before continuing shortly after: „The other person was probably alerted due to your aspect, as some organizations only recruit specific types of aspects, though those are the very elite. Let us change, it would not fit to come before those man in our nightgowns." I joked, before promptly changing. „Shall we?", I asked, offering my left hand, which Luna accepted with a giggle, both of us skipping towards the headmasters room, still affected by the ascensions effects.
Shortly before reaching the statue, the headmasters offices gatekeeper, I cautioned: „Do not give promises or agreements lightly. They are more binding than you would think and even the less binding ones are held in high regard. Me, as well as Lagern Ollivander will gladly advise you, though that geezer might need a bit of persuasion."
„I heard that, young lady!", Lagerns stern but joking voice echoed through the antechamber, the door to Dumbledores office slowly opening to show us three persons. The odd one out was, for once, not Dumbledore, as next to Lagern sat a man in a purple robe, clearly not human. He looked the part, but had eight white eyes, together with intricate tribal markings across all visible and probably invisible body parts.
I nearly lost my composure, as I heard a faint: „Cool!", right next to me, Luna blurting out her thoughts. Lagern just chuckled lightly, coming straight to the point directly after, disrupting Meyers attempt to control the conversation: „Now, congratulations to your ascension. The one next to me is called Meyers", more teeth gnashing: „whose presence makes this much more complicated. You will not need to answer this question, but what is your exact aspect Luna? I can already deduce, that it is either myths, mysticism or mystery, as the church of myths, Meyers organization, is known to be able to locate origin aspects of those types to recruit. Another question is, what you know about the new world which is now open to you?" He asked, skipping myself entirely, though I would not have this any other way.
„Hmm, my origin aspect is mystery, the other one secrets. Nothing much. I think some rare creatures mentioned it. And apparently master of the mind arts are common.", Luna answered, dreamingly staring down Meyers, who had apparently probed her mind. He would not get uncomfortable through that, but it is a funny notion.
„Quite right. The ascension alone improves occlumency by a huge amount, some speculating that even the talent might be elevated by a bit. For most over the adept stage, their age alone will help in fortifying their minds, making the offensive mind arts mostly useless. I should warn you though, that even probing another's mind is as frowned upon as here", he said, throwing Meyers a condescending look, before it switched over to Luna and Dumbledore shot me an angry look: „I did not teach her that, but maybe I should, so anyone can practice safely on people who will not notice it yet..", I protested, just getting multiple exasperated looks in return, together with a dreamy: „Silly".
„Back to the topic on hand", Lagern intervened: „Through your ascension, you now have access to the wider world. Another world. It once was a mirrored version of this earth, spacially layered over the original, this, earth. Its function is the protection of this world, which has now metamorphosed into something akin too a core, but I will not bore you with those details. This mirrored world is thousands of times bigger than the core, which means that there are naturally multiple factions. Millions in fact. You do not need to concern yourself with politics yet, as adepts are usually excluded from most of it.
The Ollivanders are one such faction, as well as the church of myths, which is Meyers allegiance. I will not bore you with any details about the Ollivanders, but as Meyer is trying to recruit you, I will shine a bit of light on it.
The church of myths is an elite organization, compromised from only three types of origin aspects. Myths, mysticism and mystery. They currently consist of 73 core members and approximately 6000 other members. This may sound small and it is, but factions are ranked by power, the church of myths securely in the top 100, with stable alliances to at least 13 others in that range and a lot more weaker ones, with no current enemies.
They are a good choice to pick, if you want to join a faction, especially if they are trying to recruit you. The only caveat would be the stringent requirements and contracts involved. But when I see Meyers damn near salivating over you, I am sure we can get you a very good deal, maybe even an apprenticeship." Lagern smiled slyly, Meyers just sighing at that point. „It just so happens, that one of their core members graced us with their presence. But you will have more than enough time to decide. I think Meyers will be satisfied with a promise to meet again, let us say 10 years in the future?" Meyers nodded: „And if you so wish, I can negotiate you the best possible contract meanwhile, well our lawyers will anyway. Let us call it a favor to a friend of the family.", Lagern proposed, Meyer looking annoyed.
„He means, that there will be no strings attached. They can and will at some point cash the favor in, but you can refuse and it will probably benefit you even more.", I added.
„Where do I sign?", Luna dreamily asked, before she signed a contract with Meyer, detailing secrecy of their dealings and a promise to meet in ten years. Afterwards, Luna got a lot of books from Meyers, with the simple instruction: „You can experiment and create your own cultivation technique, it is even encouraged. But if you are not inclined to try, I included a set of cultivation techniques."
Meyer disappeared, leaving behind a gobsmacked Lagern who screamed: „YOU DID WHAT?!", before being forcefully teleported away by Hogwarts, which was in a very good mood.