Taking out the translation notes, he mentally compiled everything that was fragmentarily outlined about true sight in the book. It's also called spiritual sight because it allows one to see the third principle, or Skias Onap—the astral body. The very structure of soul and body was described very interestingly and extremely reminiscent of the Indian system with its chakras. If one believes it, then a person has six to seven principles or soul shells. Here's what Lerach writes about this:
[The First Aspect] is the physical body. By tradition, it's also included in the general list, and this is the only Principle whose existence no one attempts to dispute. It can be seen and touched, measured and weighed. It can be dismembered without the help of magic or technique. But this is by no means the most important Aspect.
[The Second Aspect] is life energy, also known as prana, also Jiva, Nephesh-Zaini, or Koach-Gaph. Terminology doesn't matter. Prana permeates every cell of the physical body, allowing the being to live, breathe, move, feed, reproduce. Complete loss or decay of prana means death of the physical body.
[The Third Aspect] It is visible to some extent— this is exactly what mages scan when examining auras. The Third Aspect ensures life after death; it's what produces ba-hion and allows travel in subtle spheres. The astral body copies the physical one—that's exactly why spirits and ghosts usually look the same as they did in life.
Together, prana and the astral body constitute [Anochton]— the unconscious part of the soul.
[The Fourth Aspect] — [Atman] — is the central core to which all other Shells are "attached." This is the most important part of all. The only part of the soul that is ABSOLUTELY impossible to destroy. After reincarnation, only the core remains of the soul with information encoded in it... though sometimes scraps of other Shells cling to it.
[The Fifth Aspect] — [Oumos] — is the sensual spirit. This is personality, Character, Emotions, Feelings. This Shell is usually understood as the soul in fairy tales—a being deprived of the Fifth Aspect becomes like a soulless machine.
[ The Sixth Aspect] — [ Phrenes] — is the thinking spirit. This is mind, Memory, Reason, Intellect. This Shell concentrates in brain cells—the rest of the body is of little interest to it. It's thanks to the Sixth Principle that a spirit after death retains the ability to think and remember, despite losing the brain.
[ The Seventh Aspect] — [ Nous ] — is the magical spirit. This Shell serves to absorb and store mana. It's what allows one to work magic and cast spells. In ordinary people, the Seventh Principle is in a "sleeping" state, and only in the body of a properly trained mage does it bloom in all its glory.
Oumos, Phrenes, and Nous constitute the conscious part of the soul— [Nous Kai Logos].
[ The Eighth Aspect] is the immortal spirit. This Shell grants its owner unlimited long life, and humans, naturally, don't have it. Only eternally living beings like celestials, demons, djinn, and some others can boast the presence of the Eighth Principle in their soul.
[The Ninth Aspect] is the divine spirit. This Shell exists only in gods.
…
I'll agree that it sounds logical, meaningful, and quite entertaining. However, like all religions and occult teachings, this one has the same problem—the impossibility of confirming in practice the dogmas set forth in them.
I'm probably the only such idiot who, having gotten high on marijuana taken from Jack, sits in lotus position and strains like a person suffering from constipation, trying to open this very sight. If it doesn't work out—I'll just drop this crap and continue translating what I was paid quite a few crisp bills for.
As it was written, a person possesses true sight from birth, but then doesn't lose this ability—no, he himself forces his brain "not to see." Therefore, this isn't learning a skill, but rather, how to put it, rediscovering it anew, an attempt to deceive the mind and see what you're already seeing. Strange explanation, but let it be so. This is better than descriptions of miracles, gods, and demons—at least more logical.
Gradually, I calmed down and entered some strange state of non-being. I was thinking and not thinking simultaneously, seeing and not seeing, hearing and not hearing. It was precisely at this moment that something seemed to click in my head, and I saw before me... something.
All objects began to shimmer with various kinds of auras, like flickering colored haze from fire. Some auras were calmer—for example, the table in the living room or the sofa—while others bloomed with a riot of colors, like the pigeon and tree in the window.
This shocked me so much that I immediately fell out of this wonderful state. After a couple of hours, I was able to enter it again, but this time it came much easier to me. Now I knew that I had gotten quite a convenient form of true sight, because it can manifest in any senses—smell, sight, hearing, scent, and even touch. Though in my opinion, the most convenient is sight. I don't want to smell auras.
And here I stopped myself: did I believe in this so easily? Maybe these are hallucinations from drugs?
…
Later I understood that this wasn't the case. Everything was as written in the book—I not only saw people's auras, I could understand from them whether they were lying or not, what emotions they were experiencing at the moment, and... their magical potential.
Yes, mages were much brighter in my sight, and I accidentally spotted a couple in the city center. If ordinary people were like moths, then they were like campfire flames. And most interestingly, the mages were dressed in strange clothing in the form of old-fashioned robes, which no one except me paid attention to.
Even then I understood that my client was definitely a mage. Who else could bring a magical book in such clothing?
Following them, I... simply lost them. They went around the corner of a house and just vanished. Teleportation? Illusion? Or something else?
However, this didn't disappoint me—on the contrary, I understood that mages hide among ordinary people. And because on that very same street I met three more in two hours, there are quite a few of them—at least not just a handful.
And this trio, though they were separate, all entered the same shabby and old bar in the style of, say, the seventeenth century—"The Leaky Cauldron." Moreover, ordinary people seemed not to notice it, walking past.
…
"Good afternoon, will you be ordering anything, looking for acquaintances, or do you just need to get to Diagon Alley?" the elderly bartender addressed me, wiping a murky mug with a rag, when he saw that I stood rooted to the spot, glancing at the back door where one of those I was following had disappeared.
Inside, everything turned out even worse than outside. If I were looking for a brief description, the first thing that would come to mind would be a medieval tavern. And not the establishment described in fantasy novels, but actually existing cheap taverns, adjusted for age. However, the bartender created a neat and benevolent appearance—could this be such a "style" of establishment? And the room itself, unlike its style, was clean and tidy, which couldn't be said about its patrons. Such a dissonance.
"Yes, I need to get to the alley," I smiled, pretending to understand what alley he was talking about. "Could you help me?"
"Forgot your wand?" the bartender nodded understandingly, invitingly waving for me to follow him to the back yard through the back door. "Or does the child need something at Hogwarts?"
"My son," I quickly oriented myself, seeing the expectation of an answer.
"Oh, a son—that's good, there'll be an heir. My blockhead Tom went to seventh year last year, my wife greets every letter from him like a holiday. Women," the bartender shared about his personal life while tapping with a wand pulled from his bosom on specific bricks in the wall. I meanwhile memorized the sequence—you never know, might come in handy.
"Women," I nodded. "Hard with them, and without them you might as well hang yourself."
"Ha-ha-ha, you're right. How many times I'm convinced that these purebloods are wrong in their views. Take you—whether you're a Squib or a Muggle, you're a decent bloke. Well, be off! If anything, drop by for a pint. By the way, I'm called Tom," I shook the extended hand.
"Victor. Wait, you're named after your son?"
"Yes, and like my father, and my grandfather with great-grandfather—family tradition, that the firstborn and heir to the family business takes the father's name," the man left, and I almost dropped my jaw in surprise, seeing how the bricks moved apart by themselves, opening a passage.
When I stepped onto the street itself, I thought I still wasn't over the marijuana effects. However, I was sober as a judge—it was the street itself that was built as if by drunk builders with Parkinson's syndrome, because there was almost not a single straight angle in it. And the only answer I find to the question of why everything here hasn't collapsed yet is magic, Viktor.
Turning on true sight, I nearly went blind from the brightness and quantity of colors. However, now I encountered not only haze, but also various kinds of intricate weavings and runes—seemingly Scandinavian—woven into house walls, windows, clothing of passing mages, and even the pavement.
I came to my senses only when a young lady crashed into me.
"Oh, excuse me, please," I immediately apologized.
"Pfft, dirty... Mudblood!" the richly dressed brunette in an expensive-looking long black dress with silver embroidery looked at me with disgust and immediately left, haughtily raising her nose, not looking back.
What the hell was that? I have pure blood and my mother and father are married! But I didn't make a scene, not understanding the level of danger mages posed. So I looked for someone to ask how to get to the library, when the problem solved itself—I saw a bookstore called Flourish and Blotts.
There they treated me normally and didn't call me names—apparently they understand that a customer is a customer, no matter who they are. However, they refused to accept pounds, sending me to a bank called Gringotts, where I nearly shit myself seeing ugly shorties. Though compared to the description of demons in Lerach's book, they're just sweethearts and beauties. Later I learned they're called goblins.
…
"So you say you need books for someone who doesn't know about the magical world? Well, commendable that you're trying to learn about our world. I have a set of books on history, etiquette, legislation, and magical theory. I can also offer a first-year Hogwarts set—you'll have to buy them anyway," apparently the seller couldn't even think that I was interested purely for myself. Which was also good—fewer suspicions.
"Yes, let's do it," I agreed. "You can wrap up the second year too."
"I wouldn't advise it—the curriculum often changes due to Ministry of Magic politics and teacher preferences, so I'm afraid you'll have to buy additional ones later," the seller warned me, a young man with curly hair.
"No problem, at least we'll know roughly what to expect," I replied. I would have bought for all years, but I simply don't have enough money I brought with me—books in the magical world are too expensive.
"That'll be twenty Galleons," that's what I was talking about—one Galleon equals three pounds. So I just spent a fifth of my salary. With a sigh, parting with the golden coins, I took the kindly wrapped package, refusing shrinking, whatever that was. After all, how do you un-shrink a shrunken thing if you're not a mage?
…
I almost ran home, and when I arrived and began reading the history books, especially the legislation, my enthusiastic face began to grow darker and darker until it turned into a frozen mask.
And this wasn't because mages, frightened by the Inquisition, went underground and now observe the Statute of Secrecy adopted in 1689—not at all. I'm talking about the fact that an ordinary person to a mage is a zero without a wand in both literal and figurative senses.
Yes, I was also surprised that mages now use miniature magical capacitors rather than staffs or wands like in ancient times. But that's not what we're talking about now, because if a mage kills a Muggle—as mages call us ordinary people—nothing will happen to them for it. At most they'll issue a fine and send Obliviators—memory-erasing mages—so everyone forgets about the victim. Unless Unforgivable Curses were used—then it's a different conversation.
And when I collided with that rude lady, I had some thoughts about this. True, she mistook me for a Muggle-born—a mage born from two ordinary people, and Mudblood is their offensive name. There are also half-bloods, who also don't always avoid such a nickname, and purebloods, with one and two mage parents, respectively.
Now I understood that I was in complete and irreversible shit. A mage won't allow some dirty Muggle to possess knowledge from a grimoire. At best—they'll erase memory, at worst—they'll finish me off. And the more I thought about it, the more panic rolled over me.
I didn't think the fairy tale would turn out scary, and mages would be such Nazis. They even consider intelligent magical beings as livestock and keep them in reservations.
…
Somehow I calmed down and continued reading, reaching the most famous magical families, both currently existing and extinct, and it was here that I encountered mention of the Gaunt family.
Terrible adherents of blood purity even by the standards of the most zealous Nazis of the magical world. If I had any hopes that I'd get lucky and my client would turn out to be an honest and law-abiding mage, now they completely fell away like dried leaves in autumn.
I had only about a month and a half left before the moment when Moira's scissors would be at my thread of fate. And now I have two eternal questions, as my grandmother used to say: "Who's to blame?" and "What to do?"
And if I know a clear answer to the first question, then to the second... Run? Very funny—if Gaunt possesses even a tenth of the skills mentioned in the book, then I'm finished. There's volting, allowing one to cast a curse using the slightest part of the body, even dandruff. There's demonology, allowing one to summon the most terrible creatures from other worlds and set them on a fugitive. There's name magic, allowing one to do terrible things when knowing the true name. I'm not even talking about things like blood magic, search magic, and clairvoyance.
Since escape doesn't work, then what—fight? Very funny! I'm not even a mage yet because I haven't awakened my nous—the seventh shell responsible for magic. Firearms are out as useless against any halfway decent shield like steel armor, spirit armor, force cocoon, and I'm not even talking about personal protection that can protect once but from EVERYTHING.
Do current mages possess Sumerian magic? And why not? If people have developed so much in five thousand years, it's hard to imagine mages' achievements in their field. No, maybe not everyone has access to this knowledge, but surely the Gaunt heir should be able to do this, or I don't understand something about this world.
Surrender? An even worse option, because there are many things worse than death—for example, torture, soul capture, or becoming a lifelong slave.
So all I can do now is continue translating the book and hope that it will contain at least some acceptable way out.
…
"Mr. Adrian, where is Mr. Orlov? I haven't seen him in a long time," the intern asked the director, noticing that there was one fewer museum employee.
"He's now resting on the shores of the Indian Sea," the elderly man with long gray hair tied in a ponytail replied enviously. "I wish I could go with him, eh. My old bones are tormented by London weather, and warming them up would be nice."
"So he's on vacation? Somehow sudden," Karl nodded, agreeing that warming bones on the beach is good. Especially with a beautiful girl.
"I was surprised too, but he really hadn't rested in a long time, so I wrote him vacation for two months straight. Rest is as important as work. I don't need screw-ups from fatigue here." He raised his finger instructively. "And you haven't earned it yet, so march to work, or you'll be all ears."
"Yes, sir!" The brief minute of rest was over—time to know honor.
And at this time, Viktor, who colleagues and friends thought should be resting, with eyes red from lack of sleep, finally slammed shut the accursed tome and in the silence of the room, littered with crumpled and scribbled sheets, pronounced:
"Finally, I'm finished."
***
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