[ Location: Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory ][ Date: November 6th, 1993 - Friday Night ]
The dorm was quiet.
Harry and Ron were fast asleep, totally exhausted from the drama in Snape's class earlier today.
I was sitting on my bed, tossing my wand in the air and catching it.
"You really pushed it with Snape," Shikamaru muttered from the next bed, his eyes closed. "The guy looked like he wanted to poison your pumpkin juice."
"He's a bully," I said, catching the wand. "And bullies only respect a bigger fist"
I was about to check the Chat Group when the air in the room suddenly froze.
I don't mean it got cold.
The dust motes hanging in the moonlight literally stopped moving and ticking of the clock on the wall went totally silent.
Shikamaru sat up instantly, reaching for a kunai. "Time stop, Esdeath?"
"No," I said, jumping off my bed. "Her time freeze feels like ice and this feels... warm."
Suddenly, a blinding flash of Golden Light filled the dormitory.
It was the exact same light that had shot down from the sky and destroyed the Boggart when I accidentally summoned the Crimson King's Eye.
The light swallowed us completely.
[ Location: Unknown ][ Time: N/A ]
When the light faded, we weren't in Hogwarts anymore.
We were standing in a massive, endless library.
The shelves went up forever, filled with glowing books and floating scrolls.
Sitting in a comfortable leather armchair in the center of the room was a man.
He looked to be in his late twenties, with sharp features, messy dark hair, and eyes that glowed with a faint, pulsing gold light and he was wearing modern, tailored clothes.
"Welcome," the man said. His voice was calm, but it vibrated in my chest. "Take a seat."
I narrowed my eyes.
'System. Observe.'
[ Target: Merlin Ambrosius ][ Race: Cosmic Immortal ]
[ Stats: ERROR - Too High to Calculate. ][ Threat Level: Very High ( Cosmic )]
My heart skipped a beat.
"Merlin?" I whispered. "You're Merlin?"
"The one and only," Merlin smiled, taking a sip from a teacup. "And you are Vivan Frostwell. The boy who nearly cracked my world in half last month."
"That was an accident," I defended myself quickly. "The Boggart dug too deep."
"You dropped your mental shields on purpose," Merlin corrected, raising an eyebrow. "You wanted to show off and instead, you sent a flare directly to the Crimson King. If I hadn't stepped in, he would have dragged this entire planet into the Macroverse."
Shikamaru glared at me. "I told you showing off was troublesome."
"I am the Caretaker of this world," Merlin said, setting his tea down. "I built the wards that hide this planet from the dark things out there. You need to keep your thoughts under strict control, Vivan."
"I will, I have Occlumency," I argued.
"It isn't enough, Boy" Merlin said bluntly. "You don't understand the scale of what you are playing with."
Merlin stood up.
He waved his hand, and a glowing map of the Omniverse or a part of it appeared in the air between us.
"This is the small part of omniverse," Merlin pointed to a cluster of bright stars. "And beneath it is the Abyss Realm. It is a dark basement full of parasites like beings and monsters and they just want to spread their rot."
He pointed to a massive, fiery orange ocean surrounding everything.
"And that is the Macroverse. The deep ocean outside the walls and that is where Outer Gods like the Crimson King and your little roommate, live. They don't just want to spread, Rather they want to consume reality itself."
Merlin walked right up to me and he poked me in the chest.
"You are carrying a piece of the Macroverse inside you right now and if you open your mind like that again, you will invite the big sharks into my pond."
I swallowed hard. "Understood, I will keep the doors locked. Got it."
Merlin's glowing gold eyes stared right through me.
He was looking at my soul.
"You are an anomaly, Vivan," Merlin said softly. "Your soul isn't completely human. In fact I think... it never was."
"What?" I blinked. "What do you mean it never was?"
"Right now, your soul is exactly 70% Cosmic and only 30% of you is still mortal," Merlin explained, leaning back slightly. "I can make a solid guess about 20% of that change. You have recently absorbed magic, And made a new energy out of it, Some dimensional core, and a piece of the Deadlights , but the other 50%? That is a complete mystery I am sorry."
I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"A mystery?"
"Your soul was always half-cosmic, Vivan. Long before you arrived in this world, long before you started absorbing these powers," Merlin said, his glowing eyes searching mine. "I can only guess at its true origin but whatever you were before this life... you were never just a normal human."
"Is that a bad thing?" Shikamaru asked, sensing the danger.
"It's a bomb," Merlin stated. "Vivan, your physical body is just a fragile glass jar but you are filling it with the energy of a dying star. If your soul gets too big, and your physical body isn't strong enough to contain it... you will literally explode but don't worry your soul will live and you will reborn with your memories, May be!"
My blood ran cold. "May be? Great. Just what I needed. So how do I fix it?"
"You have to improve your physical body," Merlin said. " Train and toughen the glass jar, there are some worlds were some techniques can make your body stronger."
He tapped my forehead with two fingers.
A rush of warm, golden knowledge flooded my brain.
[ System Alert: New Spell Acquired! ][ Spell: Aether Respiration (Passive) ]
"I just gave you a gift," Merlin stepped back. "That spell will passively run in your background. It acts like a sponge and it will slowly absorb any ambient energy around you magic, heat, wind, even fear I know you can absorb that and use it to slowly, safely expand your Aether pool and strengthen your soul's container."
"It's an auto-grinder," I realized, feeling the spell already breathing in the magic of Merlin's library.
"It will help you handle the physical strain when you use your Deadlight mode," Merlin nodded. "And it will help you keep the Clown trapped inside you. The stronger your container, the tighter his cage."
I looked at my hands.
They felt grounded.
Merlin then turned his glowing eyes to Shikamaru.
"And for you Shikamaru," Merlin said, raising a single finger.
A wisp of black, starlit energy drifted from his fingertip and sank straight into Shikamaru's chest. "You bind things that should not be bound and Your chakra alone will burn out if you keep trying to hold back the tide."
[ System Alert: Ally 'Shikamaru Nara' Acquired New Trait! ][ Trait: Abyssal Shadow (Passive) ][ Effect: Shadows can now seamlessly bind magical and cosmic entities. It greatly reduces chakra drain when holding targets with higher Spirit stats. ]
Shikamaru blinked, looking down at his hands and his shadow on the floor seemed darker, deeper. "It feels... cool. Like sitting in the shade on a hot day. I can work with this. Thanks, old man."
"Use it well " Merlin chuckled.
"What happens if I don't explode?" I asked, looking up at the immortal wizard. "What happens if I master it?"
Merlin smiled.
It was an knowing smile.
"If you can safely push your soul to 90% Cosmic," Merlin whispered, "you will shed your mortal limits and you will become like me."
"Immortal?" Shikamaru asked, his eyes wide.
"Ageless," Merlin corrected. "You will never grow old and you will stay young forever. Your body will heal from almost any wound instantly but it is not absolute immortality, you can still be killed if an Outer God crushes you completely but time and disease will no longer touch you."
Ageless.
Perfect healing.
A cosmic being.
"90 percent," I repeated, a fire lighting up in my chest. "I'll get there."
"I believe you will," Merlin said, sitting back down in his armchair. "But for now, go back to school and do your homework and keep my planet out of your cosmic crossfire."
Merlin snapped his fingers.
FLASH.
The golden light blinded me again.
[ Location: Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory ][ Time: Reality Resumed ]
I slammed back onto my mattress.
The clock on the wall instantly resumed its ticking.
Tick. Tock.
Shikamaru let out a long, heavy sigh from his bed.
"I really hate it when powerful people show up uninvited," Shikamaru grumbled, pulling his blanket over his head. "It's always a drag."
I just sat there, feeling the new Aether Respiration spell quietly humming in my chest, pulling in the tiny bits of magic floating in the Hogwarts air.
'My soul was always 50% immortal. Half-cosmic. What the hell was I before the System found me?'
I gripped my fists tight, feeling the muscles in my arms tense.
'I need to max out my physical stats and then...'
I smirked in the dark room.
'I'm going to become completely immortal.'
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