As if sensing the question Vaughn was pondering, Dumbledore smiled.
Countless Morfin Gaunts around them were still calling his name, yet he paid them no heed. Instead, he watched the pensive Vaughn with interest and suddenly asked, "My dear, what do you think talent is?"
"Hmm?"
Vaughn opened his mouth to answer, but after thinking carefully, he found that he did not know how to define it.
Talent was something highly abstract. Taken literally, it could be understood as an innate gift... but what exactly was talent?
No one could give a concrete answer.
It was not an objective entity. From a material perspective, one could even say that it "did not exist."
Before Vaughn could become tangled in philosophical deliberation, Dumbledore asked again, "Then let us put it another way. Where do you think talent exists? In your body, or...?"
Or...
The soul?
The word suddenly surfaced in Vaughn's mind. His pupils abruptly widened, the faint tremor in his gaze revealing the shock within him.
Looking at Vaughn, Dumbledore smiled. "It seems you already understand a little. That's right—what we call talent is not some organ of the body, nor is it bloodline, or what Muggles call genes. It cannot be quantified, and it does not even reside in our flesh."
"Talent exists only in the soul. Spells, Transfiguration, Divination, Dark magic... and Alchemy!"
"The sum of all these is what the Golden Soul Theory calls 'incompleteness'!"
"Without talent for spells, one cannot come into contact with magic. Without talent for Transfiguration, one cannot understand the relationship between magic and matter. Without Divination, one cannot understand fate and time..."
"Your materialist view of history seeks the reality and truth of the world. From another angle, it is almost identical to the 'perfection' pursued by the Golden Soul. The ultimate