Potions Empowered by the Mind

"I think so, Aunt Eileen. Just now, when that potion was about to be completely ruined, I seemed to catch a hint of... what you were talking about."

Manus wore an expression of confusion and uncertainty.

"Through the magic power I injected into the potion, it seemed to be telling me that on the eighth circle, I needed to stir clockwise."

That was not a lie.

The magical system of this world worked this way because the rules governing magic power itself were sensitive to this kind of mental force.

When a wizard infused magic power into a potion, activating the traits and concepts born from cognition, the magic power also received feedback from them, instinctively knowing what it needed to do next.

The sudden change in Manus's actions had come from that feedback.

Originally, Manus had intended to brew a Draught of Living Death that replicated Aunt Eileen's procedure but ultimately failed, thereby showing that he had not seen anything special in her technique.

But the moment he received feedback from the potion, Manus abandoned his original plan.

A conclusion inferred from his own experience might have stood out too much, but something that had genuinely happened in practice carried no such concern. Manus believed he would not be the first.

"That's exactly right!"

Sure enough, Eileen was shocked, but it was not the shock of seeing something beyond her understanding.

"Oh my goodness, Manus, you actually did it—on your very first attempt at brewing a Draught of Living Death..."

Eileen clearly did not care that Manus could not summarize the underlying principle. Her heart was filled with shock at witnessing the rise of a peerless Potions genius, along with delight that this genius was her student.

Manus smiled excitedly at the praise, but he was still thinking.

If I really were some Potions genius, then if the laws I deduced applied to all of Potions, I should have received feedback long ago after brewing potions for more than half a year.

Don't tell me all my previous brewing had been perfect. Then what were those few failures supposed to count as?

Yet this time, he had received feedback. And it had not only come during the final stirring. From the moment he began injecting magic power, he could feel the potion ingredients teaching him how to activate the traits within them.

Why? What was the difference?

The difference was that he had come to understand the essence of injecting magic power during the process of brewing potions.

Manus understood a little now. So this was how the magical system of this world worked.

It was not merely the final spell effect that received a boost from mental power. The entire process—every single step—received that boost.

That also offered a more reasonable explanation for why his magic power could improve through meditation, because magic power was also a part of the casting process.

And for actions other than magic power, casting could produce different effects depending on the state of one's mind.

If one did not understand the essence of casting and merely learned by mechanically imitating the process, one could still succeed, but only muddle along in the most basic fields.

If one could not summarize the essence of casting but vaguely sensed that its foundation did not lie in those superficial actions, then one could meet the requirements for casting some more advanced magic.

As for the most profound magic, one needed to clearly understand the essence of that magic...

Huh? In Potions, if I clearly know the essence of the actions I'm performing, I can even use magic power to learn what I should do next.

Then what about Charms?

Chanting incantations, waving a wand... if I clearly understood the essence behind what I was doing in that process, what would change?

Griffin and Aivina had both demonstrated the ability to cast magic without chanting or even without a wand. Manus had originally thought that this was some kind of metamagic technique, like silent casting or still casting.

But looking back now, could this have been the change that occurred in Charms after gaining some understanding of the essence of casting?

Could those changes go even further?

When he received the feedback, Manus had vaguely sensed that those actions were not actually so necessary.

For instance, the direction and number of stirring circles only had standards because he had chosen stirring as his action.

If he chose another action, there would be other standards. He could even choose to satisfy the symbolic requirement at a particular time and place, using a particular environmental arrangement.

If necessary, Manus could probably stir counterclockwise from beginning to end while chanting an incantation, and still drag that Draught of Living Death back from the brink of failure.

Though he did not know what incantation he would need to chant; his sense for that was extremely faint.

He had chosen to change the stirring method because, among the information conveyed by that instinctive feeling, this was the clearest and most direct. If he truly trusted his instincts alone, his first reaction would be to alter the stirring.

Comparing the two, Manus felt that the difference was probably related to his lack of knowledge about the other methods.

After all, this feeling came from magic, but it also came from the mind, from his own cognition. It could only tell him what to do within the bounds of what he already knew; it could not teach him entirely new knowledge.

After his first Potions lesson with Severus, Manus's face was full of delighted smiles. Eileen found this deeply gratifying, and although Severus did not quite understand what they were smiling about, he smiled along with them.

When Aivina came to pick Manus up, Eileen made a point of telling her that Manus had successfully brewed a Draught of Living Death on his very first attempt, and that he had grasped the very essence of advanced potions.

Aivina's expression became very subtle when she heard that. Along with her joy, there was also some... helplessness?

Manus knew very well why his mother wore that expression. There was not much he could do about it. Adults did not need any reason to suspect that children could not do something well; he could only let nature take its course.

Fortunately, nature would not keep him waiting for long.

Glancing at Severus, who was not far behind him, Manus smiled and waved, inviting him to visit their home that afternoon.

Severus had undergone a Magical Outburst now... I couldn't access Charms knowledge, but could Severus not access it either? Aivina couldn't possibly make Eileen guard Severus so strictly as well, could she?

If Severus could access Charms knowledge, and I could access Severus, then that meant I could access Charms knowledge too—and in a way that suited my age and image.

He would not even need to actually put the plan into action. Once this path appeared, given the image he had built before Griffin and Aivina and their personalities, they would soon relax their restrictions on Charms knowledge.

Rather than let him seek out Severus and secretly tinker around on his own, Griffin and Aivina would surely prefer to teach him themselves.

More than a year, nearly two, had passed since his Magical Outburst. Though he had used Zero-Ring Magic like Mage Hand during that time, he had always done so in secret.

Would I finally be able to cast magic openly again after so long...?