This Time, I Was Terrifyingly Strong

"No. This time, I'm terrifyingly strong."

Gavin woke up brimming with energy. When he remembered last night's troubles, he found that he no longer felt discouraged at all.

Getting miserable at night and bouncing back by day was a typical twenty-first-century habit. Gavin had not escaped it even after crossing into another world.

When he opened his eyes to a room full of sunshine, his mood lifted at once. Warm, brilliant sunlight always made it easy to feel invigorated.

Last night really had been awful.

After he tried to approach the Alaya Consciousness, the terrifying sensation of his self nearly being swept away still felt vivid whenever he recalled it.

Especially that feeling of almost dissolving into nothingness. For someone with an excellent memory, it was torture. Every time it came to mind, a fresh wave of fear followed.

But now, full of energy, he suddenly thought of something.

If I can't solve it myself—

I'll call in help.

He was not alone this time.

The strongest white wizard of the century stood behind him. Dumbledore had said Gavin could come to him with any problem and that he would give him his full support. Knowing what weighed on Dumbledore, Gavin had no reason to doubt him.

At that thought, Gavin rolled over in bed. Somehow, he felt even better than he had on waking.

"Good." He closed his eyes, intending to doze a little longer. "I'll call in reinforcements later."

The first thing Gavin did after breakfast was write to Dumbledore.

He briefly but clearly laid out the difficulty he had encountered and asked for advice:

First, he had reached a bottleneck in exploring other people's minds and perceptions.

Second, he hoped to find a magical way to enter and examine someone else's Consciousness Space.

Third, this did not involve Dark Magic or high-risk experiments, and for the time being, he would not be hurting himself.

Gavin made a point of emphasizing that last item separately.

He knew perfectly well that, in Dumbledore's eyes, his credibility had not quite gone bankrupt, but his standing had probably slipped from "bright student" to "bright student who very much needs close supervision."

Once the letter was finished, he had Pipi deliver it.

Then he tucked into his food with gusto. He needed to eat well if he was going to keep up his intensive research.

He had no classes that afternoon, so after some thought, Gavin went to the library to look through some Charms spells for inspiration.

Among the shelves, he found The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five and began to read.

Before long, he realized he could not concentrate. The emotional aftershocks of his attempt to delve deeper had probably kept him from sleeping well.

Having worked out the cause, Gavin decided to meditate right there for a while and restore his energy.

He had barely entered Meditation when he came out of it with a peculiar look on his face.

He seemed not to need to breathe.

He was not sure. He tried again.

After entering Meditation several more times, he confirmed it.

For short periods, he could now enter a state in which he did not need to breathe. Even his heartbeat slowed to a crawl.

"Tortoise-Breathing?" Gavin suddenly remembered certain legends.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Despite all his years of Meditation, he had gained more in this past month than in all the time before it.

Wondrous experiences kept coming, one after another. Strangely, many of them had been recorded in texts he had read.

Gavin could not tell whether they were projections of his subconscious or objectively real. What he did know was that, after the boundaries of his self had once grown blurred, some old restraints had begun to break.

Take breathing. He had never truly been able to control it. His breathing might slow during Meditation, but eventually he still needed another breath of fresh air.

Now Gavin felt no need to breathe at all. The underlying urge was simply gone. If he had not been afraid of accidentally suffocating himself, he felt he could have remained in Tortoise-Breathing indefinitely.

The first time lasted about five minutes.

The second lasted ten.

On the third attempt, the familiar sensation returned. The library receded; his heartbeat and breathing vanished. It was as though he had lost all sense of his own existence and entered a profound stillness where time and space no longer had any meaning.

And then—

"Ah!"

A quiet, startled gasp yanked Gavin straight out of that state.

He opened his eyes and saw Hermione beside the bookshelf, two books in her arms. Her face still showed the shock of discovering someone had been hidden there.

"Sorry," Hermione whispered at once. "I didn't see you."

"It's fine." Gavin did not mind.

Hermione collected herself. She had meant to leave.

After all, things between her and Gavin had been a little awkward lately. Strictly speaking, they had not quite returned to being ordinary classmates. She had since come up with an explanation for his intentions during their conversation outside the library, but understanding did not mean it had stopped hurting. She still disliked being looked down on.

But now that they had run into each other and spoken, turning around and leaving would only make their relationship as classmates seem stranger.

With that in mind, she paused and stayed where she was, on the other side of the bookshelf.

"Um..." She turned to Gavin, keeping her voice as steady as she could. "Thank you for the Christmas present."

Gavin looked up at her and gave her a polite smile.

"I'm glad you liked it."

Hermione nodded, then glanced at the book beside him.

"You're not reading Muggle books anymore?"

"Not for now." Gavin nodded.

"Why?"

"I've solved that part of the problem," Gavin explained. "What I learned from those books isn't enough to deal with my current difficulty."

Hermione pressed her lips together, then said anyway:

"I've finished those introductory psychology textbooks."

She said it quickly.

As if saying it any slower would make it sound too much like I've been trying to keep up with you all along.

Gavin was a little surprised. He had not expected Hermione to study them.

Then he nodded.

"That was quick."

Hermione had braced herself for something like "But you still can't help." At his response, she did not know what to say.

"...So?" she asked.

"So, if you'd like," Gavin said, without shooting her down this time, "we can discuss some of it together later."

Hermione visibly froze.

That was nothing like the response she had expected.

For a moment, she even wondered whether the library's warm air had made her mishear him.

"You're... not turning down my help this time?"

"My research has shifted direction a little. And you've already worked hard to catch up, so it wouldn't be right to keep you out entirely. Having someone help is better than burying myself in research alone."

Hermione brightened at once. "What are you researching now?" she asked, sounding delighted.

"The relationship between the Collective Unconscious and the Eight Buddhist Consciousnesses," Gavin answered honestly.

Hermione: "..."

The little feeling that she had finally caught up crumbled by half.

"What?"

"Put simply," Gavin added politely, "I'm wondering whether the deepest layers of the human subconscious truly share a common foundation, and whether Buddhism's Alaya Consciousness could serve as a model for understanding it across different systems."

Hermione stood there, her mind completely blank for a couple of seconds.

Then she made a determined effort to seize on a term she understood.

"...The Collective Unconscious?"

"Yes."

"...So you're no longer studying the structure of an individual mind?"

"More or less."

Hermione looked at him.

Gavin looked back at her.

At last, Hermione gave a very slow nod. Clutching her two books, she left the library in a daze, wearing the complicated expression of someone who had tried to open a door only to discover another row of doors behind it.

As she left, only one thought remained in her mind:

Maybe I really couldn't help last time, and it wasn't just because he was being harsh.

Dumbledore's reply arrived quickly.

The letter wasted few words.

He first praised Gavin's progress in "finally knowing to ask someone first, at least," then gave him clear advice:

"Learn the Super-Sensory Charm and Legilimency first. They should help."

His reasoning was simple.

If Gavin wanted to probe someone else's inner state, the most basic, well-established route with an existing body of theory was not to close his eyes and jump straight into the Collective Unconscious.

It was to begin with the spells for thought and perception that already existed in the Wizarding World.

Dumbledore even included a short reading list, recommending several books on heightened perception, mind-reading, and mental defense. Finally, he mentioned that he had already spoken to Professor Flitwick, who would teach Gavin the two spells.

It was a sensible arrangement.

Among the teachers at Hogwarts, if anyone besides Headmaster Dumbledore had mastered Charms to its highest level, it was Professor Flitwick.

The problem was that a first-year suddenly learning the Super-Sensory Charm and Legilimency was bound to cause another stir.

Especially when that first-year—

Was Gavin, who already drew so much attention.

"I don't even want to ask why anymore," Justin said flatly when he heard the news. "I just want to know when Hogwarts is going to officially admit you're not the standard first-year model."

Ernie's question was a little more cautious.

"Legilimency doesn't sound like ordinary extra coursework."

"It isn't," Gavin agreed.

"Then why are you learning it?"

"Interest."

Justin stared at him.

"Your greatest talent is making the most dangerous things sound like entries on a hobby club form."

Ravenclaw heard about it too, and their reaction was just as direct.

Professor Flitwick had not tried to hide it from his students. He happened to have some free time after Charms, so he had simply asked Gavin to stay behind.

To the Ravenclaws, hearing that a first-year Hufflepuff had been allowed to study mind-related spells on the side was probably about as jarring as Gryffindor announcing that Quidditch lessons were being replaced with advanced spell-combat mathematics.

Over the next two days, at least three groups of Ravenclaws with very different approaches appeared in the library. From various angles, they made subtle but unsuccessful attempts to observe and whisper about what "Gu" was learning now.

Gavin pretended not to notice.

He had no time to satisfy anyone's curiosity.

He genuinely needed to master those two spells.

Professor Flitwick's teaching was as elegant and precise as ever.

And when he spoke about spells involving thought and perception, he was noticeably more excited than usual.

"Many students think," he said from the front of the Empty Classroom, his eyes shining, "that this kind of magic is only about 'peeking inside someone else's head.' But that is a profound misunderstanding. What mind magic truly tests is your ability to organize your own thoughts and control the direction of your attention."

The moment he heard that, Gavin knew the two spells were probably even better suited to him than he had expected.

Because the difficulty had never been merely saying the incantation and waving a wand.

It was—

Whether he could distinguish his own thoughts clearly enough.

That might be difficult for other people.

But for Gavin, who had spent the past month making control over stray thoughts and emotions almost instinctive, it was a strength. A very, very pronounced strength.

With Professor Flitwick's explanation, he quickly grasped the basics of both spells.

Legilimency was not about crudely hurling his consciousness into someone else's mind.

More precisely, it used magic to wrap around one of his thoughts, then slip it delicately through a gap in the surface where the target's thoughts were most active.

Like a needle honed to an impossibly fine point.

The Super-Sensory Charm, meanwhile, was more like amplifying perception itself.

It did not directly alter anything outside the caster. Instead, it temporarily heightened his senses—sight, hearing, touch, and subtler forms of perception. In Buddhism's terms, the Six Consciousnesses.

"In a sense," Professor Flitwick explained carefully, "it enhances all your perceptive abilities."

Gavin's eyes lit up.

This was exactly what he needed. Dumbledore's knowledge of magic far surpassed his own; even a suggestion offered in passing had put Gavin on what felt like the right path.

Then came practice.

Professor Flitwick had planned to take it step by step, letting Gavin heighten his perception of simple targets before attempting the most basic mind-reading.

Before long, though, he realized he might have underestimated this student.

Gavin learned quickly.

Very quickly.

With the Super-Sensory Charm, all he had to do was understand the principle, pronounce the incantation correctly, and get the wand movement right on his first attempt. After that, it worked reliably. Legilimency was a little more complicated, but only on the surface.

For someone whose command of his emotions and stray thoughts was already approaching mastery, the real difficulty of these two spells came down to just two things:

Pronouncing the incantations correctly.

Get the wand movement right.

Professor Flitwick soon entered a visibly excited state somewhere between "bursting with pride as a teacher" and "have I just witnessed another bizarre genius?"

In the end, he even stepped in himself.

"Come on, Mr. Gu." He spread his arms. "Try reading my thoughts."

Gavin raised his wand.

Legilimency—

His magic wrapped around his thoughts, slipping easily into the professor's mind.

The next second, a rapid, disjointed sequence of thoughts flashed before his eyes.

There were no complete sentences.

They were more like fleeting fragments of thought.

That wand angle is good.

Oh, this child really does learn quickly.

What should I have for lunch?

No, stop thinking about lunch.

Hmm, looks like I'll have to adjust the next stage of his lessons.

Gavin lowered his wand.

Professor Flitwick sensed it and immediately widened his eyes.

"What did you see?"

"You were thinking that I was learning well," Gavin answered honestly. "Then you thought about lunch, and then about what you should teach me next."

Professor Flitwick: "..."

He fell silent for two seconds, then remarked with absolute sincerity:

"Talent really does make it hard to stay composed sometimes."

It had been a long time since he had encountered a student like this.

After returning to the dormitory that evening, Gavin did not rest straightaway.

Mostly because, now that he had learned these two spells, the blank area in his mind labeled "how to enter someone else's consciousness space" finally contained its first workable path.

He had a theory, one he thought might work.

Legilimency would open the way.

The Super-Sensory Charm would amplify and stabilize his perception.

Could combining the two let him enter someone else's consciousness space?

The only problem was—

He could not experiment directly on Cordelia, or rather, conduct human experiments outright.

That was too risky.

Who knew whether one careless mistake might cause an accident on the level of thought and leave someone an idiot?

So he needed a safe, low-risk test subject, one for whom failure would not cause serious consequences.

Gavin lowered his head and looked at the toad in the corner, which he had all but forgotten.

It lay on its little cushion, its expression as vacant as ever.

He had brought the little creature to Hogwarts when he first enrolled, partly to make himself look more like a normal first-year student and partly to have an animal specimen ready that might prove useful in the future.

He had never even named it.

Not because he was lazy, of course.

At least, not entirely.

Mostly because his elders had always said that if you did not name an animal, you would not be quite so sad when it eventually passed away.

And so Gavin had kept putting it off until now.

Now, it seemed the time had come for this toad to undertake a little research work and prove its worth.

"Thanks for your hard work," Gavin said softly.

The toad blinked.

Clearly, it had no idea that it was about to experience the most academically valuable evening of its life.

Gavin first cast the Super-Sensory Charm, amplifying his six consciousnesses, then aimed at the toad and quietly uttered Legilimency.

For his first experiment, he cast the spell at a very shallow level.

It barely touched the outermost fragments of memory.

Chaotic, blurry, illogical.

Like a pile of waterlogged leaf fragments drifting aimlessly through its mind.

Yet Gavin could still make sense of a few things within it:

Ernie is a good person.

He feeds me often.

My owner is a bad person.

My owner disappears often.

Gavin: "..."

Looking at the still-vacant toad, he fell silent for two seconds, a rare occurrence for him.

"That assessment is biased," he finally said in his own defense.

Of course, the toad could not debate him.

So Gavin could only continue his experiment.

This time, he tried to penetrate a little deeper into the toad's mind while opening his perception further, pushing the Super-Sensory Charm to his limit.

Then, the very next second, he actually entered.

What he saw now was not merely memory.

Instead, it felt as though something had given him a gentle tug, dropping him straight into another inner space—small, damp, and chaotic in a way that suited a toad perfectly.

The space was tiny.

Much smaller than his own consciousness space, and much messier, like a little room soaked in both fog and mud. Even so, the structure he had expected was broadly there.

First, he saw a whirlpool.

Grayish white shading into black, it was nowhere near as pure as his own black Obscurus, nor as distinct as the white whirlpool. It was more like a core of consciousness that had not yet truly been corrupted, but was already close to the chaotic state of animal instinct.

And beneath it—

Was a stream.

Neither wide nor deep, it flowed in a thin trickle, like a tiny tributary of the great river of his own alaya consciousness.

Gavin stopped there and studied it carefully for a few seconds.

He immediately reached a conclusion: other living beings had similar structures.

At least animals did.

At least this toad did.

This was not his personal hallucination, nor a projection of self-awareness unique to him, but a more universal, objectively existing pattern of internal thought structure.

Of course, it might still stem from some projection of his cognition, but even a projection needed a source. This sight indicated that its source—the consciousness space—truly existed.

The implications were enormous.

Gavin was immersed in profound awe, excited and exhilarated, as though he had just discovered the starting point of a grand unified theory.

"Good," Gavin murmured, holding back his excitement.

Then he glanced again at the specimen lying there in a daze.

"I'll treat you a little better from now on."

He meant that quite sincerely.

After all, as the first test subject to successfully provide an inner landscape for comparison, this toad's academic contribution had already exceeded its original practical value.

And in a sense, he had bought it for this very purpose.

Thinking of it that way, not naming it suddenly seemed less like considerate folk wisdom and more like some cold-hearted researcher's habit.

Gavin sighed softly.

"From now on, I'll feed you at least two extra live bugs every day."

The toad blinked again.

Whether it understood was anyone's guess.

But this was probably the moment in its life when it had been understood best.

After finishing the experiment, Gavin lay back down on his bed, in a better mood than on any evening over the past few days.

Not because the problem had been solved.

But because he had finally found a genuinely new direction.

He now knew:

Combining Legilimency and the Super-Sensory Charm allowed him to see other beings' internal structures.

His consciousness space was not an isolated case.

Whirlpools resembling manas consciousness and "rivers" resembling alaya consciousness did not exist solely within him.

That meant that next—

He could go and see Cordelia.

Of course, he would have to bring Pipi.

First, because Dumbledore's supervision was now alive and had big ears. Second, because if he really was going to conduct this kind of research at St. Mungo's, having a house-elf ready to notify Dumbledore was far safer than sitting there alone and trying to handle everything himself.

At that thought, Gavin closed his eyes, finally feeling some of the tension that had been building inside him over the past few days slowly ease.

The fire in the fireplace had long since gone out, leaving only his roommates' steady breathing in the dormitory. Outside, the snow had not entirely melted, and moonlight cast a cold white sheen over the window frame.

Before sleep truly washed over him, the last clear thought in his mind was:

I'll go to St. Mungo's on Saturday.

So when Saturday afternoon came and he actually stood before Cordelia, he did not waste his first words.

Looking at the little girl holding a book, clearly still unaware of how different today's meeting would be from their usual ones, he asked very seriously:

"Does what you said before, about letting me study you however I like, still stand?"