BXBX NOVEL Chapter 82 - Fifth Element, Upgrading, And Giant Squid
The link is also in the synopsis.
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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]
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Quinn sat in the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in. Everything from the seat height, width, depth, tilt, backrest lumbar support and recline was perfect as far as Quinn was concerned. The materials used in the chair, armrest, and headrest were the best he had ever experienced. For the person who rarely sat in chairs with backrests, this was heaven in a room because Quinn\'s body was feeling comfort all over.
Pulling back a little, Quinn, in his chair, was in a simple room with a fireplace and a small library. There was a small table beside Quinn\'s chair with a candle lamp on it providing light. The room screamed of being Quinn\'s comfort zone.
The chair was facing the fireplace and Quin closed his eyes. His eyes were darting underneath his closed eyelids.
Diving into his mind, he saw himself, standing in his mindscape; his eyes looking around the mindscape, watching something only visible to him.
Many magical cultures used to talk about four classical elements. Classical elements were typically referred to as water, earth, fire, and air, which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient magical cultures in Greece, Ancient Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, Japan, Tibet, and India had all similar lists, sometimes referring in local languages to the air as wind.
These different cultures and even individual magical scholars had widely varying explanations concerning their attributes and how these theories related to observable phenomena like magical cosmology. Sometimes these theories overlapped with mythology and were personified in deities. Some of these interpretations included atomism (the idea of tiny, indivisible portions of matter). Other interpretations considered the elements to be divisible into infinitely small pieces without changing their basic nature.
The trials of time and advancement had tested these beliefs in magic, and many magical cultures still believed that these four elements made up the entire material world.
Quinn didn\'t believe in classical element theory because he knew about modern atomic theory. However, he didn\'t consider the non-magical theory of matter to be the complete and correct interpretation to be the base of all matter because atomic theory didn\'t take magic into consideration.
He had also given the four classical elemental theories a thought, and he wondered if air, water, earth, and fire were magical equivalents to gas, liquid, solid, and plasma. But Quinn\'s interpretation was shot down after reading about the classical elemental theories from all the cultures.
While states of solid, liquid, gas, and plasma shared many attributes with the classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire respectively, these states were as such due to the similar behavior of different types of atoms at comparable energy levels. Not because they contained a type of atom or building block or a type of substance.
But in the classical elemental theory, Quinn had found something interesting. Something that he personally believed to be true.
Many cultures that subscribed to some form of the classical elemental theory believed in the existence of another element.
The non-magical scientists disregarded the fifth element through experimentation.
The fifth classical element, known as aether: also spelled ?ther, aither, or ether or the other name, quintessence: the material that filled the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.
Quinn believed the fifth element to be magic itself. The fifth element, that was present everywhere; something that the non-magical weren\'t able to find because they weren\'t capable of finding it. It wasn\'t in their heritage to find magic.
The prevailing axiom regarding magic was that it was present in living beings. It was present in magical humans, other magical species, magical flora, and fauna. Magic was present inside those who were capable of possessing it.
The modern magic scholars didn\'t believe that magic was omnipresent in the environment around them and that magical-enabled species were magic generators. Magic was a supernatural force present inside select beings that allowed them to change aspects of the world at a fundamental level.
But Quinn thought differently; he believed that magic was omnipresent and that the fifth element that was apparently disproved even by the magical communities was indeed genuine and was magic.
While Quinn didn\'t have conclusive proof about this theory of the fifth element being the magic force, he did have abstract evidence and reasons to believe in the fifth element.
The reason he believed in the fifth element being magic and that it was omnipresent was the existence of poltergeists.
A poltergeist was an indestructible spirit of chaos. They were like ghosts and haunted one specific place at a time. But unlike ghosts, they weren\'t alive before they died.
A poltergeist didn\'t have a living part in their existence.
They were amortal, beings that never had died and never would, as an amortal entity was never \'alive\' to begin with.
Thus, poltergeists weren\'t born from anything and just manifested into existence.
Humans, animals, plants, and a lot of other species reproduced through procreation. Even the Dementors divided to create another one of themselves.
But poltergeists didn\'t come from their own species. They weren\'t born through reproduction but formed out of nothingness. Quinn believed they were from magic, and when certain conditions were met, it would trigger the magic in that place to give birth to a poltergeist.
The sole existence of poltergeists made the base of Quinn\'s belief in the presence of an omnipresent element which he considered being magic. Because if magic wasn\'t omnipresent, then poltergeists wouldn\'t be able to manifest into this world.
Whether Quinn was right or wrong was far in the future. But right now, Quinn was using the idea of an omnipresent element that existed everywhere in the universe to improve his occlumency.
According to Alan, Quinn\'s defense-aspect occlumency was useless if someone could get past his primary and secondary shields without him noticing it. If a stealth infiltration was successful, then Quinn was screwed because beyond that point.
The solution to that problem was to add extra features to his occlumency defenses.
To detect any foreign mental attack that got past Quinn\'s shields, Quinn came up with an idea and decided to fill his entire mindscape with an omnipresent substance. Something like the fifth element from the classical elemental theory, but its base properties were to combat foreign mental magic.
Quinn had drafted a timeline to set up the invisible yet omnipresent mental element that would elevate his occlumency defense to another level.
The first part of the process was to fill his entire mindscape with an invisible matter.
The challenges of this stage were that Quinn\'s mindscape didn\'t have definite dimensions. It was an infinite space that stretched in all directions, so Quinn needed to figure out how to fill an infinite space with an omnipresent matter. The second challenge was to make the matter invisible in nature, that wouldn\'t be visible to anyone or anything that tried to enter his mind.
He had given a thought to turn his entire mind invisible to anyone looking for it, but Quinn wasn\'t even sure how to do that. He had tried to make his shields work like an invisibility cloak, but that didn\'t work because Quinn couldn\'t figure out how to hide something that was so clearly supposed to be present inside of him.
Plus, a mindscape was too complex and heterogeneous in nature for Quinn to hide. But in the case of the omnipresent matter, it was homogeneous in nature and relatively uncomplicated enough for Quinn to make things work.
Back to the challenge to add the invisible matter to his mindscape, which stretched infinitely in all directions.
Instead of taking the approach of filling a glass with water, Quinn decided to add the invisible matter into the very essence of his mindscape. To add the presence of the invisible matter into the very genetic/source code of his mindscape.
In the months he had been in Hogwarts, Quinn was able to complete this process. He was able to add a naturally existing matter to his mindscape. His mindscape now had an omnipresent matter, encompassing everything from his both replicas to the empty that extended infinitely.
"Oh yeah, I can feel it," sighed Quinn. He could see and feel the addition to his mindscape. "Yeah, this will work, won\'t it."
"The first challenge is over, but this is just the start," Quinn moved his eyes around, moving his body to see in every direction. "Now I need to make it completely invisible to any mental probe."
The second challenge to Quinn\'s plan of developing his defense was to make the matter invisible to any mental probe. He needed the attackers to be unaware that there was something that was watching them. The motive to do this was to make them drop their guard. Quinn wanted to make them believe that their job was done, and now they didn\'t need to be sneaky and careful.
One of the things Quinn had learned from the second vault was that you couldn\'t defend against something you didn\'t know about. So if his attackers didn\'t know about the invisible matter, then they wouldn\'t be cautious against it, making the job of the omnipresent matter easier.
"This is going to be so difficult," whined Quinn in a sing-song voice.
Making the matter invisible to the attacker meant that he needed to be better than them. He needed to out-skill them and cover all bases so the invisible matter wouldn\'t show up on any legilimency detection probes.
"This is going to be another repeat of my detection layer training," Quinn licked his lip and exhaled a deep breath. "This will be a huge part of my next few months."
Quinn had developed his detection layer by testing it against various legilimency attacks: actively trying to detect masked legilimency attacks until his detection layer was strengthened enough to do it passively.
"This time around, it will be the opposite," mumbled Quinn to himself as he waved a hand through the air of his mindscape, "I have to develop the matter to the point that an attacker won\'t be able to detect it. Last time around, it was seeking from hide-and-seek; this time, it would be hiding from hide-and-seek."
When this part of the upgrade was completed, the next part would be the actual defense, where Quinn would change the nature of the invisible matter to hinder foreign mental magic. That would turn the very environment of Quinn\'s mindscape into a defensive asset.
And Quinn had already started on the preparation for the development of a lethal environment.
The mental representation of Quinn closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, the sight had changed. Now he stood in the emotional core of his mind.
It was an extensive network of small point lights connected to each other. A network that spanned many kilometers if taken in scale to the small mental representation of Quinn. Every tiny point light was some emotion related to an event in Quinn\'s life. And because of the continuity in a person\'s life, every event was connected to other events, creating an extensive network.
This place differed from the emotional representation that Alan had visited to check on Quinn\'s emotional status. This was the full expanse. If someone gained access to this part of Quinn\'s mind, they would have complete control over Quinn\'s emotions.
"Phew, I forgot how time-consuming constructing this was," sighed Quinn with a sense of achievement, his hands resting on his waist as he admired his work.
There was a cover over the expansive network of emotion that Quinn had spent his entire life feeling. It was the same graphene-inspired defensive layer that Quinn used for his normal defensive layer, which covered his mindscape. Ten layers of interconnected hexagons made a solid cover, proven to work against legilimency attacks.
Quinn\'s primary and secondary defensive shields were over a hundred layers and fifty layers thick respectively, so this shield looked very thin in comparison. But this defensive shield had an additional feature that the original defensive shields didn\'t have.
Faint radiation in the shape of circular waves radiated from every vertex of the expansive hexagon matrix; thousands upon thousands of vertices radiated a mild radiation, which created a protective layer of radiation that covered the shield layers. All ten protective layers had the same feature, so that resulted in ten layers of radiation.
"This is working splendidly," whispered Quinn, his work brightly reflected in his eyes. "This proves that I can replicate this with the invisible matter."
The radiation was a legilimency inhibiting application of occlumency. Its sole purpose was to degrade the mental probes, such that the probe got weaker as it made its way through the layers of shields. Plus, the strength of the radiation got stronger as the probe made its way deeper into the shield because the layers of radiation piled on.
"Even if I stop now, I can add this to my main shields, and this would push them to another level, a qualitative change." A smile made its way onto Quinn\'s face as he thought about the future of his defensive shields.
"Now, I need to figure out how to add this to the invisible matter. I have to think of a name for the invisible material; I can\'t keep calling it \'invisible matter\'."
The radiation-shields were a proof of concept, but to add this effect to the invisible matter was another challenge that Quinn needed to study up on and figure out how to do.
"Just thinking about it gives me a mental boner. A whole mindscape turned into an active radiation zone, yeah, yeah-" Quinn repeatedly nodded his head with an excited smile on his face. "- This is going to be my greatest work. Ooh~, I can imagine it, the legilimens entering my mindscape and immediately getting hit with radiation, and from a source that they can\'t see. Yeah~, I knew this would be good when I figured it out. Slowly the mental attack would crumble and snuff out like a candle flame in a windy night."
Quinn made a fist and closed it with a snap, squeezing it tight as if crushing something in his grasp.
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At the snowy lakeside of the Great lake, Quinn stood staring at the lake\'s surface, wondering about the third vault and Neptune.
"It is definitely Neptune, the god, and I am sure the clue is definitely related to the Great lake. Would I have to venture out of Hogwarts via the waterway?"
While building upon the third vault being in water theory, Quinn found out that the Great Lake was connected to the ocean through underground waterways. When he thought more about this information, it made sense because next year when the Triwizard Tournament was held at Hogwarts, the Durmstrang ship had emerged from inside the lake, and with this piece of information, it made sense.
"The \'it\' is also most definitely referring to water," muttered Quinn, his hands behind his back as he looked at the snow near his feet. "\'I can swallow it, and I can drown in it\' which is most probably the meaning of \'devour\' in the riddle."
But there was still something that was missing, and it stopped Quinn from finalizing his reasoning.
"What the hell is Neptune\'s Bane? This is tied to the forgotten dome. I need to know if I am going in the same direction," grumbled Quinn, kicking the snow near his feet.
「Deep in the Bane of Neptune\'s home」
The riddle pointed to Neptune\'s Bane, not Neptune himself, but Quinn still hadn\'t been able to pinpoint the identity of Neptune\'s Bane.
The home of Neptune\'s Bane, it could be possible that the Bane\'s home wasn\'t in the Great lake or in water at all. Neptune\'s enemy might not live in water; it could be somewhere entirely else, and Quinn was thinking about this all wrong.
"Who or what is the Bane?"\'
The sound of splashing water gained Quinn\'s and brought him out his thoughts. He looked up and saw a large tentacle coming out of the water.
"The giant squid," mumbled Quinn, looking at the tentacle of one of the Great lake\'s residents.
Giant squids could reach tremendous sizes and are one of the largest living organisms on earth. It was strongly suspected that Giant squids had magical powers, but there was no evidence because the gigantic cephalopod never showed any signs of performing magic.
It was difficult to study the creatures because they were very hard to find and rarely made appearances. The ones that did make the rare appearances attacked those who witnessed them.
This particular giant squid was inhabiting the Great Lake on the grounds of Hogwarts Castle: A castle full of children, and it was only allowed to do so because it was a semi-domesticated giant squid.
It was very docile and helpful to the Hogwarts\' students, such as when students fell into the lake during the first year boat ride, it immediately pushed them safely back into the boat. The squid was also known to have played with students, such as when Fred Weasley, George Weasley, and Lee Jordan tickled its tentacles as it was lying partway out of the lake. And to have accepted food from students, such as when it received toast from Harry Potter.
Quinn smiled when he remembered that despite the generalized fear of the giant species, a Chocolate Frog Card for Hogwarts\' beloved giant squid.
"The... b-bane... of ancient m-mariners and students at Hogwarts should the latter decide to go for a dip in the lake."
Quinn stilled and stuttered as he recalled the Chocolate Frog Card description. Partly because he just found the word \'Bane,\' but partly because of an absurd yet heartbeat fastening thought that struck Quinn.
"Neptune, mariners, giant squid," throaty whispers escaped Quinn as he stared at the giant tentacle.
Quinn recalled a description of a legendary monster. A highly popular mythological animal, a legendary sea monster of gigantic size and cephalopod-like appearance, dwelling off the coasts of dangerous waters and terrorizing nearby sailors.
The beast that made water travel difficult, scaring the people from setting sail in the vast water.
\'Indirectly reducing Neptune\'s role in Roman religion because they feared the water.\'
Things started to click inside Quinn\'s mind. He couldn\'t believe that the creature in front of him was Neptune\'s Bane.
It fit, but at the same time, it seemed absurd.
"Bloody hell... bloody hell... BLOODY HELL!" Quinn yelled with an astonished expression as he set a palm over his forehead and used his other hand, all fingers pointing at the lone giant tentacle.
A large quantity of water splashed everywhere as the \'giant squid\' whipped its tentacle against the lake\'s surface.
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"This is not a GIANT SQUID... THIS IS A BLOODY KRAKEN!"
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Quinn West - MC - !!BLOODY HELL!!
Hogwarts\' giant squid - Peace-loving - Kraken.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - RELEASE! THE! KRAKEN!
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The link is in the synopsis!