Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 219 The Path of the Soul

"Why aren't you dead yet?"

In the darkness, only a head remained.

His body had been completely dismembered, his heart removed, his tongue cut off, and he was blind; he could see nothing.

Opposite the head, a mass of black, viscous sludge shifted shape. "You cannot speak, you cannot see, you cannot eat, you cannot move, and you cannot enjoy anything. All happiness is irrelevant to you; all that remains is suffering. Why don't you let go of this?"

"Give up. This is despair. You have no chance of turning things around!"

【No】

"Fine, then let's take away your hearing too, and your touch as well. Then all that will remain in this world will be silence and stillness, and you will be nothing but a brain in a vat."

The sound faded into the distance.

The last sense of touch disappeared.

In the void, only a consciousness buzzed.

I'm still thinking about it.

I still exist.

Even without a body, without a heartbeat, and only a head remaining, it still exists.

【I see.】

This is not reality.

This is an illusion.

Click.

A crack appeared in the darkness.

That thing called despair can rob me of all my senses and cause endless suffering, but it cannot stop my thoughts.

[Because this is the deepest part of self-awareness, the singularity of the ideal world. It is within the horizon of the black hole of the mind.]

Here, I am the absolute master.

I am the sole rule of this idealistic world.

【So...】

Let there be light.

……

On the arena, Professor Sprout watched with great concern as Murphy and Snape both drank the potion.

After drinking the potion, Murphy stood still, while Snape was breathing heavily, as if he were experiencing great pain.

This pain seemed to be spreading outwards, the dark magic spreading and causing the surrounding temperature to drop. The flowers and plants beside the arena visibly withered and decayed, and even the sky was filled with dark clouds.

"Is this... a magical outburst?" Professor Sprout was surprised and quickly told the students to step back and stay away from the arena to prevent them from being accidentally injured by the chaotic magic of the two.

"Mrs. Pomfrey, what should we do now?" Professor Sprout seemed unsure. "Should we try to wake them up?"

"Alright, let me think of something. That potion is extremely dangerous. If we delay any longer, it could cause terrible psychological damage..."

However, before she could finish speaking, Murphy suddenly opened his eyes.

"Let there be light."

He said.

Suddenly, a ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds, sweeping away the gloom like a sharp sword and shining on everyone. The temperature seemed to rise several degrees instantly, and the people's previously worried mood inexplicably eased.

Murphy breathed a sigh of relief.

He glanced at the timer on the table. In that illusion, it felt like a lifetime had passed, but in reality, only a few minutes had gone by.

"Professor Darkholm, how are you feeling?" Sprout asked quickly.

"I'm fine," Murphy said, glancing at Snape, who was drenched in sweat and looked as if he might faint at any moment. "Mrs. Pomfrey, prepare to treat him now."

The combined effects of the memory serum and the despair serum would be almost fatal to someone like Snape who had suffered severe psychological trauma.

Even if he manages to withstand the effects of the medication, he might wake up with severe depression or something similar. If he doesn't get treatment soon, this old guy might be ruined.

……

However, even with Madam Pomfrey's best efforts to save him, Snape didn't regain consciousness until evening. Although he was awakened, he remained immersed in endless sorrow, almost collapsing from crying.

Fortunately, thanks to Murphy's suggestion, he was promptly moved to a private room, thus avoiding a public embarrassment in front of the faculty and students.

Murphy had undoubtedly won the bet, but he didn't have time to go and show off to Snape.

Within the mental illusion created by the Despair Potion, he came to understand a unique philosophy.

"If the essence of magic is truly idealistic, then its purely idealistic scope must be very small, and it cannot interfere with other wills."

"But within this realm of absolute idealism, which is independent of other wills, it is the wish-granting machine that makes wishes come true."

"This singularity of absolute will is the realm where will is above all else and determines matter."

"Within the Mind's Vision, everything outside loses its meaning. Nothing, whether material or magical, can intrude into this realm—unless it is actively accepted by the will."

If this hypothesis is true—and it is highly likely to be true—is it possible to establish a path to godhood based on it?

This is a completely idealistic path, very different from the transformation path and the spell path. Its essence is "nothing exists outside the mind".

Murphy plans to call this approach the "Mind Path".

Its path is also very clear: as long as the "mind horizon" of the "absolute will singularity" is expanded to encompass a wider area, the "wish fulfillment" can be extended to a larger external world, thereby allowing the external world to be arbitrarily changed by one's own will.

This thing is actually like the so-called "domain" often seen in fantasy novels.

If we assume that the scope of the "mind's horizon" is in the physical sense, then it may be very small, perhaps at the molecular, atomic, or even quantum level.

However, since it is a range extending from the ideal singularity, it does not necessarily have to be in the physical sense; it can also be seen as a range in the conceptual sense.

For example, "biology" is a concept, which is in a certain sense larger than the concept of "animal." The concept of "animal" is larger than "mammal," "mammal" is larger than "human," "human" is larger than "Homo sapiens," "Homo sapiens" is larger than "British people," and "British people" is larger than "Londoners."

However, from this perspective, concepts also have a scope.

Perhaps we can start with a small-scale concept and expand our own "domain".

For example, Murphy can control lightning based on the power of the Thunderbird. If the concept of lightning is extended to "electromagnetic phenomena," could he also directly control various electromagnetic phenomena, like Magneto?

This expansion of the conceptual scope is certainly not as comprehensive as the expansion of the physical scope.

If the mind's vision could be extended to a physical range of two meters, then those two meters would be his microcosm, and all the laws governing everything within those two meters would be determined by his word. Its comprehensiveness and power would be completely beyond what the expansion of the conceptual scope could achieve. However, in terms of operational difficulty, the expansion of the concept might actually be easier.

After all, if understood from the perspective of spiritual pathways, magic and spells can actually be seen as the cross-effects of various different spiritual realms.

In other words, all existing magic can be seen as an application of mental pathways.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to directly divide the six magical domains based on the six dimensions of magic power.

Compared to the transmutation and spellcasting pathways, the mind pathway has a much lower barrier to understanding. To a certain extent, it can replace the spellcasting pathway, which is difficult for wizards to understand, and provide a guiding principle for their research.

In this way, he could even make use of those useless people.

What a joy.

……

After the gambling incident, Murphy devoted several days to perfecting the theory of the Mind Path. He planned to write a paper to publish in the Magic Weekly, thereby bringing together the fragmented magical research in the wizarding world into the framework of the Mind Path.

But before the paper was even finished.

He then received a message from the Soviet Union.

Barty Crouch Jr. bowed respectfully to him through the raven's vision. "Great master, we have found an opportunity."

"The Substitute Plan can now be implemented."

(End of this chapter)