Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 98 The Basic Principles of the Seed of the Mind

After leaving the spell lab, Murphy went to the Mind Magic Research Group.

"Regarding the Seed of the Soul, I believe Celica has already shared some information with you. You've all read Joachim's diary; what are your thoughts?"

Standing before Murphy were the two leaders of the Mind Magic Research Group, Funes Bachmann and Omid Abbott.

After the Yitzhak incident, Murphy approved the two to form this research group. Currently, in addition to them, there is a cognitive psychology expert and a neuromedical expert.

They came to find them, naturally, for the seed of the soul.

Although he obtained the Seed of the Soul in the village, Murphy dared not use it at all.

This spell is so powerful that even Murphy felt a little scared.

If you use a Seed of the Mind on someone and turn them into a zombie or a ghost henchman, that's fine. But what if you turn all the worms in their stomach and the bacteria in their intestines into your own followers, trying to crawl into their stomach every day and solve their problems?

It's not enough for magic to simply be usable; Murphy needs to at least confirm that the black box is basically safe and reliable.

He didn't want to end up like Crabbe in the original story, dying from a spell he couldn't control; that would be too damn embarrassing.

"Based solely on your and Selica's descriptions, and the records in the diary, we can't draw many conclusions yet," Omid Abbott said.

"However, your decision to destroy the village was correct. Before we can determine the interaction mechanism between this spell and the plague, preventing its spread to avoid potential large-scale destruction is a prudent and sensible move."

"Regarding this spell, I currently have a hypothesis," Funes said. "I think it might be able to influence a person's basic personality. The caster of the spell forcibly imposes their own perceptions, expectations, and the concepts and motivations they want the recipient to form onto the recipient."

"In psychoanalysis terms, this is a magical projective identification with the object. In self psychology terms, it is transference of the self-object."

"To put it simply, you can think of it as a more intense form of emotional abuse, just like when parents force their children to believe that 'if you don't study well, you should be beaten.' Although the child may not actually agree with this logic in their inner emotional experience, once this cognition is formed and internalized, it will become an obstacle that they cannot overcome."

"But I haven't come up with a good explanation yet for how this magic does it."

Murphy nodded. "Dr. Funes?"

Funes Bachmann, a slightly balding, serious man, spoke up at this moment: "I also agree with Omid's psychological explanation."

"This spell implants a very strong motivation or emotion into the recipient, which will continuously reinforce itself and become increasingly important in their cognitive patterns and behavioral logic, until it can integrate all the recipient's thoughts and become the most important criterion in their behavioral logic."

"Therefore, this person will ignore all facts that contradict them, and may even actively destroy evidence that contradicts them."

"This can also occur in severe cases of schizophrenia."

"From a neuroscience perspective, I think this magic may have altered the emotional brain or even the primitive brain," Funes said.

"Unlike the complex telencephalon, which is better at rational cognition and analysis, our emotions actually originate in the more primitive brain. The emotional brain, which is the part related to the limbic system, can produce higher emotions and feelings, such as joy, anger, and sadness. The primitive brain, which is the brainstem, medulla oblongata, etc., can produce the most primitive instinctive emotions related to survival, such as fear."

"The more primitive the brain, the stronger the driving force of feelings and emotions it produces. This is why it is difficult for people to control their emotions with reason and to overcome fear with logic."

"Judging from the behavior of this spell, at least part of its mechanism of action is achieved by tampering with lower brain regions."

Murphy agrees with this view. Joachim's diary clearly states that if a contradictory Seed of the Mind is used on someone who has already been used on, it may directly cause the latter's brain to be turned into mush, turning them into a madman.

This indicates that part of the spell is indeed achieved by controlling the subject's brain.

But it shouldn't only affect the brain; after all, Joachim is a ghost, yet the spell still works, so another part of the spell must involve more magical aspects like the "soul."

Moreover, the effects of the spell can be spread through germs and even passed down through genetics, which is quite magical.

"I need you to study the mechanism of this spell. You can work with the Spellcasting group; they are more proficient in the theoretical research of spells. In addition, spells such as Imperius, Legilimency, and Oblivion can also be analyzed together. Let's start with animal experiments; I will have Selika cooperate with you."

With the research on the Seed of the Mind settled, Murphy felt relieved. All that remained was the Transformation Pathway Research Group; he wondered if there had been any new progress since Boris joined them.

Murphy arrived at the Magical Creatures Laboratory.

Boris was undergoing an X-ray examination, and Murphy, without disturbing him, went to find Andrew Tucker.

The guy was incredibly excited to see Murphy. "Boss, we've figured out what vampires are all about!"

"Oh?" Murphy asked curiously. "Tell me about it."

Andrew took out a picture and handed it to Murphy. "This is Boris's G-banded chromosome karyotype analysis report. Take a look, is there anything different?"

Murphy glanced at the various crooked "X"-shaped chromosomes in the picture, examined them carefully for two seconds, and then exclaimed "Huh?"

"Is this the Y chromosome?" Murphy asked, pointing to the last short, granular chromosome.

"No!" Andrew pointed to a small, triangular-shaped chromosome in front of him and said, "This is the Y chromosome. What you see is outside the 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes; it's not a human chromosome."

"You mean vampires have one more chromosome than humans? One, not a pair?"

“Yes, it’s unpaired. This unpaired chromosome explains why vampires have difficulty conceiving,” Andrew said. “They simply cannot undergo meiosis to form gametes.”

"This chromosome is not completely identical to various chromosomes in several bat species, but we have indeed found some similar genes."

"And perhaps it is these genes that gave Boris some bat-like characteristics."

"For example, we found that Boris's cells are similar to those of bats, possessing an extremely strong DNA repair ability, and the rate of telomere wear on his chromosomes is much lower than that of normal humans."

"We used dictamnus glycosides to accelerate the division of Boris cells and found that its maximum number of divisions was between four and five hundred, which is nearly ten times the limit of 50 divisions for human cells! Five hundred cell divisions, if calculated according to the average human cell cycle of 2.4 years, would mean a lifespan of more than 1,200 years."

"...If we follow this calculation, the oldest living vampire might have been born before 800 AD, and he might even have met Emperor Alfred the Great!"

(End of this chapter)