8 Chapter 8

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While Ethan was meditating after lunch, Henry called for him in the study.

Curious about what his father wanted from him, Ethan asked, "You called me?"

Henry nodded and told him to sit, before asking, "If I remember correctly, you once expressed interest in learning the mind arts, didn't you? With the monks, two years ago."

Ethan, excited of where this discussion could lead to, nodded and replied, "I do. Meditation is a first step toward the mind arts."

Henry looked at Miyuki, who after two years had warmed up to Ethan's parents and treated them like family too, before looking back at his son and saying, "I originally wanted to wait a few more years, but considering your progress with your magic, as well as Miyuki being suited to learn it… I'm going to teach you Occlumency and Legilimency. Both of you."

Miyuki, who could already understand English, squealed in delight as she agilely jumped from one of Ethan's shoulder to the other, her tails slamming into Ethan's face. However, the boy himself was too excited to care as he asked, "Seriously?!"

Henry smiled seeing their excitement and nodded, "The Mind Arts, and especially Occlumency, are very important for a wizard to learn. A Legilimens can be an extremely dangerous individual to the unprotected mind, and manipulate someone without them even realizing."

Ethan asked, "How come so few people learn it then?"

Henry replied, "Most children coming from magical families are taught Occlumency as children, but most stop once they have built sufficiently strong defences around to their mind to warn them of someone invading. Muggleborns often learn of them much later, or don't bother learning them."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Impatient, Ethan couldn't wait to start.

Henry looked into Ethan's eyes and warned, "To start, you should feel what your mind being invaded feels like first."

As he said that, Ethan started feeling weird. It was quite an oppressive feeling, it felt like someone was trying to barge into his room, a room he only managed to sense he was in with the attack…

After a few seconds, Henry stopped and with a surprised face said, "Your mind is very strong for your age, I didn't expect meditation to have such a great effect… Young minds do evolve faster than adults, however."

"What do you mean?" Ethan couldn't help but ask.

Henry explained, "The art of Occlumency isn't to strengthen the mind, but to use the mind to set defences around it, which passively strengthens it. Right now, your mind is already as strong as an accomplished Occlumens, which is quite the achievement."

Ethan titled his head, clearly still having some questions, so Henry continued, "Let's quantify the mind to better explain. We will say that the mind of an accomplished Occlumens has a value of 1. The attack of an equally skilled Legilimens would have a value of 8, so if left undefended the mind of the defender would be intruded easily.

"However, with the proper defences erected, the defence value will reach a 10, allowing him to defend against the attempt."

Ethan mulled over the words of his father and asked, "So a strong mind will allow me to defend from the intrusion of a much weaker Legilimens, and my defences will always be stronger than the attack of a similarly skilled attacker?"

Henry smiled and shook his head, "That depends on the quality of your defences, as well as the attack of your opponent, and that brings me to my second point."

Henry opened his palm, and a blue ball of light appeared in his hand. Ethan wasn't surprised at the feat of Wandless Magic as he was aware of his father's proficiency in magic.

Henry explained, "This is your mind."

Then, blue wisps of energy extended from the ball of light and formed a barrier around the light, and Henry said, "The Occlumens will use his mind to create a barrier, the quality of which will decide the factor by which their defence will be strengthened."

Then, a red fog appeared all around the barrier, and tried entering, but failed to do so.

"This is the mind of the opponent."

The fog gathered in one spot to form a ray of light, which clashed with the shield, and destroyed it.

"This defence was a weak one. However, if I do this…"

The blue barrier, which had been shattered, appeared once again, but this time turned into a complicated structure as a rampart appeared all around the mind. The ray of light once again clashed against the rampart, and this time was stopped.

Seeing the light show was over, Ethan asked, "Why is the defence at an advantage?"

Henry replied, "Both defence and attack have their attributes. The defence has to be set in advance, and can't change form while being invaded unless one is extremely skilled in the arts, so it lacks versatility. However, it has the home advantage, and with the mind being right next to it, the defences will have a stronger integrity and the ability to last longer.

"As for the attack, although it only has a finite amount of energy, it can be shaped accordingly to the defence, so if the defence has a glaring weakness, the attack can easily take advantage of it. If the defence shows no weak point though, then the attack would exhaust itself before even reaching the mind."

Ethan said, "So I have to find a good structure for my mental defences."

Henry smiled and replied, "In the beginning, yes. But as the mental defences come from the mind, the strength of your mind will affect the strength of your defences, and what you can do with them. For now though, you should only focus on finding the best shape."

Ethan, although curious about what his father wasn't telling him, nodded and began working.

Meditation had allowed Ethan to strengthen his mind, but it also gave him the ability to feel his mind more easily than others, and visualize it more easily. Meditation, he had learned, was all about finding the perfect balance between body, spirit and soul.

As for Miyuki, who had been passively listening since the beginning, her race had a natural ability for the mind arts. Actually, if they waited for more tails to grow, Miyuki would grow to become a Natural Legilimens and Occlumens.

A Natural was someone born with great talent in either skill, and was generally a fearsome opponent to deal with using the mind arts.

And so Ethan's lessons with his father started as they trained in the mind arts everyday. This was actually something Ethan had asked, Henry had planned for a lesson every week, but Ethan insisted on working on his mind arts everyday.

Since he had a lot of free time, Henry happily accepted. No one wanted their close ones to have their mind easily intruded upon by any Tom, Dick and Harry.

Of course, dealing with the mind arts, Ethan always had the apprehension of having his father read too deep in and discovering his knowledge about the future, or a variation of it at least, as this wasn't something he wanted other people to know about, but his father was careful not to ever cross any boundaries.

Besides, Ethan wasn't about to give up on a whole discipline because of he feared his parents might someday find out about future knowledge. Besides, his parents were not the only Legilimens in the world, and not everyone was as well intentioned as they were towards him, so he would rather train while he could to stop any possible future mind rapists.

Also, Ethan found his studies with his father to actually compliment his own meditation in the shaping of his mind, which was always good news.

Of course, adding Occlumency and Legilimency lessons turned his days quite busy, and it wasn't even over as his father wasn't the only one who had something to teach him.