Chapter 3-More Time Passes

Hey, it's me. I'm now 10 years old and I'm fairly close to receiving my Hogwarts letter. To recap, the past few years have been a grind. For starters, I made some great progress with senjutsu. My body was finally as refined as it was going to be by senjutsu standards at around age 9, and I was finally able to begin drawing prana, chi, lifeforce, whatever you want to call, from the environment. Once I draw it into me, I can then refine it for my own purposes. There was a slight deviation from expectations though. Instead of just drawing it in and packing it away like a cultivator, I've ended up releasing most of it back into the environment once it's purified. I can't really explain it, but my intuition tells me that that's how it's supposed to be done.

After doing it that way for a while, it started to become way easier and it felt as if the world itself was assisting me. Imagine the feeling of receiving hugs and headpats from Gaia, while it praises you for being a good human. I guess it makes sense. What I'm doing is cleaning much like a maid or a janitor would for a fee. I do my job and get paid for it. A cultivator would clean the house by stealing everything of value and leaving it empty. It's not hard to imagine which one the homeowner would prefer. After working on it for more than a year, I can actually feel the change in my life force. It's become both more robust and dense. Also, wherever I practice, the plantlife has noticeably better growth. I've essentially become the world's best fertilizer and I take pride in that.

My skill with my chi has improved as well. I can now officially walk up walls and on water. It took me months to be able to do it. I can also create a small fire using my life force, but it's extremely tiring and devours my chi rapidly. Finally, I help out a lot in the garden at the orphanage. Raising plants has actually given me the most gains in my control over my life force. I can you use it to support their growth, diagnose and cure and health problems they may have, and slightly alter them to make their produce more plentiful and/or taste better.

My strength training also bore decent results. It mostly consisted of calisthenics for muscle strength and a bit of yoga for flexibility and balance. There was also a number of conditioning exercises like ladder drills, sprints, jump ropes, plyobox jumps, and longer distance runs. The combination didn't make me buff or anything, but I was in really good shape and my musculature was visible if I flexed. It's important to remember that I was still only 10. Even with my vitality, doing too much would end up harming me. That being said, I purchased some adjustable dumbells as I planned to begin including some weight training once I started at Hogwarts. Nothing too heavy, but enough to get me headed in the right direction.

In other news, I've skipped several grades and have been permitted a fair amount of autonomy. I don't even have to go to school anymore, just show up and take tests. I regularly go the library and do odd jobs in the area to get money. I even managed to find the entrance to diagon alley, which with my eyes, wasn't actually that difficult. I managed to find it about two years prior and gained entrance.

Tom, the same guy from the original story, was working there. He's a pretty nice guy. I told him about my situation of being an orphan, but also having magic and wanting to get a head start. He ended up introducing me to some good people in diagon alley and I run odd jobs for them for a small fee. Picking myself up by my bootstraps indeed.

I even got myself an account at gringotts. They were a bit more respectful towards me when I spoke to them in Gobledegook. Not a whole lot mind you, they still hate wizards. They just show a bit less disdain towards me. As it turns out, they've got some banking connections to the muggle world, so I was able to use them interchangeably. No idea how that works with taxes. I deposited my muggle money and made some initial investments in dividend yielding stocks, then told my advisor to reinvest any paid dividends. Now that the ball is officially rolling, I should see some good growth in the coming years.

Aside from putting my money in the bank, I also used it to purchase some books. Runes, arithmancy, healing, magic theory, etiquette, traditions, and laws to start. I even managed to acquire a book on occlumency. As much as I'd like to learn a bunch of different magic, I stuck to things that I believe would be most practical. Occlumency being one of the few magics that that I could currently practice was an obvious choice. I chose magic theory, runes, and arithmancy because they tie into a lot of different fields of magic. The remaining books were chosen simply so that I could keep myself out of trouble. Wizards have there own laws and culture. Going into the wizarding world as a muggleborn and not showing any respect for that is a quick way to get on people's bad sides. Sure, some might not care, but others do and the ones who do tend to have some monetary or political pull. Unfortunately, some will be jerks regardless, but I can at least come up with some ideas to defend myself.

As I've said, my nonmagical studies have gone well. I've basically learned all the knowledge that I would need to enter a university, and I've been studying things that interest me. At this point I could give a pre-med a run for their money. The senjutsu and occlumency combo have made remembering and understanding new information really easy. I've swept through a number of STEM undergrad courses and now have a very solid foundation in the sciences. I've leaned particularly heavy towards anything related to the medical field and have good probably do reasonably well on the MCAT if I took it.

On the magic end of things, I have actually made progress. Not just with occlumency, but with the pebble. I can now move it around much like a jedi using the force, although far less impressive. I also remembered the matchstick to needle thing and practiced that. It took me a while, but I eventually managed to do it. Afterwards, I've just kept practicing. Using multiple pebbles, bigger pebbles, performing multiple transfigurations. For wandless magic it's pretty dang impressive. Voldemort will flee in terror when I slowly levitate pebbles into his mouth without a wand.

I was making my was back from the library when an owl flew in front of me and dropped a letter on the ground before landing on the front gate of the orphanage and staring at me. I bent over, picked up the letter, and carefully opened it. On it, I saw the Howarts emblem in all of its glory.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore

Dear Mr. Mathers,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

The term begins the 1st of September. We await your owl no later than the 31st of August. We very much look forward to receiving you as part of Hogwarts' heritage.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Minerva McGonagall

I felt the excitement bubble in my chest as I sent a reply letter. Basically, I just agreed, but explained my situation and asked if someone could come and answer some questions. Although, I have the knowledge, it's not as if I know everything. Someone who has done this several times before will likely catch anything that I may miss. Grinning dumbly as O watch the owl fly off I think to myself, 'so it begins.'