20 I'm gonna be the very best!
[A/N: Important class and long chapter! Over 1900 words!!!!]
'War strategy, personal strength and warding'.
On one hand it sounds like a stupid class, as teaching war strategies to first year students gave them literally no advantage when learning magic. And on the other hand, 'personal strength and warding' sounds very promising. Wards can literally be used in every situation, from wards hiding someone to a ward alerting you when someone was nearby. And let's not forget that there have got to be offensive wards.
And 'personal strength' would surely tell them how to get stronger and would help Sebastian progress faster. But he would have to wait and see.
-HP-
The male professor, looking like a stereotypical chemistry teacher, short grey hair, wrinkles on his face and wearing a black doctor's coat, because black seemed to be the trend.
As usual, the professor started by introducing himself. He was a researcher at the 'Magical Development and Research' department and researched the connection between magic, the body and other factors, together with a few 5th to 7th year students.
Fun fact, the stronger a wizard, the harder it was to get children. Because the amount of magic has risen, the average wizard became weaker relative to the environment. Therefore, the birthrate nearly tripled and in two years would be the first time with three times the amount of students coming to school.
He told them that this year would be all about explaining how to measure the strength of a wizard, what makes a wizard strong and how we even cast spells. After that, that they would start to learn runes and arithmancy as a preparation for warding and war strategies.
Then, the professor started by giving them a 'short' breakdown of the first few topics spanning the whole day.
There were three deciding factors to a wizard's strength:
Magical circuits
A wizards casts spells by using the ambient magic set produced by ley lines. A spell was actually just a combination and intent and understanding of nature, magic and the natural laws, linked together by a wandmovement and a chant, supported by the wand's/staff's ability to help replace own skill with a spell.
The idea was genius: One person had to know everything about something, create a spell out of it and with a bit of training and more or less understanting and intent, everyone could potentially cast a spell.
Sometimes, though, you still need to know what you are doing to even cast a spell with wand and chant. This was mostly so with very complex and/or powerfull spells, like for example healing, warding and the patronus charm, as some spells cannot replace everything. It was like magic resisted being controlled without understanding on a high level.
Chantless casting was to replace the incantation with intent, understanding or practice, though the last was inefficient.
To cast a spell wandless, you need to understand and know the different intents and 'layer' them manually while 'casting'. Depending on the spell, there was a lot to 'understand' and sometimes nearly nothing like with the levitaition charm (relative to other charms).
Just know there is a force pressing down and counter it. Afterwards continously channel magic to move and stay afloat. It was mostly Gravitation, Newtons laws and a bit about forces. Then a bit about some magical laws. The interesting thing was to create intent out of it.
To name the different intents for the levitation charm in basic words:
1. Fuse (Layer magic), 2. Upwards force, 3. Multidimensional force, 4. Continous channeling, 5. Intent regulation (What you want -> Movement of Object), 6. Stable float, 7. Spread force (Not on one focal point), 8. Limit Magic, and a few more.
Now you need to understand what these different intents mean. They always have the same 'understanding', but one understanding can have a lot of intents. Like this, spells can also be varied easily if you were to fully know a spell.
LUCKILY after learning and practicing a bit with all of that, most wizards were able to do many more basic spells with pure instinct without understanding the depth behind it, and one's magic is able to remember the 'layered' intents once cast, meaning that you only need to do it once to nearly always do it.
Still, complicated spells need a full analysis for a wizard to cast it wandless.
The amount of magic a wizard can channel in total depends on your magical circuits. They expand through magical upheavals which normally happened three times in the life of a wizard.
1. The first accidental magic, 2. At eleven years old, 3. At seventeen years old.
In between, these magical circuits can grow very fast, though they have an upper limit. That is why most people think early accidental magic means a higher talent. Due to this fast growth, the first few spells of a wizard can be very exhausting. After a few times, they can cast a lot more.
After that, wizards only have two ways to be able to use more magic. The first one is overpowering your magic which forcefully grows your circuits. It is very dangerous and very often followed by death through magic depletion. Overpowering one's magic meant using a spell that used a lot of magic with high intensity in dire situations. This was because if the situation was not dire, your body would automatically stop using magic.
The second way was becoming closer to magic. It was a very complex field, but to put it in a nutshell, it just means: The more you know the fewer magic it needs, translating to: The better you understand a spell or the more you use it, the lower is the pressure put on your body. This was also the 'channelling' aspect of transfiguration.
The body
There are several bodily factors influencing a wizard's strength. The first was the ability to recuperate after the use of magic, meaning that the better the body, the nutrition and day to day life, the faster your body 'heals'. This also influenced the second factor, the ability to dodge and cast. A wizard would be very weak if he were to be exhausted after running a few hundred meters, additionally, a few spells depended on one's physical strength.
Knowledge
The more spells you know and how to use them influenced the combat ability of a wizard as well as the upper limit of a spell. Then there were factors like chantless and wandless magic. If you could cast a spell without chant you would most definitely be faster than with a chant. And being able to cast chant-/wandlessly equalled strength. The less you need the support of a chant, visualisation, or a wand, the stronger the spell could be.
Then, finally, the professor explained how wizards were classified in terms of combat magic worldwide after the G.W.I., Global Wizarding Index, which also published rankings after people passed certain tests and if they wanted the world to know about it. Some nations used this excessively for propaganda. The G.W.I. also set the rules for different sports, tests like N.E.W.T. and requirements for a mastery for it to be recognized worldwide.
'G.W.I.: Combat Ability
I Battle Apprentice (B.A.)
II Battle Discipline (B.D.)
III Battle Adept (B.Ad.) - Harry Potter was currently "registered" at his level (could be higher)
In at the first three ranks, it was expected to know a certain amount to combat spells of different classification in terms of strength. The higher the rank, the more proficient you are and more spells you know. The term 'strength' is very vague at this point, as it mostly depends on how you use your spells.
IV Battle Master (B.M.) - required to cast partially chantless
V Battle Mage (B.Ma.) - All combat spells chantless
There is also a requirement for different kinds of spells mastered and the ability of a wizard is also a big part of deciding the rank.
VI Auror - Good combat power. Able to destoy a large house is seconds
VII Hit Wizard (H.W.) - Start building a real, own combat style, own spells and partially wandless
VIII Elite Hit Wizard (E.H.W.) – Own combat style, own spells, mostly wandless
An Elite Hit Wizard should also be able to destroy a village in a short amount of time, depending on the specialization.
A few known Elite Hit Wizards as example: Pr. Krieg, Auror Moody (Br.), Pr. Flitwick (Br.), Lord Sayre (U.S.)
IX War Wizard (W.W.) - Able to destroy a village with one spell
Currently known War Wizards: Albus Dumbledore (Br.), Red Assassin (Jp.), Steven Star (U.S.), Master Yu (Ch.), Louise Delacour (Fr.), Sergei Dolohov (Ru.)
X High War Wizard (H.W.W.) - Can inflict a whole city
Formerly: Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, Voldemort
XI Grand Wizard (G.W.) - Strength not known
Formerly: Probably Merlin, Helga Hufflepuff, Herpo the Foul
Note: Nothing is known on how to rise above the strength of E.H.W., rumors hint to the involvement of runes.
Important note: Rank I – VII do not define strength but are decided by the skills a wizard possesses. But in most cases, a wizard would be able to back his 'combat magic rank' with real combat skill. A B.A. could still be able to wipe the floor with a B.Ma. if the gap in experience is big enough or it the B.A. fully mastered a spell.
The difference between reality and actual skill can be large!
[A/N: Just so you know that this is not some kind of cultivation ranking bs.]
'
The professor also told them, that the first three years equaled rank I, II and III with half a step into rank IV if the students wanted to pass. But theoretically, a student could be able to reach rank V, though the highest reached so far was halfway through rank IV.
Then he gave them a few evaluations on a few champions, mainly Harry Potter as he was deemed the one with the most talent.
He started getting training when he was seven, but most of it was based on theory. From nine years of age, he started being registered in the G.W.I. and with ten, he was at rank two. With eleven at rank three and now he was twelve years old.
And some might say 'Two years for rank three as a so-called prodigy?'. Well, it became exponentially harder to practice magic the earlier you start, so being able the reach rank III, not considering that he could not have fully focused on it, was amazing. If he had started focusing on it from 11 and taken the normal elite teaching of Hogwarts, the elite school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he would have long reached and surpassed the same rank right now. And all that still ignoring that Harry's ward, Dumbledore, praised him for his amazing transfiguration talent, NOT CHARMS AND COMBAT! So yeah, he was a prodigy.
Secretly, Sebastian started to feel intimidated, but also inspired. He set his goal to surpass Harry Potter in combat. Not Harry Potter would be the prodigy then, but him. What Sebastian did not realize was that the school had aimed to make the students aim higher by learning about international prodigies and surely, the motivation had worked.
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What do you think about the change of 'style'?
And what do you think of this ranking system and chantless/wandless system?
I often think, that many ff's do not really show how strong different characters are, therefore this skillbased raking is pretty good in my opinion. It gives you knowledge about their abilities but not about the REAL strength, so no 100% spoilers or repetitive combat style!
Please comment of errors or loopholes.
Remember, it is my first ff, so dont expect too much.
