7 7. Time-Skip!

Ryan spent about four months constantly training. He spent time training powers, learning from books, applying all wand magic, then practicing imaginative magic.

Starting with his shadow manipulation, he has managed to make constructs, expand his shadow to cover an area, travel through them, and control the shadows of other creatures, like pinning them down due to their shadow. Ryan felt there are way more mysteries in his shadow, so he constantly pushed forward, leading to him once staying in a meditative state inside his shadow dimension for about 4 days. The sudden time-lapse was one of the weirdest experiences for him.

As for his army, he still kept it to small critters and occasional dead animals. Ryan was also able to finally discover he could talk to snakes after sneaking into a zoo at night.

There was another reason to sneak into the zoo. Getting organic samples like blood, hair, scales, etc. Ryan still didn't has the heart to kill yet, so he just got some samples for Bleezebuth for analysis. Though he didn't get anything as the skill didn't rely on DNA scanning.

He was able to fuse gluttony to shadows, making them able to absorb all forms of energy, including sunlight. Though he wasn't able to make it charge him like Superman.

But he didn't need solar energy for it either, cause he had Ruler's Aura. He was now able to fly, use telekinesis, and release a telepathic wave to knock people out. His mastery of telepathy was also increasing day by day. Thanks to pushing other abilities, his telepathic range was increasing automatically, so he was more focused on control and efficiency. He also makes a tactile telekinetic field around him, similar to Superman's Bio-electric field, making him hit a tree with a feeble branch while coating it in the energy, making it carve into it without breaking.

Noticing the uses, Ryan divided Ruler's Aura into 5 parts, telepathy, telekinesis, and the three Haki's. He called them haki's because their effects were similar to the three haki's from the One Piece universe. With time they were becoming easier to control, but his growth rate started to slow down considerably due to not having the challenge to help his powers grow. While he had limitless potential, his abilities were not increasing at the rate they used to anymore. Raphael came to the conclusion it was because Ryan didn't have anything to compete with him, providing him a challenge to overcome and grow stronger.

On that note, Ryan noticed he had been feeling quite lonely as of late, staying all day training and only going out to get necessities. Due to this, he decided to turn Raphael into a Manas and named him Aria. It was also the first time he had felt anything like magical exhaustion since black heart usually produced enough mana to replenish whatever amount of mana he used within seconds.

According to Ryan's wish for a friend and conversation partner, Aria often spent time talking with Ryan, involving a few jabs, and their banter was proving effective to help Ryan's mental state. Even after his vow, he often found himself thinking about the Potters and the wizarding world, but Aria kept him on a constant edge, sometimes even teleporting him away to explore his neighborhood whenever he took a break to not let him ponder.

It took a while but Ryan figured out what she was doing, and he was thankful for everything she was doing. Since Aria was born, he noticed he was no longer surrounded by the usual gloominess, and started exploring places in London, looking for all tourist places, especially trying to sneak into places that were off limits. Something about breaking rules

Aria was also helping Ryan study and create courses for him to train with while starting a project of her own, observation. After improving Observation Haki, Aria has started working on a magical skill to work similarly to the 'observe' skill in the gamer system.

Ryan has almost fully mastered stealth and the magical skill Aria had created to work similarly to it, which he named Shroud of Concealment. He was able to use this to affect people on different levels, making them ignore him while being aware of his existence, and even enveloping other people and objects in it.

Ryan then soon realized he had reached the limits he could raise his powers to by himself in... everything. At least in the growth of his powers. It doesn't count his learning. Ryan was very interested in magical knowledge. His enhanced brain also made his learning speed shoot up, and by now he was starting to experiment with spells and arithmancy. Ryan only had practical knowledge in Hogwarts subjects of DADA, Charms, and Transfiguration. He also had partial knowledge of arithmancy.

But he had no experience in COMC, Herbology, Potions, and Ancient runes. He had merely memorized everything in them for now, as he didn't have the necessary means for practical experience. His arithmancy was also not up to others because he was only able to use it in Charms and Transfiguration. He wasn't able to use it in potions and ancient runes. And he also only had Hogwarts books till now, so Ryan needed more books for reference. He didn't care for the History of Magic and Muggle Studies that much, and he was conflicted on Divination and Astronomy since the movies showed them as filler classes.

Ryan had still read all books on the topics and remembered them, but they all didn't satisfy him, except for astronomy, as he didn't have much interest in them, especially because Muggle's studies were full of bullshit from the 18th century, the most recent inclusion in them was about 'horseless carriages'.

Ryan had spent one galleon to get books about different magical societies of this world, but even after that, all he got was about Europe and a few mentions of USA, mostly due to the involvement of Gellert Grindelwald.

But it didn't matter anymore. He has found knowledge of a few magical villages and towns with some magical living in them in UK as well as France. Not much about the ones in France, but they were enough. Ryan stretched a bit and checked his storage, one of the few applications of Beelzebuth he had managed to learn.

He had not added any runes or wards to his train coach, which was now way different from the shoddy, plant-covered junk it once was. As for why it wasn't warded? Because Ryan's taking it with him. He more or less remembers the location he currently was, but he does not have any intentions of leaving the coach behind during his travels.

"Am I missing something?" Ryan thought out loud.

[I do not believe so, master] Aria responded.

"Hmm." Ryan hummed and expanded his shadow to store his coach. He stood and looked around the area, the place he stayed and made home after recovering his memories.

Ryan's obscurus enveloped him, forming clothes over him. He took inspiration from one of his favorite mangas, one he thought the writer had taken crack while writing, the Eminence in the Shadows.

He wore a black longcoat, completely decked in black, with some gold highlights, and a mask to hide his face. Ryan was focused on fully accepting his inner edgelord while he enjoyed these silly things, cause why not?

Unfortunately, it didn't look as intimidating as Ryan hoped as he was still 9, even though his body had transformed to look about 12.

"Well, time to move," Ryan said, and two draconic wings of shadow popped from his back. Ryan crouched, then shot up with Ruler's aura and used mana to create acceleration.

He gained balance, not applying a barrier to stop the air resistance to feel the air wooshing. Ryan accelerated upwards and soon reached the clouds, feeling a weird moisture around him, and appeared above the layer, and hovered above it. The cloud moved away and he looked at Surrey from above.

Ryan remembered how scared he was when he was learning how to fly even at 1/10 of the current height he was on. He then turned around and looked at the outskirts of London visible from the height, then looked away in another direction.

Ryan stopped applying telekinesis and started falling down. He looked below, then adjusted his wings, trying to get the feel of aerodynamics, then shifted a bit and applied it back, making him accelerate and glide close to some houses and moved away.

"WOOOHOOOO" Ryan screamed while flying away, and the next day people reported a UFO sighting in the area, with reports of hearing a person screaming because of being abducted.