Young Celestial Wizard [Celestial Grimoire, Harry Potter]

Harry sighed in relief. It had taken nearly three hours, but he'd finally managed to explain everything that had happened over the last few days. The transformation into a World, the new powers, the Spatial Gate he'd just installed in their basement, and even a complete tour of his Human World Texture.

Nicolas and Perenelle had been fascinated, of course. They'd spent almost an hour just walking around his forest and testing the physics to make sure everything was working properly.

Nicolas had been particularly excited about the implications of the Time Authority, while Perenelle had focused on what it might mean for magical creature conservation if he could create an endless amount of them as long as he had a starting sample.

But now Harry stood alone on a barren hillside about a mile from the cottage, ready to test something he'd been looking forward to for years.

His first real spell with a wand.

Harry raised the vine wand and began to form a triangle in the air, the traditional wand movement for the Fire-Making Spell.

He chanted, "Incendio."

The moment Harry spoke the incantation, he focused on the concept of fire streaming out of his wand. He could feel the World Power responding immediately, white clouds rushing toward the part of his will that was dedicated to the concept of the spell.

A small flame flickered to life at his wand's tip.

It worked!

But this was only the beginning. More World Power was getting drawn into the concept, and a torrent of orange fire burst forth from his wand. The flames roared as they struck the hillside, immediately setting the sparse grass ablaze. He fed more and more World Power into the wand.

The fire torrent swelled, growing larger and hotter, until eventually it felt like the entire hill was utterly engulfed in flames.

And Harry wasn't done yet.

He raised his free hand towards the blazing hill and his Chi immediately seized control of the flames. The scattered fire obeyed his will, drawing together into a single compressed orb that hovered above the scorched earth.

Harry clenched his fist. The orb contracted violently, orange flames condensing until they appeared almost solid.

Then he snapped his hand open.

The compressed flame orb detonated into a violent rain of orange fire that fell down onto the hillside.

Thousands of ultra-compressed fire droplets pierced the scorched earth like molten arrows, boring clean through soil and stone. The entire hillside transformed into a honeycomb of smoldering holes. With its structural integrity utterly compromised, the hill surrendered to gravity in a thunderous avalanche of rubble.

Harry lowered his wand and glanced toward the distant mountain.

No, it was probably best he didn't try to obliterate a mountain as a test of his destructive prowess. But the experiment had been a resounding success, hadn't it?

His first spell with his wand, the Fire-Making Spell, had been... easy.

Almost ridiculously easy.

It turned out that having such control over his magic came with its own significant benefits. Harry knew that this was very different for normal wizards and witches. They couldn't manually force more magic into their spells like this.

At the very least, it wasn't easy for them to do so.

Most wizards had to rely on their mental models of the spell and the limits of such mental models were different for each individual. If a wizard had learned Incendio by imagining a small campfire, they might never be able to produce anything larger than that without completely relearning the spell.

Their magic would be constrained by their own expectations.

It also depended on the natural inclination of the person. Some wizards were just naturally better at fire magic, while others excelled at transfiguration or charms. And having a wand that was well-suited for certain types of spells could provide a small bit of help, but it couldn't overcome fundamental limitations in magical power or understanding.

But Harry didn't have those mental constraints. If he wanted a tiny flame or a massive inferno, it was just a matter of how much power he chose to channel.

Though it might be best if he started with something a bit less destructive for his next test...

He pointed his wand at a medium-sized boulder that had rolled away from the avalanche. "Wingardium Leviosa."

The boulder immediately lifted off the ground. Harry could feel the spell working exactly as he'd expected it to. His World Power flowed through the wand, creating the magical effect, while a portion of his will maintained the mental model or the 'Form' of the levitation.

But this was where things got interesting.

Within his Heaven-Earth Soul, Harry's consciousness could observe exactly how the spell was working. A specific portion of his will was dedicated to maintaining the concept of 'lift the boulder.' That portion was drawing on his World Power to create the actual magical effect.

"How much of my attention is this actually taking?" Harry whispered to himself.

He examined the portion of his will that was maintaining the levitation spell. It was maybe... one percent of his total consciousness? Less than that, even. The Levitation Charm was apparently a very simple spell that didn't require much mental effort to maintain.

Which meant he could do other things at the same time.

Harry kept the boulder floating while he pointed his wand at a second rock. "Wingardium Leviosa."

The second boulder rose into the air just as easily as the first. Harry could feel that he was now using about two percent of his will to maintain both levitation spells simultaneously.

"Interesting," Harry smiled. "Let's see how far this goes."

He targeted a third boulder, then a fourth, then a fifth. Each time, another small portion of his will split off to maintain the new levitation spell. By the time he had ten boulders floating in the air around him, Harry was using roughly ten percent of his total consciousness.

Harry experimented with moving them around, making them orbit around each other, and even raining down on the destroyed hill.

The mental coordination required was significant, but still well within his capabilities.

But this was completely different from how normal wizards cast spells.

Most wizards could split their attention to some degree, and an experienced wizard might be able to maintain a few effects within the same spell at once, or cast a spell while having a conversation. But they had to do it in a vague way, since they couldn't see exactly how much of their mental capacity each spell was consuming, or deliberately allocate specific portions of their consciousness to different tasks.

It was the difference between trying to juggle while blindfolded versus being able to see exactly where each ball was at all times.

Harry's eidetic memory played a role here too. When he cast the Levitation Charm, he could remember exactly how the spell felt when it was working properly. He could compare each new casting to that perfect memory and make tiny adjustments to improve the efficiency.

Normal wizards had to rely on their imperfect recollections of how spells should feel. They might remember that a spell worked better when they "focused harder" or "wanted it more," but they couldn't remember the exact mental state that had produced the best results.

Magic seemed to have three main components:

Power, Will, and Form.

Power was the raw magical energy that actually created the effect. For wizards, this came from the environment and was essentially unlimited, even if there was still a limit to how much they could channel at once.

Will was the conscious intention that directed the power. This was where the wizard's mind told the magic what to do. Most wizards had to use their entire consciousness in a fuzzy, unfocused way. Harry could split his will into portions and assign each portion to specific tasks.

Form represented the wizard's understanding of how the spell should work. This was shaped by their education, practice, and natural intuition. A wizard who had learned the Fire-Making Spell by imagining a small campfire might struggle to create anything larger, because their preconceptions limited their potential.

Harry let the ten boulders settle gently back to the ground.

If his Power and Will could be controlled to such an extent, then wasn't the Form the limiting factor for him?

That was the real bottleneck.

He had essentially unlimited World Power and good control over his will. But his understanding of how spells should work was still based on what he'd learned from books and observations of other wizards.

"So if I want to become truly powerful with a wand," Harry said aloud to the empty hillside, "I need to understand magic at a deeper level than anyone else."

The question was: how deep could he go?

Harry thought about one of the most basic spells taught at Hogwarts: the Mending Charm. Reparo. It was considered simple magic, something second-years learned within their first few months. Point your wand at a broken object, say the incantation, and the pieces would reassemble themselves.

But when Harry really thought about it, the Mending Charm was absolutely terrifying in its implications.

How could a spell repair something to its original state when the wizard casting it had no idea what the original state looked like?

If Harry found a broken pocket watch on the ground, he could cast Reparo and the watch would fix itself. But Harry didn't know how pocket watches worked. He didn't know which gear was supposed to connect to which spring, or how the hands were supposed to be positioned, or what the face should look like if it had been scratched.

Yet the spell would fix it anyway.

"That's impossible," Harry muttered, staring at his wand. "Unless..."

Harry walked over to where the avalanche had scattered debris and found a large stone that had split cleanly in half. He picked up both pieces and assessed them carefully. The break was fresh and jagged, with small chips of stone scattered around the area where it had fractured.

He held the two halves together, trying to see how they would fit. But it was difficult to tell exactly how the pieces should align since the break wasn't clean enough for him to simply push them together.

Harry set the pieces on the ground a few feet apart and pointed his wand at them.

"Reparo."

The two halves immediately flew toward each other and fused seamlessly. When Harry picked up the stone, he couldn't find any trace of where the break had been.

It was as if the stone had never been damaged at all.

But how was that possible?

Harry sat down on the repaired stone and tried to work through the logic. The Mending Charm had somehow known exactly how the stone should look. It had known which piece belonged where, how the internal structure should be arranged, even how to fill in the tiny chips that had been lost when the stone broke.

"The spell knew something I didn't know," Harry said slowly. "But where did that knowledge come from?"

It couldn't have come from Harry's mind. He hadn't known how to fix the stone. It couldn't have come from the wand, because wands were just tools for channeling magic.

They didn't contain vast stores of information about every object in the world.

So where?

Magic in this world seemed to be primarily conceptual. Spells worked based on ideas and intentions rather than strict physical laws. When a wizard cast Lumos, they weren't creating light through some muggle method. They were imposing the concept of "light" onto reality.

What if the Mending Charm worked the same way?

"Maybe it's not about knowing how to fix something," Harry muttered, picking up another broken piece of stone from the avalanche debris. "Maybe it's about the concept of 'repair' itself."

That would make more sense, wouldn't it?

When Harry cast Reparo, he wasn't providing the spell with detailed instructions on how to reassemble the object. He was simply imposing the concept of "this thing should be whole again" onto reality.

But that raised an even bigger question. How did the concept of repair know what "whole" meant for any given object?

Harry found himself thinking about his Heaven-Earth Soul and the Laws that governed his Human World Texture. He had established the Laws of Physics, Magic, and Fortune within that space. But if someone asked him to explain exactly how those Laws worked, he wouldn't be able to give a detailed answer.

The Laws of Physics in his world weren't a collection of equations that he had forced on the world. They were just... the concept of physics. Gravity worked because gravity was supposed to work. Objects fell down because that's what objects did. He didn't need to understand the mathematical relationships between mass and acceleration for his world to have functional gravity.

Similarly, the Laws of Magic within his Soul... Harry had no true comprehension. It was akin to a baby reaching out and grasping something. Did the baby truly know what it was doing?

No, not really.

The baby might successfully grab a toy, but it didn't understand the complex coordination between its brain, muscles, and nervous system that made the action possible.

It just wanted the toy, reached for it, and somehow the reaching worked.

Harry's Hun Soul had reached out and grasped the Law of Magic when he initiated the transformation into the Heaven-Earth Soul. But he didn't truly know what it was capable of doing. He had simply imposed the concept of "magic should work here" on his Human World and somehow his Heaven-Earth Soul had made it happen.

"So the Law of Magic itself contains the concept of repair," Harry said, glancing at the broken stone in his hands. "It doesn't need detailed blueprints of every object in existence. It just needs to understand what 'wholeness' means."

If the Law of Magic understood wholeness, then what role did Harry's mental Form play in the spell?

Harry pointed his wand at the broken stone again. "Reparo."

The stone pieces flew together and merged back together, just like before. But this time, Harry was paying attention to something different.

He was watching exactly how his Form influenced the spell.

When Harry cast Reparo, he had a specific idea in his mind about what "repair" meant. He imagined the broken pieces coming back together, fitting perfectly, becoming whole again.

But the interesting thing was that no matter how Harry thought about repair, the end result was always the same. The stone became whole. Whether he imagined the pieces flying together dramatically or simply fading back into one piece, the Law of Magic interpreted his intention as "make this object whole again" and did exactly that.

What if he tried to repair something that had been destroyed so completely that there weren't any pieces left? Could the Mending Charm recreate matter from nothing? Probably not. The spell seemed to work by reassembling existing pieces, not creating new ones.

What about repairing something that had been broken for a very long time? If Harry found a thousand-year-old broken pottery shard, would Reparo still work? Or was there some kind of time limit where the magic couldn't remember what the original object had looked like?

And what about repairing living things? Harry had never heard of anyone using Reparo on injuries.

There were healing spells, but they worked differently.

Maybe the concept of "wholeness" was different for living creatures than for objects.

"The Form sets the boundaries," Harry muttered, picking up another broken stone from the debris. "If I understand something better, I can work within those boundaries more efficiently."

Harry activated his Sharingan and stared at the broken stone. The two-tomoe spinning in his eyes let him see details that would be impossible for normal human sight.

He could see that the stone was made up of countless tiny crystals that had formed over thousands of years. Some crystals were aligned, creating strong structural bonds. Others were misaligned or had tiny impurities that created weak points where the stone was more likely to break.

His eidetic memory ensured every detail he observed was burned into his mind forever. The way this particular crystal formation curved around that inclusion or the exact angle where two different mineral layers met...

"Let me see if understanding the structure makes a difference," Harry muttered to himself.

He pointed his wand at the broken stone again. "Reparo."

The pieces flew together and merged once more, but Harry could feel that the spell had required much less World Power to achieve the same effect.

Maybe even one-twentieth of what he'd used previously.

"Good," Harry grinned. "My Form actually affected the efficiency."

Harry picked up another broken stone from the avalanche debris. This one was similar to the first, but he didn't study its internal structure with his Sharingan. He just cast the spell normally.

"Reparo."

The stone repaired itself, except Harry could feel that it had used more World Power than the previous casting. Not as much as his very first attempt, but still more than when he'd studied the stone's structure carefully.

Maybe one-tenth of his original power expenditure instead of one-twentieth.

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "So there's some carryover effect from understanding one stone to understanding similar stones. But each individual object has its own unique structure."

That made sense, since even two stones that looked identical on the surface would have different internal crystal formations. They might be similar enough that understanding one would help with the other, but they wouldn't be exactly the same.

"So to really master the Mending Charm," Harry said slowly, "I need to understand what I'm trying to mend. The more I know about the object's structure, the more efficiently I can repair it."

If this principle applied to other spells too, then the key to magical mastery was about understanding the world around him as deeply as possible.

A wizard who understood how light truly worked would probably be better at Lumos than someone who just thought of it as "making brightness." A wizard who understood the properties of different materials would be better at Transfiguration than someone who just imagined one thing turning into another.

"Knowledge is power," Harry chuckled. "Literally, in this case."

The efficiency gain from understanding the stone's structure had been dramatic. If knowledge could make such a difference in spell efficiency, then what other applications might there be?

Like his Quintessence Flames…

Harry held out his right hand and focused on his Chi. Nine black flames burned quietly above his palm, each one about the size of a marble.

He'd mastered Nigredo months ago. The black flames could break down any matter or energy into fundamental particles, dissolving structure and form until only the most basic components remained.

Nicolas had explained the Four Phases of Alchemy to Harry many times. Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas, and Rubedo. The stages of dissolution, purification, integration, and perfection. But Harry had focused more on the practical applications than the underlying meaning.

That had been a mistake.

Harry picked up several broken stones from the avalanche debris and tossed them into his Nigredo spheres. The black flames consumed the rocks instantly, breaking them down into streams of fundamental particles that spun within each sphere like tiny galaxies.

"Dissolution and breakdown," Harry whispered. "But why is destruction necessary for creation?"

The answer came to him as he stared at the flames. You couldn't build something new if you were constrained by the shape of what came before. A broken stone could only be repaired into a stone. But if you broke it down completely, dissolved it into its most basic components, then you could rebuild it into anything.

In the end, the Nigredo phase was about freedom.

Freedom from the limitations of existing forms.

Harry dismissed the black flames and created nine white flames instead.

He'd been able to create nine Albedo spheres for some time now, and they'd recently started taking on a golden hue. Harry had assumed that meant he was close to some kind of breakthrough, but he hadn't been sure what that breakthrough would look like.

Now, though, he was starting to understand.

"Purification and separation," Harry said, feeding the fundamental particles from his Nigredo flames into the Albedo flames. "But what exactly am I purifying them into?"

The Albedo flames went to work immediately, burning away unwanted elements. But as Harry watched the process with his Sharingan active, he realized something interesting.

The flames weren't just removing random impurities.

No, they were removing anything that didn't match some kind of ideal template.

But ideal according to what?

If he connected this to his knowledge of the Mending Charm, then the Albedo flames were purifying the particles according to his understanding of what they should be. Just like the Mending Charm had worked more efficiently when Harry understood the stone's structure, his Albedo flames were creating better results when he had a clearer Form of what "pure" meant.

Harry dismissed the white flames and focused on creating something new. He could feel the golden hue that had been creeping into his Albedo flames over the past few weeks.

It was a sign that he was ready for the next phase.

Nine golden-hued white flames appeared above Harry's palm, each one burning with a different quality than his normal Albedo spheres.

Citrinitas. The third stage of integration.

But what did integration really mean in the context of alchemy?

Harry had always thought of integration as simply combining things together. Like mixing ingredients in a potion or adding numbers in arithmetic. But standing here on this scorched hillside, watching the golden light flicker within his Albedo flames, he realized that was a shallow understanding.

Integration led to something that was greater than the sum of its parts.

Harry thought back to the frequent discussions he had with Nicolas. The old masters hadn't just been trying to turn lead into gold. They'd been trying to understand the fundamental nature of transformation itself. How base matter could become something divine. How the many could become one without losing the essence of what made each part unique.

The Citrinitas phase was called the yellowing, the dawn, the first glimpse of the sun rising over the horizon. It was the moment when the purified elements from Albedo began to recognize each other and form new bonds.

But what kind of bonds?

Harry dismissed eight of his flames and focused entirely on the ninth. The golden hue was becoming stronger.

Citrinitas was associated with the element of air and the planet Jupiter. Air represented communication, the breath that carried words between people. Jupiter represented expansion, growth, the force that helped things reach their full potential.

Communication.

Harry stared at the golden flame dancing above his palm. The purified particles from his Albedo phase were spinning within the fire, but they weren't just randomly floating around.

They were... responding to each other.

That was the key, wasn't it? The particles weren't just being combined through brute force. They were being given the ability to communicate with each other, to recognize what they could become together.

But communication required a common language.

And in alchemy, that language was provided by the alchemist himself.

The person performing the Great Work had to change alongside the materials they were manipulating.

Ultimately, the alchemist becomes part of the process.

That made sense now. Harry wasn't just an outside observer manipulating particles with his flames. He was becoming part of the transformation itself. His understanding, his Form of what the particles could become, was serving as the bridge, the logos, that allowed them to communicate with each other.

When Harry had studied the broken stone with his Sharingan, he'd created a detailed mental map of its crystal structure. That map had made the Mending Charm more efficient because it gave the magic a clearer template to work with.

The Citrinitas phase worked the same way, but in reverse. Instead of repairing something back to its original form, Harry was providing a mental template for what the purified particles could become. His understanding became the language that allowed the particles to recognize their potential.

Integration through communication, but the communication comes from me.

The ninth Albedo flame suddenly exploded into pure golden light.

Citrinitas. The third phase of alchemy.

Harry now held a sphere of golden fire that felt completely different from anything he'd created before. The Nigredo flames had been hungry, consuming everything they touched. The Albedo flames had been selective, burning away impurities while preserving what was valuable.

But the Citrinitas flame felt... collaborative.

Harry could sense that the flame was waiting for his input.

His Form of what he wanted to create.

"Let's test this," Harry grinned.

He created Nigredo spheres and fed them several large rocks from the avalanche debris. The black flames consumed the stones instantly, breaking them down into streams of fundamental particles.

Then Harry created Albedo spheres and fed the particles into them. The white flames went to work, burning away impurities and separating the particles into clean, organized streams.

Finally, Harry enveloped the purified particles with his single Citrinitas flame.

The golden fire wrapped around the particles like a gentle embrace. But instead of simply combining them through force, Harry could feel the flame asking him a question.

What do you want these to become?

Harry's mind immediately went to weapons. A sword was meant to cut. A spear was meant to pierce. The purpose was clear and direct, which would make it easier to communicate his intentions to the particles.

He wanted a spear.

The moment he formed that intention, Harry felt the Citrinitas flame respond. But the flame needed to understand what Harry meant by "spear".

Harry activated his Sharingan and focused on the purified particles spinning within the golden fire. He could see the individual components that had once been part of the broken stones.

He remembered studying the internal structure of the stone he'd repaired earlier. The way the crystals had been aligned, how some formations created strength while others created weakness. The Mending Charm had worked better when Harry understood those details.

If knowledge improved spell efficiency, then the same principle would naturally apply to alchemy.

Harry began to construct a Form.

Not just "a spear," but a specific kind of spear with particular properties.

The shaft should be absolutely straight and balanced. No weak points where it might snap under pressure. The particles should be aligned in a way that distributed force evenly along the entire length.

The spearhead should be dense and hard. The particles there needed to be packed as tightly as possible, with no gaps or impurities that might cause the tip to chip or break. Most importantly, the very tip of the spear should be as sharp as physically possible.

Harry fed this detailed Form into the Citrinitas flame.

The golden fire pulsated once, as if acknowledging his instructions, then began to work.

The purified particles started organizing themselves according to Harry's Form. Particles that would form the shaft aligned themselves in long, straight chains, while particles destined for the spearhead began clustering together in increasingly dense formations.

After a few minutes of configuration, the golden fire faded away to reveal a spear that Harry caught before it could fall to the ground.

He stared at the weapon in his hands with amazement. The spear was completely unlike anything he'd ever seen before. The entire length appeared to be carved from a single piece of stone, but the surface was semi-translucent and so smooth it felt like polished glass under his fingers.

But the most stunning feature was the spearhead itself. The tip tapered to a point so sharp that Harry couldn't actually see where it ended even with his Sharingan still active. It was like looking at a line that had been drawn with the finest possible pen, except this line existed in three dimensions.

Harry needed to test this thing.

He walked over to one of the larger boulders that had rolled away from the collapsed hillside. The rock was easily three feet across and looked solid enough to stop a charging bull.

He raised the spear and pressed the tip gently against the boulder's surface.

The stone spear slid through the rock like it was cutting through butter.

Harry blinked in surprise. He hadn't even applied any real pressure. Just a gentle touch, and the spearhead had penetrated several inches into solid stone.

"What in Merlin's name?" Harry muttered.

He pulled the spear back and raised an eyebrow at the hole it had left behind. The cut was so smooth it looked like it had always been there. There were no cracks radiating outward from the entry point, nor were there any signs of the violent impact he'd expected.

Harry pressed the spear tip against the boulder again, this time applying slightly more pressure. The weapon slid through the entire three-foot width of the rock without any resistance whatsoever.

When Harry pulled the spear free, the boulder simply fell apart into two halves.

This was beyond anything he'd imagined when he'd started the alchemical process.

He'd been hoping to create a decent weapon, something that would be sharp and durable.

But this spear was cutting through solid stone like it was made of soft clay…

Harry looked around for something harder to test it on. There was a section of the hillside where the avalanche had exposed some kind of metallic ore. The dark gray metal was embedded in the rock face and looked much denser than ordinary stone.

He walked over to the exposed ore and pressed his spear tip against it.

The metal offered no more resistance than the boulder had. The spearhead sliced through the ore deposit like it was cutting through water, leaving behind another smooth hole.

"This is insane," Harry said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Harry dismissed his Sharingan and looked down at the spear in his hands. The Citrinitas flame had transformed ordinary rock particles into something that could cut through absolutely anything with the help of his Form.

He needed to be extremely careful with this.

The spear was so sharp that even casual contact could probably slice through his dragon-hide belt or any of his other equipment. There was no question that it could slice through his own body as well…

Harry needed a way to safely store the weapon when he wasn't using it. After thinking about the problem for a moment, he smiled.

His Heaven-Earth Soul could store anything he wanted, couldn't it?

Using his Space Authority to teleport the spear into a random spot in the forest, he relieved himself of the dangerous weapon. Now he could summon it whenever he needed it, and he didn't have to worry about accidentally impaling himself while walking around.

But this also had great implications for combat, because if he had created a weapon that could pierce anything so easily, he could do it again. When you considered that his Levitation Charm could control more than ten boulders at the same time, why wouldn't he be able to do the same with ten spears?

Ten floating spears that could pierce anything…

Harry smirked at the thought.

He had just gained another combat method.