By the time I left the Riddle estate, I had considerably more to think about than I had expected.
Meeting my grandparents had been surprisingly pleasant, although I wasn’t going to pretend that I had suddenly developed the emotional attachment of a normal eleven-year-old.
My empathy was selective, and that was simply the reality of who I had become after the fusion.
Still, I had gained something useful: a family I could potentially build into an extremely valuable part of my future empire.
I had money, businesses, ancient magical bloodlines, knowledge of the future, and now a foothold in the Muggle world.
I had no intention of wasting any of it.
As I sat inside the car taking me toward London, I leaned back against the seat and began thinking about the system again.
I had spent a considerable amount of time examining its functions, and I had finally started to understand one of its most interesting mechanics.
The system wasn’t merely a shop with free rewards.
It was effectively a morality-based point system.
My actions could generate different types of points depending on the consequences they created.
If I performed an action that genuinely brought a large amount of good into the world, I could potentially receive Light Points.
If I performed an action that brought significant suffering, destruction, or evil into the world, I could receive Evil Points.
The larger the impact, the greater the potential reward.
There was an important limitation, though.
The system wouldn’t reward meaningless nonsense.
Saving someone from tripping over a chair wasn’t suddenly going to make me a millionaire in system points.
The action had to have some genuine impact on the world, and it had to be something I directly caused or deliberately influenced.
If I personally performed the action, that counted.
If I gave an order to one of my future subordinates and they carried it out because of me, that could also count.
The system seemed to recognize causation rather than merely physical involvement.
That opened up some fascinating possibilities.
“So basically, I can become rich by changing history.” I paused.
“Either way.” That was the funny part.
The system didn’t seem to care whether I became a hero or a villain.
It cared about impact.
If I saved thousands of lives, I could receive Light Points.
If I caused thousands of deaths, I could receive Evil Points.
And those currencies weren’t interchangeable.
Light Points could be used to purchase abilities, items, knowledge, bloodlines, and other things associated with good or beneficial powers, while Evil Points could purchase darker abilities and items.
My ordinary System Points remained a separate currency that could be used for general purchases and upgrades, although certain categories—particularly Dark Arts—required Evil Points instead.
It meant that the system wasn’t going to let me simply farm harmless actions forever and then purchase the most terrifying dark magic imaginable.
If I wanted something genuinely evil, I would have to generate the appropriate currency.
That was going to be interesting.
Very interesting.
Because I was going to Hogwarts.
Hogwarts wasn’t simply a school.
It was an institution that educated generations of witches and wizards.
If I influenced the students there, helped them, manipulated them, taught them something useful, or eventually changed the direction of magical society through them, the consequences could spread across Britain for decades.
Conversely, if I manipulated people into doing terrible things, I could potentially generate Evil Points on a massive scale.
The system had essentially handed me an opportunity to influence the future of an entire magical civilization.
I smiled.
“That’s going to be incredibly easy.” Perhaps too easy.
That thought made me pause.
I needed to be careful.
The system might reward actions based on their actual consequences rather than my intentions.
If I attempted to do something beneficial but accidentally caused disaster, I probably wouldn’t receive Light Points simply because I had wanted to help.
Likewise, if I deliberately committed some terrible act but somehow caused a greater benefit afterward, I couldn’t assume exactly how the system would classify it.
I needed to understand its rules through experimentation.
Fortunately, I had decades.
I wasn’t planning on becoming the Dark Lord tomorrow.
I wasn’t planning on becoming a saint either.
I was planning on becoming powerful.
My gaze shifted toward the window as London came into view.
I had already decided that my future would be built around several major objectives.
Immortality remained one of them.
Political power was another.
Magical advancement was perhaps the most important of all.
And now I had another objective to add to the list.
The system.
I needed to understand exactly how it worked.
If I could discover its rules, limitations, rewards, and loopholes, then I could potentially turn it into the greatest advantage any wizard in history had ever possessed.
The car eventually pulled up outside King’s Cross Station.
I stepped out, adjusted my clothing, and looked toward the enormous station.
Today was the beginning of my Hogwarts life.
I retrieved my trunk and, rather than struggling with it like an ordinary child, simply raised my wand.
“Wingardium Leviosa.” The trunk floated smoothly beside me.
My wand control wasn’t exceptional yet, but the spell worked perfectly well.
The system had given me the basic understanding, and my natural talent did the rest.
I walked through the station with the floating trunk following obediently behind me, ignoring the occasional strange glance from Muggles.
Eventually I reached the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
I glanced around.
Nobody seemed to be watching.
I walked directly toward it.
And passed through.
The mundane world disappeared.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters appeared before me.
A massive scarlet steam engine waited alongside the platform, releasing clouds of smoke into the air while witches and wizards moved around with trunks, cages, pets, and mountains of luggage.
Children were saying goodbye to their parents.
Owls hooted from cages.
Someone was arguing with a cat.
Another child was crying because they had apparently lost their shoe.
I stood there for several seconds.
“So this is it.” Hogwarts.
The place where my original self had begun building the foundation of his future empire.
The place where I would now begin building mine.
I arrived early enough that the platform wasn’t yet completely crowded, which was exactly what I wanted.
I didn’t want to rush onto the train and immediately find myself surrounded by dozens of strangers.
I walked aboard and searched through the carriages until I found one that was relatively empty.
I entered, placed my trunk inside, and took the seat beside the window.
I had no intention of ending my journey here.
The train hadn’t even departed yet.
I had plenty of time to study, think, and perhaps meet some of the people who would eventually become important to me.
Before doing anything else, however, I opened my system.
A translucent interface appeared in front of me.
[Name: Tom Marvolo Riddle] [Age: 11] [System Points: 0] [Light Points: 0] [Evil Points: 0] I stared at the three currencies for several seconds.
Zero.
Completely empty.
That was fine.
I hadn’t actually expected to have accumulated much yet.
I moved to the next section.
[Spells] [Wingardium Leviosa — Level 2] [Alohomora — Level 1] [Lumos — Level 1] [Nox — Level 1] [Reparo — Level 1] [Incendio — Level 1] [Petrificus Totalus — Level 1] [Imperius Curse — Level 1] [Obliviate — Level 1] [Legilimency — Level 2] [Occlumency — Level 3] I stared at the list.
There were ten primary levels for spell mastery.
Level One represented the most basic understanding.
I could cast the spell, but I barely understood its deeper principles.
Level Two meant that I possessed a basic understanding and could use the spell more reliably.
Level Three represented intermediate mastery.
Most ordinary adult wizards would probably have many of their commonly used spells somewhere around Level Three or Four.
Higher levels represented increasingly sophisticated control, understanding, efficiency, power, and versatility, eventually reaching the highest level of mastery at Level Ten.
So technically…
I was still a beginner.
That was both amusing and annoying.
I possessed the magical reserves of an adult wizard.
My talent was absurd.
My intelligence had been enhanced.
I possessed eidetic memory and perfect recall.
I had inherited Tom Riddle’s magical instincts and knowledge.
I had even received the Mind Magic book from the system.
And yet my actual spell mastery was still relatively low.
Talent wasn’t the same thing as experience.
I could understand the theory behind a spell far faster than an ordinary wizard, but understanding a spell didn’t automatically mean I had spent years practicing it.
I needed to develop muscle memory, wand movements, magical control, casting speed, power, precision, and combat experience.
I couldn’t afford to become arrogant.
That had been one of the original Tom Riddle’s greatest weaknesses.
He was brilliant.
He knew he was brilliant.
And eventually he became so convinced of his superiority that he stopped considering the possibility that somebody else might possess knowledge he lacked.
I wasn’t going to repeat that mistake.
I opened the spell upgrade menu.
[Spell Enhancement] [Wingardium Leviosa — Level 2] [Upgrade to Level 3: 20 System Points] [Alohomora — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] [Lumos — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] [Nox — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] [Reparo — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] [Incendio — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] [Petrificus Totalus — Level 1] [Upgrade to Level 2: 10 System Points] Then I reached the darker section.
[Imperius Curse — Level 1] [Upgrade Currency: Evil Points] [Obliviate — Level 1] [Upgrade Currency: System Points] [Legilimency — Level 2] [Upgrade to Level 3: 20 System Points] [Occlumency — Level 3] [Upgrade to Level 4: 30 System Points] I rubbed my chin.
“Interesting.” Dark magic being locked behind Evil Points made sense according to the system’s rules.
It also meant that I couldn’t simply spend ordinary System Points to turn myself into an unstoppable dark wizard overnight.
If I wanted to advance the Imperius Curse, I would need to generate Evil Points.
That wasn’t necessarily a problem.
It simply meant I needed to understand the system better.
I closed the interface and looked out the window.
The platform was becoming increasingly crowded.
Students were arriving.
Families were saying goodbye.
And somewhere among them were future witches and wizards who would eventually shape Britain.
I smiled faintly.
This was going to be fun.
The train hadn’t even left the station yet, and I was already thinking about how many ways Hogwarts could change my future.
I had no intention of immediately revealing who I really was.
I would be a polite first-year student.
Intelligent, perhaps, but not impossibly so.
Helpful when useful.
Friendly when advantageous.
Ambitious, but not openly obsessed with power.
I would make friends, gather information, learn magic, explore Hogwarts, and determine which people were worth cultivating.
And more importantly…
I would begin experimenting with the system.
If helping another student genuinely changed their life, would I receive Light Points?
If I manipulated somebody into making a terrible decision, would I receive Evil Points?
If I created something that improved magical society, how many points would I receive?
If I influenced somebody who later influenced hundreds of others, would the system recognize the indirect consequences?
There were so many possibilities.
I leaned back against the seat.
For the first time since waking up as Tom Riddle, I felt genuinely excited about the future.
Not because Hogwarts was going to be some magical adventure.
Not because I was an eleven-year-old child finally getting to experience magic.
But because I had realized something far more important.
I wasn’t simply entering Hogwarts.
I was entering the perfect environment for experimentation.
And if I played my cards correctly, by the time I graduated, I wouldn’t merely be a powerful wizard.
I would have the beginnings of an empire.
The train whistle suddenly sounded outside.
I glanced toward the window.
The Hogwarts Express was preparing to depart.
I smiled.
“Let’s see what kind of world I can build.”