1991, London, England.
After returning home, Vade Moria carried the fresh ingredients he had bought at the market into the kitchen. He was preparing to make a lavish meal to celebrate his eleventh birthday when a loud series of knocks sounded against the window.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Walking over, he found a gray owl relentlessly pecking at the glass. Even more surprisingly, it was clutching a letter in one of its talons.
A letter?
For me?
Someone actually wrote to me?
Filled with curiosity, Vade opened the window.
The owl flew inside, hovered above his head, and released the envelope. It drifted neatly into his hands.
The envelope was made of yellow parchment. There was no postage stamp on the front. Instead, a purple wax seal shaped like a shield sat in the center, bearing a large letter H.
The shield was divided into four quadrants with red, green, yellow, and blue backgrounds. A golden lion occupied the upper left, a silver serpent the upper right, a black badger the lower left, and a bronze eagle the lower right.
On the back, his full name and address were written in emerald-green ink.
Vade stared blankly at the envelope as memories long buried in the depths of his mind resurfaced.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?
It couldn’t possibly be that much of a coincidence!
Wait... if this was real, then that meant...
With a slight flick of his finger, the envelope floated into the air and opened itself.
This was magic, not merely another application of spirituality.
As the parchment slowly unfolded, Vade couldn’t help feeling that fate had played a rather unfunny joke on him.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class; Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards; Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot)
Dear Mr. Moria,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on the 1st of September. We await your owl by no later than the 31st of July.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
That was the first page.
The second contained a list of the uniforms, textbooks, and other equipment required by first-year students.
"Hoot!"
The gray owl flapped its wings a few times, urging Vade to look its way.
"Right... I need to send a reply.
Give me a moment."
Vade left the kitchen and returned half a minute later with paper and a pen.
Dear Professor Dumbledore,
I have received your letter and am delighted to have the opportunity to study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
However, I do not know where Hogwarts is located, nor do I know where to purchase the required uniforms, books, and equipment.
If possible, could you please arrange for someone to guide me?
Vade Moria
After folding and sealing the letter, Vade handed it to the owl.
Grasping the envelope in its talons, the owl took flight and disappeared into the distance.
For the moment, Vade had lost all interest in cooking.
Instead, he sat quietly on the living room sofa, gazing at the Hogwarts acceptance letter.
A wonderful birthday present.
What an unexpected surprise!
Eleven years ago, he had been reborn in this unfamiliar city.
His parents had died, leaving him to grow up in an orphanage. Although the inheritance they left him was not particularly large, it also included a house.
Once he was capable of taking care of himself, the precocious Vade left the orphanage and returned to the home that belonged to him.
However, a child could not expect to grow up safely and comfortably by simply living off his inheritance until it ran out.
Fortunately, he had brought something with him into this world.
A Card of Blasphemy for the Fool Pathway.
From Sequence 9 to Sequence 0, one gradually transformed from an ordinary person into a Beyonder, then a Saint, an Angel, and finally a god.
Even more fortunately, everything he had learned over the years suggested that this world had no true gods, no Outer Deities watching hungrily from beyond, no maddening ravings, and no approaching apocalypse.
For some unknown reason, he had been a Sequence 9 Beyonder since birth, granting him the Beyonder abilities of a Seer.
He had mastered astrology, card divination, spirit pendulum divination, Spirit Vision, and similar forms of divination.
He could see things hidden from view and hear faint footsteps, allowing him to make judgments in advance, though his eyesight, hearing, and sense of touch had not improved significantly.
Divination was not much of a money-making ability.
But that did not mean it could not be used to make money.
For example, whenever he bought lottery tickets, he usually won more than he lost. Although the odds of finding money on the street were still low, divination could at least point him in the right direction. Every now and then, he could even pose as a mysterious fortune-teller and offer advice to doctors and patients.
After several years, he had not only avoided exhausting his inheritance, but had also increased his wealth more than tenfold.
He had done fairly well for himself.
The Seer Pathway, however, lacked any direct means of confronting enemies. Compared with an ordinary person, a Seer was not much stronger.
But Vade was different.
In addition to the abilities of a Seer, he also possessed telekinesis, allowing him to control objects with his thoughts.
It was not overwhelmingly powerful, but it gave him at least some means of protecting himself.
As long as he did not go looking for trouble, a child living in a human society governed by law and morality was unlikely to face much danger. Even so, telekinesis gave him a long-missed sense of security.
Every use of the ability consumed a Beyonder’s spirituality.
Now, however, it seemed that what it consumed might not be a Beyonder’s spirituality alone, but rather a wizard’s magic, or perhaps a mixture of magic and spirituality.
That was both good news and bad news.
The good news was that his control over magic far surpassed that of an ordinary wizard.
The bad news was that the strength of his magic was now completely tied to his Sequence.
A Sequence 9 Seer possessed magical power roughly equivalent to that of a first-year Hogwarts student. Even simple spells would drain his magic after only a dozen or so casts.
In the wizarding world, that placed him among the lowest level of cannon fodder, the sort that could be wiped out in droves by a single spell.
There was even worse news.
The Card of Blasphemy fused with his soul had shown no change for eleven years.
It had remained on the Sequence 9 page without ever turning.
In other words, unless something unexpected happened, he would never have the opportunity to advance to a higher Sequence in his lifetime.
But this Hogwarts acceptance letter had given him hope.
The spiritual intuition that had lain dormant within him for eleven years trembled ever so slightly the instant he touched the envelope.
That unmistakable reaction was a clear sign.
Living comfortably as a wealthy man and peacefully waiting out the rest of his life was not a bad future.
But becoming a wizard...
Or even a god...
That would open up an entirely wider world.
A smile slowly spread across Vade’s face.
He stood and walked toward the full-length mirror.
His black, slightly tousled hair, pale blue eyes, and handsome features looked no different from usual.
Only one thing had changed.
His eyes now shone with unmistakable anticipation.
(To be continued.)