#65 - Occlumency

No sooner said than done. Reading M

Anduin first constantly adjusted his breathing, then stood up and adopted a Hunyuan Stance, the basic stance of Tai Chi. When practicing the stance, most of your energy needs to be focused on adjusting your body posture. A key point of this stance is to ‘find’ the most coordinated position of your ‘neck,’ ‘waist,’ ‘hips,’ and ‘feet,’ and then maintain it. This is also Anduin's usual way of calming his mind and adjusting his mood.

After assuming the stance, Anduin instinctively adjusted the subtle positions of various parts of his body. During this process, his mind was almost completely empty, without any distractions. Then, he mobilized his magic, slowly surging towards his brain, and then constantly tried to immerse the magic into his consciousness, which was the most difficult part.

Anduin was attempting a visualization technique. He didn't visualize himself as any strange creature in his mind, but rather as a black hole with no light whatsoever! Then, he constantly tried to suck magic into it.

Thanks to Anduin's usual practice, he entered a meditative state very quickly, and mobilizing magic was not difficult for him. However, during the visualization stage, Anduin tried several times, but eventually succeeded.

Half an hour later, Anduin ended this attempt and slowly opened his eyes.

“Huh?” After finishing, Anduin was very surprised by his state when recalling the practice process.

It wasn't that Anduin was surprised that his attempt had no effect; he hadn't initially thought he could learn this difficult magic so quickly.

Anduin was surprised that he might, perhaps, seemingly have successfully performed Occlumency on his first try? Comparing his experience with the descriptions of successful Occlumency in the magic books, Anduin confirmed that he had indeed mastered the basics of this difficult magic.

During the practice, Anduin's progress could almost be described as a natural course. In his visualization, he transformed into a black hole, then remotely controlled the magic to slowly seep in. This process was almost effortless, and he also completed the attempt to envelop his thoughts with this magic very smoothly.

Anduin had only experienced this rapid cultivation speed when learning the Levitation Charm. Although he learned other spells relatively easily, it still required constant repetition to successfully master the basics.

But Occlumency was like learning the Levitation Charm; he easily grasped the basics on his first try.

“Am I a genius at learning Occlumency? Or is there really an academy talent bonus? Or does regular exercise and practice provide a bonus to learning this type of magic? Just like when I practiced ‘superpowers’ for many years, does that mean that standing and meditating, in addition to regulating the mind and emotions, also has an auxiliary effect on this kind of mental magic?” Anduin pondered various possibilities, as if he had grasped something, but not quite. Book 69 New

Shaking his head, Anduin forced himself to clear these thoughts. Anyway, successful practice is a fact, so he should fully learn it before thinking about anything else.

Immediately afterwards, Anduin tried to perform Occlumency once to see, but perhaps because he wasn't proficient enough, the process of magic operation was very obscure. Anduin exhaled lightly, it seemed that he needed more practice to be able to use Occlumency anytime, anywhere.

This successful experience made Anduin very excited, so he decided to practice Occlumency every night. After mastering this magic, he would try Legilimency. Anduin had a feeling that perhaps Legilimency practice would be as easy as Occlumency.

In the following days, Anduin spent his days practicing his skills and helping out in the Potter's house, and studying runes and runic knowledge at the rune table. He spent his evenings in his room practicing 'Occlumency'.

A week passed quickly, and it was almost time to return to school. Anduin packed his luggage. Since Sirius gave him the space bag, Anduin finally didn't have to drag large boxes of luggage around.

Anduin gained a lot from this vacation. The runic knowledge he learned in these few days was enough for him to digest for a while. After happily packing his luggage, Anduin prepared to go downstairs to have one last breakfast with the Potters, and then say goodbye to them.

“Anduin, have you packed your luggage? Come and sit down and have something to eat. We have a surprise for you later.” Seeing the neatly dressed Anduin coming downstairs, Lily greeted him kindly.

Anduin was confused, but he still obediently entered the dining room, teasing Harry while eating breakfast.

During this week, Harry seemed to have become familiar with this strange older brother, and always played with him happily.

Anduin teased Harry with an apple. Little Harry wanted to grab it but couldn't, and was so anxious that he was about to cry. In the end, Anduin put the small apple in Harry's arms.

James, seeing that these two guys had such a good relationship, couldn't help but smile and said to Anduin, "Anduin, you're going back to Hogwarts today. Lily and I have prepared a gift for you, and I think you'll like it."

Anduin was puzzled when he heard this and said, "A gift? But I've already received your Christmas gifts, and I like them very much. What other gift are you giving me?"

At this time, Lily also walked in holding a package, and smiled at Anduin and said, "This is a gift to thank you. During the battle a few days ago, you were always taking care of and protecting Harry. I see that you are so interested in runic research, so James and I prepared this gift for you."

Anduin was about to refuse when Lily interrupted him and said, "Don't rush to refuse, open it and see what it is first."

With that said, Lily opened the package in her hand, and inside was a disc the size of a washbasin, which looked like stone, but also had a metallic texture. There was also a book on the disc.

James explained, "I heard Lily say that you are very interested in studying runes, so I prepared this. This is a rune disc, and its function is similar to a rune workbench. Although the effect is not as good as a workbench, it can also be used to learn runic characters and try to combine runes."

Lily also said, "That's right, this rune disc is like a simple rune workbench, with the functions of manifestation and combination, but it cannot record and test."

Then Lily took out the magic book placed on it and said, "This is a 'Magic Character Collection Tool Book'. It is blank and can record 100 characters and 10 runes. I have already stored more than forty common three-dimensional magic characters in it. Generally, planar magic characters do not need to be recorded in it. In the future, you can also record the three-dimensional magic characters you want to record in this book."