• Hogwarts, Headmaster's Tower, Bedroom •
[Albus Dumbledore]
'I never knew I could do so much in so little time,' I thought, gazing at the floating screen in front of me and debating what to write:
[Announcement 📣: Congratulations to the wizarding world on the creation of a new branch of magic—one that's only limited by your imagination, effort, and will. Maker's Magic is a new magical discipline created by Albus Dumbledore to help those who lack direction in their research and studies for the promotion ritual. It's a branch full of potential for everything. Want to create fire? Wind? Clothes? Even candy? This magic is for you.
Here, you only need to know what you want, a solid foundation in magical arts, and the drive.
Create your own Maker's Magic…]
"Hmm, I don't know," I muttered as I read the announcement. "It feels more like a promotion than an announcement, but that's what's needed, so…"
I shook my head and sighed. After two days of theories and experiments, I had finally created something that would give wizards and witches the final push they needed—but I didn't know what to feel about it.
I mean, sure, I'd only created the bare bones of the magic—the essential foundation for them to develop their own magic and give me the chance to plant my blessings into their souls, as was the plan. But now I had complicated feelings about it.
I had all these future plans… but what about the present? I couldn't even enjoy it, thanks to all the different problems happening at the same time.
'Isn't that what shadow clones are for?' a treacherous thought bounced through my mind.
'Shadow Clones aren't me.' The retort was instantaneous. Sure, I could use them to do the tedious bits, but I couldn't guarantee they'd act like I would in different situations.
'….'
'I am a control freak, aren't I?'
Of course I was. Always had been. Not out of malice or anything, but because I knew most people couldn't do things the way I would—and that was the problem.
The variables. The chaos their choices and ways of doing things would bring. Things that might make it harder for me to do my job.
I stroked my beard as I fell into deep thought. Maybe I could guide the chaos instead of containing it?
I didn't know. That question alone brought up so many different variables.
Like, for example—couldn't I just give magic to the Muggles and be done with it by now?
I could. But that wouldn't help. Not one bit.
That was an answer I'd figured out yesterday. Muggles, and even most adult Squibs, didn't just lack magical power. Sure, Squibs had reserves below the threshold, but that wasn't the primary reason for their failure to cast magic.
What they lacked was the very defining trait that wizards and witches have: conceptualization. Their minds just weren't geared toward understanding magic. They could be ten times mentally stronger than a wizard, know everything about the spell and check almost every box on the list—they'd still fail.
Could I fix this?
I was pretty sure I could. A blessing was all I needed. But that was where the other set of problems came in.
I can't force them to accept. I can't force them to trust me. I can't use force, period.
'Me and my morals…' I thought sarcastically. I was very much aware of how paradoxical and hypocritical I was—but there was one tiny thing that justified all of it for me.
It justified the manipulation and long-term plans for me, and always would.
'I know the ones I guide—i.e., wizards and witches. They know me. They believe in me. Etc. And I don't know the Muggles.'
It was that simple.
'But you were a Muggle in your past life,' another treacherous thought countered.
And that was why I would do my absolute best to make sure the Muggles of my world didn't go extinct.
Sigh. I guess it all comes down to my task. I have to preserve the uniqueness of my world as much as possible, and wizards and witches were that uniqueness. That doesn't mean however that I can't add more flavors, does it?…
I would not let the Muggles get swept away—but that means I either have to wait for the idiots on the other side to start screwing things up or come up with some convoluted plot where instead of me—Albus Dumbledore the wizard—saving the day, it would be me, God, who saves the day.
That was the most logical way for me to do this. Humans, as a species, are more prone to believe that a higher power is helping and guiding them than to believe I do it out of the goodness of my heart.
…
"Ugh!!!!" I groaned as I lay down on the sofa. "This is driving me crazy…"
I minimized the screen and opened a different one, trying to shift my focus onto a different topic. Like the new screen. The one that was silver in color, much larger, and filled with more data, numbers, symbols, and diagrams.
My new subsystem. The faith-siphoning system. Fully operational. Finally.
It wasn't as dramatic as it sounded, though. Sure, it helped—but all it did was work as a network to collect faith energy from around the globe, check it, store it, and sort it.
It didn't do anything else.
Everything else was happening manually, inside my mindscape, where the glowing, rainbow-colored orb of divinity was currently growing bigger and bigger thanks to the conversion of faith into divinity.
A very inefficient way to grow divinity, as it turned out—because before one's divinity had any domain, it was just a formless, powerful energy that affected reality.
The real work came from the faith collection itself. Siphoning energy from the world was a very difficult job, let alone doing it with a formless, domain-less divinity.
'But that's okay…' I thought with a smirk. 'Now that the network is fully functional, my divinity—already connected to the subsystem—will slowly but surely gain the domains I want, thanks to the weight of belief.'
That was all it was. The weight. The ability to amass so much faith energy that shared the same belief, concept, etc., in one place, connected to a divine energy, working as a bridge for said divinity to connect to the concepts and claim the domain.
This subsystem was more of a collection bag—where the faith that would go to whole pantheons was gathered. Faith that I could use to get the domains I wanted and grant them to whoever I wanted.
It would have taken a lot of time to grow my divinity to a level where I could compete with gods if I didn't have my Archmage Essence. But I do, so all I have to do now is wait for my domains, and that's it.
My reactor will take care of the rest. It's already generating magic, chakra, divinity, and faith at the same time, so I don't have to worry about not being as old as dirt like other gods.
'Hah, I love my life,' I chuckled, the thought of the faces those gods were going to make lifting my mood significantly.
Now I wasn't worried about any of that anymore. I have the Archmage Essence—one of the most broken powers anyone can get—so I'll figure it out.
I stood up and started walking toward the bathroom. I needed a shower. Two days of sitting still, eating nothing but candy while researching different topics was my limit for how long I could go without a shower… magical cleaning doesn't count.
I opened the bathroom door and entered. Snapping my fingers to get my clothes off, I walked under the shower and stood there. Water started falling on me, the perfect lukewarm temperature, and I relaxed.
I maximized the Archive screen again, this time to keep track of how things were going over the past two days. I sifted through the different topics being discussed among various people.
Hogwarts students had their own platform to discuss things, accessible only to students and professors. This one was mostly about schoolwork and progress—nothing teenagers would share in the presence of adults was posted here.
There was another channel for that. One created by Lavender Brown, which was invite-only. That's where the gossip was. I didn't snoop there, though. Didn't really see the appeal.
Then there was the general page—channel, platform, whatever one wanted to call it. This was the place where almost everyone who had the Archive could access. Discussions here would have been incredibly challenging to follow if not for the fact that each topic had its own thread.
Scrolling through them while shampooing my hair, I got the general vibe of the conversations.
The news had finally settled in. Especially after the Romanian newspaper got a photo of Gellert Grindelwald roaming around their magical bazaar like he was a regular Joe.
It finally clicked for everyone that this was actually happening—a powerful Dark Lord like never seen before was out in the open.
The chats and threads were filled with people talking about rankings, discussing the mechanics behind them more intimately, and trying to gauge just how powerful the first and second place were.
'It's finally starting, huh,' I smirked as I looked up, water droplets falling on my face.
This bode well for me. It meant things would finally start moving forward faster, at a different pace than before, now that everyone was worrying about themselves.
Internationally, things were worse. All ministries and factions that tried to limit exposure to the Archive were forced to back down this morning, as people started to form groups and huddle together with those who had access to the Archive.
They couldn't allow that. That was far more dangerous than giving people access to the Archive, as they had divined that one had far lesser chances of spawning terrorist and cultic beliefs and threats.
I shook my head slightly and sighed. I couldn't believe what I was reading.
'It's best not to think about this too,' I decided as I stepped out of the shower, the sound of water stopping as soon as I moved away. I snapped my fingers, casting a drying spell on my body.
I walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapping itself around me as I headed for the bed.
I wanted to sleep. Two days of work—no matter how fun—still isn't as fun as sleeping.
Lifting the bed covers, I slipped in and threw the towel off, making it levitate and head back to the laundry basket in the bathroom.
'Now to make other people's sleep a little bit harder,' I thought, small bursts of joy shooting through me as I finally sent the announcement to the world…
'Yup, now I can enjoy my sleep…'
X_
• Mount Olympus, PJO Universe •
[Athena]
She walked through the hall leading to the throne room, her eyebrows knitted together in slight distaste as she observed the new statues of Zeus replacing the old ones by the door.
She held back a sigh and decided not to comment on how ugly and inappropriate a twenty-foot-tall statue of her father with almost no clothing on was as the first thing one saw when heading to the throne room.
She had better things to think about.
The massive doors of the throne room opened, and she walked in, completely ignoring how almost everyone there turned their attention to her.
The Big Twelve—as they liked to call themselves. What a stupid name.
It was a ruse. Their whole setup was flawed, one that she couldn't seem to get herself out of.
'What else would one expect from a god with more emotions than sense?' she argued with herself as she sat down in her seat of power.
A really flawed system they had shackled themselves with…
'Or a really shrewd move from Zeus…'
Either way, it meant that Zeus, as the king of the gods, had the big control stick over the energy distribution, faith conversion, and all other buffs they gained by being tied to the system—with him getting the lion's share, of course…
'But then again, it's not like he can't be….' She stopped the thought midway and focused on the meeting. Her father was babbling about his new self again.
"…and so we decided to try and merge together."
"Are you sure that's a good idea, my king?" she asked, making sure to address her father as king, since it was an official meeting and he liked his ego stroked more than usual in those.
"What's there to fear? It's like gaining a new aspect. Like our Roman selves," Zeus shrugged, seemingly unbothered.
She didn't buy it. They—each one of them—seemed to be more affected than they'd let on. Gaining another self that was almost a mirror to their Greek selves was affecting them, period.
"We know that, but I and my counterpart would still like to do some more research on the topic, as she raised a very important concern…" she said, more like interjected, in the middle of the growing noise that the chatter around was making, garnering the attention of everyone again.
"And that is?…" The impatient tone of Zeus made it clear he wanted to hear everything in one go.
"Well, when talking, she pointed out that they do not have a separate Roman aspect, and it's all treated as just titles and nothing more," Athena revealed. "That said, she advised that we take care with merging with our Roman part first if we don't want to risk losing that part of ourselves—as she was almost certain that we would if we tried to merge with our counterparts in their world instead…."
Silence.
Almost all of the Big Twelve had different reactions to this reveal. They didn't want to lose half of their identity and power—because that's what their Roman part represented.
The only one with a strange reaction in the group was Dionysus.
'Hmm, I'll check on that later…' she thought as she let her gaze wander over the rest of the gods, not just the "Big Twelve."
Her aunt, Hestia, the hearth, didn't seem to be bothered by any of this—though Athena could imagine why. She wasn't that affected by the information. She didn't suffer from the split personality, or all the other nonsense that came with different titles, responsibilities, and divine expression and weight.
'How envious…'
Well, it didn't really matter either way, she supposed. This meeting would still be long, filled with unhelpful nonsense, and adjourned without any helpful decisions—only for them to meet again tomorrow or a week from now to revisit the same subject, only to arrive at a different conclusion.
What a pain.
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