Sword is equal to Wand, Chapter 18

Ron and I hit the tables laden for dinner like a small hurricane, with myself especially going for the highest energy food as I had been cultivating in every spare moment I had between running between classes and such.

Ron was also a big eater, and I blinked as he called out. "Yo Neville, get over here!"

'Oh shit, I never noticed Neville yet. How could I forget him?' I thought while blinking before realizing that the big titty goths in Rosaria and Susan Bones had... Kinda distracted me for the last couple of days to be fair.

"Hey Ron... Jake, I have already heard about you, its nice to meet ya though." Neville said with an easy smile as he sat across from me.

Neville also wasn't a tubby young boy like he was in the original novel as a kid. He was already a big teenager, and although he had some meat on his bones, he wasn't fat or anything.

'Actually... Are his parents vegetables or dead in this timeline?' I mused to myself as I shook his hand with a easy smile.

That was a question I was going to avoid asking, though... Imagine introducing yourself, and the guy just asks if you are an orphan? Yeah, that would be fucking awkward to say the least.

"So how has your classes been going, Neville?" I asked curiously as I worjked at a delightful piece of garlic bread.

Neville's easy smile, however, faded and he said with a grimace. "I had combat class earlier today. Didn't go so well, anyway, so Ron has George and Fred said who their latest prank campaign was going to be against?" 

Seeing as Neville clearly didn't want to talk about it, I didn't press the topic though I raised an eyebrow before my face twitched as Ron gave me a sideways look and said in amuesment. "Actually... Due to some comments at the ministry by someone's father about my own. They are on the warpath about a certain Slytherin princess."

I brushed a hand across my face and groaned out. "Ron. I swear to some imaginary god I will not name... If I get pulled into your brother's nonsense, I will kick you in the back of the knee while you are in the shower." 

There was a pause before Neville snorted and said. "Dude that was a great threat. I can't wait to use that on another buddy."

But Ron just said with a sigh. "That wasn't a threat... It was a promise. And I myself have no control over those dicks, I am just giving you a heads up so get me in the crossfire when you try and fail to beat my brothers."

I was about to say something like 'try' to beat his brothers but then I kinda realized something on the other hand... If the twins were even halfways as skilled and inventive with their pranks as they were in the canon timeline and with how much more combative this one was?

Yeah, I didn't want to end up poisoned by a dozen so-called 'prank/jokes.'

Either way, soon enough, Rosaria and Ginny also joined us for dinner and after a bit, Rosaria and Ginny said they wanted to check out the Great Lake and the outskirts of the Spirit Beast King Forest.

With Neville and Ron agreeing in particular to go as they had a good point about the weather going to get cold soon enough in late September as it was.

And after we finished our food, we began moving from the Great Hall to the main hall and exited the school to enter the grounds. 

I realized that maybe it was for the best, I tried to keep the Room of Requirement to myself for a bit, if I even could. Hell, for all I knew, it could be blocked off or just not exist in this timeline.

"The lake is huge though." I muttered thoughtfully as for as the eye could see. The Great Lake was a vast pool of fresh water that had underwater tunnels that supposedly lead all the way to the ocean.

"Yeah, within the lake is Naiad's mermaids, and countless other water based magical creatures." Rosaria said thoughtfully as we walked across the beach area next to the lake.

Though even with it being late 'summer' at this point. I was suprised many students would dare swim inside the lake to begin with. "Can we go like fishing in the Great Lake?" Ron spoke with a chuckle.

And Ginny instantly teased him back. "What? You hoping to get lucky and pull out a Naiad or something?"

Neville however was more on the cool side as we gave the Great Lake a good bit of distance... Him because he apparently coudn't swim.

And I-

I could feel something was up with the Great Lake, no something else was watching us in term. Someone with a will of it's own and not merely some spells to make sure students didn't attacked or drown.

But what set me the most on edge was as I looked at the lightly misty lake... Even with the late twilight, a silver moon was reflected perfectly on the massive lakes surface. With no one else even seeming to notice it.

'Yeah nope. I can feel the bullshit from here.' I mused as I stepped back. And as I did so, I saw the moon slowly turn an eerie bloody red.

"Come on, let's go look at the Spirit Beast King Forest." I called out as I turned my back and power walked my ass away from the weird bullshit.

"Calm down Jake! Can you not swim or something?" Ron jokingly teased me as he caught up quickly enough while the rest come at a more sedate pace.

Then we moved across the huge campus slowly as I took in several area's where students would gather and mess around. Including the dueling stadiums, the two quidditch fields, and other interesting things.

"The Spirit Beast King Forest truly is massive." I muttered to myself as magic and spiritual energy in the forest was just as if not richer in sheer quanitity then in Hogwarts. As the sheer magical energy formed a thin mist that obsurced our view of the internals of the forest.

The tree's themselves though... They were all fucking massive as well, which made sense if the magical creatures of this world were cultivator grade.

Either way, I looked upon the forest with some interest as I wondered if I could find some special enviroments to cultivate in. Though with my Astral based cultivation style... It would be difficult to find an area that could simulate such a path.

"Hmm, we aren't going in the forest though. Although it's outskirts are safe, we aren't supposed to enter until we gain our own spirit beast partner/familiar to help protect ourselves." Neville said in clear warning to Rosaria who looked ready to stroll on in.

Rosaria rolled her eye's and then made a tsking noise before she said thoughtfully. "That is a fair point... Mother told me that a bunch of acromantula have been causing issues in the forest."

Before Rosari could say anything else, Ron said with zero space for discussion in his voice. "Acromantula are running around in the forest? Fuck that noise, I am out of here!"

And now it was Ron's turn to be all but skipping away from the freaky shit in life. Which made me laugh as Ginny muttered. "First it was Jake running from the lake. And now Ron is terrified of the forest as well already." 

Still I looked over at Rosaria as she hummed and said thoughtfully. "Anyway, I think that's enough walking for me today. I need to get back to my martial arts training as my mom says the reward for the first tournament winner is especially ample this year."

Unspoke Rosaria's eye's met mine in an obvious challenge... But I just blinked and asked thoughtfully. "You think you can get to the Manifestation Stage or further by next week?" 

Rosaria's expression twitched as Ginny snorted and retorted. "He has you there Rosaria. I can't wait to see the rest of the Pureblood's reactions to a Newblood freshmen rolling them all over."

Still I could tell that Rosaria very much wanted to win still. So I just nodded and said. "In that case. I am going to head out as well. I want to go check on some things on my own."

With that, I began making my way directly to the castle with my steps ringing out on the gravel path I was walking on with my thoughts filling up my mind now that the big titty goth that was Rosaria was out of sight.

'Actually... Without Lord Moldyshorts as an antagonist, I feel honestly jiltted as the school year should be 'calm' at least calm for a given word for a cultivator AU.' I mused to myself as I entered the castle and made my way past the entrances to the dueling arena's and combat classes.

From there I just made my way all the way up the seventh floor as I wanted to find the Room of Requirement obviously. But there was just one major issue.

'Ahhh hell. There is no picture of like trolls being trained or some dude named Barnaby or something?' I thought frowning as it seemed the local cheat area wasn't going to be easily found.

"Maybe if I just do three laps down the whole level it will open for me?" I mused to mysef with a slight frown before shrugging as it was my best bet to try at least.

So I did just that, I did three... Long laps around the seventh floor of Hogwarts main building and got some weird looks from my fellow Gyrffindor's and some Ravenclaw's who were hanging around the floor's smaller libraries and such at seeing me walking by repeatedly.

"Finally!" I cheered as a soft grinding noise rang out as a painting opened! And at least in this timeline, it was a painting of 'Saint Gwyn Ravenclaw, and his mount/wife Salros' who was a massive humanoid griffin that had transformed into a mostly humanoid form.

"Weird that a Ravenclaw twink got with a giant muscle mommy of a griffin though." I muttered, and my face twitched as the animated painting with a very effeminate man giving me a very rude finger gesture in turn.

Still, while I had been doing the laps around the floor, I had also been keeping a strong thought of having a room that would suit my astral cultivation style in my mind.

And with a heavy breath, I pushed open the thick stone door with a loud rush with my shoes stepping upon a pitch black obsidian like floor. Not only was the floor a pitch black obsidian, but the walls and ceiling were as well.

As I stepped into the room, the door suddenly closed behind me. Leaving my heart racing and my magic filling my veins as I was engulfed in total darkness.

"How the hell does this-" I cut myself off as my hand reached helplessly for the exit door as tiny pricks of light filled the seemingly inky darkness around me.

And I realized what the Room of Requirement was giving me for a training room. A completely simulated galaxy around me!

The stars grew in brightness around me but not overwhelmingly, just constant pricks of light in the seemingly distant that, although seemingly to come closer, were actually being replaced with other false stars.

I took a deep breath before I sat down carefully and muttered. "Alright... Let's give this a try I guess."

And so I began cultivating/meditating as I began absorbing the stupidly rich mana in the Room of Requirement.

-

A good while later, I expanded my core star a very good bit, actually, though my magical core was feeling strained with the amount of foreign magic I had absorbed frm cultivating within the Room of Requirement.

"That's enough." I muttered as the false spinning stars grew in light with the room being properly lit up, and I could finally see the door properly.

I left the Room of Requirement with one major thought, though. 'Is it really as unknown to others as it is in the canon timeline?'

Still, I made my way out, and without any fanfare, I made my way further up to Gryffindor Tower, where I promptly went to bed, as cultivating in the ROR gave me like two weeks of progress compared to just meditating in my room.

My dreams were filled with bloody silver moons that danced across my subconcious and as I awoke, I could feel the lunar aspect of my cultivation path having become much stonger despite the lunar and yin aspect very much not being the core of the astral path of my cultivation.

'Why did my dreams increase the yin portion of my magic so much? The building star portion of my cultivation shoudn't have rebound or whatever into a flood of yin magic... That moon, and the moon I saw on the Great Lake. Something fucky is going on.' I thought with a frown.

Still it didn't stop me from getting my shit together for the day as the yin energy build up shoudn't be issue according to the knowledge I had gained from the Library of Heaven's Path.

Breakfast went fairly well with myself speaking with my new friend group. And it turned out that I actually had my first class of the day with Rosaria for a change actually.

"So you think that Arcane Array Crafting is going to be a homework heavy class like History is?" I asked Rosaria curiously as we began heading for the third floor where the classroom was supposed to be.

Rosaria shrugged before she said thoughtfully. "Mum never mentioned the Runes teacher giving out a bunch of homework to be honest. She did say that she was rather... Intense, and she helped Mum with her plan to kill Voldemort though." 

I nodded before I idly realized that like the history teacher. I never saw the Runes teacher during meal time and such at the Great Hall. Still we evantually found the classroom which I was actually suprised that the door was 'normal' with how this was the runes classroom at least.

"You had history class right? Did anyone in your class get turned into a cat or something?" I asked Rosaria who snorted and nodded.

"Yeah a Hufflepuff boy who got there first, and he just went and touched the door. They got also got turned into a cat as well." Rosaria said with a helpless smile as she probably got warned by her mom not to mess with the history teacher.

Soon enough, it turned out that we were having Hufflepuffs in this class as well. And according to Rosaria's 'wink wink, nudge nudge.' One of the Hufflepuff boys was the one who got turned into a cat as well yesterday as well.

With the lad very clearly avoiding the door as he probably connected the runes teacher to the history teacher's rune covered door to begin with.

So we all just waited for the teacher to come unlock... Or just open the door as it seemed that by halfway through the week at this point. These new students were now too scared to touch new doors that haven't been tested yet.

And I noted that Susan Bones was also in this class as well though she was talking to a stacked blond that I think was Hannah Abbot possibly?

But the low conversations were cut off as the sound of purpose driven heels rang with loud clicks and a sort of pressure fell on our shoulders.

We all looked to the side and my eye's fell upon... The most scary and beautiful woman I had seen in both my eyes.

Long purple violet hair hung past her waist, with gleaming crimson eye's that almost actually hurt to meet the gaze of. And her prescence screamed that of a predator with each step she took towards... And then past us.

Without a word she pushed open the classroom door, and we all filed in silently and without a word took our seats as the clear teacher dropped a hand bag onto the front desk and then took in our forms.

I took a breath as her gazed raked over my form along with Rosaria who took a seat next to myself and there was a pause as her gaze lingered on me for but an extra moment before she looked over to Rosaria who also managed to meet her gaze unlike most students.

After taking in her students, the teacher finally spoke with her voice a husky velvet drawl. "Thirty students... Only four managed to meet my gaze."

There was a heavy silence as the pressure from her grew and a few students attempted to look up from their bags and laps but failed while even my own head wanted to lean down from the magical and aura pressure from the teacher.

"My name is Scathach... Yes, that Scathach for the Newbloods within this classroom." She said calmly before she continued with clear dissapointment.

"I have slain gods, monsters, and horrors uncountable. I am also only a teacher at Hogwarts due to favors I owe to Dumbledoor, but I am not a teacher of dullards and those who cannot meet my exacting standards."

A clicking rang out as she tapped her violet painted finger nails on her desk as she said now in some amuesment.

"However, I am a teacher indeed, so while I will teach you fools and weaklings the truth of the runes. My patience is nonexistant to those cowards and weaklings. Many classes will be taken on my apprentice and teachers aid as I have many important responsibilites outside of the castle and Hogwarts itself."

No one said a word as we could all tell that Scathach wasn't here to take questions but instead. She was simply here to teach and that was it.

She then pointed towards us and said. "As you all have noticed, you all have blackboards built into your tables. That and the chalk sticks above it are magically attuned and warded so that you are all but incapable of killing yourselves along with your desk mates as I teach you what runes are and how to create them."

And without a single pause she turned towards the black board behind herself and began drawing runes. Celtic Runes in particular that I had already memorized throughly with the Library of Heaven's Path.

"Runes, Arrays, Seals, Icongraphy Magic, and so many other variants are all born of the concept of using a visible language to speak to reality. And through the laws of that language or incongraphy, you force reality to follow the content of your directive." 

Scathach's heavy gaze pinned us in place before she spoke coldly. "There is a reason Runes are a mandated class that even freshmen MUST take. Within Hogwarts the effects of a poorly constructed rune can be controlled, mitageted and dealt with."

"But outside of Hogwarts? What happens when a foolish second year who has never touched runes and learned of the severe issues of what happens when you tie a teleportation rune system to a powerful leyline?" 

My lips twitched as I realized what she meant as the typical teleportation rune system that was widely used was based off of typical wizard Apparition where a wizard basically makes a worm hole to connect two spaces in time and space and transport themselves between the spaces.

But fucking up a teleportation rune matrix wouldn't just... Lead to something like splinching, no fucking around and messing up anything spatial with the power of a leyline backing it up?

Scathach looked at me and she smiled thinly before she said. "Jake Barriss, either you have quite an imagination or you already did some research on such a topic... Please, enlighten the class as to what would happen in such a situation?"

I held in a shake of the head at the godslayers undivided attention along with my classmates. Still I cleared my throat and spoke but on the quieter side.

"A broken teleportation matrix would lead to spatial eruptions at the very least. Possibly even breaches by 'Foriegn Entities' that are foriegn to this world as the leyline would keep the broken matrix working through sheer power."

Crimson eye's slowly closed before she nodded thoughtfully before she said in a quiet tone. "You are correct young man... All of the above and more happened. I was there actually when this happened more than three hundred years ago back when Rune's weren't a mandated class and this class is even more needed than ever."

Still Scathach opened her eye's and continued on with her lesson as she got into Celtic/Norse runes that were her bread and butter. Though she was clear that other cultures, and Pantheons often had their own system of runes of sorts.

The rest of the lesson consisted of Scathach explaining the various forms of runes, what they were, and of course the method in which to push mana through your wand to draw weaker runes on the air and on other surfaces.

"This method although highly convienent is mostly for training the actual talent in carving and drawing more simplistic runes. The mana doesn't last long in the air, nor does it provide a true enchantment even when placed on an object or surface." Scathach explained as she created a simple fire rune in the air and then on the black board behind herself.

Then she said with a cool smile. "Now, instead of making a fire rune, you will all make a water summoning rune. So at worst you get yourselves wet instead of giving Madame Pomfrey more work after you burn yourselves."

After showing us the rune in question that glowed a light blue in the air. I held my wand in hand... And just did it according to the dozens of times I had already done the rune as I could actually practice my runes in particular within the Library of Heavens Path unlike other forms of magic!

As the Library of Heaven's Path's core component was 'fixing' and providing the true and most efficent/powerful method of doing anything.

And then with a diagonal twist and a sharp cut downwards my glowing wand tip left a glowing laguz rune of water that began making a slow stream of water that hit the table... And I just realized there was a small drain at the end of the table was to collect the water.

"Have... No, you are a Newblood, how many times have you done this rune before?" Scathach demanded with a harsh expression at seeing my clear success.

'Ah shit... Yeah I can't exactly pretend to fuck up the rune when I do know how to do them.' I thought before I said with a wry smile. "A few... Dozen times maybe? I can do any of the single nordic runes from the textbook. But I know not to attempt to make any runic chains." 

Scathach's expression pinched before she took a deep breath and said flatly. "No more touching new runes without myself... Or the teacher's aid to watch you. Now show me a fire, lightning, heat, and cold rune."

Soooo I just did the runes with Scathach's eyebrow twitching and I saw a small smile grow on her face before she nodded and said cooly. "Good, fifty spirit stones to Gyrffindor for clear hard work done in advance. Out of curiosity, how do you feel about spears?"

"They are a great weapon, though I have fallen in love with a spear sword for the longer reach and power." I said thoughtfully with Scathach giving me a searching look before looking aside to Rosaria to advise her.