Chapter 9: The Possibility of a Wizard Ascending to Godhood

In his previous life, while reading *Harry Potter*, a question would occasionally flash through Roger’s mind.

To Roger, the magic in *Harry Potter* seemed almost omnipotent, like a wish-granting machine. Matter manipulation, time travel, spatial interference, soul fragmentation, immortality, healing, altering life forms, influencing destiny, memory modification... Although the displayed destructive power might not have been particularly outrageous, the power of magic in this world was absolute and immense.

So why did wizards not continue to advance until they transcended into deities? Instead, they chose to hide in the shadows of human society under the International Statute of Secrecy.

From the books provided by Professor McGonagall, Roger roughly found the answer. There were two main reasons why wizards had not become gods.

First, the essence of magic transcended the understanding of wizards. Almost everyone who studied magic itself ended up returning empty-handed, ultimately resulting in the current, somewhat illusory system of wizarding power. To use an analogy, if magic were like Doraemon’s "What-If" Phone Booth, then the wizarding magic system would be a "Complete Guide to Using the Wish-Granting Machine" compiled by generations of wizards. It did not involve the truths of the world or the essence of magic; it was merely a set of techniques for utilizing magic. How should one put it? It possessed the aesthetic of ancient traditional medicine—the four humors theory, or the theories of Yin-Yang, the Five Elements, and the study of damp-heat and paralysis. Such methods could indeed treat illnesses, but the underlying principles? They were unclear; one could only establish a system of summary and induction based on personal experience to explain them. This empirical system could sometimes lead to a result where the components believed to be effective in treating an illness might not be the truly effective ones in the medicine. This greatly hindered the wizarding civilization's analysis of the essence of magic. The progress of human civilization owed much to microscopic observation tools like the microscope; before wizards had the ability to observe the essence of the world at the scale of magic, it was unlikely that wizarding civilization would ever traverse this path successfully.

Second, magic was the result of the combined action of the mind and magic power. Once the "quantity" of magic reached a certain limit, what constrained the strength of magic became the strength of the wizard’s mind. Just like a computer, when the operating environment—such as memory and temperature—is perfect, it is the hardware that limits the computer's performance. To enhance the power of magic and become a deity, one needed to strengthen the wizard’s mental power. Wizards had thought of many ways to achieve this. Some believed that, just as bees could not possess human-level intelligence, if human mental power was insufficient, then they should simply stop being human! They wanted to become higher-level beings, so they embarked on a path of evolution.

Some merged the bloodlines of magical creatures with their own, becoming various half-breed wizards. This was indeed a path, but for one thing, while half-breeding raised the ceiling, it did not change the baseline at birth. To obtain greater mental power, a wizard still had to undergo personal trials, and very few wizards could grow to that height. It was like how humans had the potential to kill large beasts barehanded using cold weapons—it was something humans could potentially do, but few in the modern era could train their strength to that level, with most remaining in the sub-healthy state of urban dwellers who couldn't even shoulder a load. Lacking the pressure of death, few wizards could train to that degree. Furthermore, half-breed wizards only had a higher ceiling, not an infinite one; their upper limit was merely higher than that of ordinary wizards, yet they still failed to reach the level of deities.

Others set their sights on Transfiguration and dark soul magic, attempting other paths of self-transformation, but they also failed. The pinnacle of Transfiguration, the self-transformation of Animagus, could not turn one into a magical creature, offering limited improvement to a wizard's potential. As for Voldemort, who excelled in dark soul magic, his strength was only so-so.

In addition to the transformationists represented by bloodline, Transfiguration, and dark soul magic, there were two other major factions in the wizarding world that wanted to break through the limits of wizarding civilization.

One was the ritualist faction. If one person's mental power was not enough, then use that of a hundred, a ten thousand! The book *Ritual Magic is Far More Than Blood Sacrifice* explained the affairs of this faction in detail.

"Ritual magic is everywhere." Roger, sitting at the dining table, whispered the sentence on the book's flyleaf. Because of a significant debt in his inheritance, Roger had not inherited his parents' assets. He did not have a formal place of residence in the UK. During this time, he had been renting a room in the Leaky Cauldron, one of the entrances to Diagon Alley. Roger had rented a very small room, so the cost was not expensive—a price he could afford.

Arriving at the tavern hall, Roger ordered some British food as usual. While eating fish and chips, he kept his eyes glued to the book in his hands. During this period, Roger had devoted almost all his time to reading the dozens of books Professor McGonagall had sent him. Among them, the one that fascinated him most was this seemingly unremarkable *Ritual Magic is Far More Than Blood Sacrifice*.

The principles expounded in the book were extremely broad and profound. It used various data to argue that the sun, moon, and stars in the natural world possessed occult attributes because people believed they held special power. The occult attributes of all things were endowed by intelligent beings capable of disturbing magic with their thoughts. Potions, magical creatures, and even the existence of spells were all byproducts of the omnipresent, natural ritual magic! And the force conducting this immense, world-covering ritual was the sea of subconsciousness of all intelligent beings!

The book even explicitly provided a method for wizards to ascend to godhood. Unfortunately, no wizard could ever do it.

"Unify the globe, manipulate the minds of all Muggles, all wizards, and all magical creatures, to perform the artificial god-making ritual..."

Anyone capable of doing this was already as powerful as a god and would have no need for the ritual, while those who needed the ritual could never have the capacity to control the minds of all intelligent life on Earth. This reminded Roger of a picture he had seen on the internet before... It was a dilemma with no way out!

Besides the ritualists, there was another, more niche faction in wizarding civilization: the externalists. These were the people involved in alchemy and potion-making. Their core logic was actually similar to the ritualists', but their approach was to create an artifact or a potion that everyone believed in, or, taking a step back, to manipulate the various materials that composed them. They had indeed created many extraordinary magical items, such as the Deathly Hallows and the Veil of Death... Of course, there were also those who did not use the power of "legend" but relied on their own knowledge to push through the limits of wizards, such as Dumbledore and the alchemist Nicolas Flamel.

The reason wizards chose to live in seclusion was that the modern population was too large; who knew what would happen if the existence of magic were made public and magic was disturbed? No one dared to gamble. Except for a certain prophet who led the Acolytes during the Second World War.

*Thump!*

Roger closed the book.

There were three paths to heaven laid out before him, but each one was cut off halfway. From ancient times to the present, countless gifted and talented wizards had launched assaults on them, but all had failed.

So, if he wanted eternal life, which path should he choose?