Chapter 91: Occlumency and Legilimency
Dylan flipped through the booklet in his hands, discovering that it not only detailed Occlumency but also Professor Snape's forte—Legilimency!
Dylan raised his head, a look of surprise on his face, and tentatively asked, "Professor? You didn't give me the wrong one, did you?"
Professor Snape glanced at him. "Do you think I'm so old that I can't see words clearly?"
"Hehehe..." Dylan chuckled dryly. "How could I dare?"
Professor Snape snorted. "Remember, never let your emotions control you at any time. They are merely useless things derived from your mind."
Hearing this, Dylan immediately thought of what was written on the piece of paper that Professor Snape had burned just now.
Think of Lily~
So, emotions are useless things... are they?
Are you sure?
Dylan didn't dare to dwell on these thoughts in front of Professor Snape. Instead, as soon as the professor finished speaking, he immediately replied, "I understand, Professor."
Professor Snape narrowed his eyes and stared at Dylan for a moment.
Strange, he seemed to have sensed something just now, or perhaps he had misread it.
"Alright, leave," Professor Snape said, his voice low.
Dylan quickly bid the professor farewell.
Only after he went out and closed the office door did he feel the lingering gaze that had been on him disappear.
Dylan breathed a slight sigh of relief, then hurried towards the Great Hall.
He needed to eat quickly and go back to study the booklet Professor Snape had given him.
The Occlumency and Legilimency recorded within were both things he desperately wanted to learn!
He had considered asking Professor Snape about these two spells before, but every time he went for extra tutoring, the lessons were very intensive. Once the potion brewing was done, Professor Snape would tell him to leave.
He simply didn't have the time or opportunity to bring it up.
He hadn't expected Professor Snape to take the initiative to teach him these two spells, which surprised Dylan quite a bit.
"However, it's also possible that during Christmas, I went to Professor Flitwick to ask about Defense Against the Dark Arts and to Professor McGonagall to study Transfiguration anomalies, which scared them?"
In fact, since that time, Professor Flitwick had begun teaching him the counter-curses for advanced dark magic, and Professor McGonagall had also started teaching him the secondary shaping of spells.
These were things that were already beyond the learning scope of young wizards and might not even be taught at school.
Dylan thought it was probably because these professors were worried that he would mess around with his research and end up going down the wrong path like Tom, so they voluntarily taught him some more advanced things, just to prevent him from getting into trouble and to guide him towards a new research direction.
Of course, Professor Snape was still the same as ever, lecturing him on various obscure and difficult potion-making knowledge and how to brew advanced potions.
But since Professor Snape himself taught potions, this was also normal.
Dylan couldn't expect Professor Snape to teach him how to cultivate herbs—he couldn't even keep a lily alive.
It was just that now, Professor Snape wasn't unwilling to teach him other things; rather, when he did, he went straight for the absolute trump cards!
After eating, Dylan returned to his dormitory.
He went straight to bed, wrapped himself in the blankets, and began to read the booklet Professor Snape had given him.
"I thought I'd have to wait until next year to sneak into the restricted section to see this kind of content."
He looked at the first part—Occlumency.
"Shouldn't I learn Legilimency first?"
Occlumency was a sturdy shield against Legilimency.
So, logically, one should first learn Legilimency to understand the mysteries of the mind and the ways to invade it, in order to better learn Occlumency for defense. However, Professor Snape had reversed the order, presumably with his own deep intentions.
Dylan looked, and found that Professor Snape was indeed Professor Snape.
He really had something!
"Occlumency is an extremely profound mental defense magic. Its principle is based on deep control and skillful disguise of one's own thoughts."
"Through long-term meditation and special mental training, a tightly sealed maze is constructed in the mind. Every thought, every memory, can be carefully hidden in the deepest part of this mental labyrinth."
"Furthermore, by constantly changing the frequency of one's own thoughts, making them like chaotic noise, it becomes difficult for external snoopers to capture even a trace of useful information."
Dylan read Professor Snape's elegant and flowing notes, pondering in his heart.
In reality, these descriptions were things that could only be used by someone who had mastered advanced Occlumency.
Basic Occlumency was just being able to clear the thoughts in one's head, and even emotions could be hidden.
At this stage, a Legilimens would already find it difficult to read any information from this person's mind.
However, in this way, a Legilimens could instead infer whether the other person was using Occlumency to defend against their reading.
If so, wouldn't that be like saying "the treasure isn't buried here"?
A Legilimens could also deduce some things from this, without needing to actually read any content.
Hiding is explaining!
Perhaps this common saying originated from this.
"Professor Snape wants me to learn such advanced Occlumency right from the start? Isn't he overestimating me too much?"
Dylan had originally wanted to wait and see if there was a possibility of completing some achievement that would allow him to directly master these two spells, but it seemed he would have to learn them himself.
But how could he master magic to an advanced level right from the start by self-study?
Dylan continued reading.
"Mastering Occlumency means mastering the absolute sovereignty of your own mental world. Advanced Occlumency allows you to simply suppress certain specific emotions, including memories."
So, this would make it difficult for a Legilimens to read the content, and the other person would even think that you weren't using Occlumency to defend, right?
Dylan rubbed his chin.
In fact, Professor Snape was definitely a super master of both Legilimency and Occlumency!
As a double agent who could always mingle with Voldemort, it would have been absolutely impossible without extremely advanced Occlumency. He would probably have been discovered long ago and then killed by little Voldy with a hundred Avada Kedavras.
After briefly going through Occlumency, Dylan looked at the Legilimency section.
—He planned to read through it first and then ponder it carefully.
Legilimency, in other words, was a terrifying magic that could invade another person's thoughts.
Using this spell could easily tear open the defenses of another person's mind.
Of course, human memories were vast and complex, so it wasn't easy to immediately read the things one most wanted to know.
Initially, a Legilimens could only read the shallowest parts of memory.
If one wanted to go deeper, one had to highly concentrate their mind and transform their magical energy into a special wave.
This wave had to be like precise radar, resonating with the target's thought frequency.
Only then could one go with the flow, taking advantage of the momentum to delve into the other person's mind and browse deeper levels of information.
Crude and forceful use of Legilimency would inevitably cause great mental trauma to the victim.
To be safer, one had to proceed step by step, such as first making eye contact with the target, then using words to relax their vigilance, and finally gradually guiding them through conversation, ultimately observing their emotions and surging memories.
After roughly reading through the entire booklet, Dylan realized Professor Snape's good intentions.
This was to first establish in his mind the protection of his own thoughts, to understand the significance of guarding the mental world—this awareness was quite important.
It was like, after building a strong fortress, then learning about the enemy's siege methods would make the defense more targeted, and at the same time, it would make the siege spear sharper.
After learning Occlumency, when he looked at Legilimency again, it wouldn't just be about mastering an offensive magic. More importantly, during the learning process, he could inversely verify the subtlety of Occlumency, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of the essence of both magics. This could allow Dylan to build a more comprehensive, in-depth, and dialectical way of thinking on the path of studying spells.
"Professor Snape is indeed a 'pervert'!"
Dylan exclaimed.
However...
Just that...
"As someone who has mastered the full level of the Imperius Curse, I don't really have much use for Legilimency."
The process of using Legilimency is quite troublesome. It's not as simple as just throwing an Imperius Curse at someone, extracting their soul, whipping it hard, or directly controlling them to say whatever they know.
However, despite this, Dylan still began to study these two spells.
By comparing them to the Imperius Curse he had already mastered, Dylan learned Legilimency and even Occlumency very quickly.
"Looking at it this way, Legilimency is actually quite gentle."
After studying for a good while, Dylan finally lifted his head from the booklet.
Legilimency and the Imperius Curse were similar, but their essence was completely different.
One was about entering another person's thoughts to read their emotions and memories.
The other was about completely controlling another person's thoughts and actions, turning them into a puppet, with even their soul being manipulated at will.
Moreover, just as Legilimency had a counter-measure—Occlumency—
With training, it was very possible to resist the attacks of Legilimency.
However, as one of the three Unforgivable Curses, the Imperius Curse had absolutely no counter-measures.
The victim could hardly break free from control by their own power unless there was strong external intervention or the caster broke the spell.
Another week of classes passed by in a hurry.
Harry and the others were miserable these days, tormented by Hermione's revision schedule.
Especially when they usually saw themselves struggling to memorize all sorts of knowledge, while Dylan just held a small notebook and looked at it from time to time, they felt their lives were even harder.
Another weekend arrived.
Dylan and Professor Snape agreed to meet in a deserted classroom.
As for why not in the office—
Dylan guessed that Professor Snape was a little afraid that he would see something strange again, so he brought him here.
That little secretive professor.
Dylan followed Professor Snape into the classroom. The clothes the professor was wearing were still the ones he had given him, and he walked with even more flair and elegance than before.
"Your practice this week seems to have yielded some results," Professor Snape said, looking at Dylan.
He could no longer sense any emotions emanating from the other boy.
"Then let me test your Occlumency."
As soon as Professor Snape's voice fell, without giving Dylan any time to react, a pair of dark, piercing eyes locked onto Dylan.
"Hmm? Nothing at all? No, just a blank mind, with some unimportant emotions occasionally surfacing."
Professor Snape's eyes narrowed, and he raised an eyebrow.
He didn't sense any violent emotional fluctuations in Dylan's mind, but it wasn't completely devoid of thought either. It was like an ordinary person walking down the street, with some unimportant thoughts popping up from time to time.
For example—
What should I eat tonight?
The buns this morning were really awful...
Professor Snape was somewhat surprised.
He had only given the booklet to Dylan barely a week ago, and he hadn't even explained it to him.
Could he have cultivated to this level already?
Professor Snape scrutinized Dylan.
Just how much talent for practicing dark magic did this boy possess?
"Not bad," Professor Snape snorted, his expression still icy cold.
"Now, you can try to..."
Before Professor Snape could finish speaking, Dylan's voice immediately rang out.
"Legilimency!"
Dylan didn't give Professor Snape any time to prepare and directly invaded Professor Snape's mind.
He didn't see anything particularly special; instead, it was mostly memories and experiences of identifying herbs and brewing potions.
Dylan frowned.
Truly worthy of the name Professor Snape.
This Occlumency was probably welded onto his brain, wasn't it?
Anytime, anywhere, he wasn't afraid of anyone invading his mind with Legilimency!
This level of skill was probably already maxed out.
Dylan clicked his tongue.
With the boost from the Imperius Curse, he had a very high starting point for understanding Legilimency and Occlumency.
So, after only a short week of study, without any guidance, he had already mastered Occlumency to level five, and Legilimency was even higher, at level seven!
But compared to Professor Snape, his level seven proficiency was still somewhat lacking.
Seemingly wanting him to try using Legilimency more, Professor Snape didn't stop him.
Dylan also constantly tried to invade his deeper consciousness, but what he saw was almost entirely scenes of brewing potions.
—And it was always the professor alone.
Dylan tried for a long time but didn't get any further results. He couldn't help but focus his attention on the scenes of the professor personally brewing potions.
"Huh? This method of brewing potions..."
Dylan was stunned, and then he immediately began to learn Professor Snape's techniques and unique insights when handling ingredients and brewing potions.
Regarding these thoughts, Professor Snape seemed to have no intention of hiding them from Dylan at all.
He could even sense Professor Snape's thoughts when handling each ingredient.
"Holy moly, is this telling me to become Professor Snape and handle potions myself?"
(End of chapter)
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