The moment the idea of using Transcendent Mastery of the Healing Arts to heal madness was born in Theodore's mind, countless flashes of insight followed close behind.
There was no question that the magical world's healing magic was powerful.
In the original story, Harry had once first broken bones and then had an entire arm bonelessly erased by Lockhart—and even then, he had not needed to go to St Mungo's. The Hogwarts hospital wing alone had been enough to heal him.
As for ordinary injuries, healing spells combined with dittany could close them with ease.
That level of treatment was something the Muggle world could scarcely imagine.
Yet compared with its miraculous effectiveness on bodily wounds, the magical world's healing magic seemed strangely powerless when it came to the mind.
Until now, Theodore had never heard of a single true example in the magical world of magic curing mental illness.
Whether it was Bathilda Bagshot's senility in old age, Neville's parents having their minds shattered by the Cruciatus Curse, or Ariana's condition a century earlier—even St Mungo's had been helpless before all of them.
And as for the madness of werewolves after transformation, all the magical world had managed after so many years of effort was Wolfsbane Potion.
Ahem. At least the Muggle world had once produced something that could almost be called a "miracle technique" in the form of the frontal lobotomy.
And while reading magical history, Theodore had repeatedly noticed another pattern.
In old age, witches and wizards seemed disproportionately prone to insanity, dementia, and other mental disorders.
It was not everyone, certainly—
but it was common.
Far more common than among Muggles.
"Is that the influence of magic itself?"
That guess rose naturally in Theodore's mind.
"If the source of magical power truly has something to do with those horrors, then the nature of magic must share something with the madness carried by those beings. It's just that the influence is much weaker."
"But young children haven't yet fully trained their reason. Their minds are still sensitive. Once their emotions become too intense, they can't control the trace of madness bound up inside magical power, and it erupts outward as magical outbursts."
"Then, as they grow—especially after entering school—their rationality matures, and the little trace of madness within their magic can no longer easily shake them. That's why magical outbursts cease."
"But once age advances further and old age sets in, their minds and rationality begin to decline. At that point, the madness within magic once again becomes more obvious. That would explain why elderly wizards suffer mental collapse at such a high rate."
"And perhaps it's not limited to the elderly. Even healthy adults, who appear perfectly normal, may have their logical reasoning and learning ability quietly weakened by magic. Much faster than among Muggles, in fact. So much so that most adult wizards become almost incapable of dealing properly with logical thought."
As the speculation formed in his mind, Theodore could not help feeling a quiet sense of wonder.
The strange things of this world really were marvelous.
Wizards seemed to possess magical power that could grant almost anything they imagined, yet the price they paid was the accelerating erosion of reason.
The stronger the magic, the faster the decay.
Looked at from that perspective, Voldemort's own transformation made sense as well. In his early years he had been graceful, brilliant, and wonderfully adaptable—a man seemingly blessed equally in strength and intellect. Yet as his magical power grew greater and greater, his conduct had become more and more extreme, while the incisive brilliance of his earlier judgments seemed to drift farther and farther away.
That, too, could now be explained.
"Sure enough, all power carries a price."
"And the price hidden behind magic—that almost wish-granting power—is astonishingly high."
"It's a double-edged sword, if ever there was one."
"And if magic itself is the source of madness, then expecting magic to cure madness is naturally a fantasy."
"That would make the magical world's helplessness in treating mental corruption entirely understandable."
Theodore shook his head.
Fortunately, he cultivated immortality instead, and possessed multiple methods for suppressing madness and stabilizing the spirit. For him, the maddening nature of magic could almost be ignored.
In the future, if he mastered something like incarnations or corpse-severing methods, he could even cut away magic and the associated bloodline entirely, leaving it within a separate body and reducing its influence on his true self to the absolute minimum.
"Still…"
A bright light flashed through Theodore's eyes.
"If madness is truly such a universal problem in the magical world…"
"Then what if I used primordial methods to cure the madness caused by magic? Or at least suppress it within certain bounds?"
"That would amount to benefiting the whole world."
"How much merit would that be?"
"And even putting merit aside, how many connections and relationships could such a thing win me?"
After hesitating for a moment, Theodore's eyes shone with mysterious light, and he cautiously used The Secrets of Heaven Can Be Measured to divine whether such a path was truly possible.
In the next instant, his face changed.
His complexion turned deathly pale, and golden blood appeared at the corner of his lips.
The mysterious light in his eyes dimmed out.
Yet in that single instant, Theodore had already sensed what lay at the end of this road if he chose to walk it.
Tribulation.
An endless torrent of tribulation aura.
A calamity so immense that it could almost be called the world's great tribulation itself. Countless killing disasters wrapped themselves around him, as though the mere act of entertaining such an idea was a rebellion against "Heavenly Dao" itself.
At that same moment, trembling chaotic script appeared across the System screen.
[You look upon the living beings of the primordial world, all of them drowning in the bitterness of the Three Calamities and Six Tribulations, muddled and adrift upon a sea of suffering. Suddenly a thought rises in your heart.]
[What if all living beings could become dragons? What if all of them could struggle across the sea of suffering? What kind of sight would that be? Would it not be far more vibrant than the current order, where the immortal path is hard to find and common mortals are as insignificant as ants?]
[Yet the instant that single thought is born, tribulation aura rolls through heaven and earth. A catastrophe even greater than the Investiture War seems poised to descend from this one thought alone.]
[At this moment, Heaven gives rise to killing intent—stars shift, constellations change their places. Earth gives rise to killing intent—dragons and serpents rise from the land. The Saints give rise to killing intent—with a single thought, heaven and earth are overturned!]
[These signs are meant as a warning to any who would hold such a thought: retreat. Follow Heaven. Abandon this rebellious intention. Otherwise, heaven and earth will not tolerate you!]
At Theodore's sudden pallor and the trace of blood at his lips, Neville—who had only just invited him to visit the Longbottom family—panicked at once.
"Theodore, what's wrong?"
"Are you ill?"
"I'll take you straight to Madam Pomfrey!"
Theodore casually wiped the blood from his lips, gathered himself, and in a blink his face returned to healthy color.
He smiled.
"Neville, it's fine."
"You see? I'm already better."
Neville looked utterly at a loss.
"Theodore… are you really sure?"
Theodore laughed softly.
"When have I ever had a problem?"
"If there truly were one, I'd have gone to Madam Pomfrey myself. Don't worry."
"And besides, Neville…"
"We're friends, aren't we?"
Neville froze for a moment, then nodded as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Of course!"
"In my heart, Theodore—you're my very best friend!"
Theodore broke into a full smile and patted him on the shoulder.
"Then your business is my business."
"Neville, tell your grandmother I accept the invitation."
"I'll come to Longbottom Manor on Christmas Day."
"And unless something unexpected happens, Harry and the others should come as well. We'll all go to St Mungo's together and visit your mum and dad."
Neville's eyes immediately reddened. He bowed deeply to Theodore, his voice trembling.
"Thank you, Theodore. I don't know if my parents can really hear…"
"But if they know, they'll definitely be happy."
"Happy that I have so many good friends…"
After parting with Neville and watching him gradually disappear into the distance, Theodore lowered his eyes to the System screen once more. A smile of open disdain curved across his lips.
"Either follow Heaven or be rejected by heaven and earth?"
"A pity."
"Because I've heard another saying as well."
"To follow is mortal. To defy is immortal…"
"Mortal and immortal are divided by nothing more than a single thought."
"I'm already cultivating immortality."
"So why should defying Heaven be anything rare?"
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