Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

It was a structure made entirely of magic, slowly rotating in mid-air in front of him.

It is about eight inches in diameter and has an irregular shape, resembling an enlarged plant root system, only somewhat abstract.

Countless magical threads intertwine to form a net, with varying mesh sizes, a thick and shiny main stem, fine and dense branches, and countless extremely fine tendrils at the ends.

Every thread was flowing; magic surged in from the entrance, meandered along the pre-set path, and flowed out from the exit after seven and a half turns.

The flowing magic had a grayish-green hue.

break down.

Regulus looked at it.

In nine days, using the magic of twenty mandrakes and dozens of failed models, he completely replicated the mandrake's magic cycle.

He can now use his magic to construct this structure at any time; when magic flows in, it comes out as the decomposed properties of mandrake.

Without plants or extractions, and without any prior preparation, its own magic is the raw material.

Regulus got up and pushed open the greenhouse door.

It was still midnight outside.

It was early July, and the daytime was scorching hot, but at this moment the sea breeze was blowing in from the east, bringing a slight coolness.

Regulus walked along the stone path toward the east side of the plantation.

The goblin den was still at the foot of the east wall. The goblins were very active at night, and there were fresh footprints along the edge of the den, with small, fragmented footprints and a few coarse brown hairs that had been rubbed off.

Regulus crouched down, raised his right hand, palm facing the goblin nest.

Magic surged from his body, unfolding in front of his palm along a pre-set path. In less than two seconds, the magic structure he had spent nine days replicating lit up in the night sky.

It stands out in the night, its light a grayish-green, with fine ripples spreading from its edges.

Regulus continued to infuse magic.

Mandrake's attack method uses sound waves as a carrier and magic as its core. It doesn't need a carrier; it releases the core directly.

The grayish-green light flickered in the air for less than half a second.

Inside the goblin nest beneath their feet, more than a dozen magical reactions simultaneously went out.

Those weak, pulsating movements, the magical fluctuations belonging to living beings, vanished into stillness in the same instant.

Regulus withdrew his hand.

The gray-green light dissipated in the night wind, leaving nothing behind.

He squatted there, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, wave after wave, with a steady rhythm.

He only took half a year to conceive and perfect the space warp spell.

It took Li Huo three months from his first encounter with the three firebirds to master their precise control.

The concept of natural magic, from its inception to the acquisition of natural magic inheritance, and now to its verification, has spanned his entire first year at Hogwarts.

Regulus stood up, a light but clear surge of exhilaration rising in his chest; his continued dedication was finally paying off.

He let it last a moment, then he exhaled, his exhilaration subsided, and his eyes regained their calm.

It's not over yet. We've understood it and replicated it, but this is only the end of the research phase.

He wanted to turn it into a spell, something that could be invoked at any time without needing to construct a magical structure on-site.

Just like spatial warp, he can break it down in the same way.

Regulus returned to Greenhouse No. 3.

All twenty mandrake plants died; their leaves drooped and curled, their roots and stems withered and wrinkled, and their human-shaped outlines were now only faintly discernible depressions.

They lay horizontally along the edge of the planting trough, like a row of specimens with their contents removed.

He sat down by the window, his back to the row of corpses, facing the darkness, and let his consciousness sink deep into the night.

Star trails spread across the mental world, and the starlight of four and a half stars swept across the surface of consciousness, suppressing the fatigue and excitement accumulated over the past nine days, and emptying the mind.

Then he began to recall the process of how the space warp spell came into being.

At first, he only knew that house-elves could do it, and he knew that the principle was to fold space to make the two points fit together, but he didn't have any ready-made spells to recite or standard gestures to demonstrate.

He must first get the result, and then work backward from the result to deduce the process.

Now he has to do something similar, and this time it's even simpler.

Because he already has results and experience in developing spells.

All he had to do was deduce the spell framework that could reliably reproduce the result.

Regulus opened his eyes. It was still dark outside the window, and the sea breeze was blowing in from the east, carrying a chill.

He began to try to define the boundaries of this magical act.

It acts on the existing structure itself, severing the connection between the whole and the parts; its core image is to loosen the already formed structure.

He needed a Latin root word that could accurately convey this imagery.

Regulus searched through his memories.

Reddo means to return or restore to its original state.

Solvo, loosen, untie, release.

Dissolvo, completely loosen, thoroughly break down.

He repeatedly murmured the word, feeling the vibrations of the syllables in his mouth and throat.

Dissolvo has three syllables, with the stress on the second syllable. The vowels are sufficiently open, and the consonants are tightly closed, so they are not ambiguous when casting spells quickly.

That's it.

What about the hand gestures?

The gesture for spatial folding is to hold a wand in one hand and draw an arc, intended to represent the path of spatial folding.

But the core of this magic is not folding; it is about loosening and breaking down. Therefore, it does not require a complicated trajectory; a clear action directed at the target is enough.

Regulus extended his right hand, the wand sliding into his grasp. He faced the empty corner of the wall, pressing his wrist down, the tip of the wand pointing downwards as if pressing something into the dust.

That's it, simple and clear.

With the incantation syllables and the standard hand gestures, all that's left is to let the magic do its own thing.

Dumbledore said that magic needs to leave room for interpretation, to do what needs to be done, and then to give magic room to breathe and let it ferment naturally.

Regulus closed his eyes.

He reconstructed the magical cycle of the mandrake within his consciousness.

Then he opened his eyes, stretched out his right hand, raised his wand, and slashed down with the tip of the wand.

"Dissolvo".

The spell's structure took shape instantly, faster and more smoothly than he had anticipated.

The threads found their proper place on their own, the mesh adjusted to the right density, and a gray-green light flowed along the edges, then—

Then the spell was complete.

He maintained the posture and repeated it again.

"Dissolvo".

This time he saw all the details clearly, and the incantation syllables triggered the solidified magic model in his consciousness.

The magic flowing from the wand automatically completes a cycle along the model's preset path, releasing itself in the form of decomposed attributes.

During this process, he didn't manipulate the magic to do anything; he simply laid out a track for the magic, and the magic ran along it on its own before jumping off at the finish line.

This is the spell.

Regulus put down his wand.

The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten, and the gray-white of the eastern horizon had already spread into a pale gold. He had sat in this chair by the window all night.

Regulus went outside and cast a spell on a goblin he had just dug up in the plantation.

The goblin froze the moment the gray-green light touched it, then disintegrated, from skin to bone, from the outside to the inside, its orderly structure losing all order.

It took 0.3 seconds.

He noted that for organic life forms, the spell's duration was 0.2 to 0.5 seconds, depending on the target's size and magic resistance.

Next, he tested the effect on inorganic matter, using a piece of granite, about the size of a fist, that he had picked up from the base of a wall.

"Dissolvo".

A grayish-green light struck the surface of the rock, causing stone chips to flake off, revealing a piece the size of a fingernail with irregular edges.

He read it three more times, and three shallow pits were left on the surface of the rock, the deepest of which was no more than half an inch.

Regulus noted that spells are extremely ineffective against inorganic matter.

He then tested the effects on magical creations.

Regulus took out an old amulet box he had found in the storeroom, the lid of which was engraved with a defensive spell.

The six incantations were unleashed at full power, causing the surface of the talisman box to dim for a moment before returning to normal.

He continued recording, but it was largely ineffective against the already established magical structures.

Test complete.

Regulus completed the first form of the Disintegration Curse.

Standard spellcasting: wand pointing, single syllable trigger, gray-green ray, decomposing organic life forms upon impact.

The Ironclad Spell provides effective defense.

Then he started making changes.

The magic of mandrake is spread through its cries; it doesn't need a carrier, but a carrier has its own advantages.

Sound waves ignore cover and attack within a sound wave range. If you can't hear the sound waves, you won't know how to defend against them, or whether you should defend against them at all.

Regulus sat in a corner of the greenhouse for six hours, combining the magic model with the vibration principle of sound waves.

The mandrake's crying is a physiological characteristic, so he wants the magic model itself to emit sound waves.

He spent three hours getting the magic model to vibrate when it was running, and then spent another two hours tuning that frequency to be outside the range of human hearing.

Below 20 Hz, infrasound.

He cast a spell on the dead mandrake remains in the corner of the greenhouse.

An invisible ripple spread through the air, hit the wall, bounced, and then dissipated.

He can't hear, nor does he want to hear, but he doesn't need to take special precautions because he has the Constant Iron Armor Spell, and it's very strong.

But he could sense the gray-green decomposition properties carried in that ripple.

Regulus recorded this as the second form of the Disintegration Curse.

Low-frequency sound waves propagate, causing area attacks without specific direction or visual signs.

The Ironclad Charm can weaken but not completely block it; sound waves can penetrate the barrier, but the barrier can block harmful magic.

If a person is infected directly without protection, they will almost certainly die.

But it can't be completely confirmed, as he hasn't tried it on living people yet.

Regulus put down his wand.

He spent nine days understanding the decomposition of mandrake, and another day turning it into two spells.

One is visible, the other is invisible.

One is a ray, capable of a precise, single-point kill; the other is a ripple, silently sweeping across the battlefield.

They all grew from that one plant, that one drop of magic, that one pinch of ash.

He completed an advanced application of natural magic, a complete closed loop from observation to replication to creation.

This can be seen as a summary and realization of his ideas over the past year.

But not enough.

He has simply replicated the decomposition effect of Mandrake, and the replication is perfect. It can be used at any time without Mandrake or any prior preparation.

But this is still something of the mandrake, not his own.

Its application is limited to a single scenario: it is effective against organic life forms, it can only tickle inorganic matter, and it is completely ineffective against magical creations.

On the battlefield, a single Ironclad Spell can turn it into a fireworks display.

That's not what he wants.