Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Regulus sat cross-legged on the ground, muttering a single word: ritual.

He only had a broad concept of ritual magic.

That's not something that can be accomplished with a single spell; it requires multiple steps, specific conditions, and sometimes sacrifices, contracts, and some kind of more complex magical framework.

Its magical feedback is usually very strong, but the cost is usually also very high.

Animagus should be considered a standard form of ritual magic.

That thing has a fixed sequence, a long process, requires specific materials, requires celestial phenomena to cooperate, and requires specific environmental conditions.

If successful, one can acquire an animal form while retaining full consciousness.

If you fail, you'll be forever half-human, half-beast, with no chance of recovery.

Voldemort's resurrection also counts.

The father's bone, the servant's flesh, and the enemy's blood—these three elements are indispensable.

Voluntary, unintentional, and forced – these three different ways of acquiring magic correspond to three different magical meanings.

Success! A complete physical body has been rebuilt, even stronger than before.

Failure... Failure might cause an explosion?

An unbreakable vow is also one.

Once it is established, it is an absolute magical contract; to break it is to die, with no room for negotiation. It is a constraint bound to the soul.

What about the Mantra of Unwavering Loyalty?

It is likely that the secret is permanently hidden in the soul of the keeper, and only the keeper can voluntarily reveal it.

There is also the oldest form of protection: sacrificial protection, which involves voluntarily dying to create a protective barrier against death for others out of love.

The same kind of protection Lily gave Harry.

Regulus pondered to himself that these rituals all had something in common.

They all leave an imprint on the soul, and once successful, they will have an effect far exceeding that of ordinary spells.

They are irreversible, unchangeable, and irrevocable.

What about Betelgeuse?

His guesses—

It may be necessary to exert decisive influence proactively for the first time, rather than responding passively.

It could mean seeing through things that others can't see through, and using that to achieve one's goals.

It may be necessary to accept the fact that sharpness can bring destruction, but not to give up using it because of that.

If this is indeed true, then the process itself conforms to the characteristics of a ritual.

Long-term preparation, specific conditions, powerful effects, involving the soul.

Betelgeuse and Betelgeuse are different.

It's difficult to reach Betelgeuse, but that's internal.

Protecting one's personal boundaries—that concept may be abstract, but it's easy to understand.

As long as you know what you want to protect, you can ignite it, and even if external forces intervene, the process will be clear.

As for Betelgeuse, it may need to exert decisive influence on the outside world.

But the question is, how big is enough?

Does it affect one person, or ten thousand people?

Will it affect one day, or one year?

Will you make your opponent lose a duel, or will you make an entire family never dare to raise their heads again?

What about the scope?

Is it only at Hogwarts, or throughout the entire British wizarding world?

What about depth?

Do you want people to remember his name, or do you want them to avoid him?

Regulus couldn't figure it out. He wasn't even sure if his guess was on the right track; it might be completely the opposite.

But if it really requires some kind of explicit ritual, then in a sense, it is seeking externally.

He seeks influence, feedback, and some kind of response from the world.

Alnista is inward-facing, while Alnista is outward-facing.

It's like two paths, one leading to inner strength, and the other to outward expansion.

Can we go at the same time?

Can it be done in parallel?

Or perhaps they don't affect each other, or even complement each other?

Regulus paused suddenly as he was thinking.

feedback.

If his conjecture is correct, if the process of illuminating Betelgeuse is some kind of ritual, and if he truly fulfilled all the requirements corresponding to the ritual—

Who will give him this feedback?

How do I provide feedback?

What is the principle behind it?

Is it magic power, or magic itself?

Or perhaps this world contains some deeper mechanism, some unseen rule, something that automatically responds to those who complete the ritual?

Regulus couldn't figure it out; his knowledge was insufficient.

Records about ritual magic are mostly vague, with successful cases being repeatedly circulated and failed cases being deliberately buried.

The truly core concepts may be hidden in the secret rooms of certain families, or in the minds of certain individuals; they are certainly not found in books that can be borrowed from libraries.

But there might be some restricted books in the library; that's where our next target comes in.

He then shook his head, dismissing those thoughts; if he couldn't understand something, he shouldn't think about it for now.

But that's what makes magic so interesting.

What's the point of magic that can be seen through at a glance, or spells that can be learned by flipping through a book?

Aren't these the things we can't figure out what we're truly worth pursuing for a lifetime?

He closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink deep into the depths.

In the spiritual world, the six stars are still in motion: Betelgeuse burns in the farthest distance, Aldebaran guards the center, and Aldebaran shines quietly in the lower right corner.

The little soul figure stood where all the light converged, radiating light.

Regulus looked at Betelgeuse and carefully sensed it for a while.

The starlight of that star was quite unique; it wasn't as intense as Betelgeuse, nor as gentle as Rigel.

It hasn't changed; it's still the same, faint and weak, just glowing.

It's more like it's conveying an emotion: I'll just stay here, and if you don't have the ability, don't bother me.

Regulus chuckled at his own idea.

But the lack of change itself is also a form of information.

This suggests that his guesses might be on the right track, but the timing wasn't right.

It's also possible that we're going in the wrong direction and need to start all over again.

It may just need a catalyst, like Betelgeuse, which took nearly half a year to go from faintly lit to fully illuminated.

All he's doing now is planting the seeds; watering and fertilizing are things to come later.

Whether it will grow, and when it will grow, depends on fate.

If it doesn't grow, try planting it in a different place.

Regulus opened his eyes.

If you can't figure it out, don't think about it for now. If you don't have enough knowledge, read a book. If it's not in a book, ask someone.

Dumbledore couldn't possibly be ignorant of ritual magic, and Professor McGonagall, being an Animagus herself, must know quite a bit about it.

That concludes today's discussion. Moving forward, by continuing to observe the changes in Betelgeuse, we can verify his conjecture.

Perhaps one day, it will suddenly light up when he is not paying any attention.

Just like when Betelgeuse began to light up when facing the spiritual erosion of the whispers of the abyss.

Regulus snapped out of his thoughts, no longer dwelling on those questions that had no answers for the time being.

He stood up, stood in the hut for a moment, and then sat down cross-legged again.

The space network thing hasn't been done yet.

After spending more than three hours in the cabin, the spatial network increased from five spells to six.

How to follow the trajectory, how to control the intersection points, and how to grasp the timing of the exit—all of these need to be readjusted.

The Six Paths are far more complex than the Five Paths.

When there are five paths, there are ten main trajectories and eight intersection points.

With one more track added, the main trajectories become fourteen, and the number of intersections increases to fifteen.

With four more tracks, there are seven more potential collision points, and each one needs to be calculated carefully.

Regulus spent two hours modeling and one hour debugging before it was finally done.

The six mantras operate simultaneously on the network, but they are staggered and do not interfere with each other.

You can release it whenever you want, and from whichever opening you want.

Regulus stood up and pushed open the door of the hut.

He glanced at the training field, where Alex was lying on the ground, panting, his chest heaving, clearly exhausted.

Regulus ignored him.

Over at the dummy area, Hermes was still there, standing between four dummies, bracing himself against the Ironclad Spell and enduring the spells fired from them.

The barrier swayed precariously, breaking into pieces with each hit. He gritted his teeth, replenished it with magic, and then it would break again, only to be repaired once more.

Regulus looked at him and found it amusing.

Hermes's demeanor just now made him seem disdainful of everything, scoffing at external forces and considering anything that didn't belong to him as trash.

The results of it?

He immediately started practicing the Iron Armor Spell, clearly still caring about it.

He simply wanted to improve through his own efforts, unlike Alex who wanted to take shortcuts.

Regulus walked over and raised his hand to stop the dummy. Hermes, still holding up the barrier, didn't react in time.

Two seconds later, he slowly turned his head, his eyelids drooping as he glanced at Regulus.

Then he removed the barrier, staggered over to Alex, and collapsed to the ground.

Limbs outstretched, chest rising and falling, eyes half-closed.

Waiting to be rescued.

Regulus was speechless; this guy's attitude was far too obvious.

He ignored the two and turned to walk towards the mannequin area.

Raising his hand, magic surged forth, and the dummies began to move again. This time, he didn't make them cast spells, he simply made them move.

He turned the speed up to the highest setting, and the movements of the dummies were so fast that they were almost invisible, like streaks of black shadow flashing by.

Hermes lay on the ground, glanced at it from the side, and then his eyes widened slightly.

That speed...

He turned to look at Regulus.

Regulus stood among the mannequins, ignoring him, and went about his own business.

He first used spatial warp to create the passageway.

Then anchor points are driven in, twelve anchor points, each fixing one of the twelve independent channels.

The next step is to connect them to form a complete network.

Then comes the flow, which makes the network move, circulate, and change every moment.

After doing all this, he raised his wand and cast six disarming spells into it in succession.

One beam of red light after another shot into the passage and disappeared.

However, the distance is too short; the passage is right in front of the tip of the staff, making the process almost invisible.

It looked like he conjured a magic wand and tapped it a few times out of thin air.

Now they are all operating at high speed and intersecting with each other in that network of twelve channels.

Regulus's consciousness followed him in, monitoring every trajectory.

After waiting for ten seconds, he opened all six exits at the same time.

Six spells were fired simultaneously from six different anchor points, weaving into a net in the air and striking all six dummies at the same time.

The dummy's fake wand flew out of its hand and crashed to the ground.

Regulus watched this scene and nodded.

The Six Paths were formed.

You can gradually increase the number of questions, to seven, eight, nine. As long as you have the mental focus and calculation ability, you can keep increasing the number.

However, if the goal is simply to maximize the number of casts in a single instance, this complexity is unnecessary.

There's no need to make them cycle through the network, and no need to calculate so many intersection points.

All you need to do is allow them to exist simultaneously for a very short time, a fraction of a second, enough for them to be launched from different anchor points at the same time.

That would reduce the amount of calculation, and you could probably add up to ten questions, or even more.

Regulus withdrew his magic, the network dissipated, and he stood there, still thinking about the data.

Hermes lay on the ground with his eyes wide open.

He saw what just happened.

The six spells were fired simultaneously from six different locations.

Those locations were far from Regulus, and the spell appeared suddenly as if it had no source.

He imagined what if those spells were aimed at him—

How to prevent it?

The Ironclad Curse can block the Disarming Curse, but what if it were replaced by the Killing Curse?

As for dodging, six spells are being fired at you from six different directions at the same time. Where can you dodge?

That thing is impossible to defend against or dodge.

Hermes lay there, watching Regulus's retreating figure, when a thought suddenly popped into his head.

This guy had this trick up his sleeve?

What if you use this to hit me?

He twitched his lips, whether as a laugh or a sigh was unclear.

Then he closed his eyes and continued to lie there.

Forget it, why think about that?

Even without Regulus's trick, I still couldn't beat him.

Just wait to be rescued.

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