Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 327 Let Father Have a Taste

The stubbornness of Lyubiregulus who hit people.

For most of the day, the natural magic kept emanating outwards, and it finally calmed down, shifting from patrol mode to relaxed vigilance, and then its hostility dropped to a threshold that just wouldn't trigger an attack.

He spread his magical perception over and could feel that the violent shock was still flowing inside the branch, but it was restrained and not being released outwards for the time being.

I stood for more than five hours, from morning until noon.

Agnes came by once in between, carrying a tray with an insulated lid on top.

She probably figured out what Regulus was doing; after all, she had dealt with magical plants for half her life, so she should recognize natural magic.

Or perhaps she didn't realize it; she simply delivered the food as instructed, without asking any further questions.

Lifting the insulated lid reveals a steaming hot shepherd's pie and a pot of ginger tea. The inside of the lid is enchanted with heat-preserving properties, ensuring the food stays warm for up to half an hour.

Agnes placed the tray on the stake: "Mr. Black, lunch is ready."

Next to the tray was a small stone basin containing a steaming piece of raw pork rib, its cut pink and bloody, with blood pooling at the bottom.

"Give this to that little spider."

Agnes glanced in Baruch's direction, where Baruch was peeking out from Regulus's shoulder, all eight eyes fixed on the stone basin.

Regulus nodded slightly: "Thank you."

Agnes didn't say much, but she glanced at Baruch a couple more times. It looked back at her with all eight eyes and opened and closed its chelicerae as if to greet her.

Then she said she'd come back in an hour to collect it, and turned and left.

Regulus continued to release his natural magic as he ate, and after taking two sips of ginger tea, his body felt warm and cozy.

Baruch sprang off his shoulder, his eight legs quickly darting over to grab the edge of the stone basin, his chelicerae tearing open the fascia on the surface of the steak, and began to eat.

By evening, he once again extended his magical perception to touch the two Man-Beating Willows, and they were completely different from those in the morning.

The Willow Tree that strikes people in the morning carries a violent tendency to attack through its magical energy transmission circuits, like a pot of water that is always boiling, with all the magic ready to explode at any moment.

The water in that pot is still hot; the temperature hasn't dropped much, but it has stopped boiling.

The magic was still running rapidly through the conduction circuit, its speed from the roots to the tips of the branches not slowing down at all, but the restlessness of drawing energy from whatever it touched subsided.

The transmission is still happening, the oscillation is still happening, but the direction of the attack has temporarily disappeared. It is moving, but moving steadily.

Nature's magic did two things.

The Willow of the Beating Man judged Regulus as part of the natural environment, rather than an intruder.

The branches' attack instinct is directed at intruders. If they perceive the object in front of them as just another part of the environment, like soil, sunlight, and wind, the attack command will not be triggered.

Moreover, the natural magic itself has a stabilizing effect on the magic of the Mandarin Duck.

Just as sunlight makes plant growth more orderly, the magic of nature makes the magic of the willow tree operate more smoothly.

The minor disturbances caused by the transplant were slowly smoothed out under the influence of nature's magic, and the branches swayed more evenly and regularly than in the morning.

The magic is still active, but it's now active in a more structured way.

Regulus withdrew his senses, stretched his legs that had been standing for so long, and his knees made a cracking sound.

He walked to the edge of the wooden stake and stepped over the rope.

The rhythm of the branches immediately changed; a few turned towards him, swaying a little more, but they didn't lash out.

He continued walking in, at a considerable pace.

Actually, he wasn't too worried about being whipped.

The Constant Iron Armor Spell has always been active, and its defensive capabilities have been verified countless times. Moreover, it is called Constant precisely because it is constant.

No matter how fierce the Willow Tree is, it is ultimately just a mindless plant. No matter how strong its branches are, they cannot penetrate the defense enhanced by the protective imagery of the Five Stars.

Even if you stand here all day and let dozens of branches whip you around, you probably won't lose a single hair.

But that would be pointless; he didn't come here to get beaten up.

What he needs is the magic data of a Willow of the Brawler in its normal operating state. A Willow of the Brawler that has been enraged and is in a state of overload has its magic circuit in a state of overload, and its conduction speed and oscillation intensity will deviate from the normal parameters.

What he wants is normalcy, every detail of stable operation, so he needs it to move quietly, not violently.

With each step Regulus took, he allowed the natural magic to reach the tips of the branches before his body, giving the Man-Beating Willow a buffer. Something was approaching, but this thing, like nature itself, did not require an attack.

When he was about ten feet from the tree trunk, a thin branch peeked down from above and stopped briefly in front of him with a hook at the end.

Baruch exploded on his shoulder.

It suddenly spread its eight legs wide, its chelicerae outstretched, and raised its four front legs, making a threatening gesture towards the branch, with the bristles between its joints standing on end.

It emitted a sharp, clicking sound, completely different from its usual slow and leisurely pace, and its fangs were exposed.

Regulus reached out and touched its carapace, pressing gently with his fingertips: "It's alright."

Baruch's chelicerae were still outstretched, but his forelegs slowly retracted, and all eight of his eyes were fixed on the branch, turning around as the branch swayed.

Regulus's lips curled up slightly.

The twig paused in front of him for two or three seconds, then retracted.

Several more branches reached down, slowly sweeping over his head and sides, retracting when they touched the boundary of natural magic, as if trying to confirm what this thing was.

After confirming everything, they were all shrunk back in, and we continued arranging them.

He continued walking until he reached the base of the tree trunk.

Looking up, the 25-foot-tall Mandarin Willow appears much larger from directly below than from a distance, its canopy blocking out a large portion of the sky, its branches swaying and intertwining overhead, filtering down rays of light that flicker.

The knots and cracks on the tree trunk are more clearly visible at this distance, and each crack is embedded with dark resin, ancient and as hard as amber.

He didn't know how much his father had spent on those two willow trees, or what he had given in exchange for them.

His father didn't say anything, and he didn't ask.

Resources, politics, money—no matter how you calculate it, these are all things measured in units of 100,000 Galleons, and they are priceless and unavailable.

The Mantis Willow is a rare magical plant under global control, and the trade of a live, mature plant is prohibited under the magical plant protection regulations of any country.

Getting two plants from Bulgaria to Cornwall isn't just about money; you need something else.

But he only said he needed it, and his father got it for him.

If it were another organization, even with a legitimate research reason, they would probably think it was just a child's whim and not worth using resources of this level.

But he's different; he can turn these things into something else.

Money spent is money spent, and political resources used up are used up.

Most people spend money to get something that looks nice in their home, or something to talk about in social situations.

He spent money, but what he got in return was real power that he could hold in his hands and draw upon at any time.

The first person to test the last Disintegration Curse on was Orion. He was hit in the study and was so shaken that he couldn't stand up for a long time, as if he had eaten something unclean, and he looked nauseous for a while.

This time, we must make sure my father is the first to taste the sweetness and bitterness, and let the investors see the return on their investment. That would be perfectly reasonable.

Regulus snapped out of his thoughts, stopped thinking about those random things, and raised his hand to place his palm on the tree trunk.

Seeing that there was no danger, Baruch also came closer. He spun a piece of spider silk from his shoulder, which stuck to the tree trunk. With a pull, he swung himself across.

Just a moment ago it was baring its teeth and claws, but now that it sees Regulus sticking to it, it wants to stick to it too.

But it didn't climb around randomly. Its eight legs moved back and forth on the rough bark, circling within Regulus's sight, its claws hooking onto the edges of the cracks, not running far.

Regulus ignored it, closed his eyes, and poured all his magical perception into it.

Direct contact provides far greater precision than what was achieved outside the wooden stake in the morning; every detail of the transmission path is crystal clear.

The angle of the fork in the tree is so precise that it can be replicated in one's mind. The distribution of magic at each node can be described numerically, and the decay curve from the main branch to the branch and then to the end is within one's perception.

There is also a complete mechanism for end-of-pipe transformation.

Previously, he had only grasped a vague change, knowing that it would suddenly become an oscillation when it reached the end, but he couldn't see how the middle step was completed.

Now I see it clearly.

The magic of the Whomping Willow is constantly circulating, regardless of whether there is a target or not, just like a heart that keeps beating, whether you are running or sleeping.

The magic originates from the roots, runs upwards along the main channel, branches out at each fork, and finally reaches the ends of the branches.

Once the release is completed at the end, the resulting shockwave dissipates into the air, and then a new round of magic begins anew from the roots, repeating the cycle endlessly.

The entire loop was spinning idly.

When the branch strikes the target, the idle motion instantly switches to a violent mode, and the oscillation no longer dissipates but instead pours into the target's interior.

The only difference is whether or not there is a container to receive it.

He now has his palms pressed against the tree trunk. Although the "Hit-Man Willow" is not attacking, the release process at its end is still in operation, allowing him to fully perceive every step.

The magic was constrained as it traveled through the branches, and the width of the conduction path remained constant. Although the channel narrowed from the thickest branch to the thinnest branch, the narrowing process was uniform and gradual.

At the very end, the conduction path suddenly narrows abruptly, converging from the tube to an outlet the size of a pinhead, with almost no transition in between.

The magic is extremely compressed in this position.

The magic that was originally evenly distributed in the pipe was squeezed together at the tip of the needle, and its density increased to dozens of times that of the normal state.

This compression process itself changes the properties of magic. When the magic density exceeds a certain threshold, order begins to turn into disorder, and the amplitude of vibration within the magic increases dramatically.

Then it is released from the tip of the needle.

The moment the compressed magic was squeezed out from the needle tip, the constraint disappeared, the density dropped sharply, and the magic, compressed to the extreme, suddenly exploded, forming a high-intensity oscillation.

It possesses extremely high penetrating power; the moment it spreads outward from its release point, it will penetrate into the internal structure of any object it encounters.

If it encounters air, the vibration dissipates, and nothing happens.

If it encounters a solid, the vibration is injected into the interior, bouncing back and forth within the structure. It vibrates when it hits a connection point and pulls when it hits a load-bearing surface, loosening the entire structure layer by layer from the inside out.

Narrow, compress, release, explode.

The four steps are completed at the very end of a branch, taking less than one-hundredth of a second in total.

This is the attack principle of the Mandarin Duck: the entire mechanism of shattering from the inside.

Regulus removed his hand from the tree trunk and opened his eyes.

It was already dark, and he had been standing under the tree for nearly two hours.

Baruch was still lying on the opposite tree trunk, his eight eyes still staring at him, not moving an inch, quite obedient indeed.

"Come down."

Baruch spun out a spider web, which swung back onto his shoulder.

He withdrew from the attack range and walked to the wooden stake.

Next, we'll see how it attacks.

He had figured out the static magic circuit, but in the violent state, the conduction path and diffusion method after the oscillation is injected into the target, as well as the differences in performance in different materials, still needed to be seen with his own eyes.

He plucked a withered leaf from the low shrub wall, tapped it lightly with his fingertip, and the leaf turned into a small paper airplane. He added a few lines of text, and the paper airplane flew crookedly towards the direction of the greenhouse to the east.