Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 347 Time Will Prove the Path

Orion looked at Regulus, his earlier emotions subsiding, and his gaze regained its composure.

But another thought inevitably popped into my head: what if? What if one day we actually made it happen?

He didn't press further. Since Regulus had already said all that, he would naturally continue. He just needed to listen.

Regulus didn't speak immediately. He stood up from his chair, walked to the desk, and drew his wand.

"These are some hurdles," he glanced at Orion, "the first one still needs a verification."

Orion's gaze shifted from his face to the wand in his hand, then he stood up, took two steps to the side, and made room for him.

Regulus's gaze swept across the table, where there were several items: an ink bottle, a quill pen, several stacks of envelopes, and an empty teacup.

They are made of different materials, have different shapes, and are different sizes. They are separated by distance, with air in between.

He glanced at Orion, who nodded slightly.

Regulus raised his wand and pointed it at the table: "Quassare."

A yellowish-brown beam of spell energy, about the thickness of a finger, shot from the tip of the staff and swept across the table.

The moment the ray touched the edge of the ink bottle, the light spread out instantly.

Then the same light flashed on the quill pen handle next to it, on the edge of the pile of envelopes, and on the side of the teacup.

Almost simultaneously, with an extremely brief delay, imperceptible to the naked eye, but Orion's magical perception detected the sequence.

Ink bottle, quill pen, envelope, teacup—the light leaped from one object to the next, like an invisible thread stringing them together.

Then they broke together.

The ink bottle cracked from the inside, glass shards flew outwards, and ink spilled into the broken glass, spreading a deep blue puddle on the table.

The quill pen's shaft broke into several pieces, with uneven cross-sections, feathers scattered in the ink, and the quill tube split in two.

The envelope turned into scraps of paper, a mixture of white and beige fragments.

The teacup shattered into porcelain shards of varying sizes, the largest being only the size of a fingernail.

All the fragments fell onto the table almost simultaneously, making a chaotic, crisp sound.

Orion looked at the pile of crumbs on the table, said nothing, and frowned slightly.

Glass, feathers, paper, porcelain—the materials and structures are completely different, and there's even air between them. A single spell shattered them all, and they shattered completely.

He knew this was cognitive coverage; Regulus treated the items on the table as a whole and attacked them accordingly. Cognitive precision determined the strike range.

But he saw it.

The spell jumped from the ink bottle to the quill, from the quill to the envelope, and from the envelope to the teacup.

They are separated by air and distance, never touching.

According to the principle of the disintegration curse mentioned earlier, oscillations are highly efficient in dense structures, but should dissipate when they encounter air.

But it didn't dissipate.

He looked at Regulus, waiting for his explanation.

Regulus put away his wand, looked at the pile of crumbs on the table, and twitched his lips slightly.

The first hurdle, chain transmission, has been successfully verified.

He had speculated about this after the sinking of Snell Rock in Cornwall, suggesting that the shockwave traveled through the fissures and cavities from one end to the other.

At the time, it wasn't clear whether seawater filling the fissures provided a conduction bridge, or whether cognitive overlay allowed the oscillations to ignore physical discontinuities.

Now I understand.

These things on the table are not filled with any medium, only air. Air has extremely poor conductivity, so under normal circumstances, it will disperse as soon as it is vibrated in.

But he framed them as a whole; in his mind, they were one thing, and once the vibrations entered, there were no boundaries, moving from one thing to another.

Cognitive coverage itself is a bridge, and the oscillation crosses the medium.

He raised his eyes to look at Orion, his tone relaxed: "Those things on the table just now were made of different materials, had different structures, and were separated by air."

Logically, the vibration should stop when it reaches the boundary of each object; a broken ink bottle shouldn't affect the quill pen next to it.

.

He continued, "But I treat them as one thing, and no matter how far apart they are, as long as they are within my comprehension, the spell will work simultaneously."

Orion remained silent, his gaze still fixed on the shards on the table.

He understood, but to be honest, he didn't quite understand what was so special about it.

Cognitive coverage, just like Regulus said before, the caster treats the target as a whole, and the Disintegration Curse acts on the whole, isn't that what it is?

It's just an extra layer, so things don't have to be touching.

This is within his understanding and can be considered an advanced application of cognitive convergence.

It can break several separate objects at the same time, which increases the number of uses, but that's about it.

Regulus nodded, his expression relaxing: "This leads to something, chain transmission."

Orion frowned slightly. It was Regulus's way of using words again, which he couldn't understand, but he didn't interrupt and waited.

"The oscillation is transmitted from one object to another, crossing a medium in between; just now, it crossed the air."

Regulus explained, "The fact that the energy can pass through the gap means one thing: after the target is broken, the fragments are still part of the whole at the moment the vibration passes through them."

The oscillations are not only determined by the state of mind at the time of the incantation; they follow the cognition. As long as the cognition remains, the transmission continues.

Orion's brow furrowed even deeper. He understood what Regulus was saying, but he didn't know where it led.

He looked at Regulus: "So what you just did was create an obstacle?"

"The first hurdle," Regulus nodded, a slight smile playing on his lips, "has been successfully overcome."

Orion looked at him but said nothing more.

He didn't quite understand the key point, but Regulus said it was a success, so it was a success.

Regulus looked at his father and continued, "The next one, Camby, is more difficult. The chain transmission solves the first step: whether the oscillation can be transmitted from one fragment to the next."

"But it's not enough to just send light over."

He held up one finger: "It passes through one layer, the vibration weakens a bit, then passes through another layer, weakens again, and after three or four layers, it's gone."

For the chain to keep running continuously, the energy released at each layer must exceed the conduction loss. The excess energy powers the next layer, and so on.

"Self-sustaining".

Orion nodded; it was the same logic as the Muggle weapons he had just discussed.

"The problem is," Regulus added, "that to meet that condition, the initial magic output must be extremely high, possibly exceeding the magic limit of any wizard."

He spread his hands: "When I attacked that island, I used up two-thirds of my magic power. To achieve the conditions for the chain to be self-sustaining, the initial investment might be dozens or even hundreds of times greater."

Even Dumbledore couldn't do it, and neither could Grindelwald.

Orion's brow furrowed again: "Then how do we solve this?"

"Two paths," Regulus said, holding up two fingers.

"First, don't draw magic from the caster; let the target provide its own energy."

Orion's eyes narrowed.

"When matter breaks apart, it releases energy. If the energy released from the breakup can directly drive the next round of oscillation, the caster only needs to provide the first burst."

He continued, "But to achieve this, a conversion point needs to be generated within the target to absorb mass and release magic."

Magic drives the oscillations, which shatter more mass, and that more mass feeds the conversion points.

Mass becomes magic, magic becomes vibration, vibration becomes shattering, and shattering releases more mass.

One cycle.

Orion didn't speak; he was thinking to himself, mass converted into magic power—this wasn't ordinary magical theory.

Regulus seemed to know what he was thinking and said directly, "This is the realm of alchemy."

"Do you have a direction?" Orion asked.

"Yes," Regulus said, "the Philosopher's Stone. Flamel's Philosopher's Stone can convert magic into mass, and the reverse should also work."

Mass is converted back into magic, used in the chain of the Disintegration Curse. The target's mass is the source of magic; the target provides itself with the energy for destruction.

He added, "The problem of total magic power might also be solved by the Philosopher's Stone."

Orion's fingers twitched slightly on the table.

Nicolas Flamel.

He knew that Regulus had met this over six-hundred-year-old wizard before, when Dumbledore took him to meet Flamel at Andromeda's wedding.

Lemaître gave Regulus a metal ball as a token.

LeMay was Dumbledore's longtime partner, a relationship that dates back to the beginning of this century.

For someone so closely connected to Dumbledore to extend an olive branch to Regulus, offering tokens and opening back doors, the implications are far more complex than simply appreciating a talented child.

He thought about the issue at the time, but didn't intervene.

The Black family is neither a vassal of the Death Eaters nor a follower of Dumbledore.

Orion has always given Regulus a lot of space to do what he wants, with his family backing him up.

But Lemaître's presence does make the situation delicate.

Flamel's Philosopher's Stone represents the pinnacle of alchemy and is unique in the world. The only person who could lend it to Regulus was probably Flamel himself.

Whether Lemaître is willing to lend it depends on many factors.

Dumbledore's attitude was the first to be affected.

If Regulus were to become deeply associated with Flamel, Voldemort would see it as the Black family getting closer to Dumbledore.

Of course, the Black family has already made its public stance clear: pure-bloods, Voldemort's sphere of influence.

But it's not a big deal in pure-blood politics for an heir to be close to Dumbledore's old partner in private.

Friendship is friendship, and stance is stance. Whose child doesn't have a few foreign friends?

As long as he doesn't openly side with Dumbledore, Voldemort won't turn against a teenager just because he chatted with Flamel about alchemy for a few minutes.

There are risks, but they are not significant.

Regulus knew what he was doing, and Orion, recalling his son's conversation about Occlumency and Voldemort, made his own judgment.

Let him walk this path himself.

"As for Lemaître," Orion said casually, "you decide for yourself."

Regulus looked at his father and nodded.

He leaned back, his expression more relaxed than before: "There's another hurdle ahead, the precision of magic control."

Maintaining both the transformation point and oscillation transmission within the target simultaneously requires a level of precision higher than almost any incantation, but I have a direction, so there's no rush.

Orion looked at him and remained silent for a while.

Regulus has said everything that needed to be said, he has made all the obstacles clear, and he has even just overcome the first hurdle.

The following steps also have direction, steps, and ideas.

But what reassured Orion the most was Regulus's statement that there was no rush.

The fact that a thirteen-year-old child can say he's not in a hurry when standing at the threshold of this level of magic shows that he knows what he's doing and what he still needs.

Orion leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

The study remained quiet for a long time.

The fire in the fireplace burned a little lower, and the light in the study was dimmer than before, casting two shadows on the wall.

He looked at Regulus opposite him, his voice regaining its normal composure: "What can the family do to help?"

Regulus thought for a while, and there really was one.

The Luo family.

Dorfin Roll targeted him twice, first in the Arnold Belmont incident and second in the Jeffrey Seiler incident, but he remained behind the scenes and did not take action himself.

Regardless of the reason, this is how a feud is formed.

He originally intended to prevent Dorfin Roll from graduating, but later changed his mind.

The core path to illuminating Betelgeuse and strengthening the soul are highly overlapping, actively revealing its sharpness and exerting a decisive influence.

Killing Dolphin Roll alone would be a waste.

Would annihilating the entire Rohr family be enough? Would it be a decisive blow, or would it demonstrate our power more effectively than defeating Bella?

But there's a problem.

The core image of Betelgeuse is its unseen sharpness.

Most of the star's energy is radiated in the ultraviolet band, which is invisible to the naked eye, so it appears dark, but its actual luminosity is extremely high.

An unseen edge.

This directly determines how he should do this.

If being unable to see is one of the conditions, then he cannot act openly.

Hiding behind the scenes and letting the outcome happen, without anyone knowing it was him, that's a kind of unseen brilliance.

However, if "unseen" doesn't mean hidden, but rather refers to the form of influence, like ultraviolet light, illuminating everything but invisible to the naked eye, then the approach is different.

He wasn't sure.

If you're unsure, you shouldn't take action. If you take the wrong step, Betelgeuse might become even harder to illuminate.

First, figure out what the invisible edge really wants, then decide how to deal with the Rohr family, and then tell Orion the truth.

If he were to launch a sneak attack from behind the scenes, given his current abilities, time, and preparation, he could do it alone.

If an overt operation is needed, but the true initiator is to be concealed, then the family's resources must be mobilized, requiring Orion's cooperation.

It's too early to say anything before we figure it out.

Regulus shook his head: "Not for now."

Orion could tell that the boy was preoccupied with something, but he didn't ask any further questions.

Regulus has his own rhythm; he will speak when he needs to, and a father shouldn't rush him.

The necessary space has been given, the necessary support has been provided, and the rest is up to him.

There was a moment of silence.

The fire in the fireplace had been burning for a long time; the charcoal had collapsed, and the dark red flames reflected on the shards on the table. The ink was half-dry, its deep blue seeping into the wood grain.

Orion looked at him, his voice slightly soft: "Regulus, time will tell."

Regulus paused for a moment.

Then he reached into his robe and pulled out the pocket watch.

He pressed open the dark metal case. The dial had no numbers, only star patterns, and a slender silver arrow pointed to an angle, circling around and around.

A line of small characters is engraved on the inside of the watch case: Time will prove the way.

He looked at it for a while, then closed the watch, stuffed it back into the inner pocket of his robe, and pressed it against his chest.

Then he stood up, a slight smile playing on his lips: "Goodnight, Father."

Orion looked at him, his gaze softening, and a slight smile appeared on his lips: "Goodnight."

Regulus nodded, pushed open the door, and went out.

>