Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 367 The professor teaches well, but Regulus doesn't learn well.

Apparition landed on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, on the grass.

As soon as I landed and settled down, the cold air rushed into my lungs. January in the Scottish Highlands is completely different from the sea breeze in Cornwall. It's dry and cold, without any saltiness, and my nasal passages feel tight from the cold.

It was already completely dark.

Hogwarts Castle stood in the distance, its massive, imposing silhouette silhouetted against the night sky by its spires and crenellations.

The windows were lit up intermittently, and warm yellow light leaked from the stone walls, stacking up layer by layer in the night, until it melted into the moonlight at the top of the tower.

A thin layer of frost covered the lawn, and the two people's footsteps crunched as they walked on it.

Professor Sprout walked ahead, raising his wand. A five-meter-diameter ball of earth floated steadily in front of him, without wobbling or shaking.

The trunk and branches extended from the top of the root ball, swaying gently in the night breeze.

The professor wasn't tall, but he walked fast, with Regulus following behind.

Baruch poked his head out of the inner bag, his eight eyes fixed on the huge earthen ball in front of him, his chelicerae opening and closing slightly, without making a sound.

When they reached the open space behind Greenhouse No. 4, Sprout put the soil ball down.

With a light wave of the wand, without chanting a spell, the tip of the wand touched the soil, and the ball of earth automatically loosened, revealing the roots stretching out one by one.

The ground in front naturally sags inward, the soil churns up, creating a kang (a heated platform bed). The man fell into it, and then the soil covered it again, compacting and leveling it.

The whole process was quick; she was so skilled at this that her movements were as natural as her breathing.

Regulus stood by and watched, his magical senses spreading out and resting on the Whomping Willow. Its condition was somewhat better than when it was in Cornwall.

The root system's absorption channels are more active, and the flow of magic in the main trunk is slightly faster than in the afternoon. The circuits that were infused with natural magic are still operating without diminishing.

He then probed his senses towards the professor.

In addition to the magic that just lifted the soil ball, there was something continuously being pumped into the trunk, seeping into the tree from the tip of the staff along the air and all the way to the root system.

Unlike natural magic, its texture is different.

The professor's magic was gentler, slower, and less targeted; it simply flowed, going wherever it pleased, with a nourishing and unblocking effect.

He's similar to the professor: gentle, tolerant, and unhurried.

The willow trees have been planted.

The branch swayed slightly in the night breeze, a small movement with no aggressive intent.

The new shoots at the tips were not very visible in the darkness, but the magic of that tender green color was still emanating from them, slowly and weakly, but they were indeed growing.

At that moment, Professor Sprout glanced back at him, and Regulus blinked, nonchalantly withdrawing his senses.

The professor glanced at him again, said nothing, turned around, squatted down next to the tree, and ran his fingers down the roots, stopping at a certain spot.

She tilted her head, pressed her fingers on the bark, released them, pressed them again, raised her eyebrows, and curved her lips into a smile.

"Mr. Blake, come and take a look."

She raised her left hand in a gesture of greeting, while her right fingertip remained on the tree bark, not moving away.

Regulus walked over and squatted down next to her.

The professor pointed to a spot at the base: "Here."

He attached the magic perception to it.

The newly grown magic circuits are different from the original ones.

The original was its own thing: linear, fast, with a clear direction, a standard oscillatory transmission structure, straightforward.

These newly grown ones are heading in different directions.

It's gentler and slower, like adding a few side streets alongside the original main road.

The narrow paths meander and sometimes run parallel to the main roads, sometimes diverging from them. They may seem inefficient, but they are indeed functioning.

The texture carried something familiar to him, his natural magic.

The willow tree that he had previously injected to rebuild the cycle neither retained it nor rejected it.

It absorbed that magic, regenerated it in its own way, and grew a new structure bearing its traces.

The traces remain, but they have become part of the tree.

Sprout looked at his face and knew he had sensed it.

"These new pathways grew on their own," she patted the trunk, her palm against the bark. "You gave it magic, and it remembered it, using your things to grow a new self."

She withdrew her hand and rubbed it on her robe twice: "Before, if you touched it, it would slap you first, then talk to you. Now you touch it."

She looked at Regulus and nodded her chin in the direction of the tree.

Regulus stretched out his right hand and placed his palm on the tree trunk.

The branch twitched, and the nearest one stretched towards his arm, weak and drooping at the end, stopping about half a foot away.

It hung there, its tip slightly bent, moving closer to the inside of his wrist, but didn't pull down.

After a few breaths, the branch slowly retracted, swayed a couple of times, and drooped back to its original position.

"It's determining if it's you," the professor said, his gaze fixed on the branch, a slight smile playing on his lips. "It's finished determining it, so it didn't hit it. If someone else touched it, it would still hit them."

Looking at Liu's listless appearance, her smile widened.

"Of course, that's for the future; it doesn't have that strength right now."

She looked away, glanced at Regulus, her eyes neither blaming nor entirely without implication.

Regulus ignored the professor's gaze and deliberately stared at the tree trunk.

There is an old crack on the bark, probably from when it was transplanted, and the edges have begun to heal.

He stared at the tree bark for a long time, reluctant to look away.

Sprout snorted a laugh through his nose.

She stood up, patted the mud off her knees, and after several attempts, she couldn't get it clean, so she simply gave up.

"Many wizards believe that nature magic is about making plants obey them."

She looked at the willow tree with the same gentle gaze she had in Cornwall that afternoon, her voice soft in the night breeze, as if talking to the tree, or perhaps to him.

"You give it something, it remembers it, and it will repay you in its own way. It won't be immediate, and it won't be in the way you expect, but it will."

Regulus also stood up, rubbing his fingers on the side of his robe.

He was pondering the professor's words.

He had previously used natural magic in a one-way manner: extraction, replication, infusion, and channeling.

He drained twenty mandrakes, and the willow tree is now half-dead.

When grafting Baruch, natural magic acts as a buffer; when researching magical plants, natural magic acts as a tool.

It's easy to use, extremely easy to use.

But ultimately, for him, natural magic was always something to be used, to acquire other things.

The extracted magic power transformed into the Disintegration Spell, the Disintegration Spell, and the Flame Affinity Module on Baruch's body.

As for the magic of nature itself, it is, from beginning to end, a transition, a means, an intermediate link that is used and then put down.

But the professor said that in addition to use, there is also exchange.

The tree remembered the magic he gave away and used it to grow new things. The tree also remembered what he took away, but the tree couldn't speak.

He glanced down at his shoulder.

Baruch stared intently at the willow tree, his eight eyes fixed, his chelipeds half-open, his two front legs raised as if to reach the tree, but unable to, he lowered them again.

It is looking at the tree.

Regulus stared at the dark red markings left by the salamander graft on Baruch's carapace.

During the grafting process, he used natural magic as a buffer to maintain the balance between the new module and the host system.

The natural magic had stayed in Baruch's body for so long that, according to the professor, the plant would remember the magic it was given and then use it to grow new structures.

Was Baruch also keeping a record?

The fire salamander module was inserted by external force and was not rejected because it was held together by natural magic.

However, if natural magic itself can leave traces in the host system, then grafting is not just about inserting a foreign module, but rather about creating a translation between the host and the foreign module.

Something that allows both sides to understand each other.

He stopped himself from digging deeper into the matter, deciding to deal with Baruch's issue later.

Following the professor's words, my mind inevitably took a turn.

To put it simply, the professor meant that after natural magic is given out, a certain connection will be formed between the recipient and the giver.

Plants can recognize him, but to what extent can this recognition be used?

He had nourished the grass with natural magic beforehand. At the crucial moment, would the plants act according to his will, entwine, block, and release paralyzing toxins?

What if we scale it up?

A pre-planned territory, soaked in natural magic beforehand, with every blade of grass and every leaf bearing its magical imprint.

When the enemy stepped on it, the ground suddenly became slippery, grass tangled around their ankles, and tree roots came up from the soil to trip them.

If plants are willing to stand with him, it is essentially a form of exchange of benefits.

He gives goodwill, and it reciprocates with cooperation. If he can control the scale and manner of giving, the entire area becomes his territory.

He didn't need to cast a spell; the land itself did it for him.

To zoom in further, imagine if he burned down the Forbidden Forest, a fierce fire that scorched the earth, and then used the magic of nature to make it grow back.

From the seed, from the soil, every new tree, every newly sprouted blade of grass, carries its own magic from the very first moment of its existence.

Once the thought popped into my head, I couldn't stop it.

Destroy first, then rebuild; destruction is the means, and reconstruction is the path.

The Forbidden Forest is now a complete ecosystem, with its own balance, and perhaps even its own will, something more primal.

The magic accumulated over thousands of years is in the soil and among the roots. It will not actively accept a foreign wizard, just as the human body will not actively accept a foreign organ.

But what if we break the existing order first?

Burn the old one and start from scratch.

Ashes are the cleanest starting point; there are no traces of the past in the soil, no old connections between the roots, and the magic of the entire system is reduced to zero.

Then he used the magic of nature to rebuild everything, and new plants grew from the ashes, with his things flowing through the root systems.

Will he become the master of the Forbidden Forest by then?

Thinking further, this is probably the direction our ancestors in Eldrin took.

Our ancestors were gifted enough to resonate directly with the magic of nature, transforming everything from the faint vitality of flowers and plants to the immense energy of mountains, forests, and rivers into their own.

There is no barrier between him and nature; they share an innate language and a natural bridge.

Regulus didn't have that talent, but there wasn't just one key. His ancestor used the main entrance, so he could tear down the wall.

Destroy first, then rebuild; give first, then receive. It's a clumsy, slow method, but perhaps it will get us to the same place.

He twitched the corner of his mouth, his thoughts drifting.

Burning down a forest is easy—it's just a matter of a fire—but it's difficult for it to grow back.

He poured so much natural magic into that one 'Hit-Man Willow' tree that his current reserves couldn't support the entire Forbidden Forest's size.

It can be done on a small scale, such as a lawn, a garden, or perhaps a patch of bushes.

But we'll have to wait to see the scale of the forest ban.

However, the direction is clear: use destruction to break the old order, use the magic of nature to rebuild a new order, and let the rebuilt ecosystem bear his mark.

This is not the path our ancestors followed, but the destination is the same.

He suppressed the thought, deciding to think about it later.

You can try it on a small scale. Find some time to conduct an experiment in a small area on the edge of a plantation or a restricted forest.

We can talk about large-scale operations later when we have enough magic power.

Sprout bent down to pick up the tool bag from the ground, fastened the buttons, dusted it off, and glanced at Regulus as he straightened up.

The child was standing there, eyes slightly lowered, his gaze fixed on some uncertain place.

He listened to what she said, which made her feel that her words had not been in vain.

The professor smiled slightly, slung his tool bag over his shoulder, and moved more nimbly.

Talking to a thoughtful child is not tiring.

She had seen many talented young wizards, but those who were both talented and obedient were few and far between.

She felt quite comfortable inside, but didn't show it on her face.

"I'll talk to the principal about where to plant it later and ask him to approve a location."

As the professor walked towards the greenhouse entrance, he said casually, "But Albus won't be at school for the next couple of days, so let's plant them for now and see what happens when he gets back."

Regulus snapped out of his thoughts and followed.

In 1974, Voldemort's name was becoming increasingly prominent in the wizarding world, and the Death Eaters were becoming more and more active. Dumbledore could roughly guess what he was up to.

The Order of the Phoenix.

During this period, Dumbledore was traveling around, contacting allies, setting up defenses, and dealing with attacks that had begun to become public.

He looked up towards the castle; the window of the principal's office on the eighth floor was dark.

Sprout stopped at the greenhouse entrance, turned to look at Regulus, and then at Baruch on his shoulder.

Baruch was peeking his head out from Regulus's shoulder, his eight amber eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his chelicerae opening and closing slightly as if to greet her.

The professor didn't ask anything, he just smiled and said, "You've worked hard today, go back and get some rest."

Regulus bowed slightly: "You too, Professor."

Sprout pushed open the greenhouse door, went inside, and the door closed behind him.

Regulus stood outside the greenhouse door.

A night breeze blew from the direction of Black Lake, carrying damp, cold moisture, and the frost on the lawn shimmered faintly under the moonlight.

Baruch shrank into his inner pouch, leaving only half his head exposed, and his chelicerae clicked.

He looked up at the sky.

The moon peeked out from the edge of the clouds, mostly half-full, almost full.

My stomach rumbled.

I haven't eaten yet.

West