Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 415 Spider Logic

Saturday in early March, at noon.

Regulus emerged from the castle, his body enveloped in an illusion spell and propelled by a flight spell, skimming close to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Upon landing, he instantly Apparated and found himself standing on the open ground outside Aragog's lair.

The forest ban hasn't fully recovered yet this season.

The tree canopy closed overhead, not a single ray of light could penetrate. The forest was half withered and half green; the withered half was still covered with leaves that hadn't fallen all last year, while the green half had just sprouted new buds, all obscured by the thick fog.

The ground is covered with a layer of decaying leaves, which are soft and damp when stepped on. Moisture rises from the ground, emitting a damp, earthy smell.

Spiderwebs were woven among the tree branches, covered with water droplets, appearing grayish-white through the mist.

He goes twice a day, once after lunch and once after dinner, more often than he goes to the library.

He goes to the library three or four times a week, and to the Forbidden Forest twice a day.

Even Voldemort couldn't interfere with his studies, but a spider could. If that's the case, Baruch is more powerful than Voldemort.

Regulus never had anything important to do when he came back; he just watched Baruch frolic around him.

Once, Baruch wanted to eat dragon meat, so he fed him a piece. The thing was too small for a spider that was two meters long. It was gone in a flash, and he didn't even get a taste of it.

From then on, Baruch kept thinking about it, and every time he would tilt his head and peek into that little bag with one eye.

Of course, you can't see anything.

It looked at it for a while, clicked its chelipeds twice, and probably figured it out. One piece wasn't even enough to fill a gap between its teeth, so it concluded that it wouldn't eat it and would save it.

It mentioned it once before, asking Regulus to shrink it.

It's good that it's small; it can come back to the castle with you, and one piece of dragon meat is enough to eat.

Regulus didn't agree. He was still growing. The new module had just been connected, and he was growing bigger. What was so small about that?

The Forbidden Forest is so big, isn't it enough for you to eat?

Regulus stood under the tree for a short while, and the spider web in front of him began to tremble with a rapid and dense rhythm, sounding like eight legs taking turns stepping on the web.

Baruch emerged from the depression, his dark red bristles gleaming like scales in the mist, his eight amber eyes staring at him, his chelicerae clicking and snapping.

Its attack was exactly the same as before, its two-meter-long body accelerating to its maximum speed, but it still had some sense of proportion, knowing that it was now a large animal.

At the last second, all eight legs plunged into the decaying leaves and braked sharply, stopping right in front of him. The spider lowered its head and moved forward.

The white spots around the eight eyes are much brighter and denser than when it was first grafted, shining through from under the carapace with a steady, pure white halo, no longer flickering on and off.

"...I heard it..." Baruch's voice was rough as he eagerly reported, "...The tree...is talking...Baruch...can hear it clearly..."

Regulus reached out and placed his hand on the carapace of its head and chest, probing inward with his magical senses.

The tree-protecting curved module has fully grown in, and the tendril-like extensions and visual branching system around the grafting point are intertwined and indistinguishable from each other.

The bridge built by the magic of nature is still there, and the words between the two sides can be exchanged smoothly.

The magic flowed smoothly, with no signs of rejection.

Regulus raised an eyebrow slightly: "What did you say?"

Baruch's chelicerae were halfway extended when he stopped, his eight legs stomped on the spot, and his spider head lowered.

"...Say..." its voice trailed off, "...I don't like...spiders..."

Regulus's lips twitched upwards.

Baruch felt wronged for a while, but not for long.

It has come up with a new trick.

"Baruch...think of something..."

Regulus patted its big head and made it talk.

"...These trees...recognize Baruch..." It stretched out a front leg and pointed around: "...Those...trees in the distance...I don't recognize them..."

Regulus understood its foolish idea.

Since the trees nearby don't like it, then go further away and find a tree you've never seen before. Maybe the trees there won't recognize it and won't mind it.

It said that it had run to distant places several times in the past few days, specifically targeting unfamiliar trees, going further and further away, bypassing depressions and ditches, to find a forest it had never been to before, and eagerly approaching it to strike up a conversation.

"And then?" Regulus asked.

Baruch's chelicerae drooped down again.

"...I don't like the new tree either..."

The unfamiliar trees still didn't welcome it; it asked each tree one by one, and the responses were all pretty much the same.

That's for sure.

The giant eight-eyed spider has been nesting and hunting in the Forbidden Forest for more than a year or two. Aragog has led his clan to reproduce here for decades. Countless branches have been broken by their webs, and countless tree roots have been corroded by their venom.

The trees remember these things, each tree remembers, and the roots connect to the roots underground, so the whole forest remembers.

Baruch didn't give up. When changing the tree didn't work, he came up with an even better idea.

It raised its head, its eyes darting around, and its voice rose again, carrying a mysterious air.

"...Baruch...discovered...the centaurs...the trees like..."

Regulus looked at it, and the corners of his mouth slowly turned up.

It grew smug, its claws opening and closing, and all eight legs stood up slightly: "...Baruch...learning from the centaur..."

Tree... likes Baruch...

Baruch described it very enthusiastically.

It crouched far behind a tree, spying on the centaurs.

It was clever and knew how to hide, so the centaur didn't find it.

It saw that the centaur always looked up at the stars in the sky, sometimes for most of the day, talking to himself in a mysterious way.

It figured this must be a skill that would please the tree.

So it went back and learned on its own.

Regulus already had a picture in his mind.

A large spider, about two meters long, with all eight eyes raised, squatted motionless in a pile of decaying leaves, staring at the sliver of sky peeking through the gaps in the tree canopy, feigning solemnity.

Perhaps they even divided their eight eyes among themselves, with some watching this part of the sky and others watching that part, afraid of missing anything.

Since it has no neck to tilt back, it arches its entire head and chest backward, forcing all eight legs to brace themselves to prevent it from tipping over.

It just stood there, facing the sliver of night sky, squatting there for most of the night.

It didn't understand stars and couldn't see anything, so the tree ignored it.

When stargazing failed, it tried imitating the way a horseman walked.

With eight legs, it walked steadily and slowly, trying to maintain the calm rhythm that only four-legged animals have.

Spiders' arthropod joints and centaurs' hooves have completely different movement logics; trying to learn them by rote would be about the same as a crab trying to learn a horse stance.

The tree, of course, still ignored it.

Regulus couldn't help but twitch his lips again.

Stargazing and pacing were all in vain; Baruch then discovered a unicorn.

Wherever a unicorn stands, the trees rejoice, a silvery-blue light ripples through the forest, and even the bushes unfurl their leaves.

Baruch's spider logic is simple: if a tree likes a place where a unicorn has been, then if the unicorn goes to rub against that place and gets some of its favor, won't the tree like it too?

It moved closer.

As a result, the unicorn smelled its scent from afar, flicked its silver mane, stomped its hooves twice, and turned to leave.

The more it tries to curry favor, the more thoroughly it is avoided.

"Why?" Baruch's voice was extremely aggrieved, and the white light around his eight eyes dimmed.

"The centaur...the tree likes...the unicorn...the tree is happy...Baruch learns...the tree doesn't like...Baruch goes...the unicorn runs...why?"

Baruch didn't understand what was wrong with him; all he knew was that everything in the Forbidden Forest disliked him, except for Regulus.

It rubbed its big head against Regulus.

Regulus listened to its report and found its self-righteous but foolish tricks amusing.

Baruch's idea was actually correct; unicorns were indeed effective, even more so than centaurs.

But you can't just rub it against it. Unicorns are the cleanest creatures in the Forbidden Forest, so pure that you have to be careful even if you touch them.

Even he himself doesn't want to touch it unless it's really useful.

Baruch made a terrible mistake, ending up with the very thing that was least liked by him.

It is a creature of pure darkness, and according to the rules of magic, the unicorn is its opposite.

Baruch tried to force his way in, but failing was actually a good thing.

Of course, you can't say that to it.

With Baruch's spider-like mind, his words were encouragement, and encouragement easily leads to trouble.

If we really launch a surprise attack on the unicorn, then it won't just be a matter of missing out.

He didn't intend to lecture it; it would be pointless anyway.

The tree welcomes the centaurs and unicorns, because they were already there.

Centaurs have lived in this forest for generations, even before Hogwarts was founded, and the unicorns were raised by this forest itself.

They have long established their place within the established order of the forbidden forest, which has been in place for countless years. Their roots are deep, and no one can move them.

The eight-eyed giant spider is different. This thing has only been in the Forbidden Forest for a few decades at most, which is nothing compared to the memory of those trees.

As soon as they arrive, they spin webs to claim territory, hunt for food, and build nests, covering perfectly good tree trunks with spider silk, which the trees remember clearly.

In the magical world, everything has its place; it takes time for things to grow and time to move.

The centaur's position was earned over thousands of years; for the eight-eyed giant spider to squeeze in, a few decades is far from enough.

Perhaps in a few hundred years, after the trees in this forest have been replaced one generation after another, and the things that the old trees remember have been slowly forgotten by the new trees, the Forbidden Forest will naturally accept them.

But centuries is common for trees, but too long for a spider.

Regulus's thoughts took a turn at this point.

Centaurs' ability to observe the stars is genuine, and in some ways, it's more effective than the prophecies of wizards.

Few wizards can truly predict the future, but centaurs are different; almost all centaurs can read the stars, and each one can glean something from the constellations.

What does a bright Mars signify? What do planetary movements signify?

But the centaurs never make direct prophecies; they go around in circles, making them seem inaccurate, only to be discovered later that they were right.

He was curious about something else.

Is the ability of centaurs to observe stars something they figured out and passed down through generations, or is it something they are born with in their blood?

One is acquired later. Over a long period of time, this race looked at the same starry sky generation after generation, gradually accumulating the patterns, and then teaching them from generation to generation, which became a discipline.

One is innate, something that centaurs are born with, ingrained in their blood, just like Baruch was born with the ability to stick out his buttocks and spit silk, without needing to learn it.

Regulus was always thinking about these things.

If it's acquired later in life, that's fine. But if it's innate, something you carry in your bloodline, then that's interesting.

This may indicate that the centaur form itself possesses a magical quality that is bound to nature, and that the ability to extract information from the trajectories of stars from birth is a natural talent.

Thinking further, if we break down the ability to observe stars into a visual branch of magical structural light sensitivity, a module for sensing the trajectory of celestial bodies, and an interpretive loop for translating physical laws into fuzzy predictions, it is theoretically possible to extract these elements.

That ability to sense the stars may have some connection to the underlying logic of his star-track meditation.

If that's the case, then he wants to give himself a good thrashing.

But that's a story for later. We didn't have any samples at hand, and centaurs weren't as easy to catch as tree-protecting bowers.

Moreover, it remains to be seen whether Jiang Xing's device is compatible with his star orbit system.

As for unicorns, forget about them. There are too many theories about them, so let's not think about them for now.

Regulus snapped out of his reverie and looked at Baruch, who was still eagerly waiting for him to say something.

We need to coax it.

"You can watch the stars all night long," he said, his voice softening, but his words were still sharp: "The trees won't even glance at you."

Baruch's eyes were fixed on him, looking aggrieved.

"...Why..." its voice was full of confusion: "Centipedes like...trees..."

Regulus found the question amusing.

"The horsemen have been here for a long time," he said, pushing the timeline back, "they've been here longer than the trees. You've only been here a few days!"

Baruch's chelicerae slowly closed and pressed against his lower jaw. The spider lowered his head, and his eight legs rummaged around in the decaying leaves, making a low click.

Finally, Ara came to the conclusion: "...Baruch...is not old enough."

Regulus didn't correct it, so it wasn't wrong.

Changing the tree was useless, and trying to learn from the horsemen was also futile. Having hit a wall on both paths, Baruch was completely at a loss.

It lay listlessly on the decaying leaves, and the white light around its eyes dimmed a bit. It had run itself ragged and was disliked by everyone it went to.

"...Baruch...good spider..." it protested stubbornly, "The tree...doesn't know..."

Regulus reached out and patted its big head: "Take it slow. Trees have long memories. They learn slowly, and even if they do learn something, they forget it slowly. You can't rush it."

Baruch quieted down, his spider legs tucked in, his head resting on his forelegs, and the white light around his eyes no longer peeked out, but receded into a thin layer, clinging to his carapace.

Regulus stayed with it for a while longer, watching it slowly recover its spirits.

It died quickly, but recovered just as quickly. Before long, it started playing with the beetles under the decaying leaves using its forelegs.

He instructed Baruch to stay put, and from the desolate wilderness, the shadow of his kidney shifted, and he left the forbidden forest.