Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 548 Sustainable Development and Proteins

With a sudden shift in space, the three phantoms landed on the ground.

The ground beneath my feet was hard permafrost, feeling like an iron plate. The cold air penetrated the soles of my shoes and reached my ankles within seconds.

The landing point was a moraine plateau on the eastern side of the Jotunheim Mountains, where boulders and gravel covered a width of several hundred meters. The grayish-white stones varied in size, some as tall as a person and others as small as a fist, their edges all rounded by the glacier.

The edge of the plateau breaks off on a steep slope, below which is a dark gray scree slope. At the bottom of the valley, a light blue stream meanders among the scree, the sound of the water distant and faint.

The U-shaped glacial valley extends westward from below the plateau, with steep cliffs on both sides. The granite sections look as if they have been cut by a knife, and moss and dwarf birch trees hang from the cracks.

The distant mountain ridges stretch endlessly, their peaks covered in permanent snow. When the sun shines on them, they reflect a blinding white light, and if you stare at them for more than three or four seconds, your vision starts to turn bluish.

Further away, the mountain peaks disappeared into the clouds, leaving only their outlines.

At high altitudes, the air is dry, and with no moisture to obstruct the view, the sky is a deep, rich blue.

The wind blew in from the direction of the valley mouth, cold and hard, like knives on the face.

In August, lower-lying Norway is already in summer, but Jotunheim, at an altitude of over 1,500 meters, has a temperature of only three or four degrees Celsius, which feels even lower when the wind blows.

Fabian shuddered, rubbed his arms, pulled his wand from his robes, and tapped it on himself.

A warm light spread from the tip of the staff, enveloping his entire body, and heat escaped from his collar and cuffs. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Gideon also gave himself one; the heat rose from his head and quickly dissipated in the cold air.

Geralt stood on the edge of the plateau, took a deep breath, and felt the crisp, cold air fill his lungs, chilling him to the bone, carrying the unique cleanliness of high altitude.

He held his breath for a moment, then suddenly exhaled, the white mist condensing into a straight column of air that shot forward for more than ten meters before dissipating.

He hadn't cast a warming spell; under his short vest was a thin, close-fitting shirt, and a thin layer of white steam rose from his exposed skin, condensing into fine mist in the cold air, swirling up on his shoulders and neck before being dispersed by the wind.

The air around him swayed slightly, and it looked hot.

Fabian glanced at Geralt, then at the steam rising from his body, and pursed his lips. "Aren't you cold?"

Geralt twisted his neck, a smirk playing on his lips. "Are you that cold?"

Fabian nudged Gideon with his elbow, glanced at Geralt, and muttered something under his breath.

Geralt glanced back at the two brothers, grinned, and shrugged, his body radiating even more heat.

Fabian rolled his eyes.

The three of them followed a gravel slope down the edge of the plateau, stepping on fist-sized pebbles and gravel as they made their way to the bottom of the valley.

The slope is very steep, and it's hard to walk on. You have to make sure you're firmly planted on each step before you can take the next one.

Geralt walked ahead, taking large, precise strides. Fabian slipped a couple of times behind him, cursed, and Gideon reached out and tugged at him.

After descending to the bottom of the valley, the path became easier. A stream flowed on the right, the water was shallow and clear enough to see the stones at the bottom. The water was blue in the deeper parts and transparent in the shallower parts.

The valley floor is covered with silt transported down by glaciers, and large boulders are scattered on both sides of the stream. Some of them are covered with thick gray-green lichen, which looks like rough felt.

The three walked westward along the valley floor.

Dumbledore had given us the coordinates; the giants' camp was located at the deepest part of the canyon, and Apparition could take us there directly. But this trip was for negotiations, and directly flashing into the giants' territory would be tantamount to an invasion.

Ordinary giants are fine, but you have to be sincere with intelligent giants, go inside them, and give them enough respect, at least on the surface.

After walking for about twenty minutes, the valley began to narrow inward, and the rock walls on both sides became higher and higher. The sunlight could only reach a small area at the bottom of the valley, while the rest of the area was in shadow.

The temperature dropped a few degrees, and the wind blew in from the narrow opening, accelerating as it was squeezed by the two mountain walls, making a whooshing sound.

The ground beneath our feet changed from gravel to larger rocks, with remnants of ice still clinging to some places. The grayish-white ice filled the cracks in the rocks, making a crunching sound when stepped on.

Further on, the valley widened at a bend, where the streams converged into a small pool, and animal tracks began to appear.

Reindeer droppings were scattered around the pond, black and granular, in patches on several flat areas of ground, some new and some old.

There were also hoof prints, very numerous, leaving clear outlines as they were stepped into the frozen soil.

On the distant hillside, dozens of reindeer moved slowly at the boundary between the scree slope and the meadow, nibbling at the moss and short grass on the ground with their heads down.

The antlers of the male deer are very large, branching out into four or five antlers. The largest male deer's antlers spread out to be more than a meter wide, swaying in the sunlight.

Fabian stopped, pointed to the herd of deer in the distance, and said excitedly, "That's one."

Geralt glanced at the hillside and said with certainty, "Reindeer, not just these in front of us, there should be more on the ridge behind, a herd of several hundred."

Fabian's eyes lit up, and he lifted his foot to walk forward, as if he wanted to run over and see.

Gideon reached out and grabbed the back of his robe collar, pulling him back.

Fabian muttered, "Just watching..."

Gideon shook his head.

Geralt has already moved forward.

As you go further in, the landscape changes.

More vegetation appeared on the rock face, with stout shrubs rooted in the crevices, their branches twisting and stretching outwards, some of which bore small, dark purple berries.

A golden eagle, with a wingspan of three meters, circled overhead, tracing a long arc through the valley's air currents. After gliding for several hundred meters, it folded its wings and swooped down to the other side of the valley, disappearing into the shadows of the rock wall.

A white object flashed through the cracks in the rocks in the distance, like the tip of an Arctic fox's tail. Its fur hadn't fully turned back to its summer color yet, and it disappeared in a flash.

The valley floor widened a bit, and the stream split into several smaller streams in this section. The air smelled more of humus, with a more organic quality compared to the pure mineral scent upstream.

After walking for about half an hour, some unusual marks began to appear on the road.

A row of huge footprints, pounded into the mud and gravel, each footprint nearly a meter long and more than ten centimeters deep, stretched from one side of the valley floor to the other, disappearing at the corner of the opposite mountain wall.

An old pine tree lay across the middle of the road. Its trunk was so thick that it would take two people to hug it. It had been uprooted, with its roots turned upwards and the root ball covered with at least half a ton of soil.

There were five parallel claw marks on the tree trunk, spaced far apart than any ordinary animal could have left them.

Geralt crouched down to take a look. The distance between them was about half a meter, and the depth of the claw grooves was nearly two centimeters. The wood fibers of the pine tree had been torn apart, and the cuts were jagged. The claw tips had dragged long grooves into the wood, with the ends deeply embedded and then pulled out.

The surrounding ground had been trampled extensively, with huge footprints overlapping each other, at least six different sizes.

He stood up and raised his right eyebrow.

Fabian crept up from behind, squatted down next to the tree trunk, and reached out to touch the claw groove, his fingertips catching a bit of resin and sawdust.

He looked up at Geralt, his voice curious but not nervous: "What was left behind?"

Gideon stood two steps away, cautiously scanning the ground around him, his wand still tucked into his sleeve.

Geralt glanced at Fabian: "What do you think?"

Then I ignored him.

This must be the hunting grounds of the giants.

Hundreds of giants lived deep in the mountains. This race had an average height of over five meters and consumed dozens of times more food than humans every day.

Giants have no trade, no external supplies, and all their food comes from the area around their habitat. A place that can support a giant tribe of several hundred people must have a sufficiently abundant source of prey and a complete food chain.

Judging from what we've seen along the way, the reindeer herd is quite large, with several hundred heads, which is dense enough. But the giants have a limited appetite, and if they were hunted without restraint, several hundred reindeer wouldn't last long. Yet the herd has maintained its size, and there's no sign of the population collapsing.

This indicates that the hunting grounds are stable, the giants are controlling the hunting volume, they know that the prey need space to reproduce, and they know that once the prey is all eaten, there will be nothing left to eat.

A group that manages its hunting grounds.

Ordinary Titans don't care about these things; they chase whatever they see, eat whatever they catch, and then move on to the next group. Only Titans who think about eating again tomorrow will allow some of today's prey to survive.

Giants are already pursuing sustainable development, while humans will have to wait decades to even bring up this concept, and even then, few will take it seriously.

Geralt dusted off his hands. "Come on, let's go inside."

Rounding a protruding rock face, the view suddenly opens up, revealing a small glacial lake formed by the confluence of streams. The lake's long axis is about two or three hundred meters long, and the gray-blue water is very calm, with smooth pebbles on the shore.

The lake water is so clear that you can see stones two or three meters deep on the shore, and further in, it turns into a dark, inky blue.

The three people stood on the pebbles on the lake shore, looking at the lake.

The water was so still it looked frozen, with a thin layer of ice around the edges.

The opposite bank of the lake is a nearly vertical granite wall, with snow accumulation at the top. Meltwater seeps out from the cracks, flows down the rock surface, and freezes into a row of icicles at the bottom, which sparkle in the sunlight.

Beyond the edge of the rock face, the distant mountain ridges loomed heavily beneath the clouds, the white above the snow line blending seamlessly with the gray of the rock face.

Fabian didn't speak, nor did Gideon. The two of them just stared at each other quietly, as if they didn't know how to start a conversation for a while.

Geralt stood a little ahead, his amber pupils reflecting the gray-blue light of the lake, and he didn't move.

Such scenery is not found in England, where the mountains are low, rounded by the sea breeze, covered with grass and trees, and bear the marks of human habitation.

The mountains here are straight, the water is still, the rocks are bare, and the whole land has remained unchanged for thousands of years, untouched by human hands.

It looks like another world.

He liked this feeling, standing here, looking at a view that was completely different from where he usually stayed.

He felt the burning agitation he had been maintaining receding; the flames of Betelgeuse were still burning, but not pushing outwards as much, and his whole body relaxed a little.

These moments are rare, but every time I stop to look at something different from my usual way of life, I feel it's all worthwhile.

He always had a desire to go out and see the world. The initial starting point of his star trail meditation was looking up at the starry sky. The star kite symbolizes exploration and breakthrough. The inner driving force behind many of his actions includes curiosity about what's outside.

Just as he thought of this, the Starry Sky Kite flapped its wings deep within his mind, and a clear, melodious cry echoed in his consciousness, as if responding to him.

He pushed it back down, composed himself, and realized now was not the time.

Amber's vertical pupils refocused, her gaze shifting from the distant cliff face to the ripples on the nearby lake surface. She exhaled, and the white mist dissipated in the wind.

The lake surface suddenly churned, splashing water nearly a meter high with a whoosh, before returning to calm.

A dark shadow moved beneath the surface; it was quite long, at least five or six meters, and swam from the center of the lake toward deeper water, stirring up a current with its tail.

Fabian snapped out of his daze and stared at the water for a long while: "Is that a fish?"

Gideon was also looking at it: "It's too big."

Geralt glanced into the lake.

Glacier salmon, a species endemic to high-latitude glaciers, rivers, and lakes, is more than ten times the size of a regular salmon. This one, swaying back and forth underwater, looks like a small submarine, enough for a giant to have as daily food.

He adopted the tone of a documentary narrator—deep, composed, and slightly magnetic: "Glacier salmon, a cold-water fish, lives year-round in lakes fed by glacial meltwater. The water is cold, so it grows slowly, has dense flesh, and a rich flavor. Giants often use it as a staple food."

His voice suddenly took a turn, his tone becoming casual, and the corners of his mouth turned up: "The protein content is several times that of reindeer."

Fabian was stunned, his mind filled with questions.

protein?

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