Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 574 Chasing people away when they encounter questions they don't want to answer.

Judewangen, the flat ground in front of the little wooden house.

As soon as the two landed, Geralt raised his hand and waved it, causing the soil beneath his feet to churn and rise, and two chairs sprouted from the ground.

One chair is dark green velvet, and the other is purple velvet. They are the same style as the two chairs in the Herogia Stone House. The height of the backrest is the same, and even the curvature of the armrests is the same.

Geralt turned to the side, his right hand slightly gesturing towards the chair, his gentlemanly demeanor bordering on affected.

Dumbledore chuckled and sat down, the hem of his purple robe draped over the chair. After taking his seat, he waved his hand, and a small round table rose from the floor between the two chairs.

The tabletop was made of dark wood grain, on which sat a copper kettle and two white bone china cups. Steam rose from the kettle spout, and the aroma of chamomile wafted out, mingled with the sweet scent of honey.

Geralt sat down in the green chair, and Dumbledore filled two cups of tea and pushed one towards him.

He picked it up and took a sip; it was cloyingly sweet.

Before them lay the fjord's surface, the evening light illuminating the edges of the glacier, while distant mountain ridges appeared as patches of white and gray against the horizon.

He didn't speak immediately, nor did the old man. The two sat quietly, holding their teacups, their gazes directed in the same direction.

After a while, Geralt turned his head, glanced at Dumbledore's profile, then looked back at the mountain wall on the opposite bank.

Now that there were no outsiders around, he stopped calling him "old man" as usual.

"Professor," he said casually, "where have you been these past few days? I haven't seen you anywhere."

He switched the teacup to his left hand, rested his right hand on the armrest, tilted his head slightly, and narrowed his amber pupils: "Why does it feel like you've just abandoned me here?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes flashed behind his half-moon lenses.

"Uh," the old man's voice was a little muffled: "You know, there are always a lot of things to deal with at the Phoenix Society, a whole bunch of things, and each one requires someone to handle it personally."

I also made a trip to Dorset a few days ago to visit an old friend...

After saying that, he blinked twice.

Newt remembered clearly what he said: magical creatures like phoenixes and star kites are beyond the reach of any deliberate arrangement.

Geralt raised an eyebrow slightly.

The Phoenix Society is indeed busy, with few capable people and even fewer good ones. The old man personally recruits and deploys them, and he knows all of this. But logically, if he asked about matters concerning the Phoenix Society, the old man wouldn't hide anything from him.

The way he's stammering now clearly means something's up, and it's directed at him.

Again.

Geralt didn't press the matter further; if the old man wouldn't tell you, you wouldn't get anything out of him no matter how much you asked.

He turned his head back, his gaze returning to the direction of the fjord.

He couldn't figure out what other plans Dumbledore had made; the old man just loved to do things in such a mysterious way.

A common trait among older people is that they like to keep everything to themselves, leaving you in suspense until you figure it out yourself, and then giving you a meaningful smile.

Then his thoughts suddenly took a turn.

Come to think of it, he even knows about the old man and Grindelwald's messy past when they were young, so what else could he possibly be hiding from him?

Thinking of this, his thoughts took another turn.

I wonder if using Legilimency on an old man would be effective? What kind of mental space would we encounter?

His Legilimency is already quite good, enough for most wizards, but Dumbledore is a master of Occlumency, the pinnacle of defense, and a brain of that level is probably like a maze inside, so even if you go in, you might get lost.

If it can't be pushed in, can we put it in?

He disassembled and combined the characteristics of the guardian deity to create a light source magic that can write information into a person's brain through light signals.

Hang a ball of light on the old man's forehead and shine it on him 24 hours a day to convey a message: tell Regulus all about your plan. What will the effect be?

It's probably still completely ineffective; the old man's mental defenses can probably completely absorb the signal from the light source magic.

But it's not entirely impossible to try. If the accuracy is high enough, is it possible to bypass the frontal defenses and find an opening from the side? Geralt suddenly snapped back to reality.

Dumbledore sat right next to him, his blue eyes smiling as he watched him with remarkable patience, as if he knew he would drift off into thought, and just waited there without urging him at all.

Geralt suddenly realized.

He just thought of a bunch of random things, trying to mess with the old man's brain using mind control techniques?

We can't win.

Light source magic, on the other hand, is worth a try.

No, my brain is starting to wander again.

He closed his eyes briefly, his mind sinking into the depths of his consciousness. The starry sky of his star-track meditation slowly rotated in his mental space, with several stars shining in their respective orbits.

A grand vision unfolded, the vibrant magic within gradually subsided, and the boundless thoughts that had been jumping around in my mind also quieted down.

From the final blow with Hilde to being stopped by Dumbledore, and then to the interactions in the stone house, he remained in a highly active state after the battle, only now truly calming down.

When he opened his eyes, Dumbledore was still smiling at him, looking incredibly kind and gentle.

The old man raised a finger and pointed at his head: "In your previous state, your magic was highly active, and your mind was also highly active. This is a state that many wizards deliberately pursue."

Especially for older wizards, some use specific potions or items to experience this state; it's rare for you to enter that state naturally.

Geralt glanced at the old man. The feeling of his magic calming down made him more clear-headed than before. He thought about the old man's words for a moment, then stopped thinking about them.

Magical activity is suitable for fighting and specific scenarios, but for Regulus, precision and restraint are the norm.

For Geralt, Betelgeuse's intense heat was a pre-programmed, limited, and controllable activity, unlike the previous surge of excitement.

The active state of mind that gets going is completely different from that.

He neither confirmed nor denied it, picked up his teacup and took another sip; it was still sweet.

They didn't bother trying to figure out what the old man was up to; they couldn't think of anything anyway, so they just asked him directly.

He stretched out his right hand and spread it out: "Professor, I have seen quite a bit about the relationship between the giants' magic and their physical bodies."

Magic gathered from the palm of the hand, spreading layer by layer along the bones, tendons, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, while an earthy yellow light rose from beneath the skin.

The palms, wrists, forearms, elbows, and further up, the entire arm was enveloped in a layer of pale yellow light emanating from the inside out.

He clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking, and the muscles in his forearm tensed instantly. Magic contracted in sync, and the power on his fist surged outward. A stream of air swirled around his fist before dissipating.

Dumbledore's beard fluttered slightly in the breeze, and he nodded with a smile: "Good job, you've learned very well."

Geralt pursed his lips; the old man was just trying to coax a child.

He loosened his fist, and the yellowish-brown light faded from his forearm, revealing his hand back to normal.

"Professor, I've been thinking about something."

Dumbledore lifted the cup forward slightly.

"If a wizard can simultaneously strengthen both their soul and body, increasing both the depth of their spirit and the rigidity of their body, why not do it?"

Dumbledore picked up his teacup, took a sip, then put it down, looking at Geralt with thoughtful gentleness in his blue eyes.

"You're right. If someone can do all of that, there's certainly no harm in it."

The old man's gaze fell on the distant glacier: "It's just that most wizards can't go that far. Time is limited, talent is limited, energy is limited. Within these limited conditions, they need to choose a direction to go. The soul and will are the directions that most wizards can go the farthest."

He then turned his gaze to Geralt, a new light appearing in his blue eyes: "And you, clearly, have the capacity to take a wider path, so go for it."

Geralt raised an eyebrow.

Dumbledore's smile softened: "Godric uses a sword and loves dueling. In his time, no wizard valued physical strength more than him."

Each of his duels is a combination of physical prowess and magic, with swordsmanship and incantations occurring simultaneously.

He was able to do those things not because he abandoned the strength of his soul, but because his soul was inherently strong enough to simultaneously strengthen his body.

The old man took a sip of tea and said, "Salazar made many attempts at human modification; some were successful, some came at a price."

It's very big.

Geralt listened quietly without interrupting.

Dumbledore's tone remained relaxed throughout, without any lecturing: "There have been wizards in history who have walked this path, but very few have succeeded."

Wizards don't possess the innate physical advantages of giants; if they want to compensate for this gap through training, they need to find their own methods.

Jero nodded, steer the conversation in a more specific direction: "Professor, what I did—he raised his right hand, gesturing to the demonstration—was it momentary, used and then discontinued? If it were allowed to continue, remaining in a state of fusion, wouldn't it make the body even stronger?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes became a little more serious: "The magic and the body of giants are born together; that is their origin."

Wizards start from different points; there is a natural gap between magic and the physical body—that is the boundary between magic and the physical body.

What you're doing now is artificially eliminating this gap, allowing magic to seep into your body and briefly fill that void.

This is clever, and it does produce results, but a simulation is still just a simulation.

Geralt frowned slightly.

Dumbledore didn't rush to continue, but sat there with his tea, waiting for the boy to think about it on his own.

After a while, the old man spoke again, his tone casual: "You did a very good job with that little spider of yours."

Geralt's thoughts skipped a beat.

Baruch, as expected, the old man knew.

The two modifications he made to Baruch—the fire affinity of the salamander and the plant perception of the bowbell—were based on extraction and replication.

So the old man meant to extract the magic module from the giant and transplant it into himself?

But that's not quite right. The giant's magic is integrated with his body, spreading throughout his entire being. It has no core or boundaries, and no modules that can be separated. He couldn't remove it even if he wanted to.

Geralt glanced at Dumbledore thoughtfully.

Dumbledore sat on the purple chair, sipping chamomile tea, his blue eyes smiling, unhurried and at ease.

Then he turned his gaze to Geralt's eyes, looking deeply into them as if into his mind: "You're already doing it, the way magic grows, the changes in the body, the strength of the mind."

Geralt's lips twitched slightly.

Sure enough, the old man figured it out again.

The old man probably didn't know the specifics of what was going on. He had never talked about Star Orbit Meditation with anyone, but the old man could see that his growth trajectory was beyond the normal range, so there must be a source.

Dumbledore took another sip of tea, his blue eyes softening behind his half-moon lenses: "You've got something of your own, whatever it may be, that's what got you to where you are now."

Keep going. You don't need to find your way from others; you yourself are the path.

The old man looked at him and smiled: "The method you found is better than most wizards could find in their entire lives."

Geralt lowered his gaze slightly, staring at the cup of tea in his hand.

He himself is the path.

That's what he thought too.

Then his thoughts jumped again, and he suddenly turned his head, his amber vertical pupils meeting the blue eyes directly, his tone very direct: "Professor, do you have some other plans for me?"

Dumbledore blinked twice, revealing a very subtle expression. The next moment, a ball of silver light appeared out of thin air on the table.

Wings, tail feathers, a sharp beak—a small phoenix, about the size of a fist, perched on a small round table.

Geralt had a bad feeling.

When faced with a question they don't want to answer, not only do they refuse to answer, but they also directly call upon their guardian spirit to chase them away?

Dumbledore looked at him with a smile, his tone incredibly gentle: "Minerva asked me to remind you that no matter who you are or what you did during the holidays, you still have to do your homework."

Geralt's mouth opened slightly.

Before he could say anything, Dumbledore waved his right hand, and the little silver phoenix on the table flapped its wings, transforming into a silver streak that crashed straight into his chest.

The person on the green velvet chair has disappeared, and the fjord is quiet.

A breeze blew across the water, the teapot was still steaming, and two bone china cups sat on the small round table, one empty and the other half-full.

Dumbledore sat alone in the purple velvet chair, looking at the empty green chair opposite him, his silver beard swaying gently in the wind.

The smile in his blue eyes was deep.