Leader Regulus

Regulus thought for a moment, and thought that Star Orbit Meditation might be one option.

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The imagery of Star Orbit Meditation comes from the trajectories of stars. It wasn't his invention; it's a law of the universe itself. He simply borrowed this law to construct his own spiritual and Magic Power framework.

The movement of stars is one of the oldest and most stable things in the physical world. Using it to anchor the soul and spirit may, in some way, give his Magic a more fundamental attribute.

Maybe, he said, he couldn't be sure.

But this direction might be correct.

He took another step further in his thinking.

Basilisk Venom can destroy Horcruxes, Horcruxes are fragments of the soul attached to a physical container.

What does the Basilisk Venom destroy?

Is it the container, or the connection between the container and the soul fragment?

If it's a container, then it's simply corrosion at the material level, only the corrosion is so strong that even a Magic container can't withstand it.

But what about connections?

What if the Basilisk Venom breaks the line between soul and matter?

Phoenix Tears can heal the wounds caused by the Basilisk Venom, perhaps because the Phoenix Tears repair precisely this line: the connection between the body and life force.

The Basilisk Venom disconnected, but Phoenix Tears reconnected.

One destroys, the other repairs; both affect the same thing.

What about the connection between the soul and the body?

Regulus thought of the Bloody Baron.

A ghost is a lingering form of the soul; when a person dies, their soul should have left but hasn't, remaining stuck in the middle.

If something like the Phoenix Tears existed, could it help a stuck soul complete that step?

Or conversely, if someone wanted to extract a soul from a living body—which is what Voldemort is doing—is there anything that can stop that process?

The direction is vague, but when you look at the Basilisk Venom and the Phoenix Tears together, they point to the same problem.

How solid is the boundary between the soul and the material world?

Or conversely, just how fragile is it?

Regulus stopped thinking about it; they had already arrived at the Castle.

Maybe next semester I can go to the Chamber of Secrets to see the snake, observe the Basilisk's Magic Power structure up close, and perhaps verify some of the guesses.

He descended, landed on the Astronomy Tower, and walked inside.

Baruk was still perched on his shoulder, and his eight eyes finally turned away from the outside, beginning to survey the Corridor.

Back in his Dormitory, Regulus pushed open the door and went inside.

Avery and Alex were asleep, their bed curtains drawn, breathing evenly.

Hermes ' bed was empty, the blankets were pulled to one side, the Washroom door was closed, and there was the sound of running water inside.

It's 2 a. m., this guy really knows how to stay up.

Regulus walked to his desk and opened the bottom drawer.

The drawer wasn't big; inside were a few notebooks, an ink bottle, and a box of wand care tools.

He pushed those things inward, making room for them.

He reached up to his shoulder, and Baruk's eight little legs slipped off the fabric, crawled into his palm, and he put them into the drawer.

Baruk, with his eight legs stepping on the notebook cover, paced back and forth a few steps, his chelipeds opening and closing as he surveyed the space.

Then it looked up at Regulus, its voice like a mosquito's buzz, but with a clattering quality. "Here... is the... home of the tribe...?"

Regulus shook his head. "This isn't home, this is school."

Baruk stared at him with all eight eyes. "School... lots of... wizards...?"

"Yes, many young wizards learn Magic here."

"Little wizard..." Baruk's pincers opened and closed twice. "Can... eat...?"

"You can't eat it."

Baruk was silent for a moment, then asked, "They..."

It pointed with its front paws to the two curtained beds next to it. "Also... wizards...?"

"Yes, they come from other groups," Regulus thought for a moment, then rephrased, "Other lairs, different from mine, but we live together."

Baruk's chelicerae paused for a moment. In the world of the Acromantula, there is only one possibility for spiders from different nests to live together: one of them has been conquered.

"You... Chief...?" Baruk asked.

Regulus's lips curled into a slight smile, "More or less."

Baruk moved his eight legs back and forth on the notebook a few times, opening and closing his chelicerae, seemingly satisfied.

"You stay here," Regulus said. "Don't climb out."

Baruk closed its pincers, tucked in its eight legs, and curled up in the innermost corner of the drawer, shrinking into a fluffy little ball, looking very obedient.

"Wait a few more days," Regulus said, looking at it, "I'll take you to my lair and make you powerful."

Baruk's eight legs sprang open in unison from the corner of the drawer, its chelicerae stretched to their maximum, and its front legs tapped the notebook several times, making a "tap tap tap tap" sound.

"Amazing... amazing..."

Regulus closed the drawer, leaving a small gap for ventilation.

He turned and walked towards the Washroom.

Hermes emerged from inside, wearing a bathrobe, his hair still wet, water droplets dripping from the ends.

The two briefly passed each other at the doorway.

Hermes stopped, neither going in nor moving aside, and frowned slightly. "I heard you talking to something."

Regulus nodded. "A small animal."

Hermes frowned even more deeply.

He has no interest in small animals, and no one in his Dormitory keeps pets.

But the fact that Regulus was talking to a small animal made him feel that something was off.

A picture flashed through his mind.

Regulus crouched on the ground, speaking gently and softly to the furry little thing, like a little witch talking to her pet cat, saying things like "Baby, be good."

The image had barely appeared in his mind for a second when goosebumps rose on his back.

No, this is really wrong. It's even more unsettling than Dark Arts.

He shuddered.

Regulus looked at the expression on his face, wondering what the guy was thinking, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't anything serious.

"Those little animals that can kill you," Regulus added.

Hermes' expression became more animated.

At first, I didn't believe it—what small animal could kill him?

If he unleashes his Dark Arts, every single cat and dog in Hogwarts will die.

Then he thought about it. There were quite a few Magical Creature that could kill him, but the ones he could keep in his Dormitory were at most pets with some Magical Creature blood.

After thinking about it again, I realized it was Regulus who said those words.

Then he has to believe it.

Hermes frowned even more deeply. "What is it?"

"I'll introduce you to them tomorrow morning," Regulus said, taking a step into the Washroom. "I put it in the drawer. Don't go through it; it's dangerous."

Hermes glanced at Regulus's desk for a moment, then looked away and nodded.

He stepped aside from the door, walked back to his bed, and lay down.

I obediently didn't look into it.

Regulus went into the Washroom, and his mind was still racing even while he was washing up.

Baruk was curled up in the drawer, behaving very obediently, but he needed to figure out what to do next.

The initial plan was to use Severing Charm to loosen Baruk's Magic Power structure, introduce the Natural Magic Power of the Forbidden Forest, and allow its Magic Power system to expand its circuits and break racial restrictions during the reconstruction process.

This plan is still retained as the foundation.

After reading <Transfiguration: Beyond Form>, he had a new idea.

Cross-species ability transfer: things that wizards can use, can be modified so that Magical Creature can also use them.

In some ways, Magical Creature may even have an advantage over wizards.

A wizard's Magic Power is chaotic, capable of transforming into a hundred different things, but this also means its direction is uncertain. Introducing external Magic Power properties leads to too many conflicts with one's own Magic Power.

Magical Creature possess singular, definite, and pure-hearted Magic Power, without many other thoughts.

As long as the injection and direction of Magic Power are well controlled, the success rate should be even higher than that of a wizard.

Now that we have this idea and it's technically feasible, why not do it right away for Baruk, or take it slowly but more thoroughly?

Regulus began to consider which Magical Creature ' abilities would suit Baruk.

The racial talents of the Acromantula are venom, spider silk, strength, and speed, but these are more physical, with little involvement of Magic.

What he wanted to add was something more Magic.

Occamy.

Occamy can change their body size according to the size of the space.

Spiders are naturally adept at squeezing into crevices and ambushing from the shadows. If Baruk could control his size, enlarging himself during combat to increase his strength and coverage, and shrinking himself when sneaking around to increase his stealth, he could achieve even greater success.

The Magic Power structure of Occamy and spiders should be quite compatible. Both species are Leng Xue, rely on ambush strategies, have overlapping ecological niches, and their underlying Magic Power tendencies may be similar.

Demiguise.

The core abilities of the Demiguise are invisibility and brief precognition.

For the Acromantula, stealth is the ultimate enhancement to its ambush capabilities, and brief precognition is an almost cheat-like ability.

However, the Magic Power structure of the Demiguise differs greatly from that of the Spider. As a Demiguise, the way Magic Power operates is very different from that of arthropods, so compatibility is an issue and more adjustments may be needed.

Bowtruckle.

The Bowtruckle can communicate with trees and sense the state and emotions of plants.

The Forbidden Forest is full of trees. If Baruk could establish some kind of connection with the plants of the Forbidden Forest Forbidden Forest, he would be a being on another level within it.

The roots of the trees spread throughout every inch of the Forbidden Forest's soil, and spider webs cover the tree canopy and the ground. The two webs overlap, allowing the spider to know immediately what is happening in the Forbidden Forest.

Moreover, this ability has a natural synergy with the subsequent steps of introducing the Natural Magic Power of the Forbidden Forest.

If Baruk could communicate with plants, it would be much more efficient at drawing Natural Magic Power from the Forbidden Forest.

The Bowtruckle is small in size and not very Magic Power, but its Magic Power properties are highly correlated with Natural Magic, making it a natural fit for the Forbidden Forest environment.

Salamander.

The Salamander's core ability is fire resistance—simple, singular, but practical.

He uses Fiendfyre himself, so if Baruk follows him in the future, it's a basic requirement that he won't be accidentally injured within the range of Fiendfyre.

The Acromantula is afraid of fire. Its webs are highly flammable, and its exoskeleton has limited heat resistance. Flames pose a formidable threat to spiders.

The Salamander's Magic Power structure is extremely simple, and it conflicts with the spider's Magic Power the least, making it probably the easiest of these to fuse with.

Four abilities, four directions.

The Occamy solves the size problem, the Demiguise solves the concealment and combat problem, the Bowtruckle solves the environmental connection problem, and the Salamander solves the survival problem.

However, the book states that two or more foreign Magic will conflict with each other within the same body.

While the Magic Power of Magical Creature is more singular than that of wizards, and the conflicts might be less, it's definitely not feasible to cram four types into the mix at once.

So we'll do it one at a time, fusing each one until it's stable before adding the next.

The Salamander is the simplest; you can start with this as your first experiment.

If successful, then proceed with the contraction and expansion of the Occamy.

Next is the plant communication with the Bowtruckle, which will be done together when we return to the Forbidden Forest to introduce Natural Magic Power. We'll combine these two steps into one, establishing a connection with the environment simultaneously.

The Demiguise is the most difficult, so I'll save it for last.

As for the step of loosening the Magic Power structure with the Severing Charm, there's no need to rush that.

Today I used the middle level of the Severing Charm on the Gnomes, and he turned to ash instantly. Baruk is much stronger than the Gnomes, but he's not sure if he can withstand this force.

Perhaps we could try a different approach: first, fuse several abilities into Baruk to strengthen its foundation. Once it has become powerful enough, we could then use the Severing Charm to modify its Magic Circuit.

At that time, its resilience will be much higher, and its success rate will be much higher.

Going even further, if we could understand the principles behind the Basilisk's incubation ritual, we might be able to make even more thorough modifications to Baruk.

That's a different level of stuff. No rush, let's focus on doing what we have right now.

Regulus dried his hair and left the Washroom.

Hermes was already lying down, the curtains drawn, and he was sleeping as if he were dead.

He walked to the desk, gently pulled open a drawer, and glanced inside.

Baruk curled up in the corner, his eight legs tucked in, shrinking into a smaller ball of fur than before.

As Regulus's face approached, it opened and closed its chelipeds, making a very soft and delicate clicking sound.

greet.

Regulus closed the drawer, leaving a gap, and lay down on the bed.

Waiting for the holidays, they'll come little by little.

sleep.