Let Father Have the First Taste
The stubbornness of Regulus, Whomping Willow.
For most of the day, the Natural Magic Power kept emanating outwards, and it finally calmed down, shifting from patrol mode to relaxed vigilance, and then its hostility dropped to a threshold that just wouldn't trigger an attack.
He spread his Magic Perception over and could feel the violent shock still flowing inside the branch, but it was restrained and not being released outwards for the time being. He stood there for more than five hours, from morning to noon.
Agnes came by once, carrying a tray with an insulated lid on top.
She might have figured out what Regulus was doing; after all, she'd spent half her life dealing with Magical Plant, so she should recognize Natural Magic Power. Or perhaps she didn't; she was just delivering food as usual, without asking any further questions.
The insulated lid was lifted, revealing a steaming hot shepherd's pie and a pot of ginger tea. The inside of the lid was enchanted with Warming Charm, continuously radiating warmth so the food would stay hot for half an hour.
Agnes placed the tray on the stake. "Mr. Black, lunch is ready."
Next to the tray was a Stone Basin containing a steaming piece of raw pork rib, its cut pinkish-red, with blood pooling at the bottom.
"Give this to that little spider."
Agnes glanced in Baruk's direction; Baruk was peeking out from Regulus's shoulder, all eight eyes fixed on the Stone Basin. Regulus nodded slightly. "Thank you."
Agnes didn't say much, but she glanced at Baruk a couple more times. Baruch's eight eyes returned her gaze, and its chelipeds opened and closed slightly, as if in greeting. Then she said she'd come back in an hour to collect it, and turned to leave.
Regulus continued to release his Natural Magic Power as he ate, and after taking a couple of sips of ginger tea, his body felt warm and comfortable.
Baruk sprang off his shoulder, his eight legs darting over quickly to grab the edge of the Stone Basin, his chelicerae tearing apart the fascia on the surface of the meat patties, and began to eat. By evening, he once again extended his Magic Perception to touch the two Whomping Willow, and they were completely different from those in the morning.
The Whomping Willow in the morning carried a violent tendency to attack within its Magic Power Conduction circuit, like a pot of water that was always boiling, with all the Magic Power ready to explode at any moment.
The water in that pot is still hot; the temperature hasn't dropped much, but it has stopped boiling.
The Magic Power was still rushing through the Conduction circuit, its speed from the roots to the tips of the branches not slowing down at all, but the restlessness of drawing energy from whatever it touched had subsided.
The Conduction is still happening, the oscillations are still happening, but the direction of the attack has temporarily disappeared. It's moving, but moving steadily.
Natural Magic Power did two things.
The Whomping Willow judged Regulus as part of the natural environment, not as an intruder.
The branches' attack instinct is directed at intruders. If they perceive the object in front of them as just another part of the environment, like soil, sunlight, and wind, the attack command will not be triggered.
Furthermore, the Natural Magic Power itself has a stabilizing effect on the Magic Power of the Whomping Willow.
Just as sunlight makes plant growth more orderly, the Natural Magic Power makes the Magic Power of the Whomping Willow operate more smoothly.
The minor disturbances caused by the transplant were slowly smoothed out under the influence of Natural Magic Power, and the branches swayed more evenly and rhythmically than in the morning.
The Magic Power is still active, but it's now active in a more structured way.
Regulus withdrew his senses, stretched his legs that had been standing for so long, and his knees thumped.
He walked to the edge of the wooden stake and stepped over the Hemp Rope.
The rhythm of the branches immediately changed; a few turned towards him, swaying a little more, but they didn't lash out.
He continued walking in, at a considerable pace.
Actually, he wasn't too worried about being punished.
The Constant Shield Charm has been continuously activated, its defensive capabilities having been verified countless times. Moreover, it is called Constant precisely because it is constant. No matter how fierce the Whomping Willow is, it is ultimately just a mindless plant. No matter how powerful its branches are, they cannot penetrate the defense enhanced by the Bellatrix Patronus Imagery. Even if you stand here for a whole day and let dozens of branches take turns whipping you, you probably wouldn't even lose a single hair.
But that wouldn't be fun; he didn't come here to get beaten up.
What he needs is the Magic Power data of the Whomping Willow in its normal operating state. A Wrathful Whomping Willow has been enraged is in an overloaded state in terms of Magic Circuit, and its Conduction speed and vibration intensity will deviate from normal parameters.
What he wants is normalcy, every detail of stable operation, so he needs it to move quietly, not violently.
With each step Regulus took, he allowed the Natural Magic Power to reach the tips of the branches before his body, giving the Whomping Willow a buffer. Something was approaching, but like nature itself, it didn't need to be attacked.
When he was about ten feet from the tree trunk, a thin branch jutted down from above, its hooked end pausing in front of him.
Baruk exploded on his shoulder.
It suddenly spread its eight legs wide, its chelicerae outstretched, and raised its four front legs, making a threatening gesture towards the branch, with the bristles between its joints standing on end.
It emitted a sharp, piercing screech, completely unlike its usual slow, leisurely pace, and its fangs were exposed.
Regulus reached out and touched its carapace, gently pressing it with his fingertips. "It's alright."
Baruk's pincers were still outstretched, but his forelegs slowly retracted, and all eight eyes were fixed on the branch, turning back and forth as it swayed. Regulus's lips curled up slightly.
The twig paused in front of him for two or three seconds, then retracted.
Several more branches reached down, slowly sweeping over his head and sides, retracting when they touched the boundary of Natural Magic Power, as if trying to confirm what this thing really was.
After confirming everything, they were all retracted, and the arrangement continued.
He continued walking until he reached the base of the tree trunk.
Looking up, the 25-foot-tall Whomping Willow appears much larger from directly below than from a distance, its canopy blocking out a large portion of the sky, its branches swaying and intertwining overhead, filtering down in shimmering rays of light.
The knots and cracks on the tree trunk are more clearly visible at this distance, and each crack is embedded with dark resin, ancient and as hard as amber.
He didn't know how much his father had spent on those two Whomping Willow, or what he had given in exchange for them.
His father didn't say anything, and he didn't ask.
Resources, politics, money—no matter how you calculate it, these are all things measured in hundreds of thousands of Galleon, and they're priceless.
The Whomping Willow is a rare Magical Plant under global control. The trade of a live, adult plant is prohibited under the Magical Plant protection regulations of any country. Getting two plants from Bulgaria to Cornwall requires more than just money; there must be something else involved.
But he only said he needed it, and his father got it for him.
If it were someone else, even with a legitimate research reason, they would probably think it was just a child's whim and not worth using resources of this caliber. But he's different; he can turn these things into something else.
Money spent is money spent, and political resources used up are used up.
Most people spend money and get something that looks nice in their home, or something to talk about in social situations. He spent money and got real power that he could hold in his hands and draw upon at any time.
The first person I tested the Severing Charm on after I created it last time was Orion. He was hit in the Study and was so shaken that he couldn't stand up for a long time. He looked nauseous for a while, as if he had eaten something unclean.
This time, we must make sure my father is the first to taste the results and that investors see a return on their investment—that's perfectly reasonable.
Regulus snapped out of his thoughts, stopped thinking about those random things, and placed his palm on the tree trunk.
Seeing no danger, Baruk followed, shooting a strand of spider silk from his shoulder, which stuck to the tree trunk. With a pull, he swung himself over. Just moments before, he had been baring his fangs and claws, but now, seeing Regulus stick to him, he wanted to stick to it too.
But it didn't crawl around aimlessly. Its eight legs moved back and forth on the rough bark, circling within Regulus's sight, its claws hooking onto the edges of the cracks, not running far.
Regulus ignored it, closed his eyes, and poured all his Magic Perception into it.
Direct contact provides far greater precision than what was achieved outside the wooden stake this morning; every detail of the Conduction path is crystal clear.
The angle of the fork in the tree is so precise that it can be replicated in one's mind; the distribution of Magic Power at each node can be described numerically; and the decay curve from the main branch to the tributary and then to the end is within one's perception.
There is also a complete mechanism for end-stage conversion.
Previously, he only grasped a vague sense of sudden change, knowing that it would suddenly turn into an oscillation Conduction reached the end, but he couldn't see how the intermediate step was completed. Now he can see it clearly.
Conduction Magic Power of the Whomping Willow is constantly circulating, regardless of whether there is a target or not, just like a heart that keeps beating, whether you are running or sleeping. The Magic Power starts from the roots, runs upward along the main channel, splits at each fork, and flows all the way to the end of the branches.
At the end, a release is completed, and the released vibrations dissipate into the air. Then, a new round of Magic Power starts again from the root, and the cycle repeats. The entire circuit keeps spinning in vain.
When the branch strikes the target, the idle motion instantly switches to a violent mode; the oscillation no longer dissipates but instead pours into the target's interior.
The only difference is whether or not there is a container to receive it.
He now has his palms pressed against the tree trunk. Although the Whomping Willow" is not attacking, the release process at its end is still in operation, allowing him to fully perceive every step.
The Magic Power was constrained as it traveled within the branches, and the width of the Conduction path remained constant. Although the channel narrowed from the thickest branch to the thinnest, the narrowing process was uniform and gradual.
At the very end, the Conduction path suddenly narrows abruptly, converging from the pipe to an outlet the size of a pinhead with almost no transition in between. The Magic Power is extremely compressed at this point.
The Magic Power that was originally evenly distributed in the pipe was squeezed together at the tip of the needle, and its density suddenly increased to dozens of times that of the normal state.
This compression process itself changes the properties of Magic Power. When the Magic Power density exceeds a certain threshold, order begins to turn into disorder, and the amplitude of vibration within the Magic Power increases dramatically.
Then it is released from the tip of the needle.
The moment the compressed Magic Power was squeezed out from the needle tip, the constraint disappeared, the density dropped sharply, and the Magic Power, compressed to the extreme, suddenly exploded, creating a high-intensity oscillation.
It possesses extremely high penetrating power; the instant it spreads outward from its release point, it penetrates the internal structure of any object it encounters. If it encounters air, the vibration dissipates, and nothing happens.
If it encounters a solid, the vibration is injected into the interior, bouncing back and forth within the structure. It vibrates when it hits a connection point and pulls when it hits a load-bearing surface, loosening the entire structure layer by layer from the inside out.
Narrow, compress, release, explode.
The four steps are completed at the very end of a branch, taking less than one-hundredth of a second in total.
This is the attack principle of the Whomping Willow: the entire mechanism of shattering from the inside.
Regulus removed his hand from the tree trunk and opened his eyes.
It was already dark, and he had been standing under the tree for nearly two hours.
Baruk was still lying on the opposite tree trunk, his eight eyes still staring at him, not moving an inch, quite obedient indeed.
"Come down."
Baruk spun out a spider web, which swung back onto his shoulder.
He withdrew from the attack range and walked to the wooden stake.
Next, we'll see how it attacks.
He had figured out the static Magic Circuit, but in a violent state, the Conduction path and diffusion method after the vibration was injected into the target, as well as the differences in performance in different materials, still needed to be observed in person.
He plucked a withered leaf from the low shrub wall, tapped it lightly with his fingertip, and the leaf transformed into a small paper airplane. He added a few lines of text, and the paper airplane flew crookedly towards the direction of the Greenhouse to the east.