Disintegration Charm, Quassare

On the fourth day, before dawn, Regulus awoke.

The sky outside the window was gray and gloomy, with layers of clouds pressing in from the direction of the sea, looking like a dirty cotton blanket covering the sky, with dark edges that let in no light.

The sea breeze was colder than the previous days, blowing from the west, whistling and swirling around the corners of the stone house, and a layer of condensation formed on the windows.

The glass roof of the distant Greenhouse reflected no light, lying there darkly.

This kind of weather makes me not want to go out.

Regulus sat down at his desk, his wand resting beside him.

Everything is ready. The next step is to solidify the Magic Power model into a spell that can be cast at any time.

The process is the same as the Severing Charm, requiring two things.

Latin roots provide the voice anchors, gestures provide the Magic Power guidance, and the two are bound to the internal model, which can skip the manual modulation process and directly output the finished product by chanting incantations and waving the staff.

It took some time to adjust last time, so it should be faster this time.

He picked the syllables first.

A spell requires a word that can be memorized by the throat. When it is recited, the Magic Power will flow automatically along the model without needing to be adjusted midway.

He recited a few Latin roots, putting each syllable in his mouth to slowly experience it, feeling the vibrations in his throat and tongue, while letting the Magic Power flow rhythmically into the model in his Consciousness Space.

Concutio, oscillation, shaking, causing repeated oscillations in a structure.

He picked up his wand, uttered a spell, and a wisp of yellowish-brown light emerged from the tip of the wand, dispersing in the air without coalescing.

The coupling between speech and model is insufficient. Concutio's semantics are biased towards rocking, which is a continuous and reversible action applied by external force, and does not match the effect of collapse, which is a one-time disintegration from the inside.

Disrumpo, breakage, fracture, internal tear.

He uttered the incantation again, and the light at the tip of the staff condensed for a moment, forming an unstable Light Cluster that trembled a few times before shattering.

The semantics are closer, but Disrumpo's focus is on the split, the final state, lacking the oscillation, Conduction, superposition, and the process of disassembling layer by layer from the inside. He separated the two word roots and ran Magic Power on them separately to see the effect.

Concutio initiates the action, and Magic Power begins to subtly vibrate with the syllables.

Disrumpo finishes the job; the Magic Power is compressed at the release point and then ejected, creating a clear sense of breakage, but lacking the build-up of the preceding vibration. Combining the two parts, Concutio starts with vibration, followed by Disrumpo's breakage finish.

The Magic Power began to vibrate in the main stem, then traveled downwards, vibrating again at each fork in the syllables due to accent.

By the time it reaches the final release point, the syllables have been repeatedly struck three times, resulting in a much higher compression density than a simple Disrumpo. However, the two words together are too long, making the Spellcasting difficult.

He superimposed two roots together, taking the tremor of Concutio and the crack of Disrumpo, and compressed them into one word: Quassare, meaning to tremble repeatedly until the structure completely falls apart.

He recited it at different rhythms, starting slowly and then quickly, and starting quickly and then slowly.

Try placing the stress on the first syllable, then the second, and then the third syllable, and see which rhythm makes the Magic Power flow most smoothly in the model and releases the most crisp action at the end.

Finally, it comes down to Quas-sa-re, three syllables, with the stress on the second one.

He uttered, "Quassare."

The yellowish-brown light at the tip of the staff condensed into a short ray, which lingered in the air for about half a second before dissipating naturally.

Stablize.

The Magic Power flows into the main body in the first syllable, completes the oscillation modulation of all the branching nodes in the stressed syllable, and is released from the end in the last syllable.

Each syllable corresponds to a step, no more, no less, precisely at the point in time the model needs, perfectly matching the shattering effect. He recited it several more times, and each time the light at the tip of the staff steadily took shape. The density and duration of the rays were directly proportional to his Magic Power output; more output meant brighter light, less output meant dimmer light.

The incantation syllables are set; the next step is the hand gestures.

The gestures don't need to be complicated; the point is to inject Magic Power into the target and let it find its own path. A complex trajectory isn't necessary. He stood up, wand in his right hand, and tried it a few times against the stone wall.

When you cleave straight down, the direction in which the Magic Power is poured in is too singular, and the vibration only travels in a straight line inside the object, resulting in a narrow Conduction path.

When the Magic Power Cleansweep, it forked upon reaching the target surface. The arc of the staff tip was too large, causing the Magic Power to disperse into a single area, resulting in insufficient penetration and only a layer of stone powder being shaken off the surface.

He tried several wrist angles, from a 45-degree angle to a 60-degree angle. The penetration depth of the Magic Power increased with the steepness of the angle, but if the angle was too steep, it would easily get stuck at the release point and not be able to be released.

He twisted his wrist inward half an inch, and the wand slashed down from the upper right to the lower left, twisting his wrist half an inch at the lowest point.

The rotation causes the Magic Power to converge at the tip of the staff, transforming the large swings of the strike into a concentrated output the size of a needle tip, simulating the process of the Whomping Willow branch narrowing, compressing, and releasing.

Reverse snap fastener.

He swung his hand at the wall in the air.

With a downward slash and a twist of the wrist, the tip of the staff traced a tiny arc at its lowest point. A yellowish-brown light solidified at the tip, then shot out, striking the wall and leaving a pinhole-sized white dot on the stone surface.

The force was too great; the wrist was twisted too much, causing the Magic Power to spin excessively at the tip of the staff, thus dispersing the output.

Let's try again.

The staff cleaved down, the wrist twisted, and this time the wrist pulled inward, just enough to allow the Magic Power to converge tightly at the tip of the staff, no more, no less.

The light at the tip of the staff became more concentrated, and the emitted rays were finer and brighter.

Again, again, again.

After swinging it more than twenty times, the angle, speed, and rotation range of my wrist all became fixed, turning into muscle memory.

It doesn't require much effort; just control it with your wrist, let the Magic Power swirl at the tip of the staff, and then release it at the lowest point of the strike.

He tried combining word roots with gestures once.

Quassare, the wand falls backwards, the wrist twists half an inch at the lowest point.

After practicing a few times, I found that the biggest problem was rhythm.

The syllable progression was too fast; before the wand could even strike the ground, the Magic Power had already exploded at the end, turning the spell into a muffled tremor in the air. Slow down the syllable progression, let the wand's downward motion complete, and then proceed to the last syllable.

After a few tries, I found the best rhythm: keep my wrist relaxed during the first two syllables, and then accelerate and chop to the bottom half-inch on the last half-beat, so that the Magic Power is compressed and released at the end.

By noon, the Spellcasting had stabilized.

A brownish-yellow ray of incantation shot out from the tip of the staff, striking the granite block in the corner with precision. After a delay of about 0.3 seconds, a faint crackling sound emanated from within, and the stone shattered into uneven small pieces.

Single-point collapse complete.

He named it the Disintegration Charm, placing it alongside the Severing Charm.

One decomposes, the other disintegrates; one follows the concept, the other the physics.

Regulus pushed open the door Apparition to the seaside.

Under the gloomy weather, the seawater was grayish-black, and the waves were bigger than a few days ago, splashing white foam as they crashed against the rocks. The wind blew the water mist everywhere, making his robe flutter behind him and his hair stick to the side of his face.

Large rocks are scattered along the beach, their surfaces smooth and rounded from centuries of seawater washing over them.

He picked out a wand as tall as himself, raised it, and made the gesture: "Quassare".

A brownish-yellow incantation shot from the tip of the staff and disappeared into the stone surface.

The stone surface was intact, but a very fine crackling sound came from inside, like countless tiny fingers breaking off withered branches at the same time. Cracks spread from the inside out, forming a spider web on the stone surface.

The stone shattered, breaking apart from the inside out into dozens of uneven small pieces that rolled down the rocky slope and splashed into the sea. He looked down at the pile of rubble; it hadn't exploded.

Exploding Charm produces a loud boom and sends debris flying everywhere, while Reducto turns the surface into powder that falls off.

The Disintegration Charm causes the inside to shatter first, and the outer shell to collapse last. The whole process is much quieter; the loudest sound is the sound of pebbles falling to the ground and rolling into the sea. The spell itself remains silent.

He put away his wand.

Like the Severing Charm, once it solidifies into a spell, its effects go beyond simply extracting Magic Power for direct use.

Previously, the extracted Magic Power drop stones only had minor cracks, and it took several applications of the drops to completely crack them.

After being invoked, the Magic Power is solidified into an optimal structure.

The entrance angle, the bifurcation node, the two and a half loops, and the narrowing ratio of the end release port—every parameter is compressed to just the right size to penetrate the target.

The total amount of Magic Power hasn't increased, but efficiency has. With the same amount of Magic Power, you can do more.

The single-hit test is complete; next up is continuous output.

When a branch of the Whomping Willow" strikes its target, the shockwave is instantaneous and it's over in a flash.

Therefore, it needs to continuously tap the same point to accumulate the cracks. The second tap steps on the cracks of the first tap and continues to drill in. The third tap steps on the cracks of the first two taps and then goes in.

But he uses a wand to Spellcasting, so the Magic Power output can be continuous, without needing to do it in bursts.

Once the spell hits its target, as long as the wand remains pointed at that spot, Magic Power continues to flow from the tip of the wand into the target, and the vibrations continue to circulate within it.

Each layer of tremor overlaps with the remnants of the previous layer, stacking higher and higher, with each layer building up to a deeper and deeper layer over time, resulting in greater destruction. The Spellcasting controls two variables: output intensity and duration. Intensity determines the power of each layer of tremor, while time determines how many layers are stacked. He chose a larger one, five or six people tall, standing at the end of the rocky beach, its base carved into an inward-curving arc by the sea, making it appear as if it had stood by the sea for thousands of years.

He walked over, raised his staff, Spellcasting.

The yellowish-brown rays struck the stone surface; this time, they didn't stop, continuing their attack.

The stone surface remained intact. After 0.3 seconds, a faint hissing sound emanated from within, and cracks began to appear on the surface.

In 0.6 seconds, the cracks spread, with several main cracks extending from the inside to the surface, and stone chips flying out from the cracks.

Less than a second later, a low cracking sound came from inside. The stone split open from the inside, crumbling into powder and fragments that mingled and collapsed downwards. He put away his wand, looked at the scene before him, and quickly thought.

The effect is the same as hitting the same spot three times in a row with the Whomping Willow, but the difference is that the Whomping Willow requires three independent hits, and each time it must hit the same spot again. He only needs to keep his wand steady and continue to output damage.

However, the effectiveness of continuous output depends on the material of the target itself.

The granite block, which was five or six people tall, shattered in less than a second because of its compact structure. When the vibration penetrated it, it bounced back and forth inside, with each layer pushing the crack forward a little further.

The harder and denser the material, the higher its Conduction; the same is true for porous materials.

He pointed his wand at the beach, where there was a piece of driftwood that had been soaked and rotten. He cast Disintegration Charm on it, and it stopped immediately. Only a few cracks appeared on the surface of the wood, but it did not shatter completely inside.

After the oscillations are injected, the energy is dispersed and absorbed by the pores inside, and no path for sustained rebound can be found, so it cannot be superimposed.

Conduction varies with the material; this is a physical law, not a matter of the applicability of a spell.

The spell itself is not picky about materials; it will vibrate whatever it enters, and it won't stop working just because the target is a piece of driftwood.

The difference lies not in the spell, but in the Spellcasting.

The Spellcasting must lock the target into a single entity in their mind, without analyzing its composition; they must simply ignore its components.

A spell doesn't need to know where its weaknesses are; it will find them itself.

Once you understand this, the Magic Power within the target will know how to operate.

Like the Severing Charm, the Disintegration Charm also has its conceptual threshold.

The Severing Charm requires understanding decomposition, which makes the whole no longer whole; in a sense, it is a philosophical concept.

The threshold for the Disintegration Charm is more straightforward: if something is placed in front of you, regardless of its internal structure, material, or number of layers and surfaces, it is simply an object.

The internal complexity is irrelevant to the Spellcasting; simply shatter it, and that will be the end of it.