Instinct and Redefinition

Regulus put away his wand, a smile playing on his lips. "All done."

Baruk turned his head, and eight eyes looked at him.

Its chelicerae opened and closed twice, the sound a little louder than before, echoing in the empty room. The voice carried a hint of probing. "All done?" Regulus stood up, patted its carapace, and nodded. "All done."

Baruk also stood up.

It turned its head once, then its body, and its chelicerae opened and closed rapidly twice, making a clicking sound.

It first raised its right foreleg, and a ring around the base of its bristles changed color, from dark brown to dark red, tinged with reddish-brown in the fireplace light. It then turned its head back, wanting to see its carapace.

However, the spider's head can only turn to a limited angle; it can only turn halfway before it stops. All that can be seen are extremely fine lines at the joints of its forelegs, which reflect light slightly.

Baruk thought for a moment, then lifted his front leg and tentatively took two steps toward the fireplace.

Before, when it saw the fireplace fire, it would instinctively pull itself back, but now it doesn't.

It took another step forward, its bristles swaying slightly in the flames, neither curled nor charred.

It looked down at its legs, then at the fire in the fireplace, probably wondering what was going on.

The fire is still the same fire, but I am no longer the same spider.

Then it glanced at Regulus, stuck out its rear end, and sprayed another stream of spider silk into the corner of the roof.

After I finished spraying, I turned around and looked at him.

Regulus remained silent. Baruk wiggled his rear, turned his large head away from him, and continued to examine himself intently. He lifted his front legs to look at himself, then put them down, kicked his hind legs, twisted his abdomen, and looked around at every angle his eight eyes could reach.

It put its legs down, stomped its feet twice, and then stood there motionless.

After all, they are Magical Creature, and they can always sense that something is different about themselves.

A small, faint Magic Power had entered my body. It was subtle and weak, but it was definitely there, warm and cozy, like the fire in a fireplace.

Regulus led Baruk out of the Cabin.

It was completely dark.

The small lamp illuminated the open space brightly; beyond that, it was Black Hole. The sea breeze came from the west, blowing the withered grass eastward.

He raised his right hand, tapped his index finger lightly, and a ball of orange-red flame shot out from his fingertip, landing on the open ground a dozen meters in front of him.

Flames leaped high, howling in the wind, the heat distorting the surrounding air, and the withered grass on the ground curled and charred at the edges of the flames.

The Magical Flames were much hotter than the fireplace fire, and the flames shot up more than five meters high.

The flames had a bluish base and white edges, and the heat wave surged from that direction; even from a distance of more than ten meters, one could feel their face burning.

Baruk stood behind him, his large head protruding from above his shoulder, eight eyes fixed on the fire.

Previously, the fireplace fire was only two feet away from its limit; any closer and its instincts would start to tell it to flee, its eight legs would uncontrollably retreat, and its bristles would stand on end.

Now, that Magical Flames is much hotter. At this close range, it should have run away long ago, but it stood more than ten meters away and didn't react at all.

It peeked its head off Regulus's shoulder and turned to look at him.

He patted its front leg. "Want to try?"

Baruk turned back to look at the fire, then it moved forward, its eight legs taking slow, unhurried steps.

It walked to the edge of the flames, raised its front legs, and stepped in. The flames clung to its bristles, curling upwards, and the dark red at the base shone even brighter in the intense heat. It took another step, half its body submerged in the fire.

Orange-red flames danced on its dark brown bristles, its carapace engulfed in flames without a scorch mark, a sizzling sound, or even a single bristle curling. Fire Affinity activated within its body, fresh Magic Power spreading along the joints of its limbs, flowing through its appendages and joints, covering its entire body. The shimmering white in its eight eyes was tinged with a translucent amber by the flames. Its chelicerae opened and closed twice, the flames carried by the airflow circling its chelicerae.

It stepped all eight of its legs into the fire and stood in the center of the flames.

Orange-red flames enveloped it from all sides, sliding from the tips of the bristles to the surface of the exoskeleton, darting through the joint gaps, and emerging from the other side.

Then its eight legs went limp, and its entire body collapsed into the flames. Its chelipeds opened and closed twice, whipping up a small ball of flame before releasing it.

Baruk's voice came from within the flames. "Warm."

Regulus stood a dozen meters away, watching a two-meter-long, Acromantula crawling in the flames.

The fire is burning, and the spider is inside it, looking quite comfortable.

He smiled.

After a long while, Baruk remembered that Regulus was still standing outside, and disregarding his own comfort, he climbed out of the fire.

Even with flames still burning on its body, it ignored them, walked up to Regulus, lay down, and looked at him. Its originally bright white eyes had now turned into a translucent amber color.

With this in-and-out process, the changes in appearance become more obvious; the addition of the Transfiguration leaves a mark on the physiological level.

The bristles around its belly had also changed color, transitioning from dark brown to dark red, and gleaming with a reddish-brown sheen in the firelight.

This color will gradually spread from the abdomen to the limbs, eventually giving the entire body of bristles a dark red base color.

The texture of the shell has also changed.

Regulus reached out and touched the edge of Baruk's carapace; the sensation was different from before.

There was an extra layer of fine keratinous texture, like a miniature version of Salamander's scales. It was not very visible to the naked eye, but it could be clearly felt by the fingers. Extremely fine textures appeared on the edges of the exoskeleton at the joints, reflecting several small warm-colored spots of light under the lamp's illumination.

These changes are permanent.

Baruk transformed from a pure Acromantula into an Acromantula bearing the Magic Power mark of Salamander.

The race hasn't changed, but the body isn't exactly the same as the factory settings.

He stood in the open space, the flames still burning, and Baruk lay at his feet, his carapace reflecting the firelight.

He stared at the spider, his mind elsewhere.

The Acromantula is not a natural species.

Half a century ago, a wizard named Komodo Lil first cultivated this breed on the Kalimantan.

Later, Lil took them to UK and released them near Hogwarts. The branch in the Forbidden Forest was bred from Aragog, which Hagrid took from Lil.

From its birth until 1974, the Acromantula species existed for only about fifty years. Baruk's grandfathers were among the earliest products forcibly created by Magic.

What can you do in fifty years?

Enough for three generations to reproduce, enough for the species to take root in the Forbidden Forest, enough for every young spider to know the fear of fire from the moment it hatches.

The fear of fire was something Lier instilled in them when they were being raised.

He combined the Magic Power and physical bodies of various spider species. The original spiders were afraid of fire, and the product of the combination was also afraid of fire.

This fear does not come from natural selection; it is an underlying condition brought in by the Creator.

But the effect is the same.

Whether it's etched into it through millions of years of evolution or brought in by a wizard's breeding experiment fifty years ago, what's written in the Magic Power structure is instinct.

Instinct doesn't ask about its origin; it simply carries out its actions.

Every giant Acromantula is afraid of fire. They don't need to learn, experience, or even be burned once; they will retreat the moment they see an open flame. This fear works in the Forbidden Forest, but Baruk is no longer Forbidden Forest.

It followed a wizard who used Fiendfyre as a weapon, lived in a house with a fireplace, and was almost always seen with firelight around it.

Its instincts tell it that fire is deadly, but its life tells it that fire is something it experiences every day.

What Regulus did was simple: he got Baruk's body in line with the life it had chosen.

It chose to follow him, so its instincts should follow as well.

He didn't get rid of Baruk's fear; he made fear lose its reason for existence.

Fear is a reaction; something is going to hurt you, and your body makes the decision for you before you even encounter it: run.

But now, the premise is gone, and the reaction is just going nowhere.

Baruk's body could no longer be injured by fire, so his reaction of running away from fire was fundamentally flawed.

If the foundation is demolished, the building on top will collapse on its own.

He continued to think about it more deeply.

The Acromantula's fear of fire is ingrained, but what about its other instincts?

Spiders spin webs by instinct, fish stay in water by instinct, and birds fly in the sky by instinct.

Some things evolved, some were created, but regardless of their origin, once they're written into an organism, they become unchangeable facts. But are they truly unchangeable?

He just spent the whole night revising one.

What was once an unchangeable fact has become a changed fact.

What about the others?

If you can change your fear of fire, can you change your fear of water? What about your fear of light? Or your fear of darkness?

A little further away.

Fear is a protective mechanism on an evolutionary scale, but a limitation on an individual scale.

If the fear has changed, can the restrictions be changed as well?

Spiders cannot fly, fish cannot go ashore, and humans cannot breathe underwater.

These limitations were set from the very beginning of the species.

Magic has overcome some of these limitations: the Bubble-Head Charm allows people to breathe underwater, the Flying Broomstick makes people fly, and the Transfiguration turns beetles into buttons. But those are just cheat codes; once the spell stops, people still can't breathe underwater.

What he just did for Baruk was an embedded feature, not an add-on.

The Fire Affinity attribute is ingrained in Baruk's Magic Power structure, becoming a permanent, inseparable part of him.

Baruk wasn't a spider cursed with fire immunity; he was a spider that wasn't afraid of fire.

The former is a temporary state maintained by external forces, while the latter is something that is inherently like that.

A spider that is not afraid of fire.

Its creator, Lil, did not grant it this ability, but another wizard did.

The Creator defined what it is; Magic redefines what it can be.

He glanced down at Baruk.

Baruk lay at his feet, its eight round, amber eyes fixed on him, its chelicerae occasionally opening and closing, looking quite relaxed. It probably didn't think about these things; spiders don't need philosophy.

But what happened to it is more real than most philosophical questions.

A species that was defined at the time of its creation was partially redefined by another person fifty years later.

A portion, enough for it to lie in the fire and say "warmth."

Regulus turned his gaze from Baruk to the flames still burning in the distance.

The process is running smoothly.

Extract the target creature's Magic Power tendencies, replicate them, rewrite the operational path to adapt to the host's body shape, implant them using Transfiguration, and use Natural Magic Power as a binder. Later, creating spatial scaling for the Occamy, Plant Perception for the Bowtruckle, and stealth prediction for the Demiguise, will simply be a repeat of this process. He waved his hand to extinguish the distant flames and patted Baruk: "Let's go back."

Baruk stood up, shook the dust off his bristles, and followed him toward the Cabin.

As it passed the doorway, it lowered its head and slipped inside.

Once inside, it circled around, chose a spot directly in front of the fireplace, lay down, and stretched out its eight legs.

The fireplace warmed its body, and the firelight seeped through the gaps in its bristles, casting dancing orange patches of light on its carapace.

The safe distance used to be two feet, but now it's lying close to the fireplace rim, its head directly into the fire.

Its chelipeds opened and closed slightly. "Warm."

Regulus sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the spider lying in a puddle.

Its dark red bristles, amber eyes, and the warm-colored stripes newly grown at its joints shimmered in the firelight.

A new Baruk.