Transfiguration, Mate!

Hermes glanced at the strange object in Regulus's hand, inwardly dismissive.

He admitted the importance of basic magic, and he also admitted that Regulus's fundamentals were terrifyingly solid.

But he stubbornly believed that in a real fight, victory depended on having magic powerful enough to decide life and death in an instant.

The Transfiguration and Charms Class tricks taught at school were nothing more than flashy juggling before true Dark Arts.

He could not see the point of Regulus's current practice, nor could he understand the terrifying potential represented by microscopic restructuring of the very nature of matter.

In his view, it was merely making a stone a little harder or brighter. What practical use was that?

Would someone use a hardened stone to smash people in a duel?

Absurd.

He ignored Avery's attempt to signal for silence with his eyes and deliberately made his footsteps heavier.

He walked to his bed and heavily set an old book with a completely blank cover on the bedside table, producing a dull thud.

The sound seemed especially jarring in the quiet Dormitory.

That dull thud finally pulled Regulus completely out of his deep thought and practice.

He slowly withdrew the Magic Power surrounding the Graphite, and the stone returned to its original appearance before falling back onto the Desk.

He raised his head, his gray eyes calmly looking at Hermes, who had made the noise.

"Is something wrong?" Regulus's voice revealed no emotion.

Hermes turned around and leaned against his bedpost, his face wearing its usual gloom along with a faint trace of provocation.

"Nothing. I just think it's a pity that some people spend their time on... flashy but impractical tricks."

"True power doesn't come from molding stones into different shapes."

His words were clearly aimed at Regulus. Avery frowned, while Alex nervously lowered his head.

Regulus looked at Hermes and slowly said, "Your understanding of power is too extreme, and too narrow."

"You only see the surface of destruction and pain, yet fail to see the power contained within the fundamental Rules that make up this world."

"As for knowledge..."

He shook his head. "You probably don't know that the Wizarding World's universally acknowledged most powerful wizard, Albus Dumbledore, is a Transfiguration master who has reached the pinnacle of the field."

Hermes's expression stiffened slightly. Of course he knew Dumbledore's name, but a young wizard obsessed with the Dark Arts like him had never looked deeply into what Dumbledore specifically excelled at.

"And besides." Regulus stood up, his wand somehow already having slipped into his hand.

He happened to need someone to test one of his earlier ideas, and Hermes's arrival and attitude had provided the perfect opportunity.

"You seem quite dismissive of my magic. Conveniently enough, I also think your magic is nothing special."

Before his words had faded, his wand was already raised and pointed at Hermes.

Hermes instantly became alert and immediately tried to draw his wand to defend himself or strike back.

But Regulus moved faster. Or rather, the way his magic took effect defied convention.

There was no flash, no sound, nothing at all.

Hermes merely suddenly felt his breathing come to a halt.

The breath he was drawing in seemed to lose every breathable property the instant it entered his mouth and nose.

It was like inhaling something utterly useless, incapable of reacting with any function of his lungs or providing even the slightest bit of Oxygen.

His eyes widened as he opened his mouth and tried to breathe harder, but his chest brought no satisfying rise and fall, only a steadily deepening, suffocating panic.

He wanted to speak, to demand an explanation, but no sound came out. He wanted to raise his wand, but his brain was growing dizzy from lack of oxygen, and his arm became heavy.

And besides, he could not cast Silencio.

He looked at Regulus in terror. The other boy merely held his wand calmly, making no unnecessary movements, his eyes as if they were not looking at a living thing.

This was precisely an extension of Regulus's earlier thoughts.

He had not performed a complex elemental conversion. At Regulus's current level, that would have been too slow.

What he had done was simpler and more brutal: he set no specific purpose, only a definition.

Through Non-directional Transfiguration, Regulus used powerful Magic Power to instantly intervene and forcibly transform the gases in that area into something unbreathable.

He only needed to cast the spell and leave the rest to Magic.

At this stage, it was more feasible than directly turning Oxygen into poison. After all, he did not intend to kill anyone.

Avery's eyes shone as he watched from the side. He did not understand the intricacies of it, nor was he even sure whether it was Dark Arts, but that did not stop the heat in his gaze toward Regulus from growing stronger.

Not understanding it only meant it was more advanced!

Alex, meanwhile, had gone pale with fright, both hands tightly covering his mouth for fear of making even the slightest sound.

He had never imagined that the Dormitory, which had seemed to be growing more harmonious just moments ago, would suddenly play out such a terrifying scene.

They were only first-years!

This was not some friction between classmates. This was practically... the prelude to murder.

He watched Hermes's face turn from red to blue, his eyes bulging as his body began twitching uncontrollably, and his heart filled with fear.

The terror in Hermes's heart reached its peak.

He could not breathe, could not cast magic, and his Magic Power was difficult to gather amid the pain and panic of suffocation.

He felt as though he was about to die. Never before had the cold Shadows of death felt so real around him.

He desperately thought, What kind of magic is this?

Silencio, with such a bizarre method of effect, directly stripping away the foundation of life!

This had to be some incredibly evil and profound Dark Arts spell!

He had lost, completely and utterly. He could not even understand what method his opponent had used.

Second by second, about half a minute passed. Hermes's struggling began to weaken, and his eyes started to lose focus.

Even Avery, who had initially been excited, now had cold sweat forming on his forehead.

He admired power, but he also knew there were limits.

Killing a classmate at school, even one from the Mulciber family, would be an enormous problem. It would ruin everything.

He opened his mouth, wanting to ask Regulus to stop, but when he saw Regulus's absolutely calm eyes, utterly devoid of even the slightest madness, he swallowed his words.

Subconsciously, he felt that Regulus would not do such a thing.

Someone so calm and rational, someone who seemed to calculate every step, would not kill someone at school over a verbal dispute.

Just before Hermes completely lost consciousness, Regulus gave his wrist a light flick and withdrew his Magic Power.

"Gah—!!!"

Hermes suddenly pitched forward, bracing himself on the floor with both hands as he let out violent, greedy gasps like a bellows. Severe coughing followed, with tears and snot streaming down his face, leaving him utterly disheveled.

He gasped for over a minute before barely recovering enough to raise his head and look at Regulus with bloodshot eyes filled with fear and disbelief.

Regulus had already put away his wand. Looking down at him from above, he asked in an even tone, "So, what do you think of Transfiguration now?"

He did not explain what method he had used. He would let Hermes guess, fear, and ponder what principle lay behind that invisible, intangible, yet deadly threat.

Hermes lay sprawled on the ground, his body still trembling slightly from lingering fear.

His mind was a complete mess.

Transfiguration?

How was that possible?!

Could Transfiguration make him unable to breathe?

This completely overturned his understanding of Transfiguration!

But if it was not Transfiguration, then what was it?

There was no sinister aura of Dark Arts, no chilling sensation of a curse...

The unknown brought deeper fear.

He realized that he could not see through Regulus Black at all.

Not only did the other boy utterly crush him in basic ability, he also seemed to possess magical methods Hermes simply could not understand or even categorize.

Such methods were impossible to guard against.

Avery let out a breath of relief, only for an even stronger sense of pride and determination to follow Regulus to surge within him.

Look at that!

This was the person I chose to follow! Powerful, clear-minded, and impossible to predict!

Then he began thinking about how he would deal with that move if he faced it himself.

Cast a Bubble-Head Charm on himself beforehand?

Or constantly maintain a protective spell?

That was far too passive!

Alex also sighed in relief, though his legs were still weak.

He looked at the sprawled Hermes and the calm Regulus, finally realizing who the true danger in this Dormitory was.

He silently decided that he would be even more careful with his words and actions from now on and never provoke Regulus.

Regulus paid no attention to his roommates' differing thoughts.

He returned to the Desk and sat down, his thoughts never stopping.

The earlier experiment had confirmed one of his ideas. Tampering with the basic substances that existed everywhere in the environment was indeed a blind spot in the thinking of many wizards, and it was also an attack direction with enormous potential.

But what if he went a step further?