Harry Potter: Reborn as Regulus Black Chapter 31: Lighting the Fourth Star

The dormitory was utterly silent.

Regulus drew the heavy bed curtains and layered soundproofing and anti-surveillance charms, sealing off the outside world completely. Praise, whispers, wariness, scheming, even the lingering feverish warmth from Bella's letter were all shut out.

He sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and let his consciousness sink inward.

Basic Magic Circulation flowed along familiar pathways, gently washing through his limbs and body, nourishing and strengthening every inch of muscle, sinew, and bone.

Then, on a higher layer of awareness, his ntal energy began to gather and weave itself together.

In the dark sea of consciousness, the three stars of Orion's Belt lit up one by one, moving with a slow, nearly imperceptible, yet undeniably real trajectory.

Star Guided ditation began to turn. The chaos of stray thoughts was soothed by the vast imagery of the stars.

Once his state of mind fully settled, Regulus attempted to light the fourth star.

Things were moving faster than expected. His pace needed to quicken as well.

Synchronizing three stars was only the beginning. It was rely the threshold of Star Guided ditation.

He directed his awareness toward Betelgeuse, glowing with a dark red halo.

This required maintaining the dynamic model of the three belt stars while integrating this new point into the entire moving system.

Betelgeuse had its own trajectory. Its relative position and motion in relation to the belt stars ford the foundation of Orion's upper-body structure.

The difficulty spiked sharply.

Simulating stellar motion was far harder than constructing a static model, not by a small margin, but by orders of magnitude.

It demanded precise calculation, powerful spatial imagination, and absolute control over magic.

He had to maintain the exact relative positions of all points in his mind.

At the sa ti, each point needed to move slowly, so slowly it was almost invisible to perception, yet in a way that still obeyed the laws of celestial motion.

It was like controlling multiple points of light at once, each following a different, complex function, while ensuring the overall shape they ford remained intact.

This required extre concentration and nonstop calculation.

The slightest lapse would cause one point's motion to slip, breaking the entire model's dynamic balance and potentially collapsing it outright.

That slowness did not reduce the difficulty. Instead, because it had to exist continuously and be maintained over ti, it imposed an even heavier ntal burden.

Simulating this near-still, ultra-slow movent required absolute patience, precision, and constant adjustnt.

Regulus began by precisely locating Betelgeuse's current position in his awareness.

A new point of light ignited, dark red and slightly larger than the belt stars, appearing above and to the right of them.

Next ca motion.

Betelgeuse's self-motion data differed from that of the belt stars. Even its direction varied slightly.

Regulus had to split off part of his focus to calculate and sustain Betelgeuse's movent while also coordinating its dynamic geotric relationship with the belt stars.

Distance, angle, and direction all shifted slowly as each star followed its own path.

The mont he added Betelgeuse's motion, the previously stable three-star model was disturbed. The trajectories of the three points grew chaotic, and the entire structure teetered on the brink of collapse.

He stopped imdiately, reverting to maintaining only the three stars. After stabilizing them again, he made another careful attempt.

This ti, he first added Betelgeuse as a static point, locking in its relative position with the three stars.

Then, with extre care, he began to inject the pre-calculated motion into it, bit by tiny bit, while simultaneously making subtle adjustnts to the belt stars' motion to accommodate this new variable and seek a fresh dynamic balance.

It was an exhausting process, both ntally and computationally.

His mind felt like a bowstring pulled taut. A faint, persistent pressure throbbed at his temples.

Maintaining a four-star dynamic model consud far more ntal energy than three. The drain rose almost exponentially.

Ti passed in silent resistance and constant adjustnt.

At so point, it felt as though an invisible gear finally clicked into place.

Betelgeuse's dark red glow was no longer a jarring addition.

Its motion fell into harmony with the belt stars. The simple quadrilateral ford by the four stars began to move together in the void of his consciousness, synchronized in a unified, harmonious rhythm.

He succeeded.

The four-star dynamic model was complete, at least in its initial form.

Regulus maintained the state, carefully sensing the changes.

The ntal cost was imnse, but alongside it ca a deeper sense of tranquility and a faint fullness, as though his soul itself had been stretched wider.

After lighting the fourth star, the entire ditation state felt more layered and stable. His perception of the ambient magic in his surroundings also seed just a bit sharper.

He slowly withdrew from deep ditation and glanced at the magical tipiece by his bed.

From his first attempt to light the fourth star to achieving a stable result, nearly two hours had passed.

And that was only the ti required to add a single star, building on an already mastered three-star dynamic model.

It was easy to foresee what lay ahead. As the model incorporated more stars, the dynamic relationships between them would grow increasingly complex.

Each additional star would demand exponentially more ti, calculation, and ntal strain to integrate into the overall system.

At the sa ti, it was equally clear that as the depth of ditation increased, his mind would be tempered by sustained high-intensity training. It would grow tougher and more vigorous, while his computational ability and spatial imagination steadily improved.

In turn, this would gradually accelerate the process of lighting future stars. It was a spiraling ascent, slow and arduous at the start, faster later once the foundation was firmly laid.

Yet the greatest challenge was not lighting more stars.

It was fixation.

Dynamics were the core of this thod and also its greatest difficulty.

Each ditation required him to recalculate, rebuild, and maintain the entire dynamic model. It could not be solidified into instinctive magical pathways the way fixed ditation diagrams could.

To reach a state where this moving star model persisted naturally, whether walking, sitting, or lying down, was unimaginably difficult.

Fixation usually ant immobility, yet what he sought to fix was a system in perpetual motion.

This demanded that the deepest layers of his mind form an active structure capable of automatically processing complex dynamic changes and making continuous micro-adjustnts on its own.

The road ahead was long, but the light was already visible.

Regulus closed his eyes again, choosing not to challenge the fifth star.

Tonight's success with four stars was already a breakthrough. He needed consolidation, to make this four-star dynamic model more stable, more natural.

---

News that Regulus had utterly crushed fifth-year Alger Travers spread suddenly and shocked everyone, exploding through Slytherin and even the wider pure-blood circles of Hogwarts.

Slytherin revered power, and it also revered the intelligence to wield it. When the two combined and were displayed in such dramatic fashion, the impact was imnse.

Overnight, Regulus's standing within Slytherin underwent a subtle yet fundantal shift.

Upper-years no longer looked at him with the casual appraisal reserved for a promising junior. There was now genuine attention, and even a hint of wariness.

No one said anything foolish anymore. Pure-blood students who had kept their distance from the Black family due to factional politics or the Sirius incident began reassessing the young heir.

"The Black family might really be on the rise this ti," a seventh-year murmured to a companion over breakfast.

"Think about the strength he showed, and how unfazed he was by Dark magic. That kind of attitude appeals to certain people."

"What matters is power," his companion replied seriously. "He's only a first-year, and he toyed with a fifth-year like a plaything. What about when he graduates?

Lord Voldemort is at his peak right now. If the Black family produces soone like this, their future standing…"

Similar conversations unfolded in many corners.

Pragmatism was one of Slytherin's survival rules. When the balance of power tilted clearly in one direction, adjusting one's stance and reassessing relationships was only natural.

Over the following days, the owl post grew unusually busy.

Many Slytherin students, especially upper-years closely tied to their families, wrote ho in detail about the duel and the overwhelming strength Regulus Black had displayed far beyond his age.

Thursday morning, just after Transfiguration class ended, Regulus was stopped by a seventh-year.

"Black, Professor Slughorn would like to see you in his office," the older student said politely.

Regulus nodded, packed his things, and headed toward the potions classroom.