Chapter 185: Chap.182 - What if...?

Rigel's day was busy but routine: potions class, studying, Quidditch practice until dinnertime, before finally being able to return to his room.

He had managed to hide for a while under the pretext of going to the bathroom at sunset, just to recite the incantation and feel that sensation that pulled him to transform again. He, of course, did not do it.

Only when he finally managed to return to the room and get into the coffin, entering the Dragon's Dream, could Rigel finally test what he believed.

He didn't change the mood, standing on the deck of the Ragnarok, Rigel simply took his wand and pointed it at his chest. "Amato Animo Animato Animagus."

As soon as the enchantment was complete, Rigel felt his heart beat rapidly, and when the beat reached its peak, he let himself go completely, accepting the transformation and pushing it forward.

The effect this time was different, Rigel screamed as his body writhed, unlike before, this hurt, it hurt like hell!

Rigel's first attempt ended in failure shortly after, resulting in a deformed figure, missing an arm and with snake-like legs with two protrusions, scales covering parts of its body, bald, with one snake eye and the other human, its left nostril sunken as if it had tried to retract...

Overall, he was a grotesque figure.

Rigel is dead.

When he awoke in the coffin, Rigel trembled, that pain... he believed that the main reason for the failure was the pain he felt, he couldn't control himself at all, instead, he just wanted it to stop and in the end, he ended up deforming himself until death.

As Rigel breathed deeply, time after time, he mentally thanked himself for not having transformed during the day, if he had, he probably would have used the Aztec Rune 'resurrection' for the first time!

Rigel returned to the Dragon's dream shortly after, sitting on the deck of the Ragnarok, deep in thought.

Although he clearly felt discomfort when practicing physical transmutation, the pain this time was incredible, he had never transformed so completely before. Besides, the transformation shouldn't be purely physical, but also spiritual. The pain was probably because he couldn't keep up with the transformation in time.

So this time Rigel tried smaller steps, much smaller ones.

He pointed his wand at his heart again, took a deep breath, and repeated, "Amato Animo Animato Animagus."

Feeling the double heartbeat increasing, he followed the transformation again, this time focusing purely on the eyes, avoiding mutating new aspects and...

He died deformed again.

Rigel's lips trembled as he sat on the deck of the Ragnarok once more.

The problem this time was that he discovered that the incantation itself initiated the ritual, which was basically like a rollercoaster ride.

He could only be carried away by it, he couldn't accelerate or brake. If he tried, the wagon would derail and... deformity followed by death.

It didn't seem truly impossible, it was just extremely difficult. The Animagus transformation was a magic that had been tested and proven, every step had a reason, and now he was trying to alter it in an extreme way.

Basically, aside from the enchantment, he left everything else aside.

Rigel tried again, this time he returned to the mountain with the storm.

He noticed that the transformation accelerated greatly when he did this, he was less deformed in the end, but still deformed, and he died.

Rigel groaned as he lay in the grass, frustrated. His brow furrowed thoughtfully, he sat up again, this time ignoring the incantation and using purely his transmutation power. He began to reshape his own body, trying to transform himself into an anaconda.

The transformation didn't go wrong this time, it was just incredibly slow, like trying to drive up a hill in an old car, it took him half an hour to complete the change, and even then, he felt it didn't seem perfect.

He probably hadn't gotten used to the anaconda's body enough, plus he knew nothing about its internal composition, so he basically improvised.

As a result, he couldn't even move properly and felt pain all over his body, in addition, his senses were completely out of sync.

He was certain that this was purely a physical transformation, meaning there was no spirit to help him control the body, in other words, he could basically just wriggle around like someone wrapped in several sheets. In the end, he died shortly afterward, probably because he didn't get the internal components of the body right.

Rigel was back to square one, sitting in the middle of the Ragnarok's deck, thinking.

Without the ritual, there would be no spirit, nor even a guide for perfect transformation, which he needed to do all manually.

Rigel concluded that to perfectly transform into an anaconda purely through his transmutation, he would first need to study anaconda anatomy, then learn to create or at least emulate the anaconda's specific organs, and finally adapt to the snake's senses on his own.

It was an incredibly long and complicated process, but the positive side was that his transmutation progressed significantly in this experiment, at least, he managed to look like an anaconda in the end. He couldn't act like one, but in terms of appearance, he didn't look different.

Rigel began to wonder if it would be worth the effort to learn how to become an anaconda.

Although with his transmutation he could probably transform completely into a perfect anaconda over time and even adapt to 'being a snake', was all that effort worth it?

How much time would he spend on that? Besides, when the time came to use that transformation, he would probably still need a lot of time to transform and adapt afterward, at least a few seconds or even minutes, making it very difficult to be useful in a real combat situation.

Besides, an anaconda itself wasn't very powerful.

Another of Rigel's ideas was to change the Animagus spell or transform thousands of times, possibly more, dying deformed in the process, until his transmutation could perfectly handle everything on its own, including getting rid of pain.

The first would require time and research, the second would require time and a "get it or die" attitude.

However, while he was thinking about solutions, Rigel's eyes widened.

Wait, what if I could add other features to the snake's body?! For example, dragon scales?!

If only he could learn to transform on his own, even without the spirit, just by using transmutation to first learn to perfectly transform into a snake, then start adding external items!

He could add dragon scales, even a gland to produce fire!

He could even fuse parts of various different magical creatures!

At that point, Rigel no longer cared whether he was an anaconda or not, even the Animagus ritual ceased to be so important.

Although he had this plan before, copying all the parts of a magical creature would be much more difficult than copying only small parts and adding them little by little.

If only he could create an enchantment to help him create a spirit for the new creature...

Rigel paused for a moment, swallowing hard, and then he remembered something else, out of nowhere, a vial of potion appeared in his hand.

This thing... he wasn't planning on using it on himself, but what if...?