Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 56 Transformation Pathways

"Hello, everyone," a thin male researcher walked onto the stage. He wore black-rimmed glasses and a red and brown plaid shirt. He greeted the audience with a restrained expression. "My name is Andrew Tucker, and I am a genetic technology engineer. The paper I will be presenting today is titled 'Some Thoughts on the Path to Godhood for Wizards.'"

"As a genetic engineer, almost the instant the director (referring to Murphy) mentioned the word 'evolution,' I realized that the word itself is a path to immortality and omniscience."

"The evolution that the director is talking about is different from evolution in the biological sense. It refers to the humanistic sense that we generally understand, the individual becoming better and stronger."

"To put it more simply, it means greater strength, faster speed, longer lifespan, higher intelligence, and so on."

"Originally, some of these attributes are contradictory. For example, for ordinary mammals, greater strength means more muscle, more muscle means greater weight, which in turn leads to a corresponding decrease in flexibility."

"In fact, the human body is a sophisticated structure that has been optimized to a considerable extent, and most of the redundant components have been eliminated in the process of evolution."

"If we want to have the strength of a bear, we will inevitably move slowly; if we want to fly like an eagle, we must shed a large part of our weight; and if we want to continue to enhance our intelligence and think more quickly, we will need more energy metabolism, which may lead to us aging faster."

"It is extremely difficult to comprehensively enhance our bodies through purely biological means."

"Therefore, since the Industrial Age, countless people have believed that the best way for us to strengthen ourselves is to abandon our weak physical bodies and embrace powerful machines."

"However, now we have another avenue to look forward to."

"That's magic."

"To be precise, it's a transformation magic!"

"During these past two weeks of study, the magic that has fascinated me the most is Transfiguration!"

"Transfiguration can transform living and non-living things into one another, and can turn a person into another species while still retaining most of their human consciousness."

"Transfiguration allows a person to be one person, and at the same time, a bear, an eagle, a wolf, or a mouse!"

"Wizards don't even need to add specific functional genes to their bodies—which could be very dangerous given how little we currently know about how genes work—to give people the specific abilities of a certain species!"

"Transforming into a bird allows one to fly, transforming into a fish allows one to swim underwater, and transforming into a bat grants the wizard the ability to locate objects with ultrasonic waves."

"However, shapeshifting humans are extremely dangerous, so they are generally only used against others and are considered malicious acts. But this reveals a pathway to possessing multiple abilities from other creatures simultaneously."

"If this temporary transformation merely expands a wizard's abilities, then the Animagus, the masters of transformation among wizards, truly grant themselves another form."

"They can maintain their animal form for years, even decades, and if they wish, they can even live their entire lives as another species."

"This permanent morphological transformation provides an example of how other biological forms and abilities can be permanently solidified."

"There are millions of species in the world, each with its own unique survival strategies. Their abilities are also incredibly diverse. The magical world's many magical creatures greatly expand this diversity. Almost every problem we encounter in the natural world can find a solution in the biological world."

"So, when a person can transform into any biological form at will, does he achieve omnipotence to some extent?"

"Of course, we still know too little about wizards, about omniscience and omnipotence, about magic. There may be many paths to make a wizard omniscience and omnipotence. I can only make a small guess about one possibility based on the information I currently have."

"The possibility is that, with Transfiguration and Animagus as the core, a pathway can be constructed that allows wizards to transform into anything."

"First of all, the core of this idea is the Animagus. This kind of transfiguration differs from other transfigurations in two ways: first, it is self-transformation, and second, it is permanent transformation."

"But Animagus alone is not enough, because it has several limitations. First, Animagus can mostly only transform into one fixed animal and cannot transform into other animals."

"Secondly, Animagus cannot usually transform into magical creatures, which makes it impossible to acquire some extremely special abilities in this way, such as the phoenix's rebirth."

"Thirdly, the process of becoming an Animagus is far too complicated and extremely difficult, which greatly limits its efficiency."

"To address these three limitations, we need to introduce other methods as a reference and make improvements."

"For example, compound decoctions. Compound decoctions can transform a person into another person, and even, in cases of misuse, give a person some animal characteristics. Given that the preparation process requires the addition of the other person's hair, we can reasonably expect that it may be able to extract the other person's genetic information to some extent."

"At the same time, the compound decoction can transform a person into anyone, which may contribute to overcoming the limitation that Animagus can only transform into a single organism."

"There are also shapeshifting creatures, such as—Boggarts, which are dark magic creatures that can read the fears of others and materialize into what those fears. We might be able to study these creatures; their shapeshifting abilities are undoubtedly extremely powerful and incredibly swift, and they might provide some useful insights."

"In addition to these, there are werewolves, vampires, and other magical creatures. These two types of magical creatures can transform wizards or Muggles into their own species."

"While converting wizards is simpler, and converting Muggles is less likely and more dangerous, the conversion mechanism may provide some reference for solving the limitation that Animagus cannot transform into magical creatures."

"This might even be a path for us Muggles to become wizards."

"The magical world also has many creatures with shapeshifting abilities, or potions and spells, such as the Disguise Magus, shrinking potions, and common shapeshifting spells among wizards."

"Studying these creatures or magic, and more importantly, studying the Animagus themselves, may unlock the core mysteries of transformation and lead to omniscience and omnipotence."

"I plan to call this possible path: the transformation path."

(End of this chapter)