Inside the Suitcase World.
In the spacious magical practice room, Lucien stood facing another "Lucien."
They had identical features and builds.
However, the other "Lucien" had hollow eyes, its pupils unfocused, like an exquisitely crafted puppet.
Black vortices swirled within Lucien's eyes as he activated the Eye of Peering Magic.
He observed the Magic Circuit within the opposing "self," an intricate and unusual network of pathways almost completely identical to his own.
Raising his wand, he lightly tapped its tip and traced an extremely fine line of light through the air. At the same time, various magical materials flew out and merged into the glowing line. Finally, he carefully "embedded" it into a magical node near the right shoulder.
A faint silver glow slowly spread from the altered area, like ripples expanding across a calm lake after a pebble was dropped into it.
Lucien's eyes brightened slightly.
However, in the next instant, a small cluster of flames suddenly erupted from the other "Lucien's" hair and rapidly began to spread.
Lucien immediately waved his wand. A stream of water lashed out like a whip and precisely extinguished the flames.
Without pausing, he quickly reversed the minor adjustment he had just made to the Magic Circuit.
The silver glow faded, the source of the flames disappeared, and everything returned to normal.
"...It's still extremely difficult to Transfigure Magic Circuits."
He sighed softly, lowered his wand, took out a notebook, and recorded the process along with the details that had triggered the loss of control.
The other "Lucien," which was automatically repairing itself, was actually the Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet.
More precisely, it was the Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet · Modified.
The Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet was a loan item Lucien had obtained last Halloween. It was a flesh puppet capable of freely transforming into any non-magical creature, making it suitable for practising living Transfiguration.
However, as Lucien's Transfiguration skills improved, the flesh puppet had gradually been left gathering dust in the system warehouse.
During the exchange competition, Lucien triggered a very easy weekly loan. After completing it, the system upgraded this old item.
The upgraded Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet · Modified gained a crucial new ability: replicating Magic Circuits.
In addition, Lucien possessed another loan item, the Circuit Imprint Stele.
Its function was to record and store samples of different types of Magic Circuits.
Combining these two items created an excellent experimental subject.
First, he could use the Circuit Imprint Stele to store a specific Magic Circuit, then use the Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet · Modified to replicate it within its own body.
After that, Lucien could experiment with adjusting and Transfiguring the Magic Circuit on this substitute.
Lucien himself was already an Animagus. Thanks to Loki's Mask's trait, he could freely transform into various animals.
He could also transform into Magical Creatures that possessed Magic Circuits.
However, to transform himself into a Magical Creature with innate magical abilities, Lucien would need to completely simulate and convert a wizard's original Magic Circuit into the racial circuit of that Magical Creature.
This was not merely difficult. It was also extremely dangerous.
Even the slightest mistake could result in severe injury, mutation, or even death.
Because of that, this line of research had remained stalled.
It was not until his previous discussion with Fleur at Beauxbatons about Veela magic that Lucien personally witnessed the partial Transfiguration of her Magic Circuit when she used her racial magic.
That gave him an entirely new idea.
Since complete Transfiguration carried such high risks, why not begin with partial Transfiguration instead?
For mixed-blood wizards like Fleur and Hagrid, who possessed Magical Creature ancestry, their Magic Circuits naturally carried certain racial characteristics, allowing parts of them to shift into the Magic Circuit structure of that creature.
This was a naturally occurring path whose feasibility had already been proven by bloodline inheritance.
The corresponding difficulty and risks would be greatly reduced.
And the recent accidental upgrade of his loan item happened to provide Lucien with a safe method of researching it.
What he had just attempted was to replicate the characteristics of Fleur's half-Veela Magic Circuit.
It was only a preliminary experiment, shifting several related magical nodes within the flesh puppet slightly towards a Veela-like structure.
That small burst of flames had been the result.
Lucien added another note to his notebook, his quill pausing briefly.
In truth, there was another question he was curious about.
If he successfully achieved partial Transfiguration of a Magic Circuit, simulating the circuit characteristics of a half-Veela or half-Giant, then besides most likely gaining the corresponding racial magical abilities...
Would it also cause certain physical changes?
For example, would simulating a half-Veela's circuit grant some form of extraordinary charm or subtly refine his appearance?
Or would simulating a half-Giant's circuit increase his strength and make his body taller and larger?
Lucien closed the notebook and looked up at the now fully restored flesh puppet.
Its hollow eyes still stared blankly ahead, offering no answers.
There was no need to rush.
The path of magic was long and complex, but Lucien could always see the direction ahead, and he possessed both the desire and the means to continue walking it.
Lucien looked at the face opposite him, identical to his own, and for a moment felt as though he were staring into a mirror.
To ensure that the results of the Magic Circuit transformation could be reliably reproduced, he had instructed the Shapeshifting Flesh Puppet to replicate him completely, not only the flow of every node within his Magic Circuit, but also every physical detail of his body.
Standing before the flesh puppet now, Lucien felt as though he were facing a version of himself with its soul removed.
When he first began experimenting with circuit transformation, staring at "his own" hollow face while using magic to adjust the circuit little by little had been undeniably unsettling.
But as his research progressed, he gradually grew accustomed to it, eventually becoming able to focus entirely on those delicate magical nodes.
Even so, a thought would occasionally rise from the depths of his mind.
It was a bit of a ..shame.
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