Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 678 Spider Magic + A Rant About Some Recent Frustrating Things

“Your life is nearing its end, Mr. Aragog,” Tierra said bluntly. “Hagrid brought you a few vials of elixir of immortality a while ago, but you and I both know that while they extended your life a little, it’s just a drop in the ocean for your current condition.”

"What do you want to say?" Aragok's tone carried a hint of anger.

“I would like to propose a deal,” Tierra said.

"I, Aragok, do not accept any deals from outside Hagrid! Get out of my territory!" Aragok said angrily, but its weak voice made the threat sound both ridiculous and pathetic.

“The terms of the deal are simple,” Tiera said, ignoring Aragog’s threats. “I will grant you eternal life and eternal youth, and you, and your offspring, must leave with me for another planet. This Forbidden Forest has reached its limit and can no longer support your people to reproduce further.”

“So I invite you to another planet, where there is vast land and almost inexhaustible food and resources,” Tiera said with a smile. “There, you will no longer be bound by any oaths, and you can hunt and eat whatever you like as you please.”

“Does Hagrid know?” Aragok asked.

“Hagrid agreed,” Tierra replied immediately. “Of course, he’s very reluctant to part with you, but in order for you to continue living, he can only endure the pain of not being able to see you all the time.”

"Will I have another chance to see Hagrid in the future?" Aragog asked.

“Of course,” Tiera said with a smile. “Hagrid’s goal is to prolong your life, and my goal is to remove you from the Forbidden Forest’s ecosystem. Neither of these goals includes permanently separating you from Hagrid. Your separation from Hagrid is merely a negative consequence of these two projects.”

“So I’ve already promised Hagrid that I’ll open a portal once a month so you and Hagrid can meet up and have a chat,” Tiera said.

Tiera was met with a long silence.

“How can I know you’re not lying to me?” Aragok asked.

“Because I gain nothing from lying to you—” Tiera said with a smile, “which is related to my next plan.”

“I hope to teach you magic,” Tierra said. “I hope you can learn magic, I hope you can become wizards, and I hope you can join my Magical Federation government as a powerful force.”

“This is impossible!” Aragog exclaimed. “We can’t learn magic!”

“There isn’t any magic on Earth right now that’s specifically designed for spider-like magical creatures to use and learn,” Tiera said with a smile. “But this universe is so vast and mysterious, there must be a magic system that spiders can learn and use.”

“As far as I know, a certain Great Old One from Saturn, Atlak Nakya, is known as the Spider God. We can certainly obtain enough skills and spells from him to help you master the power of magic,” Tiera said with a smile. “If you are willing to learn magic, I will hold a ceremony to contact the great Spider God, the ruler and controller of spiders, and seek the power of spider magic from Him.”

Aragog's eight enormous round eyes gleamed, as if hesitating.

“As I have said before,” Tiera continued, “I love life, I love all life. It is far better to capture an army alive than to destroy them. I can gain more under the rule of peace than from war, because war means death, and death means wasting life. Life should not be wasted if it can be governed and used for a higher purpose.”

“Let’s get straight to the point, Mr. Aragog, I want to rule you,” Tiera said with a smile. “I want to bring you under the rule of the United Magic Government, I want you to become part of this dimensional regime.”

——————————————Divider Line——————————————————

A rant about some recent frustrating things

I promised to update at least once a day in August, but I didn't manage to do that. I apologize to everyone in advance.

The main reason is that I've been holding a grudge about something that happened in mid-July. Logically speaking, after so much time has passed, I shouldn't be so petty and keep dwelling on it, but some things just make you angrier the more you think about them.

The general background is this: my supervisor is from the university's main campus, and they have a collaborative project with the research institute, so they sent me here for joint training to work on a project together.

The specific details are as follows: Our research group has a dark shed, which is used to regulate the duration of light exposure so that the rice can flower earlier and the seeds can be harvested earlier.

Originally, this black shed was the responsibility of a migrant worker, but around July 8th or 9th, my mentor (mentor 1) suddenly put me in charge, ostensibly to train me.

Then I turned the shed on and off for about a week. Because the shed's switch was an old-fashioned rotating mechanism, and the rotating mechanism was positioned very low, I had to bend over every time I turned the shed on and off. Each turn took about five minutes. After working on it for a week, my back started to ache. So I suggested to my mentor about twice that we could let the migrant worker operate it. He rejected my suggestion and gave me a stern scolding.

Then, during the group meeting, I suggested to the senior supervisor (Supervisor L) at the institute that we could fire or reduce the salary of the migrant worker we hired (because this migrant worker received a fixed salary of 4500 yuan per month from our research group, but didn't do much work for our group, instead going around doing odd jobs for other research groups to earn extra money, resulting in our students doing a lot of the work themselves). After I made the suggestion, everyone responded positively. Supervisor L thought it was a problem, so he assigned another junior supervisor (referred to as Junior Supervisor 2) to verify the migrant worker's responsibility.

After the group meeting, I privately messaged my mentor, Mentor 2, and asked if we could leave the task of turning the lights on and off in the shed to the migrant workers. Mentor 2 agreed and called the migrant workers to explain the situation.

Then--

My junior mentor (let's call him Mentor 1) suddenly approached me and had a long, earnest talk with me. He basically said something like, "This migrant worker is still part of the group, and he's over fifty years old. He's practically my elder, so you need to respect him. You see him slacking off, but he's working hard where you can't see him. You did such a poor experiment and you still have the nerve to criticize others? You need to pay attention to your own materials. I had you switch on and off to train you."
I don't remember the specifics very well, but that's roughly the gist of it.

Anyway, their words were basically telling me to close the shed.

But at the time, I had already spoken to the boss, so I didn't pay much attention to what he said. I just casually replied with "uh-huh, okay, okay, uh-huh." Then, when it was time to turn off the lighting shed in the evening, he saw me still sitting in the office and suddenly asked me why I hadn't gone to turn off the shed yet.

I told them I had already spoken to the second mentor, but it was still the migrant worker who was involved.

Then he suddenly got a little angry and said, "Is this your material? Shouldn't you be more concerned about it?"

Me: "That's right, these are my materials, but according to you, which material the migrant worker manages is his own? Does that mean we all have to spray pesticides, fertilize, and remove pests ourselves? What's the point of hiring a migrant worker then?"

Then the junior tutor suddenly yelled, "Are you going to do it or not? If you don't like it, then don't do it."

Then he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

This is round 1
Of course, since I still needed to continue the experiment, I softened my stance the next day and said, "I'm sorry, I was a little too emotional yesterday."

After that incident, I continued to open and close the shed.

But this whole thing has been weighing on my mind for over a month, and the more I think about it, the angrier I get.

Finally, I decided to stop indulging him.

Then last night, I was doing an experiment when my junior supervisor came to move some things. When he saw me, he said, "You'll be giving the presentation at the group meeting next weekend. Remember to send me the PPT before Wednesday."

Then I just said, "Teacher, I don't want to talk."

Junior Mentor 1: "What did you say?"

Me: "I don't want to talk about the group meeting."

Junior Mentor 1: "Why don't you want to talk?"

Me: "Why didn't that migrant worker help me open and close the shed?"

Tutor 1: "Shouldn't you take care of your own materials?"

Me: "So you mean this is the material that the students in Professor C's group (my own professor, my university professor) are in charge of, and we don't need to trouble Professor L's group (the migrant worker group here) with their work? If you treat me like an outsider, then why should I talk about Professor L's group meeting?"

Junior Mentor 1: "Fine, fine, you're going to play this trick on me? Let everyone judge tomorrow and see what they think."

Then he stormed off, and round 2 ended.

Five or six minutes later, while I was writing lab notes in my office, he suddenly pushed the door open and started arguing with me.

Junior Mentor 1: "Do you want to work here? If not, get out."

Me: "I'm willing, of course I'm willing to work here. This is my mentor C's (my own mentor) project, and these are my mentor C's materials. Of course I'm willing to work here. I have to help my mentor C do his job well, so that he can't lose face and can produce results."

Junior Mentor 1: "Wrong, this is not Senior Mentor C's material. It's our material, the material from both of our groups."

Me: "Okay, since the materials belong to both of our groups, why can't the migrant workers be allowed to open and close the shed? Obviously, since the materials are shared by both of us, and you're not letting the migrant workers do it, then the problem lies with me, doesn't it? Aren't you treating me like an outsider? Do you think that a student from Professor C's group doesn't deserve to use Professor L's group's valuable human resources? I've been here for so long, a year now, and we've been through a lot together, and in your heart I'm still an outsider, that makes me very sad."

Junior Mentor 1: "Okay, so you're playing this game with me? I had you open and close the shed so you could check on the materials every day."

Me: "If it weren't for the issue of opening and closing the shed, I originally planned to go down to the fields for a walk every two or three days at noon, but I feel that opening and closing the pots is a waste of my time and energy."

Junior Mentor 1: "What time and energy is this wasting on you? Just say you don't want to do it."

Me: "I want to do it, of course I want to do it. Just like you said, this is my material, I will take care of it myself. This is the material of the senior mentor C group, the students of senior mentor C group are in charge, why should we trouble the migrant workers of senior mentor L group? But now I just don't want to talk about the senior mentor L group's group meeting, because I feel like I am being treated like an outsider. You have not accepted me at all, so what's the point of me talking about the group meeting?"

Me: "And didn't I mention the issue of opening and closing the shed to Senior Mentor L in the group meeting? Senior Mentor L assigned it to Junior Mentor 2 to verify, and Junior Mentor 2 also called the migrant worker. But you ended up taking the job back from me."

Junior Mentor 1: "Take it or leave it. If you want to work here, then work. If you don't want to work here, then get out. Don't come to me with your problems, and I won't come to you with mine. Just talk to Senior Mentor C directly. Tell him to hand over the project directly to Senior Mentor L. Don't come to me."

Then he gave a forced smile and stormed off in a huff.

This is the general outline of the process.

(End of this chapter)