Chapter 290

After talking with Winston Robinson, Murphy took stock of the power currently at his disposal.

First, regarding the wizarding world, the purge of the British Ministry of Magic was basically complete.

Through personnel changes in key positions, Murphy's control over the British Ministry of Magic had increased significantly, and the most important departments were now basically staffed by his people.

As for the two violent institutions—the Auror Command and the Watcher Force—they were both led by trustworthy people, and with the internal inspection power of the "Inspection Force," Murphy had firmly held the officials at all levels of the Ministry in his palm.

It could be said that he had basically mastered the administrative power of the British wizarding world. The only thing left was the "Wizengamot," the wizarding parliament, which was still floating outside Murphy's power map, but it wouldn't be floating for much longer.

Secondly, in the Muggle society, Murphy's actions against the Soviet Union had achieved good results.

The disintegration process of the Soviet Union had been forcibly cut off. Now, under the operations of Qin Yeli and Valery, as well as the bribery and control of a large amount of anti-aging viruses, the turmoil in the Soviet political arena had basically ended. The two had stabilized the situation and had regained the power that was on the verge of collapse.

The Soviet Union had passed its most difficult period, and affairs in all aspects had begun to operate again.

Holding a Muggle regime and a wizarding regime in his hands, and now that Dumbledore and other figures who could directly check him had been squeezed to the periphery, Murphy felt that the time was ripe to take further action.

First, he clarified his goals again.

What he wanted was to study magic in a scientific way, and at the same time, he wanted to promote the progress of science and technology through magic, so that the two would complement and promote each other, thereby pushing his cognition of "truth" into a deeper and broader field.

To this end, he prepared to establish a national-level research base in the Soviet Union, using the Magic Research Institute as a blueprint to replicate a larger center for magic research.

According to Murphy's vision, this research base would gather the top scientists in various fields from the Soviet Union, concentrate their strength, and promote the study of magic on a scale far exceeding the atomic energy project.

This level of action was bound to be difficult to hide completely, so once the plan started, it would attract prying eyes from all sides, and magic would gradually be exposed to the eyes of major Muggle governments, becoming an open secret.

This kind of openness was still some distance away from fully disclosing the existence of magic to the general public, but it was much broader than the scope of openness where only national leaders knew about the existence of the magic world.

Undoubtedly, this was a great destruction of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and was bound to arouse opposition and suppression from the Ministries of Magic of various countries.

Fortunately, the Soviet Union was a relatively closed country, and Arkaim was also somewhat disconnected from the wizards of other countries, making it difficult for them to influence the Soviet Union and Arkaim.

On the other hand, he wanted to expand the Magic Research Institute as his base, and continue to build several large-scale magic research institutions in the UK relying on the Umbrella Corporation.

However, his control over the British Muggle society was not enough, so this matter could not be put on the table and still had to be carried out under various superficial names such as "Biotech R&D Center" and "Semiconductor R&D Center."

Looking to the longer-term future, in order to reduce resistance to his actions, he also wanted to gradually promote infiltration into the British Muggle society.

Compared to the Soviet Union, political power in the UK was dispersed, making it difficult to achieve the goal of controlling the entire country by replacing one or two people; he had to take it slow.

He prepared to specially cultivate a group of Muggle-born wizards in the near future, let them re-adapt to Muggle society, and after training, send them into the Muggle government.

At the same time, he also planned to use ordinary means to seek Muggle collaborators and find agents under the identity of Umbrella.

Thinking of this, he suddenly realized that he hadn't contacted Patrick for a long time.

At the lakeside villa, Murphy met Patrick again.

The latter was playing football on the lawn with his son when he turned his head and saw someone waving at him from beside the woods.

He handed the child to the nanny to look after and came to the side of the woods. "Murphy! It really is you!"

"Patrick, long time no see." Murphy smiled.

"It has been a long time, a whole year. If Laura and the others hadn't shown me the surveillance of you occasionally returning to the institute, I would have thought they had murdered you." Patrick joked. "I heard you went to the magic world to find a way to cure yourself. Did you find it?"

"I found it," Murphy said without saying much. "How have you been lately?"

"Me? Of course, I couldn't be better. Little Ares can already speak, although he's a bit slurred, but that's exactly what's interesting about it. Oh, by the way, I suspect Ares might have become a wizard."

"Hmm?" Murphy was startled. "Really?"

Little Ares was once a perfectly pure Muggle human child, but last year he and Patrick were bitten by a werewolf. Although they finally avoided death from a failed transformation through magic potions, there was no way to reverse the werewolf transformation process, resulting in both Patrick and little Ares becoming werewolves.

In order to suppress the madness during the full moon, the Magic Research Institute developed an enhanced version of Wolfsbane Potion for them. One injection could last for a year, making them no different from ordinary people.

Generally, the magic level of werewolves transformed from Muggles was very low. Like Patrick, apart from becoming younger and stronger due to the werewolf transformation, he did not show any wizarding abilities.

But, did little Ares actually show signs of magic?

"It's possible. That day Audrey was changing Ares's diaper, and he wasn't happy, so he ran away—you know, a two-year-old boy, very naughty—and just when Audrey was about to catch him, he suddenly disappeared and then appeared on the stairs on the second floor. It scared Audrey to death at the time."

"Since then, some strange things have often happened around him, such as handprints covered in jam on the ceiling, broccoli suddenly disappearing from his plate... The nanny swore that she once saw Ares sleeping in mid-air..."

Murphy nodded. "Magic runaway phenomenon, and it appeared quite early... Ares might really be a wizard."

Interesting.

The possibility of Ares himself being a wizard was extremely small; the opportunity that led to his wizarding abilities was likely the werewolf virus and the magic potion.

Perhaps, being infected with the werewolf virus at a young age could stimulate a Muggle's magical potential?

If this was not a coincidence, then could all Muggle children become wizards through similar means?

"If you have time, bring Ares to the institute for some check-ups," Murphy said.

Besides, the Book of Admittance at Hogwarts was also a means of verification. If Ares's name was written into the Book of Admittance, it meant that his magic level had been recognized by the Book of Admittance and met the standard for entering Hogwarts to study—that is, the same as ordinary wizarding children.

"Okay." Patrick also had this idea. "But you didn't come here today just to talk about this, did you?"

"Oh, right!" Ares's matter was a bit of a surprise, almost making him forget the main business. "I came to ask you, do you want to go into politics?"

(End of chapter)