Chapter 481: Iron Curtain

Harry once again strengthened the idea of cultivating the Wizarding World and trying not to participate directly in Muggle disputes. Moreover, the current wizards are still lingering in the aftermath of the Statute of Secrecy for many years and will not enter the Muggle world blatantly. Even Yanayev, who is at the forefront of challenging the Statute of Secrecy, will symbolically pull a fig leaf of "cutting-edge technology" every time.

Another piece of news that broke out in mid-September well corroborated this point: Yanayev claimed that their scientists had made a major breakthrough in "plasma" and "field generators," and developed an "Iron Curtain System." In a public military exercise, he demonstrated a tank under the protection of the Iron Curtain, which remained unscathed after being covered by large-scale artillery fire, thereby proving the practicality of the Iron Curtain.

Subsequently, quite naturally, he claimed that Iron Curtain generator devices had been deployed in the vast majority of important facilities, especially intercontinental missile silos, ensuring an absolutely reliable second nuclear strike capability. And, although many people speculated that the cost and consumption of the Iron Curtain device would be an astronomical figure, speculation is speculation after all. They dare not guarantee that Yanayev will not use the Iron Curtain to protect armored forces when launching a general attack on Western Europe—after all, the first time he used it to demonstrate the protection function of the Iron Curtain was a T-80 tank that was very likely to appear on the conventional battlefield.

Harry was the second batch to receive this news, and his source of news was the Muggle-world high-level who received this news in the first batch. At this moment, he and Snape were sitting at the conference table in the Minister of Magic's office, and the Prime Minister was sitting in the center of the long table—the position he liked to sit in most when he was Minister.

"Are you sure it's not Muggle technology? You know Muggles can often make some magical things we don't understand," Arthur asked with slight confusion. He had a blind trust in Muggles.

"No, I have already asked the Muggle consultant before I came. He said that it is impossible to make an Iron Curtain with existing materials and energy technology. Even the general principle of the Iron Curtain conflicts with its performance. He thinks Yanayev is just bluffing."

"I think, if we start from the perspective of spell studies, this is not unexplainable," Snape said slowly. "It looks like an enlarged Iron-Armor Charm, plus some other auxiliary spells. I guess it is very likely that they organized a complex ritual, with the main spellcasting personnel responsible for enlarging the Iron-Armor Charm, and auxiliary personnel adding colors for identification, and trying to block things that the Iron-Armor Charm cannot defend against, such as heat, light effects, etc."

"So, you all think the Iron Curtain is feasible?" The Prime Minister said with some trepidation. "Large-scale ritual magic, if they can do it, can we do it too?"

"I'm afraid not, Prime Minister," Snape replied. "The research on ritual magic in the country is still too crude."

"Eh, that's true too," the Prime Minister sighed, but he quickly changed his thinking. "Then we can still start from the perspective of energy. Can we estimate and evaluate how many wizards they need to start an Iron Curtain once?"

Arthur's expression was very difficult. He said stutteringly: "Does the Ministry of Magic have wizards who do this kind of thing? Which department should I let do this?"

Harry felt that the Department of Mysteries should be able to spare time to do an evaluation and analysis, but clearly, the Department of Mysteries was not under the Minister's control.

"If not, then establish a department," the Prime Minister said with some dissatisfaction. "There will be many such things in the future. Yanayev will not stay in place waiting for you to get the hang of it. I need a Muggle Technology Office—no, what I need is a new department, just call it the Magical Technology Supervision Department, including the Pseudoscience Evaluation Office, the Reverse Engineering Office, the Strategic Countermeasure Office, and the Special Enforcement Division of the Statute of Secrecy. In the future, when encountering things like the Iron Curtain, I need the Ministry of Magic to evaluate for me whether they used magic, what magic they used, whether we can replicate it, and give response and countermeasure plans as soon as possible upon receiving the report. At the same time, this department also needs to actively help us research similar technologies, and needs a group of agents to clean up magical traces in our technological achievements."

Saying this long string of words, he was definitely not acting on a whim. Harry believed that the Prime Minister must have come prepared. For a time, the entire conference room fell into silence, leaving only the rustling sound of the shorthand quill.

"And," the Prime Minister added again, "I think it is necessary to add some Muggle technology experts to this department, both to assist in analysis and to carry out some of our attempts."

"This is absolutely impossible!" Lu Xiusi, who had been silent, suddenly showed an extremely strong attitude. "We also have wizards who are proficient in Muggle knowledge, more proficient than most Muggles—I recommend Donna Noble to serve as the Minister of this new department."

"Donna needs to spend more time on technical research, especially the development and research of Glintstone magic. This is definitely a project with great value that cannot be easily stopped. If there are no accidents, high-power Glintstone magic can penetrate the Iron Curtain," Snape immediately suppressed Lu Xiusi. "I need the Department of Mysteries to give her more resource inclination, including increasing funding and expanding researchers."

"Vice Minister, if this is the case, it is a better choice for Donna to serve in the Magical Technology Supervision Department. You must know that the place of the Department of Mysteries was not very large in the first place, and her project is now about to occupy all the offices," Lu Xiusi said smoothly, and his actual purpose might be to send away this great god in the Department of Mysteries whom he could not command.

However, his words also reminded Arthur that the Ministry of Magic had never considered expansion from the beginning of its design, which could just be used to refute and prevent the Prime Minister from inserting people here.

"Yes, Prime Minister, the venue issue is also a very troublesome problem. You proposed to establish a new department, but we don't have enough space to set up new offices, laboratories, etc.," Arthur pretended to be difficult, but actually said with relief, "From your expectations for this, uh, Magical Technology Supervision Department, it might occupy a very large area, larger than any current department. After all, it might be necessary to research some large Muggle artifacts here in the future."

The Prime Minister was convinced by this reason. He frowned and began to ponder, then raised his head again and said: "If it is as just mentioned, Glintstone magic is the most promising countermeasure to break through the Iron Curtain system, then regardless of whether Ms. Noble serves as the leader of the new department, we must provide her with more resource inclination."

"In this case, there is a win-win method," the Prime Minister touched his chin and said, "Directly open a, uh, Glintstone Magic Research Institute or something, also not right. My Magical Technology Supervision Department still needs to help the cabinet respond quickly to technological breakthroughs in other countries, and it is not good to be limited to Glintstone magic."

"If we open a Magical Technology Research Institute? We can also transfer the Doctor project over, do multiple projects in parallel, and the Department of Mysteries can focus on the Soul Magic project," Lu Xiusi suggested, and the joy of being able to send away another thorn in his tone was almost hidden.

"But I also hope that researchers can communicate with Muggle professors appropriately and develop our own super weapons," the Prime Minister said with some regret. "We cannot always respond to others, we must also have breakthroughs ourselves."

Harry felt as if he had some inspiration, but he couldn't quite grasp it, so he whispered an inspiration spell. Then, he immediately raised his hand happily and shouted: "Prime Minister, why don't we open a university?"

In the shocked eyes of everyone, Harry quickly said the first powerful and irrefutable reason: "Because as everyone knows, the Magical Congress has already built Miskatonic University, and it looks like the effect is good."

"Naturally, a magical university can naturally carry out research on various cutting-edge magical technology projects at ordinary times. And when you need to respond to foreign pseudoscience concepts, you can also quickly draw experts in corresponding fields from Muggle universities and magical universities to form academic conferences to evaluate and respond to their technology. Of course, what needs to be drawn are those Muggle professors who know the existence of the Wizarding World, or even if he doesn't know, he will get familiar with it after a few times. Next, they can carry out various research projects combining magic and technology under the excuse of inter-university cooperation. And this set of actions can be limited to a small range. For most people who don't know the existence of the Wizarding World, we can also achieve good confidentiality and concealment with the saying of cutting-edge science."

Harry finished the great significance of a magical university to the Ministry of Magic and the cabinet in one breath, and what he didn't say was that the existence of this university could further solve the problems of the Wizarding World and those around him. The first and foremost is—Hemin wants to go to university but has nowhere to go, and he himself doesn't want to obtain a bureaucratic status so quickly.

In fact, Arthur and Daji both expressed rejection of the bureaucratic status in the Muggle world, and even Harry himself was somewhat resistant to the bureaucratic status in the Wizarding World. The reason is that entering the Muggle world as an official will inevitably lead to too much intervention by wizards in Muggle affairs, and even a change of stance, just like Jim Hacker became less and less inclined toward the Ministry of Magic after becoming Prime Minister. And based on the status quo that the vast majority of wizards are unwilling to intervene in the Muggle world, Harry believes that the Wizarding World should stand on the status quo and concentrate efforts on developing deeper magical theories as a better plan. Muggle technology can be used as inspiration and reference, but cannot be used as a foundation and lead.

Harry relatively approved of Tang Nade using the inspiration of wifi to develop remote energy injection rituals, or referring to optical principles to make the Focusing Rainbow, but did not agree with Yanayev using large Iron-Armor Charms to protect nuclear missile silos. Because the former can be seen as the development and progress of technology, while the latter is just simply using the power of wizards on the Muggle battlefield. ===== CHAPTER 482 =====