Mysterious Journey
Chapter 897 Sukhoi? Sugoi!
艾琳娜很早就醒了,六年来在孤儿院养成的习惯并没有那么容易褪去.
There was a moment when Erina was still thinking about breakfast, but the steady breathing of Hermione, Hannah, Luna and other girls around her quickly brought her back to reality. She was already a second-year student at Hogwarts.
"Erina? Um... is it dawn yet?"
Luna turned over, muttering sleepily, her eyes tightly closed, not knowing whether she was awake or sleep talking.
"It won't be dawn for a while, you should sleep a little longer..."
Erina reached for the owl alarm clock by the bed and looked at it. 5:30 a.m.
Well, it's very punctual, which is in line with the biological clock she developed when she was a little cook and a big sister in the orphanage.
However, the curfew in the Hogwarts castle corridors will not be lifted until 6:30 a.m. at the earliest. If you are woken up by a bladder urge at this time, the best option is to return to the warm quilt and continue sleeping. But since she was automatically awakened by her biological clock, it would be difficult to fall asleep again, and she didn't intend to tease the sleeping little wings at this time.
In a few hours, they will go to the Quidditch pitch outside.
As the first day of the Quidditch season, two games are scheduled for this morning and afternoon:
The highly anticipated opening game [All-Star Team vs. Gryffindor College Team], and [Madam Malkin's Robes exclusive sponsored Hogwarts New Student Representative Team vs. Hufflepuff College Team], all the girls who "served" last night will play today.
Of course, before the game starts, Erina will also appear on the field.
At her suggestion, starting from this semester, the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup has added a trophy display ceremony - but the Quidditch trophy will still be temporarily placed with the winning team from last year until the week before the final.
On the other hand, as the head coach of the Gryffindor team, she has to go to the pitch for pre-match mobilization after breakfast.
Compared to the previous competitions limited to the school, starting this year, the Hogwarts Quidditch game has released a few "audience tickets" to the magical society. Managers of professional teams, Quidditch enthusiasts, cheering squads... all have the opportunity to arrive at Hogwarts to watch the game live, and at the same time enjoy lunch and dinner from different colleges according to the seating area they get.
In this case, Erina has quite high expectations for the opening game.
Obviously, this must be a wonderful, high-level performance with plot reversals.
"Ugh, thinking about it carefully, there are still a lot of things to do today..."
Erina yawned, got up, dressed, skillfully took out the rations from the cage and stuffed them into her chest, opened the door and quietly walked out of the dormitory - if she wanted to think about tactics and deal with news, then she'd better not stay in the room, otherwise a certain little guy with a seriously over-modeled sixth sense would definitely be awakened.
"Lockhart has gone to carry out the verdict? He's a diligent head of the black-robed wizards."
In the common room, the dying fire was lit up by the flame runes. Erina flipped through the action log that Gilderoy Lockhart entrusted the little elf to send her. She had to admit that this "wiB" leader had been performing quite well recently.
Considering Quirrell's loss of magic, Lockhart will accompany him throughout the Hogwarts opening period.
This is both a protection and an insurance measure.
In the crisis deduction of the "Tarot Society", if an outsider sees through Quirrell's state and intends to use magic to spy on the secrets in Quirrell's mind, or even use magic to control him, Lockhart will complete the execution as soon as possible - whether it is directly erasing memories, or modifying memories, these can all be decided on the spot by the wiB chief.
"Hmm, the British Quidditch team will also come... The seats should be scattered, which will help to liven up the atmosphere."
"Ministry of Magic officials? The Gryffindor stands, so the kitchen will have less pressure for lunch and dinner."
"Reporters... It seems that some little elves have to be assigned to keep an eye on them secretly, so as not to let them wander around..."
Erina was processing the files that had piled up yesterday in front of the fireplace, occasionally taking out some snacks from her "almighty chest pads" to satisfy her cravings. Every time she finished writing something, she would directly crumple the parchment into a ball and throw it into the fireplace.
A certain castle manager recently maintained the Hogwarts fireplace LAN.
Now, as long as a fireplace is activated by the rune "kenaz", it will be connected to the Hogwarts kitchen fireplace by default.
Although it cannot directly transport living people like the Floo Network, simple instructions can still be conveyed - as long as Erina attaches magic fire to the parchment ball, it will pass through the flames and appear in front of the "task fireplace" in the kitchen.
A few hours later, sounds gradually appeared in the Hufflepuff common room dormitory corridor.
And Erina had already processed the documents. At this time, she was boredly roasting sweet potatoes in the charcoal fire with fire tongs. She estimated that it was almost time to get up normally, so she gently took a breath and "ate" the swaying fire, holding the sweet potatoes and walking towards the dormitory.
Devouring flames does not satisfy her, it even consumes Erina's magic.
However, it's so cool!
"Get up, lalala, hey, look at my power -"
Erina opened the door and looked at the little wings curled up together and still sleeping in, smiled, directly grabbed a corner of the quilt and lifted it up, and then took advantage of the girls' slow reaction to rush up and provide them with wake-up services one by one.
This is the benefit of waking up early. When they are half asleep, the sleeping wings don't have any strength to resist.
…………
"Erina, you wait, you'll regret it sooner or later!" Hermione shouted, her cheeks flushed.
"Oh, Hermione, I think Erina might be more dangerous when she's confused -"
Luna yawned softly, carrying her flying broom and walking side by side with Hannah in the back.
This afternoon, in the second game of the Quidditch Cup, the New Student team will face off against the Hufflepuff College.
However, Miss Lovegood, who is the Seeker, doesn't think she and Hannah will have too many head-to-head confrontations - in so many long-range sniper training matches before, Hannah has never hit her.
Moreover, more importantly -
"Why are you still using this old broom, Hannah?" Luna curiously glanced at her best friend beside her.
"Erina said that the new broom can only be used in the second round of the round robin -"
Hannah answered somewhat disappointedly, thought for a while, and then added very seriously.
"And, I haven't fully mastered it yet. Although its performance is powerful, it also consumes a lot of physical strength, and it's too dangerous to accidentally crash into other players at full speed... It needs to be debugged and practiced more."
"Another reason is that the product launch hasn't started yet."
Erina explained casually, looked at the list in her hand, and turned her head with a smile.
"After all, they are a commercial brand, and they have signed a confidentiality agreement with the national team. The public appearance of secret weapons will definitely have to wait until the international arena. By the way, Hannah, the national team members who trained together during the summer vacation will also come today."
"Secret weapon? The flying broom you're talking about... can it really fly?"
Hermione raised her eyebrows and suspiciously looked at the three people behind her.
"And I have consulted a lot of literature, and I can't find the predecessor of the company with the strange name you mentioned at all - if it is really a well-known company in the field of flight, then there must be a corresponding source of technology..."
"First of all, its name is not strange at all."
Erina raised a finger and shook it, saying meaningfully in a low voice.
"【sugoi】In the Eastern magic world, it means 'awesome'. Of course, you can't find its related records in the Quidditch literature of the British magic world, but as far as I know, it almost represents the current limit in the sky field. After the test flight is successful, you will know what the meaning of the era-defining flying broom is, after all -"
Erina's lake-blue eyes flashed with excitement, and she shook her head mysteriously without continuing to speak.
If the "Special Effect Cold Potion" is the combination of chemistry, pharmacy and the magic world, then the new version of the flying broom, which is undergoing final parameter adjustments outside the school, can be regarded as the first "magic science" industrial product in modern times.
…………
At the same time, outside Hogwarts, in the research area.
"Oh, come and see her, she's so fascinating..."
Several wizards and former Soviet researchers were lying on the table, stroking a strange "flying broom" that exuded metallic luster and looked like a small missile, as if they were stroking a lover.
If it weren't for the dense broom tails behind it, it would really look like a missile just by looking at its shape.
On a mobile whiteboard not far away, some test parameters are roughly listed.
【sugoi-m-17 (tentative name)】
【Empty weight: 1216 kg】
【Theoretical maximum flight speed: Mach 1.02】
【……】
And further away, Mr. Ognechikha, who is the overall person in charge of this area, is squatting on the ground, discussing some things unrelated to scientific research with several goblins very seriously. Beside them, there are also two Destiny Group wizard employees wearing black trench coats, one is responsible for recording the content of the conversation, and the other is responsible for mediating and answering some questions.
"...Oh, okay, okay -"
Ognechikha scratched his remaining hair irritably and said impatiently.
"The company name is up to you, the taste of naming things in your magic world is too bad, I really don't want to say it, sugoi is sugoi, although it still sounds weird, but it sounds much better than some other Little Flyers and Big Dumbo."
"It's good that you understand, this is also a suitable name we found after a long discussion..."
The goblin specialist smiled and put away the contract in his hand, carefully putting it in his briefcase.
"Out of confidentiality considerations, if we directly use Sukhoi, the risk is still too great, so we chose [sugoi], which has a similar pronunciation and special meaning. In this way, on the one hand, it can be used as a disguise layer for the main body of the company, and on the other hand, it can also make it easier for everyone from the Sukhoi Research Bureau to accept it psychologically..."
"Company names are trivial matters, anyway, we are selling magic brooms, not fighter jets."
Ognechikha waved his hand, frowned, and said in a gruff voice.
"But the unfolding mode and pilot cabin you requested, without a fixed steel frame, it is difficult for me to design it while taking into account aerodynamics. This is simply making blind optimization suggestions - supersonic flight has always been very demanding in terms of aircraft shape and thrust. This is not a matter of sacrificing speed, it will kill people!"
"No, please believe in magic... Mr. Ognechikha, people's physiques are different..."
The senior employee from Destiny smiled and shook his head, glanced at the panel in his hand, and said.
"If the information on my side is correct, you should not have seen wizards riding flying brooms and moving at high speed in the sky, right? It just so happens that there are two Quidditch games at Hogwarts today, and I have two special audience tickets here."
"In terms of dynamic vision, reaction speed, and physical strength, Hogwarts students - especially those who have been selected for the Quidditch teams of various colleges - may not be much worse than the ace pilots you mentioned. And after watching those few games, we hope that you can add limiters to the broom according to the actual situation..."
"Limiters? You wanted supersonic flight before, and now you want to reduce the speed?"
Ognechikha repeated in confusion, staring at the wizard with wide eyes.
As a senior researcher, what he hates most is such demanding parties who change their minds, especially when they have finally debugged a supersonic era-defining product, and the other party actually wants him to change back to the original plan.
"Well, the theoretical upper limit determines how many rounds of iterative products we can release..."
The goblin specialist from Gringotts raised a finger and said in a shrill voice, his face full of cunning shrewdness.
"Whether it is for the market, for people's psychological endurance, or for fairness, we must of course iterate slowly when launching these products, and improve the speed and performance of the brooms wave by wave - this is the only way to have subsequent research and development support. You should be able to understand, right? Besides, we have to divide military and civilian use..."
"So what exactly is the outline concept you mentioned?"
Ognechikha frowned, tapped the shorthand notebook in his hand, and asked in a muffled voice.
"You require us to provide the most streamlined flight structure, and you require us to optimize the broom, but I have to remind you again that even if wizards all stick closely to the broom when flying, there will still be obvious differences..."
"Don't worry, we have a professional team taking over the subsequent magic development..."
The wizard from Destiny Group straightened his back, exchanged a look with the goblin, and said quite confidently.
"In short, please tidy up a little, and then select a researcher, and go with me to watch the Quidditch game next to Hogwarts Castle later... By the way, due to the protective effect of the Muggle Repelling Charm, you may have to sleep for a while when you pass through the castle area, and meals can only be solved in the stands..."
"There are also some corresponding precautions that I will tell you in detail next."
"As for your identity, one of the core researchers of [Sugoi Flying Broom Company], please be sure not to say it wrong, this is very important, because we may be arranged to sit with some Quidditch professional players... Of course, if you have any detailed points that need to be asked, I will relay them as before..."
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Yay!