Mysterious Journey
Chapter 1309: The Magical City and the Magic Net
The competition of magic families in the industrialized market is clearly a signal.
This not only means it's profitable, but more importantly, it represents the position of the ancient pure-blood family camp.
The Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards may be able to punish a wizard who crosses the line, but in this kind of layout involving family continuation, if the International Confederation of Wizards forcibly intervenes and interrupts, then even before external forces can retaliate, the International Confederation of Wizards itself and the Ministry of Magic will split into several factions.
On the bright side, the magic world has truly begun to enter the era of the "Magical Industrial Revolution," and the market has become extraordinarily active.
However, from a slightly worrying perspective, the magic world's consumer market is too small...
Major magic families can easily realize that with such a small number of wizards, it is difficult to unleash the potential of their invested magic industries.
Even without Hermione's push, that invisible hand is actively pushing the pure-blood wizards to pursue larger markets, just like the British Empire that began to spread from the British Isles to the world's oceans centuries ago, magic industrial products are permeating the non-magic world at a rate faster than plague.
The International Confederation of Wizards originally thought this would seriously disrupt the world's structure, instantly exposing magic to the non-magic world's view.
But the reality is far better than they thought, Muggles simply don't realize the strangeness of those "high-quality" products.
Especially when the Gringotts goblins serve as publicity consultants, this risk is reduced to almost the lowest point—
...in a way that the gentlemen of the International Confederation of Wizards cannot understand.
"Magical energy potion inspired by the herbal archaeological literature of ancient Anglo-Saxon wizards."
"New high-molecular, magically rotating multi-space care wings."
"Awaken the midnight lion's spear, try the dragon blood coating!"
Such advertising slogans, as well as a little bit of exclusive patent application documents, and the goblins' incredibly resourceful lobbying helpers.
In this era where everything seems to be accelerating, no one finds anything strange about these novel products.
On the contrary, countless capitalists and bankers are waving pounds and wanting to join the game—perhaps they can't get the production line, but they at least have first-level agency rights, second-level agency rights, township resale authorizations, linkage rights, etc... and more importantly, for the increasingly depressed and declining British government, this suddenly rising new generation of enterprises is simply a dream-come-true stimulant, which can directly save British society from the Great Depression.
And as the British magic families actively began to move in, the various magic families within Europe also began to move...
There are certainly still those who are old-fashioned and stubborn, but most of those magic families are like the Gaunt family, and will likely become completely history in the foreseeable future.
Those who want to continue to exist in the next few decades, or even centuries, have only one way:
Imitate other magic families and participate in the competition for the "cake" of magic industry as soon as possible.
Otherwise, when this cake is divided, those who don't enter the field will only be submerged by history.
Thanks to the recent restructuring and innovation of Gringotts Wizarding Bank, the Ministry of Magic now has an important source of income called "tax revenue". When Cornelius Fudge and others learned the approximate figures of the new tax revenue for the next month from the Ministry of Magic's tax bureau, most of the opposition and concerns disappeared—even if those taxes didn't directly enter their personal vaults, according to the goblin commissioner, as senior officials of the Ministry of Magic, they could freely dispose of these fortunes.
Obviously, slightly increasing personal office and living expenses in terms of administrative expenses is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
As for the concept of abuse of power and tax corruption, neither the public nor the officials in the magic world have formed it yet.
In addition, people are finally beginning to figure out how many "half-human" and "non-human" wizard groups exist in the magic world.
Lockhart's speech ignited the wizards' awareness of equality, and protest crowds gathered in front of the Ministry of Magic every morning.
At first, only "Mudblood wizards" and "half-blood wizards" gathered to protest.
Gradually, the protest team added "half-goblin wizards", "half-elf wizards", "half-Veela wizards" and other "mixed-race" wizards.
And after a week, "short male wizards", "flat-chested female wizards", "wizards with freckles"... all kinds of wizard groups who were classified by society and others because of certain characteristics gathered together, hoping to seek corresponding rights from the Ministry of Magic and end the persecution and discrimination of others against them. They blocked the entrance of the Ministry of Magic in groups, holding signs and blocking every Ministry of Magic employee who came out of the fireplace, elaborating their respective viewpoints.
Cornelius Fudge angrily and violently issued arrest warrants and deportation orders, trying to scare away those wizards who came to make trouble.
But Lockhart's imprisonment seemed to have become some kind of honor, and those protesters scrambled to provoke Aurors, taking pride in being the first to be deported and imprisoned.
The Ministry of Magic even arrested more than thirty wizards who came to march at the same time, but when these people walked out of the Ministry of Magic gate, they became heroes, or small leaders, of the marchers waiting outside, and used it as a topic to call on others to fight against the Ministry of Magic.
After pulling and tugging for more than half a month, the Ministry of Magic finally had to choose to give up, and let the protesting crowds gather in front of the Ministry of Magic every day.
In fact, except for the Aurors in the Auror Office, most of the Ministry of Magic employees did not recommend the Ministry to use violent expulsion or arrest those marchers.
Unlike the non-magic world, the worst thing that every wizard who arrives at the Ministry of Magic can do is release a small firework, uh, the kind that can kill people.
Perhaps the status of half-blood wizards in the magic world is not high, but it is undeniable that most "half-bloods"—no matter what kind of blood they are mixed with—are definitely above the average in terms of pure magic combat power. If they are really provoked, these marchers can break through the Ministry of Magic several times a day.
Ludo Bagman felt this deeply. He was beaten down by the husband of a half-blood Siren because he took a few more glances at her on the way to work.
However, even the most radical half-blood march protests are nothing compared to the massive actions of the Squib groups.
…………
The Ministry of Magic has never counted the number of Squibs, as if they never existed in the magic world.
But this doesn't mean they have really disappeared from this world, owl messengers will still faithfully serve them.
Just like Mr. Filch and Mrs. Figg, many people hide in the corners, paying attention to every move in the magic world all the time.
As time goes by, the news that Argus Filch controls magic spread quickly.
Hogwarts and Filch have become the most frequently mentioned words in Squibs' letters, and also the highest frequency recipients.
Considering Mr. Filch's work, Hermione specially arranged a house-elf to automatically reply to those letters.
The reply content is very simple:
"Hogwarts Castle is covered by the magic network, which allows magic power blockers to connect to the Internet and release magic."
"Hogwarts welcomes inquiries to come and experience it at any time—of course, round-trip tickets, travel expenses, and other necessary items are not reimbursed."
At first, many people thought this was just a bad joke, or Filch's personal lucky miracle.
After all, in the magic world's cognition, the recovery of Squibs' spellcasting is just a legend like a mirror flower and water moon, and such a thing has never happened in thousands of years.
But when more and more Squibs arrived at Hogwarts, this legend truly turned into reality and descended on this world.
This made all the Squibs in the UK, no, it should be said all the Squibs in Europe and even the world, fall into fanaticism.
Thousands of Squibs used various methods to connect, they gathered at the door of Ollivanders Wand Shop to buy wands, they gathered at Flourish and Blotts to buy all kinds of magic books, they poured from one end of Diagon Alley to the other like locusts, frantically purchasing everything that Hogwarts students would use.
King's Cross Station ushered in the largest wave of passenger flow this year, and people pushed trolleys excitedly through Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
The Hogwarts Express has unprecedentedly increased its number of trips, and new "older students" arrive at the station in Hogsmeade Village every day.
Of course, Hogwarts did not recognize the official student status of these special students.
In the school's records, they are just ordinary visitors temporarily staying in Hogsmeade Village.
Hogsmeade Village obviously cannot accommodate so many tourists, but if you add the outer area of the "Academic City Research Institute", let alone a few thousand people, even tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of permanent residents are possible—when Hermione first planned it, that area was originally planned according to the specifications of a large city. Taking this opportunity to expand it and improve the residential areas that have not been built is also very easy... especially in the magic world, civil engineering is too simple.
The off-campus practice site for Transfiguration class and Charms class has now been found. Whenever it is time for advanced courses, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick will occasionally lead the students to help build houses outside the castle. This can be said to be one of the most important and most basic life skills of an adult wizard.
At the same time, those "Squibs" who are temporarily staying around Hogwarts are also waving their wands and jointly participating in the magic construction.
They tirelessly directed the furniture to fly around, decorated the houses, and changed the color of the walls with the sky, just like first-year freshmen, excitedly and excitedly tasting the rhythm of each magic. With Hogwarts Castle as the center, a magic city is spreading at an unprecedented speed, and at the same time, the coverage of the Hogwarts magic network is also expanding—the magic web is constantly extending out of the castle as the number of wizards increases.
This was something Hermione hadn't expected before: when a wizard connects to the network and builds a magic hut, the strength and stability of the magic web will also increase.
If the signal network in the non-magic world comes from the diffusion of base stations, then in the magic world, each wizard is a mobile base station.
With the "Squibs", oh, people don't call them "Squibs" now, Squibs have a new name; "Magic Web Wizards".
As the number of magic web wizards increases, the management pressure around Hogwarts suddenly increases.
The Ministry of Magic had to form a separate working group to coordinate affairs here, or the managers of this temporary settlement.
Dolores Umbridge wanted to recommend herself, but in everyone's opinion, there was obviously another more suitable former Ministry of Magic official.
"Oh, wait—I don't manage so..."
Rufus Scrimgeour looked at Madam Bones standing in front of him, at a loss.
After discussions between the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, he was elected as the first mayor of "Academic City".
Those retired and resigned Ministry of Magic employees also gathered here to assist Scrimgeour in jointly managing and coordinating surrounding work.
Of course, the most important thing is to let those "magic web wizards" understand how to use magic safely and restrainedly, instead of causing trouble all day long like children who have just obtained new toys—as the former Director of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour obviously has considerable convincing ability and prestige in this regard.
And the work scope of Filch, the first "magic web wizard" of this century, has also expanded from Hogwarts Castle to the surrounding area of Hogwarts.
Now he not only has to manage the daily behavior of the school children, but also is responsible for managing the daily security of the surrounding "magic web" area.
Many people originally thought that Filch's bad temper would make everyone unbearable.
But to everyone's surprise, since Filch picked up the wand, he didn't seem as annoying as before.
Argus Filch still hates those troublemakers who arbitrarily break the rules, but he doesn't sulk and nag like in the past. Instead, he calmly took out his wand to cast a counter-spell, and then recited a certain regulation with ease, and made a corresponding punishment. The magic web wizards have now replaced the students as the focus of his jurisdiction, and the only final power Filch has is: he can submit a report and forcibly "disconnect" a violator.
In fact, this kind of disconnection punishment is not only useful for magic web wizards, but also has a considerable deterrent effect in the Hogwarts campus.
Hogwarts students can now connect to the Internet—not only the magic web, but also "local area networks" and "the Internet".
Arkhipovna's leading research project has made a breakthrough. After the magic energy conversion was successful, the ternary magic computer was also quickly implemented.
On the other hand, those scholars that the Black Wizard previously invited from the United States also exerted their huge potential as Hermione thought.
Different from the non-magic world's technological process that Hermione knows, in this world, the "World Wide Web" was first born in the magic world.
The ternary magic computer has become the cornerstone of Hogwarts computer science, and has quietly integrated into the Muggle world—the models and ideas of the former Soviet scholars are not wrong. In terms of pure algorithm, the ternary computer is indeed superior to the binary computer. Therefore, Hogwarts students can safely and freely browse the immature network of the non-magic world outside, without worrying that the other party can reversely enter Hogwarts' own network world along the network.
This is also the reason why the International Confederation of Wizards reluctantly agreed: even in the network world, wizards still have a solid barrier.
However, the International Confederation of Wizards additionally put forward a request, they hope that the professors of Hogwarts can assist in supervising those students who are cruising on the "Internet", after all, the "core host" of the magic network exists in Hogwarts Castle.
And as a matter of course, this has become one of the few extra tasks for Hermione and others.
As prefects, they are now also responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the magic web...