After speaking with Winston Robinson, Murphy evaluated his resources.
First, in the wizarding world, the purge of the British Ministry of Magic was essentially complete.
With changes in personnel at key positions, Murphy's control over the British Ministry of Magic had significantly increased, and his people now basically filled the most important departments.
With two forceful organizations: the Auror Headquarters and the Watchers Brigade, led by trustworthy individuals, plus the "Inspection Force's" internal inspection rights, Murphy firmly held the Ministry's officials in his grasp.
He had essentially seized the administrative power of the British wizarding world. The only remaining outlier, the Wizengamot, wouldn't be outside his reach for long.
Secondly, in the Muggle society, Murphy's actions in the Soviet Union had achieved satisfactory results.
The disintegration process of the Soviet Union was forcibly interrupted. Now, with the operations of Ksenia and Valery, along with extensive bribery and control using the anti-aging virus, the turmoil in the Soviet political scene had largely settled down. The two stabilized the situation, regaining control over the nearly collapsed power.
The Soviet Union had weathered its most difficult period, and various affairs were beginning to resume.
Holding power over both a Muggle and a wizarding government, and with potential direct obstructions like Dumbledore pushed to the periphery, Murphy felt the time was ripe for further action.
First, he reaffirmed his goals.
He aimed to study magic scientifically and advance technology through magic, fostering mutual enhancement and progress, thereby deepening and broadening his understanding of "truth."
For this purpose, he planned to establish a national-level research base in the Soviet Union, replicating a larger magic research center based on the model of the Magical Research Institute.
Murphy envisioned this research base gathering the Soviet Union's top scientists from various fields, focusing their efforts on advancing magical research on a scale far surpassing the Manhattan Project.
Such a high-profile initiative would inevitably attract attention, making magic gradually exposed to the eyes of major Muggle governments as an open secret.
This openness, while still a step away from fully revealing magic to the general public, was much broader than the current situation where only national leaders knew of the wizarding world's existence.
Undoubtedly, this would be a significant breach of the Statute of Secrecy, likely causing opposition and suppression from magical governments worldwide.
However, the Soviet Union was a relatively closed country, and Arkaim was somewhat detached from other countries' wizards, making it difficult for them to influence the Soviet Union and Arkaim.
On another front, he planned to expand the base of the Magical Research Institute, continuing to build several large magical research institutions in Britain under the guise of the Umbrella Corporation.
However, his control over British Muggle society wasn't sufficient yet, so this effort couldn't be made public and would have to proceed under various nominal guises like "Biotechnology Research Center" and "Semiconductor Research Development Center."
Looking further into the future, to reduce resistance to his actions, he wanted to gradually increase his infiltration into British Muggle society.
Given Britain's decentralized political power, it would be difficult to control the entire country by replacing just one or two individuals. He had to proceed slowly.
He planned to specially train a group of Muggle-born wizards to reacclimatize them to Muggle society and, after training, deploy them into the Muggle government.
He also intended to seek Muggle collaborators and proxies through ordinary means, under the guise of the Umbrella identity.
Thinking this, he realized it had been a while since he last contacted Patrick.
...
Lakeside villa, Murphy met Patrick again.
The latter was playing football with his son on the lawn when he noticed someone waving from beside the trees.
After handing his son over to the nanny, Patrick approached the tree line, "Murphy! It's really you!"
"Patrick, long time no see," Murphy smiled.
"Indeed, a whole year. If it weren't for Laura showing me footage of your occasional visits to the institute, I'd have thought they'd killed you," Patrick joked. "Heard you went to the wizarding world looking for a cure for yourself, did you find it?"
"I did," Murphy didn't elaborate, "How have you been?"
"Me? Better than ever. Little Ares can talk now, though a bit unclearly, but that's the fun part. Oh, I suspect Ares might have become a wizard."
"Really?" Murphy was surprised.
Little Ares was once a purely Muggle child, but last year, he and Patrick were bitten by a werewolf. Though they avoided death from transformation failure through a magical potion, they couldn't reverse the werewolf transformation process, turning both Patrick and Ares into werewolves.
To suppress the full moon's frenzy, the Magical Research Institute developed an enhanced Wolfsbane Potion for them, effective for a year, making them almost indistinguishable from normal people.
Typically, Muggle-turned-werewolves have very low magical levels, like Patrick, who, apart from becoming younger and stronger through werewolf transformation, didn't show any wizarding abilities.
But Ares exhibited magical phenomena?
"Maybe. One day, Audrey was changing Ares's diaper, and he didn't like it, started running away— you know, typical two-year-old mischief—just as Audrey was about to catch him, he vanished and then appeared at the top of the stairs on the second floor, scaring Audrey to death."
"Since then, odd things have been happening around him, like jam-covered handprints on the ceiling, broccoli disappearing from his plate... The nanny swears she once saw Ares sleeping mid-air..."
Murphy nodded, "Uncontrolled magic manifestations, and quite early at that... Ares might really be a wizard."
Interesting.
The chance of Ares being a wizard was minimal, the trigger for his wizarding abilities was probably the werewolf virus and the magical potion.
Perhaps, infection with the werewolf virus in childhood could activate Muggle magical potential?
If this wasn't a fluke, could all Muggle children potentially become wizards through a similar method?
"Bring Ares to the institute for some tests when you have time," Murphy suggested.
Additionally, Hogwarts' acceptance letter could also be a verification method. If Ares's name is written in the acceptance letter, it means his magical level has been recognized by the book, meeting the standards for entering Hogwarts—essentially, on par with ordinary wizard children.
"Alright," Patrick was already considering this, "But you didn't come here just to talk about this, did you?"
"Oh, right!" Ares's situation was a surprise, almost making him forget the main issue, "I came to ask, how would you feel about entering politics?"
___________________
(Support with power stones, comments or reviews)
If you guys enjoy this story, In support me on Patreon and get access to +200 advance Chapters
Read Ahead
Patreon.com/INNIT