Murphy chuckled, "If one cannot trust themselves, how can they make others believe in them?"
After saying that, he looked towards the empress, "Speaking of which, is this the 'condition' you've decided on? Just to accompany you for a walk here?"
"In fact, I'd like to visit Britain. I've never been there. Since birth, I have never left the land of Russia and have had to stay in Arkaim for most of the time. You mentioned that the scenery there is nice, and I do want to see it, but... unfortunately, it seems both you and I hardly have such leisure time."
Sophia appeared somewhat melancholy.
She had grown a bit since Murphy first met her, shedding some of her youthful naivety for a softer, more beautiful appearance.
However, along with that hint of greenness, some of the girl's light-heartedness and vigor seemed to have left too. The current Sophia looked as though she was shouldering a great deal, even her smiles seemed a bit weary.
Perhaps, this was the price of growing up.
Murphy thought for a moment, then took out a black feather from behind and handed it to the empress, "Speaking of which, I've never given you any gift before. Let this feather be my gift to you."
The empress looked at him in surprise, "This is really a gift lighter than a feather. At least when you proposed marriage before, you gave me a piece of gold that was said to have an extraordinary origin. Are you now not even willing to give a piece of gold?"
Murphy felt somewhat embarrassed.
The so-called "extraordinary origin" was just something he had made up on the spot, not expecting her to remember it, let alone hold it to heart.
"Cough cough, this is not an ordinary feather. It can bring you to my side at any time," Murphy explained.
He could now easily teleport through crows, and others could also move along with his crows. This feather was actually from a lightning crow.
Sophia looked up at him, blinking, "To your side at any time?"
"Uh..." Murphy suddenly realized how ambiguous his words sounded, "I mean, if you want to tour Britain, you can go there anytime through it, and I can welcome you anytime."
Sophia looked at him for a while longer, until he began to doubt if his gift was too casual, before she finally nodded lightly, "Thank you for your gift, Mr. Darkholme, I will cherish it."
"Good." Murphy sighed in relief, "Well, if there's nothing else, I should leave now. There are some matters to attend to at the national laboratory."
"Please do as you wish."
Murphy disappeared with a flash of lightning.
Sophia stood there for a while longer before taking out the feather. She caressed the short black feather, realizing for the first time how beautiful a crow's feather could be.
Let the craftsmen make it into a brooch, she thought.
That way, she could always carry it with her.
...
Murphy's choice to focus on Russia is now fully showing its advantages.
After half a year of purging and reorganization, the obstructive factors have been mostly cleared away. Compared to Britain, which is still struggling against the Western world's encirclement, Murphy's operations in Russia are now much more comfortable.
Not only are all of Umbrella Corporation's projects green-lit, but Murphy's pet project, the national laboratory plan, has also begun to get on track, even bigger in scale than he originally imagined.
Under a strong propaganda campaign, Russia unified the perception of the necessity of the national laboratory, supported by the government, with companies like Umbrella contributing money and technology, "The Russian National High-Tech City" plan was officially launched.
Russia specifically established a project engineering department for this purpose, allocating 30,000 hectares of land in the suburbs of Moscow, planning to build a city of science from scratch.
This is an upgraded version of Murphy's "national laboratory plan." In addition to the national laboratory, the science city will plan for both education and industry, the two ends of technological research and development.
In terms of research talent, several of Russia's top universities lead the way, with almost all key universities in Russia setting up campuses in the science city, combined with corporate industrial parks supported by companies like Umbrella, in hopes of forming a national-led, university-collaborated, industry-research integrated innovation consortium.
While the science city also has various basic scientific research and frontier technology projects, the main part revolves around the study of "void particles."
The project engineering department selected hundreds of top scientists from various fields, showing them the existence of magic.
Almost all scientists eagerly plunged into the research of this unprecedented phenomenon.
Soon, even before the laboratories were constructed, they produced the first batch of research results.
Among them, the most important finding is called: "The Effect of Knowing Magic."
The effect, in summary, is that magic has a self-concealing effect, trying as much as possible not to be discovered by "people who do not know magic really exists."
Researchers designed an experiment where several researchers, who had not yet been exposed to the secret of magic's existence, conducted precision measurements of the conductivity of certain materials in a magical environment.
Then, after informing them of the existence of magic, they conducted the same material conductivity test under the same conditions.
Comparing the two sets of experiments, researchers found that without the knowledge of magic's existence, the material's conductivity measurements were almost consistent with those in non-magical environments, meaning that magic's interference with electricity was very weak.
Once they became aware of the existence of magic, however, the measurement data became extremely unstable, with measurement errors significantly exceeding the reasonable range, indicating a significant magical interference effect.
The effect of knowing magic explains why, in the eyes of most wizards, Muggles foolishly overlook the magic around them.
It also explains why, despite the obvious and widespread interference effects of magic, it has never been discovered in Muggle's basic scientific research.
After all, human scientists have conducted many studies and experiments to verify the consistency of physical laws. If magic merely appeared, it should have been discovered at the micro level long ago.
Holdean's initial explanation for this phenomenon was that magic works through physical laws, that is, magic is built on top of physical reality.
From the perspective of basic physics, whether magic exists or not is consistent.
But now, the effect of knowing suggests, in addition to this, magic also "chooses" its audience.
It exhibits a bizarre characteristic of "knowing makes it exist, not knowing makes it nonexistent."
In other words, even without spells like the "Muggle Repelling Charm," Muggles are naturally less perceptive of magic.
There is not yet a sufficiently authoritative theory to explain this phenomenon, but it has been confirmed by various experiments from multiple parties.
The existence of the effect of knowing has led Murphy to view the "International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy" from a new angle.
He has begun to doubt the purpose of the secrecy law.
Is the secrecy law designed to hide the wizarding world to avoid discovery by Muggles and thereby prevent conflicts, or is it fundamentally intended to hide magic itself, reducing the scope of magic's effects?
If it's the latter, what is the purpose?
This is a question that Murphy cannot figure out just by thinking.
Murphy plans to ask the "International Confederation of Wizards," the creators of the Secrecy Act, as they might have more insight.
Coincidentally, they requested to inquire into the implementation of the Secrecy Act by the British Ministry of Magic, planning to send an investigative team soon.
This would be the sixth time. The first five were declined by Crouch and his colleagues for various reasons. This time, the Confederation's wording was very stern, almost as if a direct refusal would result in immediate conviction.
Following the principle of delaying as much as possible, Murphy gave Crouch a heads-up.
"Let them come."
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