Chapter 511: The Forsaken
Time never stops because of human hesitation.
Christmas in 1991 has quietly passed.
On this morning at the end of December, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry woke up to a dream of several feet of snow around the castle and a layer of hard ice on the lake and the pools in the courtyard.
On top of that, nearly a third of the owls in the school's owl shed are a bit sluggish, and due to Hogwarts' overall strategy these days, they have to frequently shuttle through the snowy skies to deliver letters.
Under such a high-intensity exchange of letters, several round-faced fat chickens have become sick and can no longer send letters for the time being, and they must recover their strength and health under the care of Hagrid and Elena before they can continue to take off.
Hogwarts was already on holiday, and the castle was half empty in an instant.
With the exception of a small number of students who chose to stay at school for some reason, the vast majority of the young wizards have left school and returned to their respective homes to enjoy a happy and relaxing Christmas holiday with their families.
Of course, Hermione, Luna, Hannah and others were no exception, and when the last class before the holiday was over, Hermione and the others couldn't wait to get on the train, leaving behind the white-haired balls and flying back to their respective homes.
Girls are always more attached to their parents and family than boys, especially the younger they are.
Aside from Elena, Harry and Ron were the only first-year freshmen who signed the list of students who stayed at the school.
Harry didn't want to go back to Privet Road to spend the holidays with his uncle's family, and the reason Ron and his two twin brothers stayed was because the Weasleys were going to Romania to visit Charlie Weasley, who had been worried about the recent instability there, and took the opportunity to visit their second son.
As for Elena's reason for staying, it's even simpler......
As the de facto helmsman of the Manifest Destiny Group, the CEO of the Hogwarts Foundation, and the successor of socialism (Soul Imprint...... She needs to take advantage of this precious time to complete the dissection and planning of the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, which may be the busiest Christmas of her life.
An old era is over, in a hasty form that the vast majority of people did not expect.
Neither the Soviet people nor the Western countries entrenched outside Eurasia were prepared to receive this vast expanse of wealth and resources, and a new era unfolded in a hastily chaotic manner.
Of course, the so-called chaos is limited to people from the non-magical world.
For most wizards living in the wizarding world, the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union have not yet had time to spread into their lives, and for a small number of wizards, they have been preparing for this day for months.
With huge financial backing and foresight, Elena conservatively estimated that she and the entire Destiny Group would be nearly invincible in the former Soviet Union for at least the first week after the collapse of the Soviet Union - the opportunity was fleeting, and when the Americans and Russian oligarchs entered the game, the form was not so rosy.
Rather than the low-hanging fruit of economic gain, Elena immediately set her sights on the most valuable resources of the former Soviet Union, those talents who were about to stop or had been ordered by the Yeltsin government to stop research and cut off from major research institutes.
As the Soviet Union fell apart, a large number of scientific research projects were cut off.
With the exception of a few studies that don't cost much, such as mathematics, the vast majority of researchers have been forced to stop what they are doing and leave their institutes in search of a way out of their personal survival problems β financially troubled governments can no longer afford even the cost of their armies, let alone researchers.
According to incomplete statistics from later countries, more than 80% of scientific researchers were displaced after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and less than 16% of them rediscovered their own fields of study and became precious "experts in the former Soviet Union".
It's not that there aren't smart people in the world who don't understand the importance of researchers.
However, in the context of this era, the term "former Soviet experts" is not the same as "former Soviet scientists", and its more accurate definition should actually be called "former Soviet weapons experts".
No matter what era it is, the experts who conduct weapons research are only a small part of the huge scientific research group of mankind, and it is those who really constitute the cornerstone of human civilization are those who are researchers in basic science and technology and basic theories.
And when these researchers leave the institute, what they have learned all their lives cannot be used as a skill to earn a living.
Therefore, with the exception of a handful of "Soviet experts" who are heavily guarded by governments and closely watched by Western spies, they receive many olive branches from different regions every day.
Many more are carrying suitcases worth tens of millions of dollars worth of research manuscripts to all corners of the continent.
Like most homeless people, he squeezed his head to apply for a job as a security guard in a warehouse, a waiter in a bakery, and an accountant in a foreign shopping mall...... Or they held on to their life's research results and died silently in hunger and cold.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were quickly forgotten by everyone, like bubbles in the sun......
Or, in other words, at a time when it was difficult for most people to survive, this group of scientists was of no longer any value to most of the non-magical worldβharmless and expensive, not even as useful as a veteran of the Great Patriotic War.
And Elena's target is precisely this group of scholars who no one cares about at all.
Weapons, powerful lethal powers, are found in the wizarding world.
What Hogwarts, or the wizarding world, lacked was never a means of fratricidal warfare, but the spark and knowledge that could make the foundations of a civilized world solid and rise quickly.
With the first rays of morning light after Christmas, the employees from Destiny have begun to take action.
If nothing else, by this evening, she will be able to harvest the first list - fishing in troubled waters is always the safest thing to do, and many research institutes were already in a state of semi-paralysis long before the collapse of the Soviet Union was announced.
The power of magic, the knowledge of the unknown world attracts, free room and board......
This is already a very difficult temptation for those scientists who are already at home, even if the negotiation collapses temporarily, after all, the biggest advantage of magical negotiations is that they can flexibly use the Oblivion Charm to roll back.
As long as she has experienced a few more beatings from society, it will not be long before those troubled researchers will understand how difficult it is to refuse the conditions she offers...... In terms of how to play with and grasp people's hearts, Elena, who studied under Grindelwald and Dumbledore, can be said to be almost invincible.
It's just that before that......
Elena also has a small problem to solve.
One, these days, is a question that haunts her from time to time.
The white-haired danzi raised his head, looked at the familiar corridor around him in confusion, and muttered uncertainly.
"Seems like I just walked through here, or is this the same path Hermione took me last week?"
Invincible, she is ...... again and again Lost.
......
And the same with this, the other side.
Russia, Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics.
β...... I refuse! I will not betray my motherland!"
"But the Soviet Union no longer exists, and your research has been halted for a long time......"
"Needless to say, please go back!Wait, what are you going to do?!"
"Sorry...... This is Miss Delissa's request - for the next time the communication is pleasant, and for confidentiality. β
"Forget it!"
As an indifferent voice sounded, the eyes of Mr. Alexey, the deputy director of the research institute, became distracted.
"Another refusal, these Soviet Muggles are really stubborn. β
Kurt Mayer shook his head, put away his wand, and drew a circle on the parchment roll in his hand.
On top of the list in his hand, a long circle had been drawn, all representing Muggle scholars who had directly rejected invitations from the wizarding world, and so far he had not completed a single successful lobbying.
"They're so embarrassed that they've had to sell their watches and medals for potatoes, what are these guys who have been forgotten and abandoned by their own country, government, and even the wizarding world are still clinging to? β
"Okay, let me see...... Who's next......"
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