Page 357
The elderly are concerned about their health and have not yet taken off their down jackets, while the young and beautiful boys and girls can't wait to put on cool clothes and show off on the streets.
All this has nothing to do with Zhang Mu.
For three months, he turned into a complete stay-at-home, staying in his workshop, busy building his own "army" of puppets.
The reason why it took so long was not because there were a large number of puppets, but mainly because the two puppets, "Xuxianren" and "Dumbledore", occupied most of the energy.
After Zhang Mu acquired the Puppet Technique, he never considered using it in combat, so he did not conduct in-depth research and did not invest resources in rapid upgrades.
It was not a big deal at first.
Lan Xing had no idea about the extraordinary, so he could just use some low-level puppets to deal with it, and any abnormalities would not be easily detected.
But when it came to making high-level puppets, Zhang Mu discovered how difficult it was.
The key lies in depicting the miniature magic circle.
Carving magic circles, especially miniature ones, requires very steady hands.
Perhaps most people have not noticed that their hands are actually shaking slightly all the time, and they need to concentrate and stare to detect it.
This little vibration certainly does not affect daily life, but it can be fatal if you want to perform delicate operations.
For example, there are often related promotional videos about the surgeon - the doctor does not puncture the egg membrane but peels off the eggshell completely.
It was even more difficult for Zhang Mu to carve out a magic circle.
In three months, students, parents, teachers, etc., only take up one-third of the time, and the remaining two months are spent on the magic circle.
During this period, he also took time to go to the Thor Continent to obtain the Knight's Law.
The construction of China's spacecraft has already started. With China's construction speed, and the help provided by Zhang Mu in the name of the mountain gate, the completion date will not be too far away.
In order to ensure that he could fly in person on the day the spaceship took off, he had to take time out of his already tight schedule to practice knighthood.
With the help of a steady supply of medicines, progress is quite rapid. Zhang Mu estimates that based on the current speed, he should be able to catch up with the completion of the spacecraft.
"Finally done." He straightened up, twisted his neck, then picked up the core on the lathe, turned and walked towards the "Asahisenjin" doll placed in the corner.
There was a square inspection door on the puppet's chest. Zhang Mu reached into the door, installed the core, and closed the side opening.
With his hands on his hips, he glanced at the puppets neatly arranged against the wall: "That's about it. Hmm... go see how the Queen is preparing. If she's not ready yet, I'll have to urge her."
After putting all the puppets into the "world", Zhang Mu disappeared from the spot.
…………
The palace of King Ying.
The Queen is having lunch.
She seemed very busy, even violating her own principle of "eating, not working". She forked the sliced steak into her mouth, staring at the documents spread out on the table.
"Lee." She chewed the steak in her mouth and swallowed it before speaking, "Do you think we should increase the security force now?"
"Your Majesty, considering that Mr. Dumbledore and the professors from the other three colleges are present, if we deploy too many soldiers, they might misunderstand us."
"Did they misunderstand that we underestimated their power? Or did they misunderstand that we were demonstrating?" The queen tilted her head to look at him.
"All of them." Li, who was standing beside them, was silent for a moment, then continued, "Mr. Dumbledore is kind, but that doesn't mean other colleges are the same. After all, this is our first time interacting with them."
"Why would humans care about ant protests? They just think they are cute."
Degrading herself to an ant, the Queen's tone was not mocking, but rather seemed to be stating the fact calmly.
Li felt no emotion at all, because the queen was indeed telling the truth.
"I'll do it right away."
"Yes." The Queen nodded and added, "Mr. Principal has chosen Blue Star as the venue for the competition. This is a sign of his trust and support for us. We cannot mess this up. Let's just...get rid of the Royal Guards."
"Yes, sir." Li bowed and walked out of the restaurant backwards.
The Queen put down her knife and fork and called the servants to clean up.
After the desk was cleaned, she continued to look through the documents, but her mind was a little distracted.
Dumbledore decided to change the venue of the competition at the last minute, and the Queen herself was very surprised.
When she first learned about the magic competition, she proposed to set the venue in Lundun, Ying Country.
The reason is simple.
One is to strengthen the power of Ying State and deter those ambitious people who covet the kingdom.
She was aware of the infiltration of various departments in the country, and even the royal palace was stuffed with WD, and she had enough power to clear them out.
They have been tolerated and kept inactive for many years only because of the pressure from their master behind them - Amei.
After Hogwarts appeared, she was lucky enough to regain her youth and energy, and relying on her extraordinary power, she cleaned up the WDs in the country.
The effect was remarkable, and all departments of the kingdom suddenly became much quieter.
However, Ami's erosion has been long-standing and deeply rooted, and some WDs are extremely hidden. The Queen hopes to make a quick decision and find out all the hidden tumors at once, but she knows in her heart that this will not be achieved overnight.
This is a protracted battle, and we don't want to, but we have no choice.
But if the magic competition is to be held in London, the dilemma will be reversed.
At that time, she only needs to spread a little news - Hogwarts gave the royal family a magic book that humans from Blue Star can also learn. I believe that those figures hiding in the dark will be unable to help but come out on their own initiative.
Even though they guessed that this was most likely a trap to entrap her, the queen was not worried about failure.
So what?
Ignore it?
No, as long as there is a slight possibility that it is true, Amei will never give up.
The plan was very careful, the only difficulty was that the Queen was worried that it would be rash to make a request to Dumbledore.
Hogwarts' support for Ying Country comes not only from generosity, but also from Ying Country's understanding.
If Yingguo becomes more and more greedy, the queen will not doubt that the principal will abandon her and will even teach her a lesson.
The stone pit outside Lundun has been developed into a scenic spot, with a constant stream of tourists visiting every day.
The Queen was delighted with the extra income, but at the same time she was always reminded not to lose her reverence because of her extraordinary easy-going nature.
That would bring destruction to himself and the kingdom.
After returning from Hogwarts, she spent the whole day hesitating whether or not to tentatively propose to the headmaster.
Fortunately, I was very lucky.
Before she could figure out the result, Dumbledore found her and said that the other three colleges had not been out for a long time, and hoped to travel to Blue Star during this competition. He asked her if it was convenient.
Do you still need to consider this?
It has to be convenient even if it’s inconvenient!
The queen agreed immediately and began to make preparations herself.
The location is not difficult to decide, it can be placed in a wilderness outside of London.
It’s not far from the city, so it’s very convenient to visit the city during the offseason.
Once the preparations for the competition were roughly completed, the queen began to weave her own web.
First, there are three waves of "rumors" among the people that Hogwarts will give away some treasures during this visit, including but not limited to magic books, magic pets, and magic weapons.
The rumor is corroborated by the owl on the Queen's shoulder, making it even more reliable.
The Chinese people and the tourists who have come from far and wide to watch the competition are all excited and looking forward to seeing the new magical creatures.
"I am the luckiest king in the history of the kingdom."
The queen gathered her wandering thoughts, stood up and told the guards to prepare the car, ready to inspect the competition venue to prevent any mistakes.
………………
Outside of Lundun, there is an endless wilderness.
This area, which was uninhabited in the past, is now bustling with activity.
The competition arena has not yet been completed. The excavator rotates the bucket left and right, loads the soil into the bucket and compacts it. The driver of the dump truck steps on the accelerator, passes through the crowd watching outside the construction site, and drives towards the horizon along the asphalt road.
Toby looked through the gradually closing crack in the door at the crowd outside who were holding up their phones and taking photos. "The venue isn't even built yet, why are they so excited?"
Wino, who was walking from a distance, heard it and laughed, "Why are you so excited... It's probably the same feeling you had when you first met your senior."
After thinking carefully for a while, Toby was speechless when he remembered that a year ago he had suddenly gone to disturb Rowling in the middle of the night in order to track down an owl.
Noticing his change in expression, Wino shrugged: “That’s it.
We have been studying at Hogwarts for more than half a year and have become accustomed to normality, but they have not. On the contrary, because they are often exposed to the extraordinary through the screen, their curiosity has become stronger. "
"Okay." Toby didn't dwell on this topic and asked, "How's the progress of the ring?"
"The team that came here is the best construction team in the entire Ying country. Don't doubt their professional ability. It's just that... Misha hopes to build a pink arena, uh..."
Wino showed a rare embarrassment: "Isn't this a bit... too weird?"
There were more than two people in charge of the project, Leon, Claysie, and Misha, all three were present.
The Queen attached great importance to this competition. In addition to using her royal connections to mobilize a top team from the construction industry, she also sent five people who were on vacation to help with the project.
It would probably be difficult for students from the magic academy to adapt to the human fighting style, and the construction team had never visited Hogwarts and knew nothing about the extraordinary habits, so it was most appropriate to let the five people provide opinions as a reference.
"The pink arena..." Toby's expression turned strange.
"Misha is going to compete on stage too. She wants her own arena... well, you know."
Toby recalled the pink toilet he saw in Misha's bedroom when he visited her, and nodded subconsciously: "Let her be. The principal loves her very much and won't be angry about such a small matter."
"Too."
"Gentlemen." The designer poked his head out of the door of the temporary office and waved to them.
The two interrupted their chat and ran over quickly.
As the date moved forward, Toby and Wino became busier and busier.
As the host of the tournament - this time the tournament was held by Hogwarts, the five students could call themselves that. Their attention to the competition was no less than that of the Queen.
The principal mentioned it.
The other three magic academies are inferior to Hogwarts in overall strength, but they are unwilling to be inferior to others and are always thinking about competing for the title of "No. 1 Magic Academy".