The Admiral of Hogwarts

At the very instant the countdown ended, the entire room, even the T督 network, fell silent. Simultaneously, Massachusetts, as the supreme commander, pressed a button, causing two spaceships, magnified, to appear as projections on the screen.

Immediately after the order was given, the area around the distant spaceships shimmered with a visual distortion similar to the heat haze above a summer concrete road, and became blurred.

When these surrounding changes stabilized, everyone saw through the screen that the two spaceships seemed to be enveloped by some kind of transparent presence.

Or, to be precise, these two spaceships and their surrounding envelopes began to disappear from this location, leaving only a faint afterimage somewhere between reality and illusion.

From a distance, the two ships and their surroundings appeared somewhat out of sync, as if something had suddenly appeared in the originally empty universe.

This is the most obvious visual effect of a warp engine being activated, because at the moment of activation, people can see higher-dimensional space through the spaceship.

Or, to be precise, they can see a projection of higher-dimensional space in this space, which naturally gives humans living in ordinary three-dimensional space a strange feeling.

Everyone stared with slight tension at the data on the monitors in front of them or at the distant spaceships, while methodically processing the data at hand.

In the next second, the two spaceships, and the ring of transparent energy around them, vanished into space, and the universe returned to its original emptiness once more.

Seeing this scene, the discomfort caused by the projection of higher-dimensional space just now disappeared. One could even hear the sound of the staff below exhaling a breath of air.

"The spaceships have successfully entered warp," Massachusetts's voice came from the loudspeakers. "Three, two, one—the Martian Observatory has captured the spaceship's signal."

At this moment, two small windows suddenly appeared on the side of the porthole, showing two young women in military uniforms. Considering that this was the first test, the commanders on board were naturally ship girls.

"The spaceships have reached their destination, and all data is normal," Changchun said with a serious expression. "We are now preparing to dock at Mars Station One and prepare to carry out the cargo transport operation."

"Hooray—" Cheers rang out in the control center. Although this was only the first successful test, the data showed that the engine could operate normally according to its design.

"The distance from Earth is no longer our constraint," Hugo said softly. "Now the entire solar system will become our backyard!"

"Yes, this is a great step," Hermione looked equally excited, with a relaxed expression on her face.

Ever since she realized the root cause of the conflict between wizards and ordinary people on Earth, she had been thinking about a solution, and now she believed she had found a path that could truly be taken.

Some people began to stretch, while others left their seats to move their hands and feet.

Of course, everyone was just taking advantage of this gap to rest for a while, after all, they still had to pay attention to every step of the two spaceships' next actions until the spaceships returned at this time tomorrow to truly end the mission.

"If everything is fine with the spaceships, then let's take a spaceship directly to Mars the day after tomorrow," Hugo said to Hermione after leaving the control room. "As our future core base, we should go there and take a look now."

"Understood," Hermione nodded. Compared to staying at home doing nothing, participating in this important event was obviously much more valuable.

Of course, there was also a good thing about being on Mars, which was that they could freely use all kinds of magic. After all, no matter how strong the Ministry of Magic's monitoring capabilities were, it was impossible for them to monitor Mars.

Just as Hugo was planning to spend his summer vacation on Mars, the ship girls on Earth were also carrying out their previously established plans, but an uninvited guest arrived at a ship girl base in the Balkans.

"May I ask what you need, sir?" In an office in the city of Piran, Cami-Chia, who was temporarily responsible for reception, looked at the young man and asked the middle-aged man in front of her.

"Excuse me, is this the office of the Azure Watchers?" The black-haired man looked at the slightly simple office and asked the blonde girl in front of him.

The slightly chuunibyou-esque name Azure Watchers was a local name for the ship girls who wore golden masks and blue cloaks.

Back then, when controlling the Ministry of Magic in the Western Balkans and mediating the chaos in this area, the ship girls had to go to the battlefield themselves to solve the problem due to local manpower issues.

As a result, because of the ship girls' goddess-like figures on the battlefield and their absolute suppression of black wizards, they gained everyone's respect in this area and the nickname Azure Watchers.

"You are Sirius Black, right?" Cami-Chia recognized the other party's identity at once, and then stared at him and asked, "Although we are not a secret organization, it is difficult for outsiders to find this place, so how did you find your way here?"

"Headmaster Dumbledore told me through the Western Balkans Federal Ministry of Magic," Sirius said with a smile. "And today we are here, hoping—"

"Wait a moment, I can't decide these things," Cami-Chia raised her hand to temporarily stop the other party, "I'll take you to the person who can decide."

After speaking, Cami-Chia stood up and took Sirius to the second floor of the room. After opening the door of the office, a girl with long light brown hair was sitting behind the desk in the room. She was temporarily called over to negotiate with Sirius.

On the one hand, larger ship girls were better at this kind of negotiation, and on the other hand, compared to Cami-Chia, who looked like a child, she looked more mature and more like a real behind-the-scenes commander.

"You are the special envoy sent by Lord Dumbledore, right?" Empire said after shaking hands with Sirius. "Mr. Dumbledore is indeed a respectable person, but his current situation doesn't seem to be very good."

As she spoke, Empire pulled out a newspaper from under the desk and placed it on the table, and then said, "I see that your British newspapers seem to be saying that Lord Dumbledore is old, so he is now making some stupid and wrong choices—"

"This is slander—" Sirius seemed a little agitated, and his decade-long Azkaban career had obviously affected his personality, making him seem more easily impulsive.

"Sit down, sit down, of course we won't believe these things in the newspapers," Empire signaled Sirius to calm down, and then said, "But this also shows that your Britain is now in chaos."

"From these newspapers, it can be seen that a serious gap has been created between the forces led by Lord Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic led by Mr. Fudge. Considering that the Hogwarts headmaster is too principled in this regard, we are not optimistic that he can integrate the entire British magical world—"

"But the one who must not be named has been resurrected again." Realizing that the girl in front of her was not as easily persuaded as she had imagined, Sirius could only throw out the most important information he had brought this time.