Russia, St. Petersburg.

Morning arrived with its usual chill, though the weather looked promising today.

Ivanovich and his daughter quickly ate a few salted meat sandwiches and slightly burnt-edged fried eggs before hastily putting on their coats, ready to seek help according to the instructions on the note.

The "Destiny Group Potato Store" located in the northwestern corner of the city was not hard to find.

Although Ivanovich and his daughter had gotten up early, by the time they arrived, a long queue had already formed outside the store. People looked eagerly at the closed doors, waiting for the store to open at nine o'clock.

No one had ever seen the true owner of this store. Like its name, it had appeared silently in major cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries as if by divine intervention. All registration procedures, acquisition records, and registered trademarks had been completed more than half a year ago, without violating any laws.

As a large multinational group from Austria, the Destiny Group's business scope was surprisingly limited.

In every "Destiny Group Potato Store" in every city, the shelves were always stocked with only potatoes and the occasional slight fluctuation in the ruble price tag. Apart from that, almost nothing else was ever seen.

In the beginning, the cashiers were mostly middle-aged and elderly people who would occasionally zone out.

However, compared to the sharply dressed bank managers with gold-rimmed glasses in Citibank, these elderly people were clearly much better at calculating potato prices, making change, and handling different currency exchange rates.

Of course, this wasn't too surprising.

After all, as time went on, people gradually discovered that the previous jobs of most of the "cashiers" in the "Destiny Group Potato Store" were either at a disbanded research institute or at a university undergoing massive layoffs.

As for the source of the potatoes in the store, the story became much more mysterious.

Some people claimed that they were all potatoes grown in the frozen soil of Siberia, while others said they were foreign varieties transported from several large private farms in Austria. Some even said that these were actually food reserves secretly moved from former Soviet secret war reserve food bases...

But no matter what, this medium-sized store, which had been established for less than half a year, had become a more important place for the lower and middle-class citizens of St. Petersburg than the Peter and Paul Cathedral in the city center.

Because only in this place could the rubles in their hands be called currency, and not just colorful waste paper.

The mayor of St. Petersburg even specially arranged a team of police officers to maintain order in the vicinity, to avoid any bad situations that might cause the "Destiny Group Potato Store" to leave. It was said that a similar thing had happened in Kiev, where local patrol officers tried to forcibly take over the store under the pretext of security checks and charged high security management fines.

The most direct consequence was that the store announced an indefinite closure the next day.

Until now, if the citizens of Kiev didn't want to buy expensive potatoes at twelve US dollars a kilogram in the shops, they had to wake up early at four or five o'clock every morning and drive dozens of kilometers to the "Destiny Group Potato Store" in a small town to buy potatoes.

And in places that ordinary citizens couldn't see, a number of banking institutions and large food and light industrial import companies from Austria, Britain, the United States, France, and Germany had also unanimously raised the audit standards for various investments, imports and exports, and military cooperation in Ukraine, especially in the Kiev region.

When it came to dividing the rich dividends left by the former Soviet Union, the interests of all capital were aligned.

Gringotts and the Destiny Group only needed to give a gentle push from behind, providing a little bit of irrefutable reason, and a large number of vultures would swarm up and jointly squeeze more profits from the faltering Ukrainian government.

In short, the importance of the current "Destiny Group" in the eyes of the St. Petersburg government was no less than that of the well-known foreign large groups such as "Citibank" and "**** Group" located on the city's most prosperous commercial streets.

Compared to those seemingly noble and elegant bankers, the "Destiny Group," which focused on running affordable potatoes and was willing to hire local citizens, clearly had a higher reputation and mystery among the citizens of St. Petersburg.

However, Ivanovich had not been here before.

Although he had heard a lot about the magical "Destiny Group" from the surrounding Muggles, he had never associated such a basic Muggle grain retail outlet with magic until he received the note.

As a wizard, he had not yet fallen into the predicament of having to queue up to buy cheap potatoes.

Ivanovich looked around the surrounding streets. It was just an ordinary long street, and the people queuing up on the roadside were all ordinary Muggles. From any point of view, this didn't seem like a place that could serve as a wizard gathering place.

"Hey, mister! Please queue up at the back, thank you!"

Just as Ivanovich was about to get a little closer to take a closer look at this strange store, two police officers wandering on the side of the street suddenly came over, blocking the man's path and pointing to the long queue not far away.

These Muggle guards, they're such busybodies.

Ivanovich frowned and subconsciously reached into his pocket, wondering whether to secretly cast a Confundus Charm while Irina wasn't paying attention to get through the blockade, when his expression suddenly changed.

The two guards took out their batons from their waists faster than he did, aiming at him with a very familiar posture.

From Ivanovich's perspective, he could clearly see a wooden wand inlaid in the groove in the center of the brown wooden baton, and judging from the reaction speed of the two guards, they were probably excellent Aurors who had just graduated.

"Sir, please queue up at the end, thank you—your talent is not for cutting in line..."

The slightly younger "wizard guard" pointed his chin at the queue not far away and said expressionlessly, with a hint of contempt and pity in his eyes—they hadn't encountered too many wizards who planned to take advantage of a little clumsy magic, but it was definitely not the first time.

Although the existence of magic provides wizards with many conveniences in life, it is not omnipotent.

In fact, not all wizards know or are willing to use magic to grow crops and achieve self-sufficiency in daily life. For many more clumsy wizards, they prefer to "borrow" from their Muggle neighbors.

Ivanovich frowned and subconsciously pulled his daughter behind him, saying in a deep voice.

"Wait, we're not here to buy potatoes!"

"I'm very sorry, no matter what you're here for, please queue up at the back of the line. Those are the rules."

The young guard shrugged indifferently and said calmly, pointing again to the queue that had grown longer.

As the three argued, many people waiting in line to buy potatoes at the first opportunity looked over curiously, and in the distance, other guards patrolling also noticed the situation here.

"Are you really not going to let us through?"

Ivanovich was slightly stunned, and a look of annoyance appeared on his face.

Undoubtedly, the two wizards disguised as guards probably regarded him as the kind of clumsy wizard with only weak magic power, or the kind of squib on the fringes—to treat him the same as those Muggles, this was simply...

And more importantly, this made him lose a lot of face as a father in front of Irina.

However, before Ivanovich could reorganize his words, he heard a crisp voice in his ear.

"Password, we have the password!"

Irina suddenly came out from behind him, looked up at the two wizards, and said generously.

"Ich liebe dich! We are here to seek help. Someone told us that as long as we say this password here, we can get help from Hogwarts—we are in trouble."

"The password is fine, but... what about the token to prove your identity?"

The two wizard guards exchanged a look. The older wizard frowned, took out a work notebook from his pocket and looked at it carefully, and looked at the wizard father and daughter in front of him with some confusion. His expression eased slightly.

"Token? What token?" Mr. Ivanovich asked with a frown.

"Every foreign special recruitment student will indeed be assigned a guide, but at the same time you should also have a letter of introduction or some other magical item. After activating it, we will know who to notify to take responsibility."

"But we only received a note... I don't know..."

Irina was stunned and anxiously took out the small note from her pocket, ready to hand it over.

Just then, a furry little head popped out of the girl's collar, making a fierce cry.

Guhahahaha—

"Huh?"

"Huh?!"

The expressions of the two wizard guards changed.

This is!