Of the two places Murphy knew that connected directly to the Spirit World, one was the Door of Rebirth beneath Arkaim, which had now lost its connection to the Spirit World. The other was the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts.
Because it connected to the Spirit World, the rules of time and space here were looser. In theory, time travel here would require less magical energy.
After the previous great battle, the Chamber of Secrets had almost completely collapsed, but the chaotic rifts in time and space still remained. Anyone careless enough to step into one could easily fall into the Spirit World or become trapped in a temporal loop.
It was precisely because this danger remained that Hogwarts had moved all its students away.
After entering the gate, Murphy found a relatively stable rift in the Spirit World, undid the seal Dumbledore had set years ago, and stepped inside.
Thick Spirit World mist swallowed him. Murphy paid it no heed, took out the Time Magic Box, and decided to test it first.
Traveling back a thousand years was unprecedented. Murphy had only inferred its feasibility through theoretical calculations.
Because it required the energy of nearly every magic node, even he could not fully control such a massive torrent of power. He sensed that he might not have many chances to try, so before attempting a journey across a millennium, he needed to test the feasibility of time travel within the Spirit World.
He first tried using the mind network to contact magic nodes around the world and tested the stability of their connections. He found that although the Spirit World had cut off his mental contact with other people, his connection to those magic nodes had actually grown stronger.
"The theory that magic originates from the Spirit World," Murphy