Chapter 1438: Prince Baside's Request and a Polite Refusal

"Lord Xia Duo, as you know, all the orders for the Demon-Slaying Amulet were obtained by me from Prince Baside of Danzo. Not long ago, Prince Baside learned that the Demon-Slaying Amulets I used to fulfill the orders all came from the Tower of Time, from Lord Xia Duo, so he put forward a request to me—"

Having said this, Charles Halan deliberately paused and looked at Xia Duo tentatively. Xia Duo did not have any overreaction to this, only urging him faintly:

"What request? And what does it have to do with me?"

Charles Halan gave a start and continued: "Prince Baside hopes to obtain the key to the rapid production of Demon-Slaying Amulets from Lord Xia Duo through me!"

"The key to the rapid production of Demon-Slaying Amulets? Is the situation underground that bad?"

Xia Duo was stunned for a moment. Not long ago, he had just heard from Iolum that after the opening of the second battlefield in Amalinda, the situation underground had stabilized, and both sides were engaged in a tug-of-war and war of attrition.

Iolum would not lie to him about such matters, so it could only be that Lord Halan was exaggerating.

However, strictly speaking, it could not be considered an exaggeration. Lord Halan represented the interests of Prince Baside to a certain extent, and Prince Baside undoubtedly hoped to end the war sooner than the humans did.

Prince Baside would likely be very interested in anything that could have a positive effect on tipping the scales of the war and would strive to obtain it.

"The situation underground is not very good. The Drow's offensive is fierce, and the demand for Demon-Slaying Amulets by underground warriors is increasing day by day. If a large number of Demon-Slaying Amulets can be obtained quickly, it might play a decisive role in the war situation!"

Charles Halan said so, but Xia Duo shook his head inwardly. If a war could be decided by a single piece of weaponry, perhaps the Mythallar could, but it would definitely not be the Demon-Slaying Amulet.

Driven by the hatred of a destroyed nation and exterminated race, even without the Demon-Slaying Amulets, the Dwarves might erupt with a powerful will and resistance no less than the Demon-Slaying Amulet itself.

This kind of thing could only serve as icing on the cake, or even help in a time of need, but it would never be the only decisive factor.

Perhaps the Dwarves still had some trump card Artifacts hidden away, but they were not used because the cost of using them was too great. No one could be sure about such things until the very last moment.

Of course, the real reason Xia Duo was resistant to what Lord Halan said was not because of this, but because—

Once the production method for mass production, or even standardized mass production, was told to the Dwarves, under the pressure of war, it might allow the Dwarves, who were not behind Netheril to begin with, to rapidly achieve Magic Industrialization.

It was not that the Dwarves had no Mages; it was just that their magic system was different from that of Netheril and the Elves, or rather, the Holy Hammer Warriors were actually their Mages.

And once the Dwarves rapidly achieved Magic Industrialization, they might show an overwhelming advantage in the war against the Drow. In this process, would the Elven Nations remain indifferent?

Even if they did not fully transform, they would at least set up a few pilot cities.

But if that happened, for Netheril, which wanted to develop, it would be almost a disaster. Often, it is not the case that standing on the same starting line guarantees victory.

Not to mention that Netheril was still far from being on the same starting line as the Elven Nations.

Currently, Netheril was able to maintain the national strength of a great power in the Northland largely because these dozen or so Great Arcanists on the surface, and who knows how many more hidden by the Seven Towers, supported the national strength with individual power.

Once Magic Industrialization was achieved, in the foreseeable future, individual power would be quickly leveled by weaponry. At that time, what determined the national strength of a great power would no longer be how many individual powerhouses like Great Arcanists or high-level Mages a country possessed, but how many super-limit armaments they controlled.

Xia Duo did not believe that the current Netheril was ready to fully enter the industrial age, let alone compete with other industrial countries. Once an industrial revolution was started at an inappropriate time, the outcome might be far more miserable than the one Xia Duo knew.

Whether standardized mass production was the key to opening the industrial revolution, Xia Duo could not say for sure, but he would certainly not bet on how low the probability of it not being so was.

In fact, he himself believed that standardized mass production had a greater role in promoting the industrialization process than the improvement of productivity itself.

Productivity was indeed the foundation, but it belonged to qualitative change and was not easy to achieve; while standardized mass production was a relatively easy process to implement, belonging to the category of liberating productivity.

Moreover, with a unified industrial standard, qualitative changes in productivity would also be easier to occur.

For example, right now, it was probably hopeless for the Dwarves to hold back a big move to instantly kill all the Drow, but it was certainly not difficult for them to change their production methods, liberate productivity, and produce a large amount of war supplies.

After being able to improve combat effectiveness in a short time, whether they would continue to integrate production, or even research and innovate, there was no need to think about it—they certainly would.

Therefore, even if there was only the slightest possibility, Xia Duo would not pass the concept of standardized mass production to the Dwarves, at least not now.

However, it was also inappropriate to refuse Lord Halan so directly, as the other party was now representing Prince Baside, and to a certain extent, representing the Danzuo Kingdom.

For Xia Duo as an individual to directly confront a country was clearly not a wise move.

"Lord Halan, the speed at which the Tower of Time produces Demon-Slaying Amulets is indeed faster than other Mage Tower organizations, but that is entirely because the Tower of Time has equipped the production of Demon-Slaying Amulets with full-time production personnel, and all production personnel have dedicated all their private time to those orders. If other Mage Towers could also do this, it would not be difficult to achieve efficiency equal to or even exceeding that of the Tower of Time."

To a certain extent, Xia Duo was not lying; he did indeed equip the Demon-Slaying Amulet production line with full-time Magic Technicians.

As for the mention of private time, it depended on how one defined it.

The Magic Technicians of the Tower of Time could also be considered full-time students and part-time technicians, just using their spare time to do odd jobs to earn some living expenses, nothing more.

As for the production efficiency of other Mage Tower organizations, if there really were Mage Towers that could recruit a large number of full-time alchemists, perhaps they really could do it.

It was just that the cost would be much more expensive than that of the Tower of Time.

And the production efficiency of the Tower of Time was still far from its limit. At this stage, Xia Duo was only using the currently relatively backward manual production line so that more people could have a stable job and avoid them causing trouble.

If it were replaced by a fully automated assembly line, the efficiency would take off instantly.

But there was no need to tell an outsider like Lord Halan about these things.

……