Chapter 1565: Suppressing Latecomers, Three Elements of Development

If there were other options, Xia Duo would not necessarily have to choose the Blue Crystal Plane.

The Green Field Plane belonging to the Seven Towers is naturally a habitable plane; it requires no additional modification for ordinary people to survive, and long-term residence even has a longevity effect.

But the Blue Crystal Plane is not without its advantages; for one, it is inherently a plane with poor innate attributes, so one wouldn't feel too bad if it were ruined.

On the other hand, it is because the other half of the Blue Crystal Plane is a pure water region, which is Xia Duo's designated factory for manufacturing Floating Cities; in the future, the Floating City will convert the water in this region.

If placed outside, whether cutting through mountains or converting from the sea, the commotion would not be small; it is best to keep such strategic facilities low-key until they are completely formed.

Currently, there are two things Xia Duo cares about most: one is Iolum seeking "certification" for the 【Mythallar】 from the Magic Goddess, and the other is the Magic Restriction Treaty of the Northland Alliance.

The former depends entirely on luck; even if the certification or endorsement cannot be obtained, the 【Mythallar】 device cannot be abandoned; as for the latter, there is too much room for maneuver within it.

For the time being, the Seven Towers have not yet officially acknowledged the Magic Restriction Treaty to the outside world, but the word is already out; with the Snow Melting Competition currently underway, Seventon might conduct a round of consultations first.

Netheril internally is not a problem for now; they will certainly stand on the same front in dealing with the Northland Alliance's Magic Restriction Treaty; the key is how to distribute the "excess quota" belonging to Netheril under the treaty later.

First, one thing is certain: no matter what Cormanthor thinks or how hard it pushes, the so-called Magic Restriction Treaty cannot completely prohibit all large-scale magic activities.

Then, an "excess quota" must be carved out, similar to the "carbon emission standards" negotiated by various countries on Earth, but within a specific country, individual enterprises also possess their own quotas, and these quotas can even be traded among them.

In Netheril, what the various Mage Tower organizations and even powerful individual Spellcasters are undoubtedly competing for is the quota to carry out large-scale magic activities.

How exactly it will be divided, Xia Duo is not yet certain; after all, there is no definitive word from the Northland Alliance yet, and he doesn't even know in what form this quota will exist.

But he is certain of one thing: the struggle for this quota within Netheril will definitely not be peaceful, and it might even be the beginning of internal strife.

After all, everyone was living in peace before, and now a Magic Restriction Treaty is suddenly being pushed; although most Mage Towers might not reach the standard of "large-scale magic activities," who would like a restriction suddenly placed over their heads?

They might not reach the level of "large-scale magic activities" now, but what about in the future?

Thinking of this, Xia Duo could not help but frown; like him, having a private plane, although troublesome, can transfer some large-scale magic activities, but not all Mage Tower organizations have private planes.

Or to put it more bluntly, the vast majority of Mage Towers do not even have a Plane Exploration Array, so how can they talk about discovering sub-planes?

As for semi-planes, perhaps they can be bought, but who can guarantee they won't be "reclaimed"? More importantly, semi-planes are too small in volume and have weak disaster-bearing capacity; one accident might lead to the destruction of the semi-plane—how much wealth is there to squander?

"The times are difficult!"

Xia Duo could not help but sigh; Elven Magic developed into maturity thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, and although much has been lost today, the system is still relatively complete; it does not require excessive exploration, and most technologies can be used as soon as they are found.

Netheril Magic, however, formed later; even to catch up with the now-declining Elven Magic, it requires immense manpower and material resources to study diligently, let alone surpass it.

Restricting large-scale magic activities is almost tantamount to cutting off the flourishing development trend of Netheril Magic at the waist.

This is just like on Earth, where advanced industrial nations collude to restrict non-industrial nations or backward industrial nations from developing industry for various reasons.

They gorge themselves on the dividends of being first, yet refuse to let latecomers have a share.

In fact, aside from Xia Duo's side, the development of Netheril, including the Seven Towers, is already somewhat powerless.

Conservatism prevails, internal thoughts and actions are difficult to unify, and it can only rely on individual "heaven-sent powerhouses" to create explosive development at certain stages, unable to form an internal driving force for long-term stable development.

With the Magic Restriction Treaty coming on top of that, if not for the variable that is Xia Duo, it might have been unable to recover.

Even with a "heaven-sent powerhouse" like Iolum, who can push for a period of rapid development, it ultimately cannot avoid the outcome of internal friction and collapse.

……

In the vacuum.

While maintaining more than a dozen Wind Elemental Plane channels simultaneously to replenish air for the Blue Crystal Plane, Xia Duo pondered his future path.

Now that the 【Mythallar】 can be put to practical use, the industrial age is right before his eyes; the most important thing in the new era is people, and next, he must undoubtedly strive to develop the population.

Whether by encouraging childbirth or introducing an external population, he must exhaust every means to increase the population, while simultaneously carrying out integration and assimilation work, or rather, the New Life Movement must also be carried out continuously and synchronously.

Alongside population is resources.

To maintain the operation of a complex society with a large population, a massive amount of resources is needed, involving food, clothing, housing, and transportation, as well as entertainment and development.

In this regard, Xia Duo is not too worried for the time being, mainly because the Daxia Territory is still in a transitional stage, and the vast majority of the territory's residents do not have many material demands.

Or perhaps it should be said that they do, but what he, the lord, provides already exceeds what the residents can imagine.

Residents outside the Daxia Territory probably couldn't imagine, even if they racked their brains, what a life with fixed weekly rest days, fixed daily working hours, and guaranteed rewards for labor would look like.

Let alone ordinary residents, even most Spellcasters probably cannot imagine what a scene of universal education looks like.

There is even a dedicated Department of Culture and Education to create poetry and drama for the residents, satisfying their spiritual needs.

Compared to the near-serf-like lives of residents in other territories, the residents of the Daxia Territory live as if they were in Heaven.

For a considerable period, Xia Duo does not need to invest too much in conventional resources for the territory; the residents can create everything they need themselves.

The resources he cares about are more in terms of raw materials for Magic Items, which relates to the sustainable development of a high-consumption "government-industry-academia-research" system like 【Shi Zhi Ta-Ling Di】.

Currently, the scale of 【Shi Zhi Ta-Ling Di】 is still too small to achieve a complete internal cycle, and it needs to rely on external resources to develop.

But even if it could achieve an internal cycle, wanting to develop and grow faster still cannot do without the boost of external resources.