Chapter 1963: The Prototype of a Pantheon

"Since the Master also feels that the 【Ascension Order】 has endless hidden dangers, why support it now?"

Xia Duo believed it was impossible for the Seven Towers not to see the risks of doing this; perhaps it was merely wishful thinking supporting them to continue. If Iolum insisted on opposing it, the Seven Towers might reconsider the feasibility of this matter.

To this, Iolum's response was a sigh, "The Seven Towers knows this too, but when the path to Ascension is placed before us and has already been verified, the entire Netheril actually has no way back."

"……"

Xia Duo was silent. In fact, he also knew that this was just like bad money driving out good; once it was determined that Ascension was feasible, it would inevitably trigger an Ascension Race among the Great Arcanists.

This was not just a competition between the Seven Towers and those outside the Seven Towers; the interior of the Seven Towers was not a monolith either, and they could not fully unify their opinions. Rather than fighting each other in chaos, it was better for the Seven Towers to organize a recognized Ascension Order from the start.

This was actually just the difference between a slow death and an explosive one. In reality, even with an Ascension Order, the paths to Ascension were limited. Those who were limited might not be willing to follow such an order, and even if they followed it on the surface, they would constantly engage in underhanded actions in private.

If Master Eriwen succeeded in his Ascension this time, further verifying the path to Ascension, it would inevitably cause the Ascension Race to rapidly turn fierce.

Looking at Iolum's deep, unfathomable eyes, for some reason, Xia Duo suddenly had an ominous premonition. It was not about what would happen to Iolum himself, but rather Master Eriwen this time—

Perhaps there would be people who would not want him to succeed.

Of course, conversely, there would also be a group of people expecting Master Eriwen to once again verify the feasibility of the path to Ascension.

Xia Duo faintly smelled the coming of war. No wonder the Seven Towers was unwilling to get involved in the affairs of Siluwende at this time; their own home was about to explode, so how could they have the mood to care about others!

But what were the true thoughts of the Seven Towers?

And Iolum?

Xia Duo could not help but fall into deep thought. For the Seven Towers, this was actually a dilemma. If Master Eriwen succeeded in his Ascension, it might solve the various hidden dangers of the abnormal climate.

But it would also bring greater hidden dangers to the order of Netheril. Once the Ascension Race began, the situation might no longer be under the control of the Seven Towers.

But if Master Eriwen failed his Ascension, then the abnormal climate, for which no cause could be found to this day, might also drag Netheril down.

This was not to say that having an Arcane Garden could solve the problem, but rather the question of why the spellcasters who possessed Arcane Gardens, who were only a minority of the population, should support a bunch of ordinary people.

In the short term, there might be tradition and responsibility to rely on, but over a long period, any one-sided sacrifice would only bring fatigue. At least for the Netherese Mages of the current era, that was how they thought.

Xia Duo put himself in the perspective of the Seven Towers and also felt it was indeed difficult to choose whether to support Master Eriwen or not.

However, judging from the current situation, the Seven Towers should still be mostly in favor. The Ascension Order was not necessarily a bad thing for the top-tier spellcasters; perhaps many people were looking forward to that day!

Then, the only ones truly opposing it should be the old men like Iolum and Kangjianien who supported the opening and popularization of Magic, and this naturally included some old men from the Seven Towers who had lived until now.

But since the conservative forces could occupy the upper hand today, the power of the old men might not be as great as Xia Duo imagined!

As for Xia Duo himself, he was naturally firmly opposed to the Ascension Order. This kind of order did not need to develop to the extreme to form a Pantheon; it only needed a few more gods, and it would inevitably lead the overall environment of Netheril to become more conservative, or even completely solidified.

He had long been familiar with the Principles of Ascension: it used a certain order in reality as a source, and through various means, sublimated the Order Force to make it a kind of extraordinary power, known as "Divine Power."

The root of Divine Power lay in a certain order in reality. If one did not want the Divine Power to be turbulent, the best way was naturally to imprison thought and imprison everything.

This was the origin of Doctrine.

Of course, if one could extend or expand from one kind of order to another, such as from agriculture to seasons, then to time, or from agriculture to land, then to earth elementals.

That would be the growth of Divine Power, and it was also the growth path of this kind of Order God. Synchronized with this, the Doctrine might also change accordingly.

But one only needed to think for a second to know that doing so would inevitably infringe upon the current or potential interests of another god.

This was also the true reason why Xia Duo believed that the development of the Ascension Order to its extreme was a Pantheon.

When all parties or all gods compromised and reached a consensus, completely carving up all order—including potential order that might appear in the future—that was the birth of a Pantheon.

Then one could imagine what kind of experience it was for ordinary people living under this Pantheon; it could almost be said that everything from birth to death was completely arranged.

There could not be any variables, otherwise, it might shake the foundation of the Divine Power.

Of course, even if there were variables, it might be the Pantheon conducting Divine Power evolution experiments. Regardless of the final result, it was still under the control of the Pantheon.

Ordinary people would find it difficult to have true independent will again.

By then, let alone a magical civilization that advocated development and creation, perhaps even the current situation of Netheril would not be able to be maintained.

After all, non-spellcasters were easier to control than spellcasters, and there was no need to implicitly cultivate one's own competitors or rebels.

That kind of darkness might be similar to the Middle Ages on Earth, or even more cruel. After all, on Earth, there were only people acting in the name of a True God, but here, the True God could do it themselves.

Xia Duo felt it was necessary for him to make plans early. Of course, this did not mean he wanted to sabotage Master Eriwen's Ascension Ritual this time.

He had a good impression of Master Eriwen personally and admired his Legendary deeds very much. Moreover, this kind of thing was not something that could be stopped by sabotaging it once or twice.

Without Eriwen, there might be Eri-hot or Eri-cold; how could he have the time to find and sabotage them one by one? To truly avoid the fate of future civilization sinking, the best way was naturally to solve it from the source.

As long as the limit of the development of Magic was broken to the God Realm, even if it did not completely dispel the thoughts of Ascension among the Netherese Arcanists, at least it could create a camp capable of contending with them.

Only the pure Arcane path could possibly change the future. As for sabotaging this or future Ascension Rituals, it was only treating the symptoms, not the root cause.

Not to mention that it was still only in the initial stage of the Ascension Order. Even in the future, Xia Duo himself would have a considerable say, so there was no need to alert potential opponents now.

He could completely study the pure Arcane path while mingling in the Ascension Order, wearing their clothes, and disrupting their order.

The so-called "waving the black flag to oppose the black flag," Xia Duo was naturally capable of doing that.