Chapter 1988: Advantage is With Me

Outside the Adofeier Mythallar, Xia Duo paused to observe for a while; looking at it from the surface alone, this was just an ordinary woodland environment.

However, beneath the seemingly unremarkable rhythm of the Magic Net Strings, a highly ordered structure of considerable scale was "lurking," appearing as if it could emerge to the "surface" in response to stimuli at any moment.

After some searching, Xia Duo discovered quite a few open interfaces suspected to belong to that massive structure, but since he had only just arrived and was not yet familiar with everything here, he naturally did not act rashly.

He had also created Mythallars before and knew that a Mythallar's creator would make it resemble the state of the natural Magic Net as much as possible; therefore, true interfaces were mostly Magic Net Strings that were opened temporarily to possess certain characteristics—created only when needed.

The so-called open interfaces displayed were mostly traps, specifically used to ensnare those so-called experts who only had a superficial understanding of Mythallars.

Of course, in Xia Duo's view, unless those so-called open interfaces were completely independent of the Mythallar itself, as long as they were displayed, they would still expose some details of the Mythallar.

Those open interfaces left behind intentionally could generally serve as traps, but during Mythallar offense and defense, they often also became breakthroughs for the attacking side.

Xia Duo did not know how that Mage Yan Xing from Eaerlann had cracked the Mythallar, but clearly, using non-Spellcasters to probe it was not a wise approach.

The correct approach should be to gather a large number of Spellcasters to continuously probe the Mythallar's open interfaces, and then hand the results over to one or more Spellcasters specializing in Mythallars.

Following that, whether it was finding the correct linking method or using brute force to crack it, it was only a matter of time.

From this, it could be seen that the Bemacher Philosophy Society, which "deeply cultivated the field of ancient ruins," should be more adept at archaeology and tracking than at cracking Mythallars.

Of course, it was also possible that those Eaerlann Elves were intentionally acting this way; perhaps they had already found the key steps to cracking it.

They were just waiting for the frontline Army to arrive here so they could crack it in one fell swoop, or even use the already obtained Mythallar Permission to help the Army achieve a critical victory.

Thinking of this, Xia Duo seemed to suddenly understand why Sluwen did not drive those Eaerlann Scholars away; the reason might also be because of this Mythallar and this Fortress.

Sluwen might have already mastered part of the Fortress's Permission, being able to use the Fortress against enemies, or even further—the Adofeier Fortress before his eyes, which still had not revealed its true face, had already been completely controlled by Sluwen!

And the reason those Eaerlann Scholars did not retreat, besides wishful thinking, might also hide a bit of confidence or even arrogance, believing that they had already mastered part of the Permission and that Sluwen had no way to deal with this Fortress.

Perhaps this was the truth; after all, everyone knew that even if this Fortress were controlled by Sluwen, it could not possibly be a match for Eaerlann, otherwise they would not have been defeated over a thousand years ago.

But this time, Sluwen did not necessarily have to win the war; as long as they kept Eaerlann from winning, as long as they showed a certain level of resistance, it would be enough for the other nations of the Northland to see the benefits of intervening in this matter!

This method of pinning national destiny and hope on the intervention of other countries was a kind of high-stakes gamble, but in the absence of other variables, perhaps this was the only way Sluwen could survive.

Before knowing that the Demon Descendants had a plan to change history, the Demon Descendants might have only been seen as a minor irritation by the various countries of the Northland, not counting as a variable at all.

Of course, if it were a total war, Xia Duo's Floating City would not count as much of a variable either, but it was impossible for Eaerlann to wage a total war against Netheril while simultaneously offending multiple countries and being at war with Sluwen.

……

Although Xia Duo was not yet sure how much control both Sluwen and Eaerlann had over this Fortress, this did not prevent him from choosing this place for the final "End War."

If he was lucky and Sluwen controlled this Fortress, he would only need to give it a slight push to change the course of the war; if he was unlucky and Eaerlann controlled the Fortress and was sweeping through everything on their way here, then the price he would have to pay would be a bit high.

If it were that worst-case scenario, Xia Duo was not prepared to clash head-on with Eaerlann; he could completely think of other ways. The only thing to worry about in this situation was the possibility of Eaerlann being controlled by the Demon Descendants.

But Xia Duo did not believe that Eaerlann, as a major power that once hunted the Demon Descendants to extinction, would be so easily controlled by them.

Infiltration might be unavoidable, but control was basically impossible.

So next, it would depend on Xia Duo's luck, and of course, Sluwen's luck as well.

If Xia Duo's luck was bad, it would be nothing more than a bit of trouble later; if Sluwen's luck was bad, then that country would become history.

……

After lingering outside the Adofeier Mythallar for a while, Xia Duo ultimately failed to find any shortcut to cracking it, and he had only confirmed that the Mythallar itself had a style quite different from the current Sluwen Mythallar.

Regarding the identity of the Fortress's builder, perhaps that Mage Yan Xing was right—it was not Sluwen; the Sluwen side might at most have maintained the ancient Mythallar, and were not even capable of modifying it.

And through his preliminary study of the Mythallar before him, Xia Duo developed a great interest in the Mythallar technology of the Aryvandaar era; after successive great wars, this Fortress still maintained a considerable degree of integrity, which could not be simply explained by saying it was well-hidden.

There should be a design for autonomous repair; if it was a function of the Mythallar itself, then Xia Duo was determined to obtain the implementation logic and Principles of this function.

And even if it were achieved through a clever workaround, it was still a brilliant scheme with great reference and practical value for him.

At least until now, Xia Duo had only heard that a Mythallar's collapse could be delayed through various means, and had never heard of a Mythallar that could automatically recover.

If that were truly possible, the Dragon Madness Mythallar would not have collapsed.

From this perspective, the Elves' Magic research was not entirely in a state of decline; occasionally, some bright spots would emerge, such as the Distributed Node design of Evereska.

Or, like the Mythallar integration process that had already begun in Cormanthor and Illefarn.

Or like what he was seeing now, the self-repairing Mythallar suspected to have been designed and built during the Aryvandaar era.

Perhaps the Elves had already crossed the critical point of continuous decline and had reached a time for change; perhaps they only needed a catalyst to set them on the path to revival.

With this realization, Xia Duo was not afraid, but instead became excited; a truly mature and progressive civilization could not be gently born in a petri dish, but had to be tempered through the competition of civilizations.

He looked forward to and guarded against how the future would develop at every moment.