Chapter 2288: Completing the Transaction

————Reserve Member~~

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Xia Duo's request was agreed to by Guleben without much hesitation. After Guleben left, Xia Duo entered his temporary residence and then returned to the Floating City.

When he arrived beside the kittens he had sent in earlier, Niya was already there soothing them; the cat that had been sent in first was also nearby.

Perhaps because they were of the same kind, before Xia Duo could even act, Niya had already completely "subdued" the two new cats. Of course, the influence of Magic was indispensable during this process.

"That's three cats now, and there might be more later. Where do you plan to keep them?"

"Keeping them in the Tower of Time or the Floating City is fine; let them move about freely. However, Great-Grandfather seems quite interested in this animal as well, so I plan to send one to his Mage Tower."

Seeing Niya's off-the-cuff reply, Xia Duo realized he had fallen into a misconception. The Floating City, the Tower of Time, or other Mage Towers could all be viewed as large houses, sufficient for cats to move around in; he could just raise them as pets.

He had originally intended to select only one or two as pets and put the rest in the Arcane Garden of the Tower of Time. At present, the Planting Area of the Floating City was vast enough that it did not lack the small amount of space the Tower of Time's Arcane Garden provided.

Arranging that area into a natural environment for the residents of the Floating City to visit might be beneficial for alleviating "urban sickness" among the residents.

But when designing the next generation of the Floating City, Xia Duo would certainly incorporate natural landscapes into the city design to make it a true city, rather than just an "Iron box" flying in the sky.

And what Niya mentioned was the current situation; it was entirely possible to renovate this generation of the Floating City to include natural landscapes, and as for keeping cats, that was not a problem at all.

Now that there were more and more people in the Floating City, it was already a small city with a relatively concentrated population. The free-roaming cats would not necessarily have to fend for themselves; they would become the collective pets of the Floating City's residents!

Public facilities, public pets—there was no problem at all.

……

After confirming the future arrangements for the cats with Niya, Xia Duo came once again to the Planting Area on the outskirts of the Floating City and found Sainide, who was talking with his clansmen.

"Are the emotions of your clansmen stable? What are their thoughts on their current situation?"

"My Lord, their emotions are very stable. In fact, as a slave race, we have long been accustomed to being bought and sold; it is just that we have just arrived in a strange place and the language is not shared, so we are a bit unaccustomed to it. As for our situation—"

Sainide suddenly knelt on the ground, his forehead pressed against the natural soil of the Planting Area, and said with utmost piety: "After hearing about the Divine Envoy's arrangements for them, although many did not believe it, the hope is real and true.

"Now our fate has been changed, but we still have more clansmen who lack freedom. Please, Divine Envoy, save them. The Mulan will surely remember your grace and never forget it for all eternity."

"Is that so?" Xia Duo asked noncommittally.

"Yes, Sainide dares not have any deception."

Perhaps the commotion on Sainide's side startled the other Mulan; after a period of unrest, those people also knelt on the ground to beg Xia Duo for more hope.

"Sigh—"

Xia Duo sighed in his heart. How could an ordinary person hide their little thoughts within the Spirit Thought Network? Of course, Sainide had no ill intentions; everything was for the sake of saving more clansmen.

In Sainide's Subconscious, there were fragments of schemes regarding the Mulan Elders; he also knew that the Elders were seeking a feasible path to liberate the Mulan.

But that hadn't been realized yet!

Now that he saw Xia Duo, whom he took to be an Easterner, and learned that Xia Duo's future arrangement for them was to become true citizens—although not without conditions—Sainide still immediately placed his hope in Xia Duo.

If one could obtain freedom just by offering loyalty and Faith, then why not do it? In Yimaska, there was no such good fortune; even if one offered everything, one would never obtain freedom.

This was hope, and it was also the only path to self-Jiusu for the Mulan that Sainide had discovered.

At this moment, the object of the prayers of Sainide and the others—Xia Duo—had fallen into deep thought. Setting aside all external factors, he was actually inclined to accept more Mulan, the more the better.

But the problem was that the Mulan came with a pile of trouble. Whether they could perform Spellcasting or possessed talent as craftsmen should not be a problem according to Xia Duo's judgment, but their belief in revenge was intense; even after merging for several generations, it might not be completely eliminated.

At the same time, Xia Duo did not want to completely erase the history of a nation, which of course included the belief in revenge within it, but this would be a not-insignificant hidden danger in the future.

Of course, these were not the key points for Xia Duo. The key was that there was a suspected God-Making Project on the Mulan side. He was not sure if purchasing more Mulan would affect such a project; whether it was accelerated or aborted, neither was something Xia Duo wanted to see.

Or, because he accepted the Mulan, he might draw the other side's "Divine Punishment" to his own Territory; that would be even more miserable, simply an unprovoked disaster.

Therefore, Xia Duo was very hesitant now, not only about whether to purchase more Mulan in the future but also about the arrangements for this group of Mulan. Although he told Sainide that they would integrate into the Territory in the future, in reality, he hadn't thought it through yet!

Otherwise, he would have long since let the people from the Settlement Department come to receive and arrange them. In the past, when the Grey Eagle Tribe migrated with their whole families, tens of thousands of people could be properly arranged; now, these mere few thousand Mulan would not even cause a ripple if dropped in.

"For now, I can only take it one step at a time!" Xia Duo thought to himself.

Of course, he did not refuse the current prayers of the Mulan; he only said that purchasing more Mulan required the cooperation of the Yimaska side and was not something that could be done immediately while standing here; it required time.

Although this was not the answer Sainide and the other Mulan most hoped to hear, it was infinitely more ideal than a flat refusal. Isn't hope precisely precious because it is hard-won!

"By the way, do you have any items brought from your homeland?" Xia Duo thought of the mysterious Eastern World and asked Sainide again.

"It has been hundreds of years since the last batch of clansmen who came directly from the homeland, and coupled with the plundering by the Yimaska, I am not sure if any items from our homeland have been preserved."

This was the answer from Sainide's Conscious Mind; in his Subconscious, he mentioned that if anyone knew this answer, perhaps only those Elders hiding among the crowd, whose identities were mostly unknown, might know.

What Sainide could be sure of was that the Elders preserved the Wisdom of the Mulan. As for actual items, perhaps there were, perhaps there were not—both were possible. But if the Elders did not have them either, it was even less likely that anyone else would.

Of course, Sainide's "others" did not include the Yimaska, and for Xia Duo, seeking items from the Eastern World from the Yimaska might also expose his Reality.