Chapter 2444: Another Prophecy

Seventon, Azure Manor.

Inside the Reception Room, Xia Duo pondered for a long time, ultimately not stating on the spot whether he would speak up for the people of the Tianshui Plane, though he did gift the Teleportation Scepter he had been using to Puman, so as to prevent the other party from falling into the hands of the Seven Towers.

This could be considered a form of stance; aside from some disappointment on his face, Puman did not insist too much, and soon left with the Teleportation Scepter.

When he left, he still transformed into the appearance of the peddler from before, pushing his small cart out of the manor and blending into the Trade District at the port to the west. After such an incident, the thought Xia Duo originally had of going back to see the Senior Mages recruited by Aiboke also faded away.

He had the mind to go and ask Yinaole, but like Puman, he worried that Yinaole would be kidnapped by the Seven Towers. This was not impossible; the more one considers the big picture, the easier it is to be kidnapped by so-called "greater righteousness," and one must possess extraordinary Wisdom to break through these bindings.

Yinaole was indeed an elder of great Wisdom, but that was more in the field of Magic; in the fields of organization and politics, in Xia Duo's view, he was still slightly lacking. The reason he appeared to be handling things with ease was nothing more than the accumulation of hundreds of years of experience, as well as the nearly unchanging rules of the game in a classical society.

Nowadays, the trend of the era changing has become increasingly obvious. It is not that the definition of the era changing must exist for the reality of the world to have those slight changes, but rather that the changes in the real world must exist first before they can be used to define the changes of the era.

In other words, if Yinaole still views problems with the perspective of the past, he is actually lagging behind the development of the era.

Of course, Xia Duo still trusts Yinaole's character, but on big issues like stance, private virtue often does not count for much.

In Xia Duo's view, Netheril is a typical Noble political system, with a minority of Elite Spellcasters dominating everything, yet nominally still flying the banner of the people.

Yinaole is undoubtedly a supporter and advocate of this system; not only that, he actually regards the Seven Towers as the elite of the elite.

Yet what Xia Duo yearns for is a republic, where the people are the masters, and everything is for the interests of the people. From this perspective, he and Yinaole are destined to never walk the same path.

It is just that the two sides do not have much disagreement on the issue of the people, and because of Xia Duo's attempts at popularizing education in Daxia Territory, Yinaole has come to recognize the potential of the people.

But his views on elitism have not necessarily been shaken.

As for the present, the people of the Tianshui Plane wanting to return to the Main Plane is not a problem in itself, but it will bring about a very critical issue, which is—

The power of the Seven Towers has declined, and this Noble political system led by the Seven Towers has been shaken, commonly known as "shaking the foundation of the state," and the "foundation of the state" is largely maintained by the old Seville Covenant.

In other words, once the people of the Tianshui Plane are allowed to return to the Main Plane, the power that the Seven Towers can use to dominate Netheril will be diluted, the Seville Covenant may collapse, and subsequently lead to the collapse of the entire Netheril.

Xia Duo believes that there must exist a method where the people of the Tianshui Plane can return to the Main Plane while still maintaining the old system, but undoubtedly, for the Seven Towers, suppression is the simplest approach.

Under such circumstances, whether Yinaole will be kidnapped is hard to say.

Unless he can propose a method that satisfies both sides, but this is obviously very difficult. The center of power can only accommodate so many positions; once those who originally voluntarily gave up participating in politics come over, it will inevitably cause an impact on the center of power.

This is obviously not allowed by the current Controllers of the Seven Towers and the interest groups of the power center they represent. This is a fundamental contradiction, and Xia Duo really cannot think of any way to reconcile it.

Of course, reality is not a purely rational deduction; at least Morien Tower is somewhat different. However, they are obsessed with the exploration of truth, and wanting to live peacefully in their own small world will inevitably mean giving up part of their right to speak, especially on issues concerning the distribution of power.

But regardless, this is a peculiarity of reality. If one observes carefully, one should be able to find more, but in the end, these are just side issues, and normally it is very difficult to influence the general trend.

Therefore, Xia Duo is so hesitant now, unsure of exactly what to do to unite everyone as much as possible and bypass the future of civil war.

……

Sitting in the Reception Room for half an hour, Xia Duo decided to conduct another Prophecy Ritual, even though he knew very well that knowing too much information about the future is not necessarily a good thing, let alone a possible future.

The more one knows, the more one will care, and consequently, when thinking about any problem, one will involuntarily carry that part of the possible future information.

There are benefits, of course, but the drawbacks are also very obvious: it may constrain one's thinking, causing one to fall into a trap without realizing it.

When Xia Duo was in his hometown, he heard a saying that went—it is fine not to know the future, but once you know it, the future is determined, and no matter what you do, it will lead to that predetermined future happening.

This is, of course, just the nonsense of a fantasist, but it also reveals the drawbacks of knowing the future to a certain extent. It does not necessarily lead to that predetermined future, but it could also be some future that one's past self would not want to go to.

But the matter of the people of the Tianshui Plane returning to the Main Plane has too great an impact. Xia Duo would rather lose some possibilities of the future than not conduct another prophecy to see what the framed future is actually like.

Theoretically, the possibilities of the future are infinite. Even if knowing future information leads to one's thinking being restricted, it is actually still infinite, as long as the prophet can exclude the (unfavorable) interference of that future information on their own decision-making.

Xia Duo can analyze his Subconscious, can see clearly the source and process of every thought that occurs in his mind, and can exclude external information interference to the greatest extent. This, of course, is not just interference from the consciousness information of outsiders, but can also be interference from future information.

Thinking of this, he immediately made his decision.

……

Arcane Union Headquarters.

Still the same Laboratory from half a month ago, Xia Duo set up the Present World Anchoring Altar again, skillfully established a Time Anchor for the current moment, and then projected his Perception into the boundless Astral Plane.

By borrowing the special time attributes of the Astral Plane to perceive the development possibilities of the Main Plane, in a sense, the Projection Plane is also born based on this.

However, Xia Duo was not looking for a Projection Plane this time, but was looking for the future.

With the help of the current Time Anchor, Xia Duo quickly found that spring-like source of present-world information that was constantly spreading outward. Although it was not the first time he had seen it, every time he saw such a scene, he felt incomparably shocked.

Afterward, Xia Duo adjusted his state of Perception, and thus the present-world information, where infinite futures were originally superimposed, collapsed rapidly, turning into specific scenes that he received—