Chapter 2446: The Opportunity to Renew the Covenant

————I really can't finish this in time, I'll make up for it tomorrow~~

————

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 took the form of the peddler from before, pushing his small cart out of the manor and blending into the Trade District at the western port. After such an incident, Xia Duo's original intention to go back and check on the Senior Mages recruited by Aiboke also faded.

He had a 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 constraints.

Yinaole was indeed an elder of great Wisdom, but that was mostly 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 have things under control was merely due to hundreds of years of accumulated experience and the nearly unchanging rules of the game in a classical society.

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

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

Of course, Xia Duo still trusts Yinaole's character, but on major issues like stance, private virtue often counts for nothing.

In Xia Duo's view, Netheril is a typical Noble political system, where a small number of Elite Spellcasters dominate everything, yet nominally it still flies 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 among the elite.

Yet what Xia Duo yearns for is a republic, where the people are the masters, and everything is for the benefit 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 the Seven Towers can use to dominate Netheril will be diluted, the Seville Covenant may collapse, and this will lead to the collapse of all of 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 only has room for so many positions; once those who originally voluntarily gave up participating in politics arrive, they 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 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, but they are obsessed with the exploration of truth, and wanting to live securely in their own small world means they must inevitably give up part of their voice, 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 what to do to unite everyone as much as possible and bypass a 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 future information might not be 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 include that piece of possible future information.

There are benefits, of course, but the drawbacks are also very obvious: it might 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: it's fine not to know the future, but once you know it, the future becomes fixed; no matter what you do, it will lead to that predetermined future.

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 might not necessarily lead to that predetermined future, but it could also be a future that one's past self would not want to head toward.

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 exactly what this framed future looks 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, provided the prophet can exclude the (unfavorable) interference of that future information on their 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 maximum extent. This is, of course, not just interference from the consciousness information of outsiders, but can also be interference from future information.

Thinking of this, he immediately made a decision.

……

Arcane Union Headquarters.

In the same Laboratory as half a month ago, Xia Duo once again set up the Present World Anchoring Altar, skillfully established an anchor point for the current moment, and then projected his Perception into the boundless Astral Plane.

By utilizing the special time attributes of the Astral Plane to perceive the development possibilities of the Main Plane, in a sense, the Projection Plane was 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 the spring-like source of present-world information that was constantly expanding 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 the present-world information, where infinite futures were superimposed, quickly collapsed, turning into specific scenes that were received by him——