Chapter 2893: Temporary Commander

On the way to the Xiu Xi Shi, Xia Duo and Dumu exchanged a few pleasantries. From the other party, he learned that more than twenty volunteers from various countries had already arrived in Evereska, all of whom were at least senior Mages.

"How many High Mages have come?"

"The specific number is not within my Permission Level, but I saw those few from the Meitelier incident last time; there should be at least five! Do you wish to go and meet them?"

"No, there will be plenty of opportunities to meet during the operation later."

Xia Duo had only experienced the Meitelier incident together with those Elf Mages; he had no other interactions with them, let alone any friendship. Most importantly, those Elves had already arrived but had not yet joined the Spirit Thought Network, which bothered him somewhat.

A moment later, the two arrived at the Xiu Xi Shi, which the Northland Alliance had prepared specifically for Xia Duo. Dumu left after escorting Xia Duo there, and Xia Duo looked over the furnishings in the Xiu Xi Shi by himself.

It was not much different from an ordinary Xiu Xi Shi, except for an extra desk and a stack of documents neatly placed upon it. Seeing this, Xia Duo felt thoughtful and casually flipped through the documents; they were mostly background introductions for this operation.

This included the background of the Time-Involving Ritual and an introduction to the Timeline Fluctuation Positioning Technology. Seeing this, Xia Duo immediately realized that not everyone could likely see these documents.

In the Spirit Thought Network he had just joined from Tili'ao's side, most people knew nothing about the purpose of this summons and were making all sorts of guesses.

Indeed, some Elves guessed that it might be an operation targeting the Demon Descendants, but none hit the mark, nor did they know of the existence of the Time-line Fluctuation Signal, let alone that the monitoring center had already detected a large number of signals.

However, Xia Duo declined Lier's participation. It was not that he was suspicious of Lier, but that adding one more person could not qualitatively change the current situation; conversely, Netherese Mages were very wary of this kind of deep Mind Link.

Xia Duo had originally intended to "lurk" and observe for a while, but he was discovered by the network Manager and had his Permission Level transferred immediately. The Dumu Wangluo was essentially a Mind Link; a change in Permission Level was no small matter and could not be ignored.

Xia Duo nodded and took the newly delivered Dumu Network Linker, then waved the new Linker in his hand and asked Lier, "Are you in this?"

"Hello everyone!" Xia Duo greeted them naturally.

"Intelligence Officer, is this all the members of the action group? Are there any who haven't arrived?"

While reading these documents, Xia Duo was also thinking about Tili'ao's reaction just now. It seemed he had strong thoughts about announcing the Grey Peak Mountains development plan right now, wondering if doing so could divert the Demon Descendants' attention.

As for those who addressed Xia Duo as "Lord," they mostly did not hold positions in the Northland Alliance; "Lord" was one of Xia Duo's most important identities at present.

"This was sent to you by Ambassador Tili'ao. The volunteers confirmed to participate in the operation after screening are all in here. You can pre-rehearse possible encounters during the operation with them. In addition, there are several intelligence officers from the Demon Descendant Intelligence Research Lab among them. At that time, field teams from the Demon Intelligence Office will assist you in completing the mission. As the commander of this operation, you also have the authority to command them; those intelligence officers are the messengers."

Xia Duo pondered for a moment, then turned most of his consciousness back to his main body. Regardless of the result on Tili'ao's side, he had already chosen to join and entered a standby state, but he could not just wait idly before the operation.

"Good afternoon, Lord Xia Duo."

"I suppose there must be other plans proceeding in parallel!"

The so-called "passed confirmation" was actually just passing a background check to be trusted; it was just that at least one-third of the Elves in the action group were High Mages, so saying "background check" directly was too blunt.

Xia Duo himself did not mind because he could control the leakage of Subconscious Information to a large extent; if he could not, he would also be very resistant to this kind of technology.

Just like that, Xia Duo devoted his consciousness to his main body to continue researching the Order Force while keeping an eye on the latest news in the volunteers' Dumu Wangluo. By around noon, Lier delivered some food and also brought a Dumu Network Linker, instructing:

After Lier left, Xia Duo successfully connected to the action group's Dumu Wangluo. As soon as he entered, he found those Elf volunteers discussing things heatedly!

The research on the Order Force still needed more effort; seeing that the Northland Alliance was about to accelerate the development plan, his Credit Currency Identifier had yet to have a breakthrough!

"The Perception depth level of this set of Linkers is relatively high. Currently, only the volunteers confirmed to participate in the operation and the communications officers have been issued them. If Lord Xia Duo needs one, I can also apply to join."

"I understand."

In fact, what neither of them said was that the Linker Tili'ao had brought out at the beginning had a Perception depth that was not inferior to this one at all, but those Elves could not be fully confirmed as trustworthy, so it could only be used as a pure computing resource pool.

Lier worked for the Northland Alliance and was not unaware of the concept of Perception depth, so to avoid any estrangement between the two sides in the future, Xia Duo still did not ask Lier to join the Dumu Wangluo.

"Those who haven't arrived don't need to come; just incorporate them into the computing group—that is the previous Dumu Wangluo. I believe everyone already understands the significance of this operation, so I won't say more. We will now proceed with the pre-rehearsal. I hope everyone can discard distracting thoughts and focus on the commands. Do not have any hesitation, otherwise, I can only ask you to go to the computing group. Assemble!"

"I am in command of this operation. Does anyone object?"

"Good afternoon, Consultant Xia Duo."

There were also those who addressed him as "Mage"; that was basically for those who had no prior interaction with Xia Duo, just a polite form of address, as that title was the most universal.

Those who addressed Xia Duo as "Consultant" mostly held positions in the Northland Alliance; Xia Duo's identity in the Northland Alliance was Consultant of the Time-Related Magic Research Laboratory;

"All those who have passed confirmation are here, but there may be more who pass confirmation later," one of the intelligence officers replied.

But Xia Duo could still confirm this through deeper Subconscious Information.

Xia Duo confirmed it once first. Of course, he would not punish without teaching, but rather strictly follow the procedure. Of course, no one would object to his face when he asked this, and thus a temporary superior-subordinate relationship was established.

Of course, there were also those who addressed him directly as "human," and there was nothing good to say about that; they were clearly biased against humans, and Xia Duo would not indulge them. If they did not obey orders in the upcoming pre-rehearsal, then Xia Duo would not care about them.

Of course, the most important thing was that the Northland Alliance had already sent two intelligence officers into the action group's Dumu Wangluo. If they hadn't, Xia Duo might have really considered pulling Lier in.

Almost instantly, the person who originally wanted to "lurk" became the object of everyone's attention, and because it was a Mind Link, this direction of conscious information was something Xia Duo could not ignore.