Chapter 2996: Phased Construction, Short-Term Goals

————A little later, while rushing—

————

"So, Huo En, your meaning is that you are more inclined toward cooperation?"

"At least until the other party clearly shows hostility, I am indeed more inclined toward cooperation. Behind the other party is a powerful foreign domain; cooperation is the best choice, one could even say the only choice."

However, Huo En also pointed out, "If we are to cooperate, I fear the Seven Towers alone will not suffice. The construction of a Cross-Domain Teleportation Link requires a massive amount of manpower and resources; it is not appropriate for us to bear it alone."

"Then is your meaning to do it in the name of the Seven Cities Council, or in the name of the Northland Alliance?"

"The Council, of course!"

On this question, Huo En blurted out the answer without a moment's thought, even if it meant bearing more costs, he would not hesitate. After all, once this matter was handed over to the Alliance, it would no longer be under the control of the Seven Towers.

"I also believe it is better to keep the cooperation within Netheril."

……

Very quickly, the Seven Towers reached a consensus internally regarding the construction of the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link in cooperation with Pulitatisi. During this process, Xia Duo was also asked several questions.

Most were regarding the confirmation of the content Pulitatisi had stated, such as the results of lie detection, the feasibility of relevant Spell theories, and so on.

"Next, I will convene a Council meeting. Huo En, please trouble yourself to discuss the details of the cooperation with Pulitatisi. Others who are interested may also go over to take a look."

The "others" Badijiaer mentioned here naturally included Xia Duo. Even if Badijiaer had not said it, Xia Duo would not have missed the opportunity to communicate with Pulitatisi.

Previously, when at Delake Territory, many questions had not been delved into deeply. Now that they were at the Seven Towers, he imagined the other party would be easier to talk to and would reveal more things.

……

Subsequently, the eight people split into two groups to act separately. Badijiaer went to convene the Council meeting, while the remaining people swarmed toward Morien Tower—

Pulitatisi's tour of the Seven Towers happened to reach Morien Tower.

Inside a Reception Room of Morien Tower.

Bulundesi brought Pulitatisi here and then left. Huo En once again represented the Seven Towers in expressing a welcome to Pulitatisi, then quickly stepped into the main topic:

"The Seven Towers intends to construct a Mage Tower for you in Xin Saiwendun. If you do not mind, in the future, our mutual cooperation projects will be prioritized at that Mage Tower."

Although Badijiaer was already convening the Council meeting and others might not necessarily agree to cooperate with Pulitatisi, this did not affect the Seven Towers cooperating with the other party, and naturally, this included Xia Duo.

"No problem. All consumption for constructing the Mage Tower can be counted as expenses for the cooperation project." Pulitatisi agreed to this proposal very readily.

He knew very well that the Seven Towers could not possibly place cooperation projects in a place they could not see; in fact, constructing a Mage Tower for him even had the purpose of monitoring him to some extent.

However, he did not care about any of this, as long as the project could proceed normally and allow him to contact his home domain as soon as possible.

"As for manpower and material resources, I wonder how much is needed for the construction of the Teleportation Link? I hope Mage Pulitatisi can inform us in advance so we can prepare ahead of time."

"This question is actually not easy to answer right now."

Regarding this, Pulitatisi also had his own explanation, "On one hand, I did not engage in Teleportation Link research in my home domain. Although I have some understanding of it, it is still difficult to estimate the project's consumption.

"Additionally, the bulk of the cost for Teleportation Link construction actually lies in determining the Plane Nodes. Within this, there are two key steps: first, finding a large number of spare Planes, and second, finding suitable Node Planes from among these spare Planes.

"These two key tasks require consuming a massive amount of manpower and material resources.

"As for the construction of the Teleportation Link itself after everything is prepared, I can actually inform you all of this: the construction cost of a single node should not be higher than that of a Mage Tower—I am referring to one like the one in Delake Territory.

"Of course, it won't be lower than that either. I know you have a type of permanent Teleportation Array here; the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link nodes are similar to this kind of permanent Teleportation Array, but more complex.

"You can imagine its construction cost."

After Pulitatisi finished speaking, the several people from the Seven Towers all fell silent. Huo En was slightly better off; previously at Delake Territory, he had known that the Teleportation Link between the domain where Pulitatisi's hometown was located and a Public Domain had used over five thousand Plane Nodes in total.

Then, the connection between the Main Plane here and the domain where Pulitatisi was located would likely be of the same order of magnitude.

In other words, even if all preliminary preparations were ready, the cost of simply constructing such a Cross-Domain Teleportation Link could be thousands of conventional Mage Towers.

Calculated in Gold Coins, it would be roughly 5 billion. If one further considers some early preparations, such as exploring and discovering new Planes and researching suitable node paths, then it would be even more.

By a preliminary estimate, it would at least exceed ten billion!

If calculating it this way is not intuitive enough, then comparing it to the finished Mythallar device that Kelifu auctioned at the Tower of Time, that Mythallar only sold for twenty million Gold Coins (settled in Mithril).

Yet, even this twenty million was not something every Great Arcanist could produce; they all needed to borrow or raise it from their vassals and wings. Coming up with it once was enough to be bone-breaking and muscle-tearing.

And this current Cross-Domain Teleportation Link project was equivalent to 500 Mythallars—five hundred times twenty million!

……

Even Xia Duo, upon hearing such a situation, could not help but gasp. Outsiders might not know, but was he not clear himself? Constructing a Floating City, even if all internal facilities were completed (under current technical standards), would not exceed fifty million.

He had built two Floating Cities himself. Not to mention the later Yongle City, which was just a bare shell besides the Mythallar; the first, Chang'an City, already had relatively complete internal infrastructure, lacking only some standard laboratories.

And for him to build Chang'an City, all costs added together amounted to less than thirty million.

In other words, building one Cross-Domain Teleportation Link was equivalent to building several hundred fully equipped Floating Cities. This had already completely exceeded Netheril's capabilities.

This is like building a Mars base on Earth; theoretically, it can indeed be built, but the cost of building such a base might be 1% of the entire Earth's GDP. This ratio seems very low, but for a single country, it is too much.

Generally speaking, any investment higher than 1% of the total GDP is worth being cautious and more cautious, and Xia Duo could actually roughly estimate Netheril's total GDP.

Taking himself as an example, the total annual income of the Tower of Time plus the Territory did not exceed ten million. If expenditures were deducted, the net income was even less.

Of course, the current income of the Tower of Time was not very stable for the time being. For example, just recently, when the Third Generation Communication Artifact was first released, the first week's sales exceeded ten million, but this could not be sustained.

Averaging the income since Xia Duo took over the Tower of Time, it might be just a few million, but this already made him a leader among Great Arcanists.

Assuming the income of all Council members (and their factions) was referenced to Xia Duo, calculating at an annual income of ten million, the 51 members combined would be 500 million. And the total income of these 51 members could actually be treated as Netheril's GDP.

That is equivalent to one-twentieth of the cost of the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link project!