Chapter 3034: Predetermined Destiny

As he thought, Xia Duo suddenly realized that the Illuminati seemed to be preserving their vital strength as much as possible while guiding destiny!

Destiny decreed that the Morning Light Secret Hall be destroyed; the Illuminati did not want to change this destiny, but within the scope allowed by destiny, they preserved at least one high mage—that is, the Morning Light Guardian.

By continuously revealing destiny and gathering power in this way, they eventually formed a torrent of destiny that outsiders could hardly resist, which is what is known as the great trend of history.

Perhaps this is the truth behind why the Illuminati has infiltrated various countries so deeply, because their infiltration is both the goal and the result; in a sense, this is the predetermined destiny!

Opposing such an existence, Xia Duo felt both a scalp-tingling nervousness and an excitement at challenging destiny.

In fact, he also felt that he and the Illuminati were somewhat alike; both held ideologies not accepted by the current mainstream, and both were doing what they believed to be right.

The only difference is likely that the worst of what Xia Duo is doing would not lead to the destruction of the world (though it would cause the old forces to lose power), while the same cannot be said for the Illuminati; changing the Time Line or reshaping the world sounds unreliable.

It is hard to say what the final result will be.

Therefore, even a person with strong tolerance like Xia Duo is very opposed to the Illuminati's goals; I fear no sentient being with normal thinking could accept the Illuminati's ideas.

Because of this, in the matter of opposing the Illuminati, Xia Duo actually has the sentient beings of the entire Main Plane behind him.

Even if it is a predetermined destiny, gathering the power of all sentient beings on the plane is enough to change destiny; this is the source of Xia Duo's greatest confidence. If it were just him personally, he would already be considering which plane to flee to by now.

……

Thinking of the Illuminati's immense influence in the Northland—the Demon Descendants are merely the most inconspicuous end; the Illuminati's true influence lies in the intricate network of relationships they have cultivated in the Elf World as prophets over so many years.

Xia Duo had no doubt that if he chose to expose them directly, the Elf World would choose the Illuminati without hesitation over him.

It is not that the Elf World could accept the Illuminati's ideology of reviving Ailan, but rather that the Illuminati's current influence is too easy to excuse; it would be nothing more than their identities being exposed, but their influence would not disappear instantly.

Before the influence fades, it would be enough for them to whitewash themselves and return to shore, then continue to maintain an influence that might be slightly inferior to the past; the only victim in this process would be Xia Duo.

How to completely defeat the Illuminati, Xia Duo has not yet figured out, but at least he can start by crushing their conspiracies, and further, expose their identities and put everything on the table.

In this way, even if the Illuminati cannot be completely eliminated in the end, at least their harmfulness can be minimized.

If such a situation really occurs, it is actually not a bad thing; it is already countless times better than the ending where the world is destroyed by the Illuminati. The only pity is being unable to completely settle accounts with all Illuminati members.

But Xia Duo's own existence is a huge variable.

From the perspective of destiny theory, the Illuminati is shaping destiny, and so is Xia Duo, and his destiny is stronger than the Illuminati's; as long as he persists, there will always be an opportunity to settle everything in the future.

……

After receiving new intelligence on the Illuminati from Poson, Xia Duo did not take action immediately, but continued to wait—to see when the mission Yisiluoda mentioned would take place, and to see what secrets that mission was hiding.

The other party mentioned that the mission might be in the near future, which contradicts the existence of the Excited State Magic Artifacts stored in the Rus Chamber of Commerce's Static Space Warehouse—

The Excited State Magic Artifacts stored by the Rus Chamber of Commerce might point to the final moment of the decisive battle, while Poson might be transporting supplies across the border to the so-called Ailan revival forces in the near future; the correlation between the two is not strong.

Xia Duo tentatively treated Poson's current action as one of the preparations the Illuminati is making for their final desperate gamble; if so, it not being launched immediately gave him time to continue observing, researching, and even cracking it.

If it really reached that final moment, there might not be much time to react.

……

Besides the Illuminati affair, Xia Duo was also simultaneously paying attention to the operation of the Public Computing Power Pool and the latest progress of Netheril's exploration of new planes.

According to news from the Seven Cities Council, the new exploration base built in the former Arcane Union Ether Forward Base has already been put into initial use with the cooperation of all parties.

And within a few short days, it has caught up to the exploration progress previously made at the New Sevenon Mage Tower, although the exploration speed of the Ether Boundary route, besides being related to the environment, is also largely related to the degree of perfection of the infrastructure.

Simply put, the Council wants to ask Xia Duo to provide an additional batch of Arcane String materials for the construction of the Mythallar at the exploration base.

Although they are paying for it, Xia Duo does not really want to earn this money; the reason is also very simple: Netheril currently knows too little about the Ether Boundary, and there is no need to accelerate the progress so much.

Plus, he already did not want Pulitatisi, that golden dragon, to have too much contact with the Mythallar, so he very simply refused on the grounds that the Tower of Time's production capacity was insufficient.

But he knew such an excuse could not drag on for long; when the exploration speed at the exploration base hits a bottleneck, other councilors would likely rather not build their own Mythallars than fail to ensure the facilities at the exploration base are complete.

After all, a steady stream of new planes is the easiest way to give people a sense of achievement, but the actual situation is—after new planes reach a certain number, having a few more does not have much significance.

Unless all planes in the entire domain are discovered; this should be the true thought of many councilors and Pulitatisi.

So, on the day after refusing the Arcane String order proposed by Badijiaer, Xia Duo sent a message to him, offering his own suggestion—

"Several hundred new planes have already been discovered, and new planes will become larger in the future, but we still know too little about the Ether Boundary and new Teleportation Spells; I suggest that we should focus our main energy on this in the future.

"Doing this might even improve exploration methods and increase exploration efficiency! By then, won't we be able to discover new planes however we want?"

In the end, Xia Duo could not help but sow discord regarding Pulitatisi, "Haven't you noticed that Pulitatisi's interest in new planes is significantly greater than in the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link?"

This was not Xia Duo slandering blindly, but the current conduct of the exploration base indeed gave him this feeling; it seemed they were impatient to identify all unknown planes in this domain.

The reason for this might be that the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link project is too massive, and other branching plans show no returns in the short term; only Plane Exploration is the easiest to harvest from.

But Xia Duo is more willing to believe that this is deliberately guided by Pulitatisi; he suspects that Pulitatisi might not need to wait for the two domains to connect to contact the Holy Golden Dragon Empire.

Perhaps once a certain law of space-time changes in the Ether Interlayer, similar to star charts on Earth, is determined, Pulitatisi could immediately contact the mother domain, and after that, the construction of the Cross-Domain Teleportation Link would no longer be up to Netheril.

It would be up to the more powerful Holy Golden Dragon Empire.

Upon receiving Xia Duo's reminder, Badijiaer expressed his agreement with Xia Duo's concerns, but he did not believe the exploration base was influenced by Pulitatisi; however, in the end, he still agreed to persuade others to adjust the exploration base's main development direction going forward.

From Plane Exploration to research on the Ether Boundary itself.