Chapter 3153: Six Big Fish

Since that was the case, Xia Duo certainly would not be very polite to true surrenderers; he simply stated the handling plan for these people, then proceeded to imprison and seal them all one by one.

As for whether to create Consciousness Copies, that would have to wait until he had reviewed the first six; if his guess was correct, the first six were the key figures, and there would be no need to create Consciousness Copies for the others.

Storing Consciousness Copies requires Spirit Material; for short-term storage, the Ectoplasm-like Composite Material obtained from Imaska would suffice, but for long-term preservation, true Spirit Material must be used.

Judging from the performance of those fourteen, they were simply not worth wasting the Spirit Material that could be used to create fourteen standard Tower Spirits; if there was a real need later, it would not be too late to create them then.

In a flash of thought, Xia Duo had already decided on the handling plan for these intruders; he did not even let off the two corpses, but instead preserved them properly.

As for the cave where these intruders had been staying, that went without saying; after scanning it once with 【Wide-Area Detection】 and checking it in person, Xia Duo collected everything of value before leaving that place.

……

Returning to Evereska, Xia Duo felt somewhat smug, though not to the point of getting carried away; back on his own turf, he immediately called Charles to his office and asked:

"Is there anything unusual at Cloudtop Tower?"

"No, just a moment ago a high-level Mage went to visit him; if there were anything unusual, my friend would have already sent me a Sending."

The "him" in Charles's words was, of course, Kalishi; Xia Duo had checked the scene without any delay, and the reason he rushed back immediately was to confirm whether Kalishi had fled.

In his view, there was a ninety percent chance that Kalishi was in league with Zhamu Dasi to scheme against the Northland's Computing Power Pool.

As it turned out, his operation over there was a complete success, yet Kalishi had not fled from Evereska, which was somewhat contrary to reason; he did not believe Kalishi had no connection to those intruders.

He had caught people in his raid, and Kalishi most likely already knew; it was truly unjustifiable that he hadn't run.

Moreover, Xia Duo also believed that the twenty people he had captured must possess evidence sufficient to implicate Kalishi—not necessarily physical evidence, but potentially consciousness information.

Therefore, he could not understand how Kalishi could still remain so calmly in Evereska, and even receive guests so openly.

After pondering for quite a while, Xia Duo still could not figure out the reason, but he did not rule out the other party's suspicion because of Kalishi's behavior; on the contrary, such behavior made him even more suspicious.

Because during their last meeting, that guy's malice toward him was almost explicit, and he lied through his teeth; he could never be the type of person willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the Northland.

The top priority was still to hurry and extract the memories of those six big fish!

Thinking this, Xia Duo instructed Charles, "Tell your friend at Cloudtop Tower to be careful; it is better to find nothing than to take any initiative to spy. Also, go to the intelligence department and have Dumu arrange for professional secret agents to watch Kalishi at Cloudtop Tower; notify me immediately if the other party makes any suspicious moves."

Charles's friend was only a guard at Cloudtop Tower, whose primary job was standing watch and could not keep an eye on Kalishi at all times, so Xia Duo could only ask Dumu to handle this matter.

As for himself, he was, of course, going to interrogate the big fish's consciousness.

After Charles left to carry out the order, Xia Duo settled his avatar and immediately returned his consciousness to his main body; the Tower of Time was the place he felt most at ease, and it was safer to conduct the critical interrogation phase at the Tower of Time.

……

But as the saying goes—good things take time; Xia Duo felt exactly this way now, having returned to the Tower of Time for less than three hours, with the consciousness interrogation just getting to the main point.

The shattered consciousness fragments released a large amount of useful and useless consciousness information in his mind through the Mind Link; under these circumstances, he should have been organizing this information.

He was indeed doing just that, but it was precisely at this moment that a summons came from the Northland Alliance—a very formal summons for members of the Advisory Committee.

This also meant that the Alliance had somehow suddenly convened an Alliance Assembly, but without prior notice, let alone any explanation of the reason; it was highly likely that some major, unplanned change had occurred.

Under these circumstances, even if Xia Duo was unwilling, he had to rush back to see what kind of change had happened.

……

Evereska, Alliance Headquarters.

Xia Duo's expression was not good at all as he appeared in the conference hall; he rarely showed such direct emotions, but the various consciousness information surging in his mind made it difficult for him to concentrate.

Yet, organizing memories required concentration.

It was like asking someone to read a book in a very noisy place and write a thesis-level review; this was simply a form of torture.

However, this was Xia Duo's own choice; because he was in a hurry, he chose the most direct and brutal method of shattering the consciousness for violent analysis, rather than a true "interrogation" of the consciousness.

Because the premise of "interrogation" was to awaken the other party's self-awareness, and the other party might lie, coupled with the uncertainty of Psionic power, Xia Duo could only choose a brute-force crack.

But if this were the only thing troubling him, Xia Duo would not have given others a cold shoulder at the Alliance Assembly; it was only after he arrived here that he was informed of the main purpose of this meeting—

One was to hold him accountable—at least in Xia Duo's view, that was what it was, and the target of this accountability was clearly him—stating that after the Computing Pool Gateway update, a significant number of Computing Power Pool users in Yierlan had died abnormally.

After multiple checks, it was confirmed that the cause of death was the Mind Blast transmitted from the Computing Pool Linker, and among the Yierlan Mages who died this time, one had a rather special identity, so they came to hold him accountable.

But Xia Duo was certain that the time those Yierlan Mages died was not when he was using the Computing Power Pool's Xiling Liliang to locate the intruders, and under normal circumstances, the Computing Power Pool was very safe.

With people dying under such circumstances, his first reaction was that someone was deliberately causing trouble, only he was not yet sure whether the Illuminati were fueling the flames or if it was a conspiracy by Zhamu Dasi.

And with the first purpose in place, the other purpose became obvious: the Yierlan side wanted to have Psionic Mages participate in the actual management of the Computing Power Pool, especially regarding Protection.

Although they did not explicitly state support for Kalishi's Artifact Project, Xia Duo had already sensed such a possibility; even in Enjier's hints, the attitude of the Comanthar side seemed to have changed!

Under these circumstances, how could Xia Duo have a good expression, especially toward the Yierlan representative; although both sides had just reached multiple cooperation agreements regarding the development of Ailan a short time ago, now, Xia Duo did not even look the other party in the eye.