Chapter 3154: The Ulterior Motive

————It will be a bit late~~

————

Since that was the case, Xia Duo naturally would not be very polite to those who truly surrendered. He simply stated the plan for dealing with these people, and then sealed them all up one by one.

As for whether to create Consciousness Copies, he would have to wait until he had reviewed the first six Consciousness Copies. 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.

Saving Consciousness Copies required the use of Spirit Material. For short-term storage, the Ectoplasm-like Composite Material obtained from Imaska would suffice, but for long-term preservation, real Spirit Material was still necessary.

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 make them then.

In a flash of thought, Xia Duo had already decided on the plan for dealing with these invaders. He did not even let go of the two corpses, but instead preserved them properly.

As for the cave where these invaders had been staying, that went without saying. After scanning it once with 【Wide-Area Detection】 earlier, Xia Duo had checked it in person and 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. Upon returning to his own territory, 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 not delayed at all after checking the scene; he had rushed back immediately just to confirm whether Kalishi had run away.

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 on the other side had been a complete success, yet Kalishi had not run away from Evereska. This was somewhat contrary to reason; he did not believe Kalishi had no connection to those invaders.

He had caught people in his raid, and Kalishi should have known about it nine times out of ten; 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 identify Kalishi—not necessarily physical evidence, but potentially consciousness information.

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

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

Because during their last meeting, that guy's malice toward him had been 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 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 have no findings 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. Once the other party has any suspicious movements, notify me immediately."

Charles's friend was only a guard at Cloudtop Tower, and his primary job was standing watch; he 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 consciousnesses of the big fish.

After Charles left with his orders, 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; it was safer to conduct the critical interrogation phase at the Tower of Time.

……

But how did that saying go—good things take time. Xia Duo had that feeling now; he had been back at the Tower of Time for less than three hours, and the consciousness interrogation had just gotten to the point.

The shattered consciousness fragments released a large amount of useful and useless consciousness information into 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 suddenly convened an Alliance Assembly for some reason, but there had been no prior notice, let alone an explanation of the cause. Nine times out of ten, 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 meeting 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; it was simply a form of torture.

However, this was Xia Duo's own choice. Because he was in a hurry, he had chosen the most direct and brutal method of shattering consciousness for violent analysis, rather than 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 violent cracking.

But if this were the only thing bothering him, Xia Duo would not have given others a cold look 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 someone accountable—at least in Xia Duo's view, that was what it was. The target of this accountability was obviously him. It was said that after the Computing Pool Gateway update, a significant number of Computing 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. Moreover, one of the Yierlan Mages who died this time had a rather special status, so they had come to hold him accountable.

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

Under these circumstances, if people were still dying, his first reaction was that someone was deliberately making trouble, only he was not yet sure if the Illuminati was fueling the flames or if it was a conspiracy by Zhamu Dasi.

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

Although they did not explicitly say they would support Kalishi's Artifact Project, Xia Duo had already smelled 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 the two 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.