Chapter 3208: Disclosure Deadline, Heading to Ailan

Of course, Xia Duo did not completely refuse Dumu, but instead shared some intelligence that the various countries of the Alliance should know. He had previously captured peripheral members of the Illuminati, and after interrogating them himself, he had handed them over to the Alliance.

The Alliance should also be able to extract some secret information regarding the Illuminati, but Xia Duo's consciousness interrogation efficiency was exceptionally high; he did not need the consent of the interrogated to directly and violently parse the other party's Subconscious Information.

Under these circumstances, it was indeed possible for him to possess intelligence that the Alliance did not yet have, but could potentially obtain; this also counted as Xia Duo testing the Alliance's grasp of information related to the Illuminati.

With his current status as an Alliance Consultant, he could indeed access most intelligence data at the intelligence department, but Xia Duo believed that the Alliance was certainly hiding something from him.

This was actually easy to understand; not to mention the Elf, who certainly could not be expected to pour their heart out to him and share every piece of intelligence, and Dumu, although he appeared respectful to him, in reality, Dumu's own Permission Level within the Alliance was not much lower than Xia Duo's.

Most crucially, Dumu was a person of the Seven Towers; even if he had stayed in the Alliance for a long time and wanted to eat from multiple bowls, Dumu certainly knew where his most valuable asset lay—it was intelligence!

Xia Duo had every reason to believe that Dumu was also withholding things from him, and even withholding things from the Seven Towers, to whom he should have had no reservations; this was Dumu's capital for future advancement.

"Most of the situations mentioned by Lord Xia Duo have already been grasped by the Alliance. However, regarding the speculation that the Illuminati is highly likely to conduct another Time-Involving Ritual in the foreseeable future on a scale far exceeding the previous one, I wonder if Lord Xia Duo has any further evidence to support this speculation?"

"There is no supporting evidence, but I think you could go ask the Time-Related Magic Research Laboratory and hear the views of the Researchers there! Perhaps they can answer this doubt of yours."

If he hadn't learned from the Spirit Thought Network of the Time-Related Magic Research Laboratory that a Researcher had already proposed the same speculation as him, Xia Duo would not have told Dumu about this speculation either.

Speaking of it now was also to increase the Alliance's confidence in dealing with the Illuminati and to improve the Alliance's ability to take action against the Illuminati.

After all, according to his speculation, as long as they remained vigilant and guarded strictly for a relatively short period, it was possible that they would never again encounter the crisis of Time Line changes triggered by Time-Involving Magic in the future—

Of course, this was only in terms of the Illuminati's Elan Rebirth Project; if a certain country in the Main Plane wanted to change the Time Line to achieve some goal, that would be a new Time-Involving crisis.

Furthermore, Xia Duo telling Dumu this speculation had another purpose: he wanted to protect that Researcher.

If he did not do so, that Researcher might be targeted and eliminated by the Illuminati for proposing a guess that hit upon the Illuminati's fatal flaw.

Now that Xia Duo had informed Dumu of this speculation, it was effectively making the speculation public; unless the leaders of the Illuminati were willing to risk exposing their true identities, it would be very difficult for them to do anything to that Researcher.

Of course, this was not certain; the arrogance of those in high positions who mastered Prophecy was hard for others to imagine. If the Illuminati really did take action against that Researcher, it would count as a good thing for Xia Duo, as at least he would have a few more clues.

……

After exchanging intelligence regarding the Illuminati with Dumu, Xia Duo did not linger any longer. He immediately set off for Ailan. While reporting to both Ailan and Yierlan, he headed toward the Portal that went directly to Ailan.

With his current status as an Alliance Consultant, if he were only entering the country to participate in a public investigation rather than involving any secret armed operations, he only needed to report in advance and did not need the permission of the country concerned to enter the country legally.

Of course, if he were not an Alliance Consultant or the person in charge of the Computing Power Pool, then whether he could enter would depend on whether the country concerned allowed it.

If he were to force entry without permission, that would be illegal entry, and the country concerned would make no promises regarding his personal safety.

In other words, this kind of advance reporting also meant that the country concerned would provide a certain guarantee for the personal safety of the visitor.

For example, the relationship between Yierfalan and Keman has always been relatively poor, especially Yierfalan, where the public is extremely hostile toward Keman. Without such guarantees, how could the two countries dare to send personnel to each other, or even conduct civilian exchanges?

And such guarantees were actually not something that could be made by any single country, but were based on the joint guarantee of the Alliance by all countries. Only in this way could sufficient breach costs be generated, thereby allowing such guarantees to continue rather than becoming a mere scrap of paper.

There were many similar guarantees or commitments, all of which were eventually fixed in the form of treaties. Regardless of the reason for signing the terms, there was an obligation to comply until the treaty was abolished.

Just like the Magic Restriction Treaty, when the various countries no longer wanted to comply, it was quickly abolished. Even if the new treaty still had many clauses that had not been negotiated to a result, at least the old treaty had already become invalid.

And before the old treaty, no matter how unwilling the various countries were, they still chose to comply with the treaty's provisions and paid the Supermagic Fine for Supermagic Events, it was just that the various countries, after rounds of negotiation, ended up returning the fines to their original sources.

Leaving only a payment record on the books, in actual operation, no one had really paid even a single Gold Coin of Supermagic Fine, and this included Xia Duo.

In the current Northland Alliance, perhaps many people did not identify with the concepts, goals, and principles stated in the Alliance Charter at all, but most groups with a voice in the Northland agreed on one fact—

That was, regardless of whether the concepts, goals, and principles stated in the Alliance Charter were good or bad, there was a need for something that could unite the various countries of the Northland, and they were also willing to maintain the order system established based on this.

Because maintaining such a system was actually maintaining their own interests.

This also made the Alliance order increasingly deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the various specific procedures and processes derived from the order naturally received the recognition and support of the various countries in the Northland.

Because not recognizing these was equivalent to opposing the Alliance order, and opposing the Alliance order was equivalent to opposing their own interests; this was something that no group with a voice in the Northland could accept.

Of course, personal interests could not always be consistent with collective interests, so the Alliance was not flawless, but the current Alliance was already the greatest common divisor recognized by all parties.

Changing to another alliance or dissolving the Alliance would not be able to do better than the present; this was actually the greatest driving force for the current Northland Alliance to survive.

Everyone could obtain benefits from the Alliance; since that was the case, it was better to take the benefits first and see how things went step by step. As long as the Alliance always had positive returns, wouldn't staying in the Alliance always be a gain?

Unless a certain country suddenly became strong enough to conquer the entire Alliance, it would certainly still be more advantageous to stay in the Alliance and use the Alliance's rules to strengthen itself.

Because for the strong, it was obviously more advantageous to have fair rules, and the fairer, the more advantageous; the simplest example—letting the professional group and the amateur group compete on the same stage.