Chapter 3423: Unknown Means

————Still rushing~~

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At the very least, Xia Duo had not yet thought of any other method besides isolating the water body to keep paper books in good condition underwater.

Based on his observations, the Tide Queen's method might be to utilize the ubiquitous Water Elemental Domain of Beilunuo to precisely alter the properties of the water element where the books were located, preventing it from soaking the paper, or even extracting it from the paper entirely.

Sea Elves have lived in aquatic environments for a long time, and in terms of water-related applications, they are far ahead of land-dwellers; even Xia Duo has to admit this.

The "Alliance Charter" he provided was written in Standard Elvish, so even Sea Elves who have been away from the continent for tens of thousands of years could read it relatively smoothly; although the Sea Elves have been away from the continent for tens of thousands of years, they are not isolated from the world.

It is just that the language has naturally diverged due to the environment, while the script remains the same as before; Standard Elvish has stripped away redundant semantics, making it most suitable for beginners of Elvish, and for Sea Elves who already understand Elvish, there would naturally not be many obstacles.

And that "Charter" was written with programmatic, principled clauses; the Tide Queen flipped through it twice in succession without taking much time, and after she finished reading, she gave an affirmative answer:

"If the covenant is like this, then Beilunuo is willing to join the Northland Alliance."

"There is no rush to join the Northland Alliance; even Xinnaliya will have to wait until after the war for an answer. I have already notified the representatives of the various countries in the Alliance of Beilunuo's application to join, so let us first discuss how to catch the little tail of the Illuminati!"

Xia Duo had indeed already notified the representatives of the various countries at the Alliance Headquarters about Beilunuo's intention to join the Alliance, and at the same time, he also mentioned that catching the clue of Sea Elf Magic would require the cooperation of the Beilunuo side.

Just like with Xinnaliya joining the Alliance, the representatives of the various countries did not oppose Beilunuo's entry, but it was the same old story: wait until after the war to hold a vote.

Of course, there might be variables in this, but Xia Duo would push for it as much as possible; as for the present, he still had to focus his main energy on dealing with the Illuminati, and he truly had no energy to make every representative give a guarantee that they would definitely agree after the war.

However, Xia Duo had already exchanged a few words with Iolum and Badijiaer, and the three of them all believed that Beilunuo could be developed into an ally of Netheril, the reason being that Beilunuo's magic system was very close to that of Netheril.

It was merely that they had an additional water element inclination; if Beilunuo still wanted to live in the deep sea in the future, this was of course something that had to be persisted with, but if Beilunuo wanted to develop in the shallow sea or even on land, it could actually integrate into the Netheril Magic System almost seamlessly.

Although Beilunuo now only has a population of several hundred thousand, they have already popularized magic among the entire population, and their comprehensive strength is inferior to the large land nations only because their magic system is incomplete.

Once this point is supplemented, not to mention catching up with the large land nations completely, at the very least they would possess the strength to fight a full-scale war with a large nation, and if the population catches up as well, they would be a bona fide regional power.

If they could obtain such an ally, for Netheril, it would undoubtedly be able to increase their voice within the Alliance, and this is much stronger than Ilfalan, which is becoming increasingly indecisive.

As for the possibility that Sea Elves and Land Elves are completely as close as family, such a possibility does indeed exist, but it is very low; if they were close enough, there would not have been no contact for tens of thousands of years.

Not to mention, the magic system is actually a path of development; Sea Elves and Land Elves have already shown a clear divergence, and instead, they have walked the same path as Netheril; in this situation, even if they are not allies, they would naturally draw closer due to the external situation.

Furthermore, there is the Sea Elves' popularization of magic among the entire population, which is considered a kind of taboo in the eyes of the various Goblin nations; it is feared that there will not be any civilian contact between the two sides for quite a long time in the future.

This might even lead to obstacles in Beilunuo joining the Alliance, and this would require Netheril to vigorously push for it, just like Ilfalan pushed for Xinnaliya.

In fact, Beilunuo and Xinnaliya are already bound together at this moment; the two countries will either join the Alliance together or be rejected together; there is almost no third possibility.

This might also be the best time for Beilunuo to join the Alliance, even more critical than the timing chosen by Xinnaliya; once missed, if they want to join in the future, perhaps they will have to wait until the day Xia Duo is in charge.

Unlike Xinnaliya, even if they missed it this time, as long as they declare that they are giving up the dividends from the Grey Peak Mountains later on, the various countries would generally not refuse.

As for now, if the two countries can take advantage of this Illuminati world-ending crisis to join the Alliance, it is actually tacitly understood that they can enjoy the dividends from the Grey Peak Mountains; it is nothing more than adding the previous investments of the various Alliance countries and missing two sessions of the Snow Melting Competition, that is all.

……

"How does Consultant Xia Duo intend to investigate? Have you locked onto a preliminary target?" the Queen asked.

If the Tide Queen had asked this at the beginning, Xia Duo might not have been able to answer, but now, he told the other party with considerable certainty:

"I have already preliminarily locked onto a target. If possible, I ask Your Majesty the Queen to restrain him so that we may interrogate him together."

"Who is it?" the Queen asked in a deep voice, her expression grave.

At this moment, she could not help but feel a bit of relief; fortunately, she did not insist on resisting to the end. Judging from the situation before her, she believed that Xia Duo had no need to lie to her; if he said he had locked onto a target, then it could generally be confirmed that the target was colluding with the Illuminati.

If she had resisted to the end, that would simply have been the worst outcome.

Either, as Xia Duo said, let the Illuminati's conspiracy succeed and the world be destroyed, or, regardless of whether there was this Illuminati matter or not, it would count as offending the Northland Alliance, and she would inevitably suffer a backlash afterward.

"It is the red-haired consultant who just went out from here," Xia Duo said truthfully.

To tell the truth, he was also very surprised by this result. On the way here, he had asked Meila which of the Queen's consultants was most hostile toward the land, and at that time, Meila said it was a consultant named Suolintasi.

But Suolintasi was not among the two consultants just now!

The two consultants just now could be brought by the Queen to meet an important Envoy, and they went out obediently as soon as they were told to leave; it could basically be determined that those two consultants were in all likelihood the Queen's confidants.

Yet, it was precisely that red-haired consultant who sent messages in succession after leaving the Star Palace, and some even went outside of Beilunuo; and Xia Duo had been trying to steal the Permission Level since he entered the Beilunuo Water Elemental Domain.

And he had indeed succeeded, plus the Communication Spell used by the Sea Elves here was still the traditional method, not the Magic Net Background Communication that is most popular in Netheril nowadays.

The biggest characteristic of the latter, which distinguishes it from traditional Communication Spells, is that it is almost impossible to intercept because it is a form of near-full-frequency broadcast propagating in the Magic Web Background.

It appears to be widely diffused, and anyone can stick their hand in and take a peek, but in reality, only those who have mastered the communication secret key can receive it; others cannot even distinguish the communication from the Magic Web Background Fluctuation at all.

Moreover, once this kind of information is received by the target, there will be real-time feedback on the Spellcaster's side, which guarantees communication security to the greatest extent.