Chapter 3467: Meeting and Probing

————Currently rushing~~

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Because the matter involved secrets, Saiputalisi did not immediately respond to Xia Duo, nor did he offer any confirmation or hint regarding the "trade between Ilfaren and Beilunuo" that Xia Duo had mentioned; he only said that he would report this matter to his country.

Xia Duo calculated the time and said to Saiputalisi, "This matter is extremely important. I ask that you, Ambassador, please keep it in mind and, ideally, provide me with a reply before noon today."

Because Xia Duo was going to summon the Divine Envoy at noon, in order to settle the matter of going to Beilunuo before skipping over this period of time, he had no choice but to be slightly impolite in requesting a time for a reply.

Saiputalisi was indeed dissatisfied because of this, but what concerned him more at this moment was that Xia Duo knew of the existence of trade between Ilfaren and Beilunuo; if he did not get to the bottom of this, it would be a dereliction of his duty.

As for the prophecy Xia Duo spoke of, he did not believe it at all; he had never heard before that Xia Duo possessed such strong prophetic abilities.

After reluctantly agreeing to reply before noon, Saiputalisi immediately found an excuse to leave the Reception Room.

……

After Saiputalisi left, Xia Duo began to reflect on whether he had been a bit too aggressive in doing this.

If some accident were to occur that caused him to fail to collect the Time Force in this time line, and if there were no other sources subsequently, it might allow the Illuminati to gain a comprehensive lead at the level of the time line.

But considering that reshaping the time line starting from such a "past" Node already carried a hint of risk, Xia Duo made up his mind: if Ilfaren did not give him a reply before noon, he would immediately cast them aside and go to Beilunuo in person to secure the Time Gem first.

Of course, the ideal situation would still be for Ilfaren to agree to help, so that after he finished summoning the Divine Envoy, he could head to the seabed openly in the name of the Alliance.

At that time, the situation might still be like in the time line he had previously experienced, with Queen Taisi of Beilunuo taking action personally to capture Dali.

It was just that the Illuminati had not yet launched the final decisive battle, the sense of crisis on the Alliance side was not yet sufficient, and consequently, the Beilunuo side might also have some other thoughts or misjudgments.

This was the drawback of reshaping the time line; those major historical events often possessed both contingency and necessity simultaneously, and the further one was from the original Node, the greater the variables.

But considering the benefits of reshaping the time line, this drawback was not unacceptable; one just had to be more cautious and must never harbor the thought of toying with time, otherwise, one would inevitably be toyed with by time in the end.

……

While waiting for a reply from the Ilfaren side, Xia Duo prepared to attempt the creation of a key item. He had already had the idea while in the Astral Plane, but limited by the environment of the Astral Plane itself, he had not been able to try making it.

And now, although he had only just reshaped the time line, or rather "returned to the past," he would certainly make use of every opportunity to create that key item he had envisioned.

Yongle City.

Xia Duo opened the Time Acceleration Array without hesitation. This was also his important trump card for defeating the Illuminati. The Illuminati's plan was urgent and tight; how could the Alliance side manage to overtake them on a curve?

The Time Acceleration Array was undoubtedly the decisive treasure that could maximize all favorable conditions. In the previous time line, Xia Duo had already used the Time Acceleration Array to obtain the method for collecting and even utilizing Time Force.

And now, he would once again use the Time Acceleration Array to create a key item of truly decisive significance; this might become the turning point of this war.

Ritual Site Number One, inside the Time Acceleration Array.

With the help of the time acceleration effect, Xia Duo once again combed through the relevant details of the key item he was to create this time, as well as the action plan for this time line, and then began the first fabrication.

Soon, the first Mithril Component of this item was produced. It was a Hollow Mithril Sphere the size of a normal human eyeball, hollow inside, with only the shell appearing as if it were woven from countless fine Mithril threads.

But in reality, it was molded in one piece, and to ensure precision, it was shaped directly in one go through a Spell, and subsequently preserved within a Levitation Field; it was by no means comparable to those ordinary hand-crafted Mithril components.

Just such a small Hollow Mithril Sphere, if it were pressed into Mithril grains and sold, the price might exceed ten thousand Gold Coins.

Of course, Xia Duo's actual cost was not that high, otherwise he might have had to abandon portability and choose a lower cost, but even so, in order to refine the Mithril needed for this experiment, a great deal was consumed.

Refining Mithril via the 【Element Extraction】 spell, even in theory, could not yield as much Mithril as one had material, because due to the elemental transmutation reaction of matter, in practice, the higher the purity of the Mithril refined, the greater the loss.

Like the High-Grade Mithril with nine-nines purity that Xia Duo was currently using, for every gram refined, at least fifteen grams were wasted due to the elemental transmutation reaction.

It can also be simply understood that fifteen grams of Standard Mithril can only ultimately refine one gram of High-Grade Mithril with nine-nines purity.

If the purity requirement is lowered by two grades, that is, 99. %, this is still High-Grade Mithril, but the loss when refining one gram of this purity drops sharply to about 9 grams.

If the purity requirement is lowered further, reaching 99.99%, which is what is commonly referred to as High-Grade Mithril that meets the requirements for crafting fine Magic Artifacts, about 2.5 grams of Standard Mithril is enough to refine it. (Standard Mithril is three-nines purity)

And this is just the cost; if one were to purchase it from outside, even for four-nines Mithril that just barely reaches the High-Grade threshold, it would be impossible to get it for the price of 2.5 times Standard Mithril.

And now, the eyeball-sized Hollow Mithril Sphere that Xia Duo had made, converted into Mithril sold on the market, would be worth at least ten thousand Gold Coins, and this was just one component needed for the experiment.

If he had not mastered Mithril Refining Technology himself, but instead needed to purchase Mithril from outside, Xia Duo really would not have been able to make up his mind to use Mithril to make it; nine times out of ten, he would have abandoned portability and chosen Arcane String materials, which had a lower cost for him.

But now, refining it himself, while the cost was certainly not low, it did not reach the level of the market price; in reality, once the technical cost and labor cost were ignored, the remaining material cost was almost negligible.

……

After the first Hollow Mithril Sphere, Xia Duo successively produced eleven more Hollow Mithril Sphere components of similar shape but different diameters, and performed simple verifications after each one was completed.

Because they were shaped directly through spells, as long as the spell design had no problems, the finished product would also likely have no problems; like Xia Duo's twelve Mithril components this time, not a single one had any issues.