Chapter 3468: Vizier's Invitation

————It will be later~~

————

Because the matter involved secrets, Saiputalisi did not immediately respond to Xia Duo, nor did he confirm or hint at the "trade between Ilfarun and Beilunuo" that Xia Duo mentioned; he only said that this matter would be reported 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, at best, give me 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 the reply.

Saiputalisi was indeed dissatisfied because of this, but what concerned him more at this moment was that Xia Duo knew of the trade between Ilfarun 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 too aggressive in doing this.

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

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

Of course, the ideal situation was still for Ilfarun to agree to help, so that after he finished summoning the Divine Envoy, he could go 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 experienced before, where Queen Taisi of Beilunuo would personally take down Dali.

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

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

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 playing with time, otherwise, one would inevitably be played by time in the end.

……

While waiting for a reply from the Ilfarun side, Xia Duo prepared to try crafting 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 crafting it.

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

Yongle City.

Xia Duo did not hesitate to activate the Time Acceleration Array. This was also his important trump card for defeating the Illuminati. The Illuminati's plan was urgent and tight; why should the Alliance be able 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 craft a key item with truly decisive significance; this might become the turning point of this war.

Ritual Site No. 1, inside the Time Acceleration Array.

With the help of the time acceleration effect, Xia Duo once again sorted out the relevant details of the key item to be crafted this time, as well as the action plan for this time line, and then began the first attempt at crafting.

Very quickly, the first Mithril Component of this item was crafted. This was a Hollow Mithril Sphere the size of a normal human eyeball; it was hollow inside, and only the sphere shell looked as if it were woven from countless fine Mithril threads.

But in reality, this was formed in one piece, and to ensure precision, it was shaped directly in one go through a Spell, and afterwards, it was kept in a Levitation Field, which was by no means comparable to those ordinary hand-rubbed 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 limited costs, but even so, in order to refine the Mithril needed for this experiment, a great deal was consumed.

Refining Mithril with the 【Element Extraction】 spell, even in theory, could not achieve a one-to-one ratio of how much Mithril one had to how much one could refine, 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 using now, 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 ultimately only 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 for refining one gram of this purity, the loss 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 reaches the threshold of High-Grade, it would be impossible to get it for only 2.5 times the price of Standard Mithril.

The higher the purity, the faster the price rises, far exceeding the rate of increase in the cost of the material itself; this can also be considered a manifestation of technical costs.

And now, the Hollow Mithril Sphere the size of a human eye that Xia Duo crafted, 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 the 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, the cost was certainly not low, but it would not be exaggerated to the level of market prices; in reality, once technical costs and labor costs are ignored, the remaining material cost is almost negligible.

……

After the first Hollow Mithril Sphere, Xia Duo successively crafted eleven more hollow spherical Mithril components with similar shapes but different diameters, and after each one was completed, he performed a simple verification.

Because they were shaped directly through a Spell, as long as the Spell design had no problems, the finished product would also have a high probability of having no problems; like Xia Duo this time, twelve Mithril components in a row, not even one had a problem.