Chapter 3494: The Advantages of a Sacred Contract, the Vow of Eternal Service

————A bit later~~

————

In reality, Xia Duo could already determine the specific cost of the previous time line resets, excluding the most recent one; if calculated by his own defined "1" unit of Time Force, it would take approximately fifty units.

As for the cost of the last time line reset, he felt it shouldn't be much different, as he had merely chosen a random spot in the wild to collect soil and stone, which had a negligible impact on the world as a whole.

Furthermore, he could be almost certain that the place where he collected the soil and stone must still be in its original state in this new time line—meaning there was no large pit where the soil and stone had been removed.

If he were to take out the soil and stone stored in his Personal Space now, it would be equivalent to two identical piles of soil and stone existing in this world simultaneously.

Theoretically, it is entirely possible to obtain more resources by resetting the time line.

But in reality, material resources are simply not as precious as Time Force; taking precious metals like Adamantine and Mithril as examples, although Xia Duo cannot yet artificially produce Mithril, he has long been able to mass-produce Adamantine.

Even his second Floating City, Yongle City, uses Adamantine as its main body.

It stands to reason that Mithril is not particularly special either; it just requires a large number of experiments to discover its specific elemental composition, and once found, mass production in factories will not be far off.

It is nothing more than consuming a bit of energy; in this world of Magic, energy is the least valuable thing. Even the relatively special Positive Energy, while perhaps a rare medical resource for ordinary people, is no more precious to a Mage than the water flowing in a normal river.

Not to mention, there are large-scale energy devices like the Mythallar that draw energy directly from the Inner Plane.

By comparison, Time Force, which currently has only Dafuni as its sole source, is the most precious resource; using Time Force to exchange for material resources is even harder to accept than picking up sesame seeds while losing a watermelon.

But if it is used for experiments, the necessary consumption is acceptable.

After all, if a resource is not used at all and is only kept in a warehouse, it is equivalent to not possessing it; since one possesses it, one should find a way to make it serve its proper purpose.

……

Next, Xia Duo will proceed on two paths: his avatar will continue to wait for a response from Ilfaren, and then he will head to Beilunuo to meet with the Tide Queen Taisi and invite her to join the Northland Alliance.

Obtaining the Time Gem will also be a matter of convenience.

As for Xia Duo's main body, he does not intend to go to Taiweimansa in this time line, and he must avoid meeting Dafuni as much as possible to prevent her from knowing of his existence as an "anomaly."

The only problem is that if he does not go to Taiweimansa to confront Dafuni, the Illuminati will not completely show their hand.

And if he waits until those Time-Involving Signals cannot be hidden before responding, he worries it will be too late; furthermore, the Battle of Tanzan Peak has already been subject to Time Anchoring, and Xia Duo is unsure how subsequent events will evolve if he decides not to go to Taiweimansa now.

There are too many variables; as someone who has "returned to the past" to try to change the future, Xia Duo actually does not want variables to exist from the bottom of his heart. Even without resetting the time line, he would want to control variables as much as possible in his current status.

In fact, the reason why so much is considered for any plan, big or small, is largely to minimize variables so that the course of events matches the planner's expectations.

Only those who have no plans in mind and just muddle along would not care about variables at all, or even take pleasure in them.

Of course, this does not mean that the role of variables is entirely negative; Xia Duo often needs the existence of variables as well.

For example, the emergence of a genius is a variable, but it is a positive one that is sufficiently beneficial to him and can be controlled by him.

……

After repeated consideration, Xia Duo still decided to make a trip to Taiweimansa, but in order to hide his identity while moving through various key battlefields to collect Time Force, he needs to avoid using certain special abilities as much as possible.

For example, using the Time Flow Regulator to collect Time Force, or using bloodline innate abilities to merge with the world to hide his figure.

The ideal situation is to capture Kalano and leave immediately; as long as such key evidence is in hand, there is no need to worry about the Illuminati not showing their hand. In this way, the subsequent development of events will continue as before, without too many variables.

Xia Duo wants to turn the war between the Alliance and the Illuminati into a war of attrition where both sides show their cards; of course, he himself (the fact that he can collect Time Force) needs to be hidden.

In this way, the scales of war will tilt greatly toward his side, and victory will be within reach.

……

Popping champagne at halftime is not Xia Duo's habit, but having been entangled with the Illuminati until now, finally seeing a glimmer of dawn inevitably makes his heart flutter. However, he quickly adjusted his mindset and kept a tight grip on both lines.

Soon, good news came from Ilfaren: the Chief Executive of Ilfaren invited him to meet for discussions. Of course, before this news, the Alliance Monitoring Center had once again detected a large number of Time-Involving Signals.

It was about ten minutes earlier than the previous time line. At first glance, this lead time seems unremarkable, but to Xia Duo, who has already experienced multiple time lines, it is undoubtedly a sign that Dafuni's speed in perceiving threats from the time line level has accelerated.

He also developed a similar feeling; even because of his personal experience, he could now vaguely perceive the invisible pressure, or threat, from the time line level—

Dafuni is using who knows how many time line resets to gradually converge the time line to the one most favorable for the Illuminati's ultimate ritual.

At this moment, the fact that the Alliance's detection of a large number of Time-Involving Signals has advanced is proof of this.

After all, Xia Duo had not yet had time to have any particularly obvious impact on the outside world in this time line; the Illuminati suddenly accelerating their progress can only be due to Dafuni.

If the Illuminati's progress advances a little bit every time the time line is recalculated, it will undoubtedly compress Xia Duo's time for action and space for calculation.

It can be seen from this that even if Dafuni might not know of his existence as someone who can also manipulate the time line, she has still made actual responses, rather than blindly letting him engage in small tricks.

……

Xia Duo cannot directly interfere with the Illuminati's actions for the time being, but he has enough initiative on the Alliance side. Under his intentional promotion, the Alliance has "once again" established a Spirit Thought Network specifically serving this war.

The trips to Xinnaliya and Beilunuo were also very smooth; the Time Gem he obtained again is already very different from the beginning, with most of the Time Force inside already consumed.