Chapter 575: Manipulation and Gaming

Who could this person be?

Who knows?

At this very moment, Li Qi still sat cross-legged in the Cave Heaven arranged by the Lingchou Realm, calmly remote controlling everything.

For the past few years, he had been issuing commands through his Divine Dao Golden Body. As for his true body, he was like a true Cultivation fanatic, Cultivating non-stop, to the point that the people guarding outside began to suspect if Li Qi was truly a slacker, holding the Envoy token but doing nothing?

If he really did nothing, then why didn't he stay in the world to Cultivate?

However, the people outside were still very dedicated to their duties. Even if Li Qi truly did nothing, they still kept a close watch on him, observing his every move.

Of course, Li Qi was also watching them, they just didn't know it.

Whether it was the Chamber of Commerce or the other surrounding worlds, Li Qi had thoroughly investigated them and made corresponding arrangements. Even the Lingchou Realm Lord's divination had his shadow behind it.

This was the 'Heaven's Will' he was imitating.

It seemed to be working well.

Li Qi sat in place, pondering over his recent actions.

"The matter of the Shamanic Silkworm Artifact has been covered up, and experiments are still ongoing. The warning to the Fu Cao Yi Realm has also been delivered. Now, we just await the shift in ideology within the Lingchou Realm."

"The Chamber of Commerce side can be withdrawn. The Shamanic Silkworm Artifact has established itself, but... I don't know what the Human Dao is up to. They shouldn't just sit idly by. They might even provide them with a genuine Spiritual Artifact assembly line. After all, if this thing is implemented, expansion is almost inevitable..."

Li Qi pondered, currently unsure of the Human Dao's specific methods.

However, he should take it slow for now. He had already warned the Fu Cao Yi Realm, telling this more volatile world not to get involved in the affairs here.

But then, Li Qi's Golden Body—

His Golden Body sat on a world-class giant ship of the Chamber of Commerce, constantly poring over numerous intelligence reports.

To act as Heaven's Will, one must understand enough information. Only then can one accurately find the thread in a tangled mess, and with a gentle pull, watch the puppets dance.

However, the puppets themselves do not know that they are actually moved by a pulled string.

This is the truth behind Li Qi's manipulation of everything.

At this moment, however, his communication spell flickered, seemingly having received a message.

Li Qi's Golden Body stopped what he was doing and glanced at the message.

Then, he frowned: "What, the Fu Cao Yi Realm is preparing for war mobilization? They have confirmed news that the Human Dao has provided the Lingchou Realm with a complete Spiritual Artifact assembly line? Who gave them this news?"

The Fu Cao Yi Realm had informed Li Qi of their plans. They had confirmed news that the Human Dao had provided the Lingchou Realm with a complete Spiritual Artifact assembly line, and that the Human Dao had actively sent it over.

The Fu Cao Yi Realm was extremely nervous because of this news. With a Spiritual Artifact assembly line, expansion was inevitable, and they simply didn't believe the Lingchou Realm could restrain itself. So, they had already begun war preparations, just waiting for news from Li Qi or for the Lingchou Realm to attack first, at which point they would retaliate.

Li Qi wasn't surprised by this reaction. What truly made him frown was—

Where did this news come from?

If the news was true, then the Human Dao was acting rather carelessly, weren't they? To allow a fifth-grade world to obtain confirmed information, perhaps that Human Dao envoy was a bit too rough around the edges.

If the news was false, then who forged this message? Who would benefit from doing so?

If the Lingchou Realm were attacked, facing the impending war, what methods could these worlds use to quickly increase their war potential, given their foundations?

Li Qi began to calculate the cards in the Lingchou Realm's hand.

Two fifth-grade, one hundred forty-six sixth-grade, seventh-grade not counted.

Three thousand four hundred guardian worlds with war fortress capabilities, seemingly deliberately maintained at this number, perhaps related to a large Formation...

Nine hundred large military legions, each capable of independently annihilating a seventh-grade world. If a hundred legions gathered into a large army, they could flatten an ordinary sixth-grade world.

Hmm... average. Because the Dao path is not fixed, the war potential is limited, basically only able to pursue commerce.

This information was all discovered by Li Qi over the years, and it can basically be confirmed as true. He might understand the Lingchou Realm better than a high-ranking official of the Lingchou Realm.

In fact, both Shaman Dao and Human Dao have methods to increase war potential.

Shaman Dao, needless to say, usually Cultivates the Great Source of Heaven and Earth, and it's not impossible to use it at critical moments. The Mountain and River Grand Formation is a classic embodiment of this idea. They can temporarily overdraw the power of the surrounding Heaven and Earth to enhance their war potential.

As for the Human Dao... that can no longer be called war potential. The Human Dao's war strength is clearly laid out, never stopping, never ceasing. Continuous plunder is already the Human Dao's keynote.

So now, the Lingchou Realm has almost no war potential that can be exploited... If war really breaks out, the Lingchou Realm must come up with a new method.

The fastest way is... to use that genuine Spiritual Artifact assembly line. This thing can quickly convert resources into strength. With unlimited raw material input, it can upgrade all the equipment of those nine million troops in at most ten days.

So, was this news deliberately released by the Human Dao?! Was it to provoke the Lingchou Realm?

Upon realizing this possibility, Li Qi immediately wrote a message and sent it to the Fu Cao Yi Realm, telling them to hold off and not act hastily.

Then, he might have to make a move to test that Human Dao envoy.

Two chess players, hidden behind the scenes, remotely controlling the actions of two fifth-grade worlds and their tens of thousands of subordinate worlds.

Worlds were treated as chess pieces, arrayed on a chessboard named the World Cluster, where black and white intertwined in a struggle.

Unfortunately, chess pieces also have their own thoughts. Endless variables filled the chessboard, potentially causing the game to completely overturn at any moment, leading the outcome to an unpredictable point.

Variables, all variables.

— — — — — — — —

"A dead end."

The Human Dao envoy smiled as he placed the last chess piece.

Black and white Dragons crisscrossed on the chessboard, but the white pieces had choked the black pieces, completely depriving them of the ability to resist.

"Envoy Pang's chess skills are exceptional, I am inferior," the subordinate bowed, sincerely praising his superior's chess prowess.

"Playing chess is merely a pastime, not worthy of the word 'exceptional'. All right, break time is almost over, it's time to get down to business," the Human Dao envoy, known as Envoy Pang, smiled and waved his hand, signaling everyone around him to continue working.

Around him, there was a team of about twenty people. Each person collaborated, handling different information, then integrating it, finally submitting it to Envoy Pang for his final analysis.

Unlike Li Qi, who faced myriad intelligence reports alone, Envoy Pang did not fight alone. Instead, he fully leveraged the characteristics of the Human Dao: full cooperation. And everyone seemed to get along well; at least during break time, they could play chess together instead of having stern faces.

However, play was play. These people were capable of getting things done. As soon as break time ended, they immediately started working, processing this complex information.

Extracting useful parts from a large amount of trivial information is actually very difficult to process.

The reason Li Qi could do this at the sixth grade was actually because of the power of True Knowledge Dao Resonance. When he was unranked, he was constantly bombarded with massive amounts of information, so he was trained for it.

But for ordinary Cultivators, not to mention the life-or-death issue after being bombarded, just finding so much information is difficult. True Knowledge Dao Resonance constantly disassembles the surrounding world, inputting its information to Li Qi without discrimination. As for whether Li Qi can process it, that is not within True Knowledge Dao Resonance's consideration.

Such a large amount of information is very difficult to receive through ordinary senses. It must be done with the help of spells, which would require physically bombarding oneself with external devices. Probably no one but a madman would do this.

Therefore, it's not that simple to impersonate 'Heaven's Will' at the sixth grade.

But for the Human Dao, since individual computing power cannot compare, then just stack up the quantity.

Thus, this elite team of the Human Dao, through this team combination, managed to keep up with Li Qi's mental capacity.

Massive amounts of information were sent by scouts outside, consumed by this team, then summarized and analyzed to deduce the true situation, finally handed over to the envoy to compare tens of thousands of different solutions, in order to make the truly best decision.

And Envoy Pang, as the team's brain, fell into deep thought.

The Fu Cao Yi Realm, as expected, began war preparations. But halfway through, they suddenly contracted, no longer attempting to attack, but instead adopted a defensive stance, shrinking back.

Did the other party notice? That is to say, although he was Cultivating in the Cave Heaven, acting as if he didn't care about anything, he actually had means to interfere with the outside world.

This is a good thing.

He wasn't afraid of the other party making a move, only afraid that he would truly sit idle, then anything could happen.

The other party wants to prevent war, nothing more than to delay time, so that the Lingchou Realm cannot temporarily side with the Human Dao. Because if war breaks out, the Lingchou Realm will inevitably and certainly use the Spiritual Artifact assembly line. Once it is used, it is like opening a Pandora's Box, with no turning back, only accelerating all the way, eventually becoming an outer defense line for the Human Dao in this World Cluster.

Then... can war be delayed just because you want to delay it?

You used the influence of Shaman Dao to restrain the Fu Cao Yi Realm, but can you... restrain the Lingchou Realm?

Thinking this, an order was issued.

In the distant World Cluster, world-class giant ships were sailing through Outer Void, delivering goods. These were cargo ships from the Lingchou Realm, destined for a transit zone.

Next month, a group of Void Realm pirates will hijack a total of seventeen world-class giant ships, plundering all the goods within.

The Lingchou Realm will fall into breach of contract. The production capacity of the Shamanic Silkworm Artifact is far from enough to make up for it. They must expand production capacity.

But there is still one problem to consider.

Shamanic Silkworm Artifact, where did this come from?

This thing is a very recent product of Chang'an. The core technology is in the hands of Liu Canzhi, the second son of an Official, from a prominent Family. There is no possibility of betrayal.

Was it a technology that was accidentally leaked? Impossible. If such a thing were leaked, Karma tracing could catch the person.

Then how did this thing fall into the other party's hands?

Let's trace this line.

What if Liu Canzhi unknowingly leaked information... or even actively leaked it? Then the problem would be huge.

— — — — — — — — — —

Envoy Pang of the Human Dao, and Li Qi, although they did not know of each other's existence, a silent battle had begun in this World Cluster.

Both overt and covert schemes appeared simultaneously.

Assassinations and robberies occurred from time to time.

Forced mergers constantly emerged.

Exchanges of interests were ceaseless.

It seemed like a struggle without a bottom line, but both sides firmly held to their true bottom line, which was the 'Dao'.

Under the guidance of the 'Dao', the people of the World Cluster, whether clear-headed, ignorant, unwilling, or fanatical, regardless of their thoughts, had all entered this competition.

Countless subordinates followed orders from above, even without knowing where the orders came from. They diligently completed their work like worker ants, contributing to the dark struggle that spanned the entire World Cluster.

Good things, bad things, big things, small things, in the constant tug-of-war, pulled the world itself into the vortex of struggle.

Every day, for every person, although they might not know it themselves, they were unconsciously making their own choices. Some supported their boss in increasing production, some participated in protests against destructive mining, some remained indifferent, and some simply gave up and retreated.

But no matter what, every action they took was actually a vote, a vote for 'the world's ideology'.

The Human-Shaman Great War had not yet begun, but the preliminary preparations alone had already forced everyone in the World Cluster to take sides. Whether you wanted to take sides or not, even "I won't get involved" was actually taking sides.

It was simply defaulting to the side of the victor.

Some particularly sensitive people had already realized the emergence of some kind of struggle and actively threw themselves into it.

And as the highest authority in the Lingchou Realm, the Lingchou Realm Lord, felt... fear.

She found that the situation was starting to slip out of her control. To put it bluntly... some of her subordinates were no longer obedient.

Her subordinates, those local sixth-grade Cultivators of the Lingchou Realm, all had their own Families, their own foundations. Some were families, some were sects, some were organizations formed by brothers and friends.

When these organizations started to become chaotic internally, when they began to attack each other due to ideological struggles, these people would no longer listen to the Lingchou Realm Lord. They would only act for their own positions.

Outward obedience but inward defiance, the Lingchou Realm Lord could only feel this.

She slumped powerlessly in her chair.

The Lingchou Realm was sliding towards the abyss of war.

Either external war or internal war.