“By setting up guardrails and limiting the ways the empire can easily access this information once they send their initial fleets to the Astral Conclave's territory and attempt to initiate trade and other dealings. Even at their fastest, it’ll take them several years to reach the populated areas of the Conclave, so we should have enough time to create measures that make it as difficult as possible for them to get hold of the information.Since we control the inter-civilization communication channels, we can also add a filtering layer to ensure that the empire doesn’t gain access to this information through the network. And since only government entities use this system, it should be fairly easy to implement,” Kalron replied.“We can also create a problem within the empire to force them to focus inwardly before they even consider focusing on us. This internal issue would be more urgent than anything else, possibly even destabilizing the empire.For example, we can leverage our vast pro

“F*ck.” That single word ran through the minds of the majority of the individuals present in the meeting room—especially those who had jumped at the chance to insult the Trinarian representative, believing he was merely holding the agreement hostage for personal gain and political leverage.Silence fell over the room like a heavy fog. No one dared to speak. A few of them internally wished the ground beneath them would open up and swallow them whole, though they knew such a miracle was impossible in the mental network. Instead, they sat frozen, the weight of their premature judgments now bearing down on them as they realized the Trinarian representative had, in fact, raised a valid and critical point.A small smile crept across Kalron’s face, pleased not only that the Trinarian representative had a solid reason for his hesitation but also because the room's silence presented him with an opportunity to reclaim his position as the de facto leader of the meeting. He cleared his throat del

With the mana stones exchanged, only the meeting remained. The endurance of those present allowed discussions to continue for over sixteen hours, wrapping things up sooner than expected. This early finish meant the individual meetings about increasing their mana stone quotas could start and wrap up ahead of schedule.During the individual meetings between the empire and the representatives, those who had shared their knowledge in encrypted form eventually handed over the decryption keys. The realization that their mana stone quotas would rise by at least 200%—and potentially soar to 500% based on the materials they proposed for exchange—made the decision inevitable. It was an offer they couldn’t afford to turn down. Some had initially planned to hold out and assess the potential increase before making a decision, but the sheer scale of the opportunity left no room for second thoughts. Fearing the empire might reconsider its offer, they immediately agreed to hand over the decryption ke

"Oh, this is quite delicious. Did Nova prepare this?" Aron asked with a smirk as he tasted the food. He was sitting in an open field that looked more like a picnic spot than a meeting ground.Before he could even swallow, he had to tilt his head to the side to dodge a fireball flying straight at him."Don’t you know you shouldn’t even disturb a dog while it’s eating?" he said with a laugh, glancing at his wife, who had just attempted to give him an impromptu facial makeover."You were asking for it," Rina replied casually as she poured mango juice into their glasses—his favorite."Nevertheless, it’s delicious," Aron said, setting aside his joke as he genuinely complimented her cooking. It wasn’t something she did often—mostly because she didn’t need to—but he appreciated it all the same. He took the glass of mango juice from her with a nod of thanks.It was why they had made it a tradition for them to have these picnics at least once every few months—where they handled everything them

With the System’s efficiency, the knowledge assimilation process was completed in no time.Nova wasted no time either. The moment the process finished, she requested access to Aron’s brain data to extract the newly assimilated knowledge. Without hesitation, he granted her permission.“How long will the implementation take?” Aron asked, already shifting his focus toward execution.{Considering the requirements for building a specialized device to utilize the Mana Decryption Adaptive Algorithm, the process will take anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours at most,} Nova replied, displaying the blueprint of a device she had just designed based on the acquired knowledge.The design wasn’t the most efficient, but it was functional. That was all that mattered for now. The responsibility of refining the knowledge and creating more optimized devices would fall to the Lab City researchers, which would naturally take more time.“Alright, let’s get started,” Aron said as he carefully analyze