Luocha was currently unaware that his plans had, in fact, been figured out.
He had just completed his work and was about to lead the person in the coffin to deliver the final blow to the Abundance believers within the Xianzhou.
But things rarely go according to plan.
The Stellaron did not choose to erupt at this time. Instead, it had fallen into a strange, dormant state.
It seemed to be searching for a life form to resonate with itself.
It was basically confirmed that the Stellaron was alive. Not only was it alive, but it could even think, and even choose the targets it needed to guide and cooperate with.
The most obvious evidence was that Luocha was not the partner of the Stellaron he had brought.
As for why he said that...
'How can there be such a weird Stellaron in this world?'
Question marks popped up over Luocha's head. Even the white-haired woman beside him was beginning to have doubts.
This damn Stellaron, is it playing with us?
Ever since it arrived on the Xianzhou, the Stellaron had been completely silent, like a dead stone, even more well-behaved than a turtle in a river.
"Why is this happening?"
The white-haired woman, stylishly wearing an eyepatch, could sense the strange shift in the atmosphere.
"I don't know either. When I was transporting it, this thing tried to tempt me more than once. But now it's as if it's dead, with none of its usual activity. Its energy is as docile as a house dog."
Luocha was also scratching his head. If he knew what was going on, he wouldn't be here, swindling people as an interstellar merchant. He would have long since switched careers to become an Emanator, slaughtering his way across the universe.
The white-haired woman said gravely, "Logically, the Stellaron should have triggered a massive energy surge upon contact with the Ambrosial Arbor. But now, the Arbor is like a dead sea, the Stellaron is silent, and even the changes in the Alchemy Commission are beyond our expectations..."
Something strange had happened. The Stellaron had no intention of playing along with their plan.
Damn it, this thing isn't supposed to be this smart!
Luocha had nothing to say to that. They couldn't just wait here for the Stellaron to erupt on its own, could they?
"What do we do? Retreat?"
Luocha could no longer make sense of the chaotic situation on the Xianzhou. The entire story had completely spiraled into an uncontrollable abyss.
"..."
The white-haired woman was clearly not one for ideas either. She probably never imagined she would encounter a situation like this.
"Logically, we just need to sink it into the Scalegorge Waterscape, and the Stellaron will automatically seek out the roots of the Ambrosial Arbor."
She felt extremely uneasy about the current situation, as if something even more terrifying was stirring.
Should they wait here?
That was the question for her.
---||---
Fu Xuan was facing the same problem.
She couldn't possibly imagine the consequences of publicly declaring those formulas real. The people of the Xianzhou would surely riot.
"Don't panic, don't panic."
"Look at you, getting all worked up again."
"Do you think I don't know what you're worried about? The General will handle everything for me. You just need to follow your own needs."
Noldrei wanted to laugh when he saw Fu Xuan's red-hot face.
"Do you have any idea what you're saying? Have the authorities announce these formulas are real? Are you insane!" Fu Xuan thought Noldrei was talking crazy.
"Of course I'm not insane. I've been in the Alchemy Commission for so long, I can tell if these formulas are real or fake at a glance. They are indeed real formulas, and they've been successfully tested. I've personally reviewed the experimental records of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus and have even done in-depth investigations."
Noldrei dared not make claims about other things, but he had always been strict about the truthfulness of his words. Otherwise, he would be performing a mind-meld on Fu Xuan right now.
He explained calmly, "Many people believe the threat of the Mara-Struck state is terrifying, and that the suffering before death can be countered by one's willpower."
"The suffering you feel is, itself, a product accumulated by your own will. You're trying to tell me that the Mara-Struck state of the Xianzhou people is a problem brought about by their longevity. But in my eyes, this is just suffering you've created for yourselves, a tribulation of your own making. There is nothing worthy of sympathy."
"The Xianzhou does not have a vessel capable of carrying longevity, nor has it developed the capacity to accommodate the suffering of long-lived beings."
"Rather than trying to deal with the pain brought by longevity, the Xianzhou has actually had to let the Mara-Struck state erupt, so that everyone lives a shorter life."
"But now the Alchemy Commission has actually developed an elixir that allows one to maintain their sanity while Mara-Struck. So the question is, can the Xianzhou accept this reality now?"
Noldrei's questions were like a sharp knife, dissecting the painful history of the Xianzhou people.
Fu Xuan gritted her teeth. "That's just an excuse for losing one's humanity for the sake of longevity! I never thought you were the kind of person who thinks like that!"
Noldrei shook his head. "To me, whether I take a human form or not is not a problem. The point is the freedom to choose to change when I want to, and not to change when I don't. Does that sound absurd?"
He didn't find this question absurd at all.
If the practical conditions and material basis didn't exist, it would be understandable for the Xianzhou to set rules and stay away from the faith of Abundance.
The problem was, the Alchemy Commission had managed to create this thing. At the very least, they had found a way to control it. What was needed now was a larger base of experimental data to support them in making a breakthrough and solving the problem that had plagued the Xianzhou for so long.
Talking to the Xianzhou people about rules and what's permissible was useless now.
Noldrei looked at Fu Xuan with a touch of coldness. "In my eyes, this is just a method of civilizational control to uphold a certain way of life. If you admit that the Xianzhou civilization cannot bear a new world where everyone wants to fulfill their own form, then I will acknowledge your basic conservative stance as a civilization."
"The root cause is that the Xianzhou cannot maintain a new order of long-lived beings in that state, cannot create a new society where everyone can accept compromise."
"To put it bluntly, it's just that if everyone became that form, you couldn't control the consumption of life at that level, nor could you control the new form of society created by a civilization of that level. So you have to regress to the old era that the Xianzhou people were adapted to."
"If you could control a new society in that state, and unite everyone to strike where you point, rebuilding a relatively stable social morality, do you think the people of the Xianzhou would want to regress to a society with a fixed lifespan?"
"What's so noble about it? What reason is there?"
"It's just a game of three steps forward, two steps back."
"So much talk, but it's all just about the social organization being out of control, and the internal social conflicts being too intense. It's no different from the steam age, where people, because they were living poorly, tried to smash the steam engines and return to the past."