hotmtlnovel Chapter 4165 is about the Supreme Sorcerer (5)
Chapter 4165 is about the Supreme Sorcerer (5)
Chapter 4165 is, The Supreme Mage (Part 5)
When it came to the voting stage, only about thirty candidates remained from the original hundred. A first round of secret ballot eliminated most of them, leaving only five. These five then took turns giving speeches and campaigning for votes in a final round.
Strange initially thought the other four were just cannon fodder, but their speeches actually turned out to be quite substantial, not entirely devoid of content. Some talked about strengthening interstellar security management, others about focusing on restoring the economy of the Great Portal regions, and still others about helping weaker civilizations—they all sounded quite plausible.
Strange hadn't prepared a speech at all, and he didn't know what to say. He figured that since he was the Sorcerer Supreme, it wouldn't hurt to talk about magic. So he talked about the joint development of magic and science, and focusing on improving the level of magical education—basically, he modified the old system of building magic academies on Earth.
Unexpectedly, after he finished speaking, the entire conference hall fell silent. Strange, however, remained calm. These three great empires were clearly using passive-aggressive tactics, determined to embarrass him today. He couldn't be bothered with these petty people; after finishing his speech, he tossed his cloak and left.
"Damn it!" General Skrull gritted his teeth as he watched the entire election process from the back hall. "These humans are indeed cunning; they actually came up with such a way to break the deadlock! This is sure to cause unrest among the people."
"Humans have a truly overwhelming advantage in magic. Currently, aside from a few native magical races and races that use divine power, the number of races that can actually use magic is probably less than three digits. Most can only manage to use it so-so, and there are very few like humans who are experts in this field. Tell me, who wouldn't be envious of their teleportation portals?"
"But the Sorcerer Supreme is just talking. Can he really teach us how to use teleportation? Even if he did, how many races could learn it?"
"If you can't learn how to use teleportation, can't you learn something else? Even if a civilization has only one disciple who can become the Sorcerer Supreme, would you do it?"
General Skrull and the Duke of the Shia Empire both sighed.
Don't be fooled by the Shi'ar Empire's apparent magical abilities; they actually rely on divine power, the same system used by Asgard. Their power stems from the Shi'ar gods, but they aren't as powerful as Asgard's. They've achieved a balance between quality and quantity, allowing them to be considered one of the three great empires. However, they used to be last, only recently starting to improve.
The Kree and Skrull Empires are completely finished, having lost all magical heritage long ago. While all powers ultimately converge, magical power is clearly closer to the origin. The closer a power is to the origin, the less energy it loses, the more efficient it is, and therefore, the more powerful it is.
But they also harbored another hidden worry. Because the two strongest of the three great empires were both mechanical civilizations, any civilization within their territories that wanted to develop a mechanical civilization would have to submit to them. Even civilizations whose technological level was only slightly behind theirs had to obey them, rather than overthrow them and become their own leaders, simply because they started later and their vital resources were controlled by them.
Over the years, the three great empires have also used methods such as locking technology or controlling key resources to restrict many promising civilizations in order to ensure that their own position remains unshaken.
However, if Strange were to actually implement some kind of magical education and cultivate a few magical civilizations, even if they were not as strong as humans, but even if they were only one-tenth or one-hundredth as strong, most of their methods of restricting technological paths would become ineffective.
Even if it's impossible to cultivate an entire civilization, producing a powerful mage from an already advanced civilization would have similar consequences. While magic does involve talent, magical talent isn't unique to humans. Who can say that among so many civilizations, there aren't one or two individuals with magical talent?
If they manage to bypass the technological control lock, this civilization will be a formidable force, while the three great empires are currently somewhat weakened. If these people abandon all martial ethics and take advantage of the situation to betray the three great empires, the cosmic situation could descend into chaos.
The three empires did indeed have some actors in place for the speech segment, but they were all there to boo. No matter what the chosen human leader said, they only needed to make sarcastic remarks from below, creating an atmosphere that humans were nothing but country bumpkins, utterly unworthy of respect, to thoroughly humiliate humanity.
This method may be a bit naive, but since it doesn't require any effort, it works whether it succeeds or fails, so why not just annoy humanity a little?
Who would have thought that Strange's words would spark some ulterior motives in many civilizations? The actors who had been arranged beforehand were also preoccupied with their own thoughts, too preoccupied to make any noise below. Some were busy typing on their keyboards to send messages to their people, while others were whispering to their companions or even exchanging glances with some allies.
An eerie silence lasted for several minutes. Strange took this as a show of force from the three great empires, flew back to his seat, and continued meditating with his eyes closed. He didn't listen to what they were saying at all; there wasn't anything good in it anyway, and listening would only annoy him.
And so the speech ended, and the next round of voting began, this time by name. In reality, the votes for each civilization were already predetermined before the election even started; this step was truly just a formality.
But because of Strange's words, the originally dull and boring process actually became quite thrilling.
Those who were originally scheduled to vote for Strange worried that their decisive vote for humanity might arouse further suspicion from the three great empires, making them think that they were tempted by the offer Strange had made. On the other hand, those who were originally scheduled not to vote worried that offending Strange would make things more complicated if they wanted to make some underhanded deals in the future.
Everyone had their own agenda, and the atmosphere in the meeting hall was no longer just tense, but openly heated. This election, which hadn't seen a ripple in thousands of years, was actually becoming a fierce contest.
During the voting, people started exchanging glances; when the votes were counted, each reading caused a huge uproar. Everyone's brains were practically spinning, wondering what this civilization meant by voting for this person, whether he would accept Strange's offer or not, whether he was considering the three great empires or was genuinely uninterested.
Although the political landscape of the universe has been stagnant for thousands of years, and many young politicians have no real election experience whatsoever, those who have managed to rise through the ranks of their own kind to these positions are shrewd and capable of sharpening their minds. Most people understand that the three great empires have already lost once.
As expected, when the votes were announced, the faces of the people from the three great empires were extremely grim.
Of course, they intended for Strange to win, but not in such an overwhelming manner. The voting results showed that Strange received more votes than the other four combined.
Their original plan was for Strange to win by a narrow margin, and for the person with a similar number of votes to be placed in the executive branch specifically to oppose Strange.
Now things are really messed up. Strange's high vote count not only makes the others seem useless, but it also puts pressure on those who didn't vote for him. If the majority didn't vote for him, he wouldn't remember them anyway, and even if he did, it would be a matter of leniency due to the sheer number of people. But if only a few people didn't vote, he'll definitely remember. The Speaker may not have much power, but he is the Sorcerer Supreme. If he wants to cause trouble later, making things difficult for these civilizations is quite easy, isn't it?
As expected, as soon as the vote results were announced, some people below began to look somewhat fearful. They started searching the crowd for people from the three great empires, hoping to gain their support and strength.
Strange opened his eyes and glanced at the voting results, letting out a cold laugh. He was actually just mocking that the three great empires had stopped pretending and were practically begging everyone to vote for him so they could force the blame onto him.
But to those who hadn't sided with him, that cold laugh was nothing short of a death knell. The list of those to be taken revenge was far too short; whether one flipped through it from beginning to end or from end to beginning, it wouldn't be long before they reached it.
However, the three great empires remained silent. Although the outcome was unexpected, it was still within their control. Having suffered a setback today, they were preoccupied with figuring out how to quickly regain their footing and had no time to deal with those minor civilizations.
This put even more pressure on those civilizations. Seeing that the three great empires were ignoring them, they were eager to make amends. To prevent Strange from holding a grudge, they had to find a way to appease him. They quickly contacted their own people; if they couldn't handle major matters, they could still manage minor ones.
So when Strange was led to the Speaker's office, he found that the office was actually quite nice.
The office was a huge oval shape. The left side was the work area with desks and some office machines; the right side was a 270-degree panoramic skylight, offering a perfect view of the other two planets. The planetary shield shimmered with a faint light, and countless standard-issue spaceships moved back and forth, their pale blue contrails weaving a beautiful net.
What's even stranger is that the expected show of force didn't happen. The table was spotless, the machines were running smoothly, the mainframe was speaking loudly, and even the water dispenser had hot water ready.
Strange was genuinely confused. Was this some kind of sugar-coated bullet from the three great empires? Were they using these seemingly normal, even considerate, arrangements to lull him into a false sense of security before launching a surprise attack?
As he thought of this, the mainframe emitted a "beep" sound, followed by a voice that Strange was quite familiar with:
"Hello, this is Jarvis. I just reviewed the office security footage and found that three groups of people came here to clean. Their physical characteristics and genes indicate that they came from three different civilizations. I've sent the names and locations of the civilizations to your desktop."
“Jarvis, what brings you here?” Strange asked, somewhat surprised. “How is Wanda? Your little daughter should be born around Christmas, right?”
“Yes, Wanda has no intention of delaying any longer. She can take advantage of the Christmas holidays to rest. I also have three days off for Christmas, and we plan to go on vacation to Long Island together.”
“Not bad.” Strange tossed himself into the swivel chair behind the table, propping his legs up on it, and said, “So you’re here to assist me in being the Speaker?”
"Yes, I will temporarily serve as your electronic personal secretary. Considering that you are not good at paperwork, I will handle this part of the work. You only need to sign."
"Okay, let's begin. Which documents need to be signed?"
"Look down at the screen in front of you; that shows the main content of the document. There's also a smaller screen to your right, and the pen for signing is floating next to it. I'll switch the content for you; take a look, and then sign it."
Strange sat up straight and looked at the screen on the table in front of him. The text on it had been translated into English, but unfortunately, as a typical American, he couldn't fully understand English either.
“My God, what is this?!” Strange exclaimed. “What is this ‘Recommendation on Coupling and Coordination in the Systemic Work of Political Centralization Reform in the Pan-Ring Sector’? What is this thing?”
"If you don't understand, just sign it."
"How can I sign if I don't understand it?"
"It's normal not to understand it. Documents written in this format are meant to be incomprehensible."
"What if I don't understand it but sign it anyway, and some extremely harmful measures are passed?"
“Highly harmful measures wouldn’t be written like this; they would write them as simply as possible so that if you don’t understand them but still sign them, it’s none of their business.”
"But if I understood it, I wouldn't have signed it."
"Understanding requires you to actually read it. As far as I know, at least thirteen of your exes took an average of 0.02 seconds to read a document, which, to be honest, was faster than me."
"They didn't even watch it, did they?!"
"Yes, if the three great empires weren't up to no good, you could choose not to watch. In any case, whatever harmful measures are taken, they are the ones most likely to be harmed."
“That makes sense.” Strange tilted his head, then signed the document with a flourish.