Chapter 172: Alliance of 190 Safe Cities
In the City Lords’ group chat, everyone was still discussing whether it would be feasible for them to pool their resources and purchase an answer collectively.
Cheng Qisheng had already gone to find the original Truth Stone.
This time, the Truth Stone took slightly longer to respond. It was probably searching for a meme that fit the current situation.
Finally, it found one.
This time, the meme showed three intelligent sea-bird-like creatures standing on top of the Truth Stone, chirping away as they chatted.
“It can be done. Of course it can.”
“But you’ve never done this before.”
“Oh! That’s because I didn’t want to before. A lot of things depend on who you’re doing them with and who you’re doing them for.”
As it spoke, the sea bird with an insect dangling from its beak fed the insect to another sea bird.
The remaining sea bird, the one who had asked the question, got so angry that its feathers puffed up. It flapped its wings and flew away.
Cheng Qisheng understood. “So a group can collectively purchase an answer, with the Safe City itself serving as the basic questioner, and the answer they receive can then be applied to their own residents as well?”
“You’ve never completed a transaction like this before because you thought it wasn’t worth the price? But now, you’re willing to do it to help me?”
The Truth Stone tossed out an orc meme that essentially said, “That’s right, that’s right.”
Then it immediately sent another image.
A humanoid creature was staring solemnly at the red boulder in the picture.
“This price… is too expensive.”
Cheng Qisheng said, “You mean that if everyone pools their resources to buy information, it’ll cost a lot?”
The Truth Stone displayed its standard meme: “That’s right, that’s right! Exactly!”
The scene smoothly transitioned again. A grass-like creature was slowly rolling away from the red boulder, muttering to itself:
“This tax, that tax, all of them added together… how is grass supposed to survive? When are they going to cut taxes?”
Cheng Qisheng did her best to interpret it. “But you’ll keep the price as low as possible, so the City Lords can afford it.”
“That’s right, that’s right! Exactly!”
Cheng Qisheng was getting into the swing of things. She could even figure out the next step without needing the Truth Stone to give her any hints.
“Opening a spacetime passage requires nuclear crystals, but if the questioner and answerer are from the same world, you won’t need nearly as many nuclear crystals. You can arrange for Qin Zhi to be the answerer. As the president, she’ll guarantee that she won’t deliberately harm the other Safe Cities.”
The Truth Stone displayed another image. This time, the intelligent creatures were still sea birds, but there were only two of them instead of three.
Under normal circumstances, it would be difficult for people to tell one sea bird apart from another, but perhaps because Cheng Qisheng’s spiritual power was strong enough, she recognized them almost instantly.
They were the same pair of lovebirds from the previous image—the ones who had been all lovey-dovey, with one feeding the other an insect.
They were still standing on top of the red boulder, leaning against each other. Even their normally harsh, raucous voices had softened slightly.
“We should get married.”
“Yes. We’ll get our marriage certificate this afternoon.”
“Will you sign a marriage agreement? Will you promise never to deceive me?”
“I will. If I deceive you, may I be turned into a bug.”
Cheng Qisheng felt like her ability to understand the Truth Stone was improving by leaps and bounds.
“I need to sign an agreement, right? A mere guarantee isn’t enough. I need to sign an agreement with you, guaranteeing that I’ll never take the initiative to attack a Safe City—at least not while we’re on Moon Silk.”
The Truth Stone once again displayed its orc meme of affirmation, proving that Cheng Qisheng had understood correctly.
Although it was bound to its master, it was still the Truth Stone. It couldn’t bring back an answer that wasn’t truthful simply to help its master.
If Blue Sea wanted the City Lords to ask, “Who should we follow to stay safest and be least likely to be abandoned once we’re no longer useful?” and the answer turned out to be Blue Sea, then the final result had to include one condition:
Blue Sea could not abandon the other Safe Cities after getting what it wanted.
The Truth Stone really had absolutely no professional ethics.
It cheated questioners left and right, keeping the lion’s share for itself and giving the answerer only a tiny bit of energy. If a questioner offered too few crystals, it would simply pretend it didn’t know the answer (unless it was short on crystals itself). It was also often lazy, deliberately saving on the nuclear crystals needed to open a passage so it could keep more for itself, sometimes bringing back answers consisting of only a few words.
It could even exercise a little discretion. When other Safe Cities came to ask which of the four [Companies] currently active on Moon Silk they should choose, it could acknowledge the layer of [Ota] that Blue Sea was wearing as a disguise.
After all, the questioner believed it was [Ota], and the question wasn’t “Who is [Ota]?”
But ultimately, it was still the Truth Stone.
The Truth Stone did not lie.
Whether it was the [Ota] disguised by Blue Sea or Blue Sea Safe City itself, even if it belonged to its own master, as long as the Truth Stone had not determined that it truly would not take the initiative to harm other Safe Cities, it absolutely would not provide that answer.
Still, it cared quite a lot about this master who used all sorts of miraculous methods to bring so many questioners to it and even patted it on the head. So, especially for its master’s benefit, it displayed another scene to make the consequences of violating the agreement clear.
It was still the same two sea birds, and they were still standing on top of the Truth Stone.
They were fighting now, feathers flying everywhere as they screeched angrily at each other.
“You signed a prenuptial agreement! You swore you’d never deceive me! You lied to me! You two-timing bird!”
“Caw—Are you crazy?! I only ate some bugs with a coworker!”
“Do you think I’m blind?! You were feeding it bugs beak-to-beak, and you call that a coworker? That’s exactly how you courted me in the first place!”
“Caw—”
After a shrill scream, the cheating bird tumbled headfirst off the Truth Stone. Its claws twitched a few times before going still.
The bird standing above it stared down coldly.
“This is the price you pay for breaking the agreement.”
Cheng Qisheng found it hard to believe that she’d just spent more than ten minutes watching the story of a pair of sea birds from another world—how they met, came to know and love each other, and eventually came to hate each other.
Honestly, maybe it was because the protagonists were sea birds in the human world.
This was way more entertaining than the melodramatic TV shows Aether watched every day.
Perhaps because its master hadn’t said anything, the Truth Stone assumed she hadn’t understood the meaning of the scene and immediately prepared to replay it.
Cheng Qisheng quickly stopped it. “No need. I more or less understand. If you sign a contract with you, breaking it means death, right? And if it’s a contract between Safe Cities, then breaking it means the entire city gets destroyed?”
The Truth Stone displayed its orc meme of affirmation.
This was also one of its fundamental execution protocols. At its core, it was simply a passageway, capable of connecting to various worlds and various rules.
Traveling to another world was governed by the rules of spacetime passages.
Signing a contract was governed by the rules specific to contracts.
Rules did not change. They supported everything that existed, which was why almost no intelligent life ever signed contracts with the Truth Stone.
If its master chose not to sign one, it could understand that, too.
That’s what the Truth Stone was thinking when it suddenly heard its master say:
“So, if Blue Sea ever needs to sign an agreement with another Safe City in the future, would using you as the intermediary stone be the safest option?”
The Truth Stone froze for several seconds.
It could never have imagined, even after racking its stone brain, that this was what its master had been pondering during that brief silence.
The Truth Stone hesitantly displayed its orc meme.
“That’s right, that’s right!”
Cheng Qisheng was overjoyed. Her spiritual power gently circled around the Truth Stone, giving it a little pat on the head. It was so comfortable that it didn’t even feel like displaying another meme.
It listened to its master’s gentle words of praise.
“That’s wonderful. I was actually worried that after reaching the sixth tier, there might be loopholes I didn’t know about in the Four-City Alliance contract terms we’d used back when we were lower tier.”
“In that case, whenever we cooperate with another Safe City in the future, we can have you act as the intermediary stone, and we’ll be able to trust the agreement completely. Little Stone, Little Stone, you’ve really helped us out.”
“The best thing we did in this world was going to the Rakshasa Red Sea to find you.”
The Truth Stone was already floating on cloud nine, and now it was even happier after being showered with praise.
It, too, felt that the best thing it had ever done was sink into the depths of that ocean and wait there until its master came along.
As Cheng Qisheng stroked the stone head of the Truth Stone, she asked,
“What does the contract look like? If it’s simply to ensure that Blue Sea won’t initiate attacks against other Safe Cities, then Blue Sea will sign it.”
Her target had always been the three major companies and the [Heaven’s Punishment] that came with them.
As long as the other Safe Cities didn’t provoke her, she had no intention of attacking them either.
Of course, the contract had to be detailed and clearly defined. If, for example, Blue Sea Safe City’s residents accidentally injured residents of another Safe City while Blue Sea was fighting one of the [Companies], and that was considered an act of deliberate aggression, then Cheng Qisheng certainly wouldn’t sign it.
Fortunately, after she fed the Truth Stone three thousand nuclear crystals, the terms of the contract it manifested were exceptionally clear.
The clauses were indeed even more detailed than those of the Four-City Alliance. They were clearly tailored specifically to the rules governing Safe Cities, and they even took accidental injuries into account. What mattered was which Safe City initiated the war.
In other words, on Moon Silk, as long as Blue Sea Safe City did not take the initiative to declare war on another Safe City, it wouldn’t be considered a breach of contract.
If another Safe City declared war on Blue Sea, Blue Sea could participate in the fighting without violating the agreement.
In short, Blue Sea Safe City could not deliberately initiate an attack against another Safe City, but it was perfectly fine to fight back.
Cheng Qisheng felt that this contract was quite acceptable.
Blue Sea certainly wouldn’t initiate an attack against another Safe City. If someone attacked them first, they could simply fight back.
And if the other side wanted to hold a grudge, Blue Sea could always choose to let it slide.
Once they left Moon Silk, the contract would become void…
And more importantly, it only cost three thousand nuclear crystals. Of those three thousand, one thousand went toward the cost of creating the contract, while the remaining two thousand were the intermediary fee that the Truth Stone was supposed to receive anyway.
And the Truth Stone belonged to her side.
The two thousand nuclear crystals it consumed were effectively two thousand nuclear crystals that Blue Sea could save from its own treasury that day.
However you looked at it, it was a guaranteed win with no downside.
The Truth Stone could even customize the terms of the contract according to the circumstances.
As Cheng Qisheng stroked the Truth Stone twice with her spiritual power, she reached back to her home on Blue Star and gave Aether’s jellyfish body a little squeeze.
“Having Little Stone on our side is absolutely worth it. Aether, you did great! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even know what the Truth Stone was!”
She wrapped her arms around Aether and collapsed onto the sofa, fiddling with its little transparent jellyfish tentacles as she kept praising it for being so reliable and helping her out so much.
Aether had been working seriously just moments ago, but its jellyfish membrane visibly turned red.
The jellyfish superintelligence said solemnly,
“City Lord, Aether belongs to you. Helping you is only natural.”
Cheng Qisheng poked it. “And the City Lord thanking you is only natural, too.”
The entire jellyfish turned a gradient shade of rosy red.
Cheng Qisheng held Aether in her arms, read the contract aloud to it, and then had Aether return to Blue Sea.
Both Aether and Blue Sea gave the answer that there was no problem.
Finally, it was time for the luck-based ability user who only came out when something important was at stake: Tian Buke.
As before, he blindly chose between “Sign” and “Don’t Sign.”
Tian Buke chose “Sign.”
As Cheng Qisheng watched, a faint glow appeared along the faith chain when Tian Buke made his choice. She quietly let out a breath.
This proved that his choice truly was a matter of luck.
Once again, she couldn’t help marveling at how useful ability user residents could be.
It was just that Gong Cheng, the precognitive ability user who had only recently joined Blue Sea, couldn’t control his ability himself. His power activated passively.
Otherwise, the three layers of insurance would have turned into four.
Once she had made absolutely sure there would be no problems, Cheng Qisheng signed the agreement with the Truth Stone.
It was worth noting that a prerequisite for the agreement to take effect was that the other Safe Cities would choose to depend on Blue Sea Safe City—or, more precisely, [Ota]—while on Moon Silk.
…
Not long after Cheng Qisheng signed the agreement, the City Lords, who had been exceedingly cautious—so cautious that none of them could make up their minds—finally reached a decision through a vote as the increasingly tense and strange atmosphere on Moon Silk continued to intensify.
Of the more than four hundred cities there had originally been, over a hundred had gradually departed as the Great Annihilation approached.
And among the remaining City Lords, not everyone wanted to participate in the war.
Some Safe Cities had no desire to take the risk of joining the siege against the [Companies]. They simply wanted to hide somewhere, take advantage of Moon Silk’s resources, and quietly develop themselves.
In the end, a total of one hundred and ninety Safe Cities chose to form an alliance and collectively ask the Truth Stone a question.
They each sent an envoy. One hundred and ninety residents from different Safe Cities appeared before the Truth Stone.
If the Truth Stone refused to accept a collective question from an alliance, or if the number of nuclear crystals required for its answer was too high, then this alliance of one hundred and ninety Safe Cities would have no choice but to return to their previous state of arguing among themselves, each insisting on their own opinion.
No one from Blue Sea Safe City was among them.
Cheng Qisheng had consistently maintained her status as an invisible presence in this world, doing her best to keep a low profile.
The kind of presence—or rather, lack thereof—that made the City Lords feel as though Blue Sea barely existed at all.
But in reality, Blue Sea was everywhere.
For example, at this very moment, Cheng Qisheng was watching this grand spectacle through her connection with the Truth Stone.
“Truth Stone, we are an alliance of Safe Cities. We would like to ask: if we want to choose one of the four [Companies] on Moon Silk to depend on, borrowing its strength to deal with the other [Companies], which [Company] would be the safest choice for us? Which one would be least likely to attack us?”
The Truth Stone listened silently.
It thought to itself that if its master hadn’t wanted to facilitate this transaction, it could have found several loopholes in this question alone.
For example, although it was essentially one question, it could technically be broken down into three questions and charged three times.
What?
What if they realized that it counted as three questions and rephrased it into a single question?
It couldn’t talk anyway. If it didn’t say anything, how would the questioners know?
It could simply calculate the price as three questions on its end.
There was no rule saying that the Truth Stone could only answer one question at a time, after all.
Then it could increase the price by another seventy or eighty percent, add the passage fee and its intermediary fee, and then deduct the answerer’s ninety percent share…
The Truth Stone nearly got carried away with its own calculations, but it quickly calmed down.
It wasn’t a poor stone anymore.
It had a master. Its master had a Safe City, and the Safe City’s warehouses were packed with nuclear crystals. Its master had even said that even if it didn’t do business and couldn’t earn any crystals, she would still make sure it was well fed every day.
Thinking this, the Truth Stone happily did its best to reduce the number of crystals required for the answer for this alliance of one hundred and ninety Safe Cities.
This was relatively easy to do, since the answerer was already on Moon Silk, which saved a great deal of the cost of opening a spacetime passage.
On top of that, the Truth Stone wasn’t deliberately trying to squeeze them for crystals, and it cooperated by treating the entire alliance as a single entity.
The price it ultimately gave them was absolutely the lowest possible.
One of the Safe City residents at the front stared at the number slowly appearing on the Truth Stone and his eyes widened slightly.
“It only costs three hundred thousand nuclear crystals?”
Three hundred thousand nuclear crystals might sound like a lot, but this was being split among one hundred and ninety Safe Cities.
Most of these Safe Cities were at the fifth tier or above, so each city only needed to contribute a little over fifteen hundred nuclear crystals.
For a moment, some of the City Lords who were communicating with their residents through special means began smacking their fists against their palms in regret inside their City Lord residences.
“If only we’d known… When we asked about the dangers before, we should’ve joined forces with the other Safe Cities.”
“How many nuclear crystals could we have saved?”
Then again…
The City Lord quickly calmed down.
Back when they’d asked their questions, none of them had known that the disaster would affect the entire planet.
At the time, the questions had all concerned the safety of their own individual cities. Under those circumstances, there was no way the City Lords could have joined together to ask.
And the City Lords who had received answers would have been bound by the rules, unable to reveal a single word of them.
Thinking it over, this City Lord soon managed to reassure himself.
Naturally, he had no idea that if all the City Lords really had joined forces back then to ask about the safety of their cities, the Truth Stone would have demanded an even more outrageous price.
At this very moment, the Truth Stone, playing the role of a conscientious intermediary for the second time, slowly revealed the answer under the expectant—and nervous—gazes of the Safe City residents.
[Ota, on the Broken River Wasteland.]
Several City Lords who were communicating with their residents through special technology or supernatural abilities immediately began privately messaging the other alliance members one by one.
There was no other way. Not every City Lord was participating in the group chat, so they could only relay the answer from the Truth Stone to their allies.
Moon Silk was vast, and the City Lords had chosen vastly different locations for their Safe Cities.
Amid an endless expanse of yellow sand, a Safe City standing tall in the desert began recalling its residents.
The guards were closing one small city gate after another, leaving only the larger gates open so that residents could return as quickly as possible.
“Come on, hurry up! We’re changing locations!”
In the irradiated lands, a City Lord from the Leopardian civilization looked at the private message, a compass in his hand.
“I won’t rely on just one method to judge whether this is trustworthy. If you want to live a long time, you have to be cautious enough.”
“The Broken River Wasteland? Let’s see…”
The needle of the compass spun rapidly before finally stopping on [True].
The Leopardian City Lord smiled.
“Not bad. Looks like Ota really is the most suitable choice.”
“Pass the word down. Get the army ready, and bring in all those people from the diplomatic corps who are especially good with words. We’re going to make contact with Ota.”
Out on the open sea, a Safe City slowly descended from the clouds, and countless ships were lowered onto the surface of the water.
The captain at the front hoisted the sails.
“Set sail! Destination: the Broken River Wasteland!”
One Safe City after another received the news.
One City Lord after another made their decision.
If someone were looking down from above, they would be able to see Safe Cities standing throughout every corner of Moon Silk, all dispatching their people.
They were all heading toward the Broken River Wasteland.
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