The two trades Mr. Ga proposed stirred up a massive uproar in the human world after the first day of negotiations concluded.
Thanks to the negotiations being live-streamed in full, ordinary people could see and hear everything clearly, except for the information from the Higher-ups' joint video conference.
With no information gap, everyone could voice their own opinions.
Regarding the first trade item, the general public overwhelmingly supported the delegation's stance.
That is, first designate a relatively unimportant planet for the Star Scar Merchant Group to develop, observe the results of cooperation first, and wait two years before discussing Meltstar.
The human side's proposal of two years was not an arbitrary number. It was because they expected the remaining Doomsday Rules would most likely end within the next two years.
Considering humanity's leapfrog development speed, if two years later humanity still could not reach Meltstar or develop magnetic substrate resources, then cooperating with an advanced civilization at that point would not be out of the question.
That was the first point.
The second was that humanity's Higher-ups had taken into account the private-enterprise owner's "highest bidder wins" opinion.
If the value of magnetic substrate resources in the universe was high enough, there would definitely be many advanced civilizations eager to develop it.
But the troublesome part was that humanity currently could not transmit this message outward, let alone conduct civilization screening.
Therefore, during these two years, there was one more thing to do: use every possible means to broaden the scope of human civilization's external exploration.
Attempt to learn of more civilizations within the Star Sea Court system and engage in a certain degree of communication and contact.
As for the second trade item, the human side placed equal importance on it.
If the Chaos Engine was the key to interstellar travel, that meant there were two possible paths.
First, a spaceship equipped with this kind of engine could raise its speed to near light speed.
For example, if a spaceship could reach ten percent of light speed, humanity would only need to spend a few years to leave its own star system.
But in that case, even if the speed was raised, it would still be useless if the hardness of the materials composing the spaceship was insufficient. In other words, humanity still could not bypass the hurdle of a breakthrough in materials science.
There was also another possibility.
That is, the Chaos Engine had nothing to do with speed, but rather with "Spatial Folding."
Humanity had obtained coordinate-stabilizing anchors through the Door Lost rule, confirming the feasibility of Spatial Folding.
If the Chaos Engine could be used to manufacture anchors, or could open the wormhole passage required for folding, then the restriction on spaceship materials science could be set aside.
Which method it actually was, the human side was not clear.
There were also quite a few people, both official and civilian, who sent private messages to the Administrator of Ascendant Home, asking about this information.
They believed that perhaps the Administrator not only held the Convention, but also more information capable of elevating humanity's understanding.
Everyone hoped the Administrator would not hoard it and would publicly disclose everything he knew.
Seeing these private messages, Guan Tong naturally could not respond.
The things he knew, such as the abyssal civilization, the ghost flower liquid, the deep-sea serpent, and so on, were all related to his personal goals.
As for the existence forms of the Demon Race, such as the Pain Dominator, though they would threaten all of Tianshui Star, he still could not make them public. Doing so would only cause even greater chaos.
As for that core agreement he had seen in the Convention, he could not even mention it to Shi Jingyi. He believed that agreement was far more dangerous than the Demon Race.
With no response from the Administrator's side, the people had no way around it and still focused their attention on the trade.
From the general public to the officials of every nation, all unanimously decided that tomorrow they would first use one million Ascension Coins to exchange for one unit of purified chaos energy to see what exactly it was about.
Even if they were cheated, spending only one million Ascension Coins to buy a lesson and see Mr. Ga's true colors would be an absolute bargain for humanity.
If they were not cheated, and this one unit of purified chaos energy was truly greatly useful to humanity, then buying more afterward would be simple.
In any case, Mr. Ga said he wanted to establish a long-term liaison station on Tianshui Star. With this liaison station in existence, the trade period would not be limited to just these twenty days of the rules.
Even if the rules ended, as long as the Star Scar Merchant Group's development in this star system had not concluded and the liaison station remained, humanity would have opportunities for continued trade.
Aside from the two trades proposed by the Star Scar Merchant Group, the human side was also hurriedly preparing its own trade demands.
....
Heilanja.
In front of the hillside villa, Han Qiu looked at the direction of comments under his video and let out a soft breath.
"Good thing I responded fast enough. Public opinion, this thing, if you're not careful, it really can burn you alive."
After he posted a video clarifying that there was more than one Awakened One, people's anger toward him partially subsided and partially shifted elsewhere. He could tentatively count this public opinion crisis as snuffed out in the cradle.
At that moment, Tianci walked in from outside and bowed slightly to him. "Chairman, everything is packed. We can depart at any time."
"Mm." Han Qiu rose from the bench and stretched. "Then let's set off now. It's been a long time since I returned to Suroma."
Tianci hesitated for a moment, then still asked, "Chairman, we've operated the Heilanja headquarters for so long. Isn't it a pity to abandon it now?"
Although Han Qiu's "guild" had always operated in a decentralized manner, there still existed an information hub, namely the headquarters.
This headquarters had always been established in Heilanja, a small mountainous nation with little presence in the world. No one had ever investigated or suspected it.
Tianci did not quite understand why at this time they had to abandon a headquarters they had operated for several years and instead go to Suroma, whose core cities had already been bombed into ruins by that king, Bruce.
"Tianci, your vision is still limited to the present." Han Qiu said, "Heilanja was safe before, but it will soon become unsafe."
"Why is that?"
"I predict that after this trade rule ends, Beixing's officials will certainly push for the establishment of a world united government in their next move. When that happens, the guild headquarters will inevitably be discovered.
Although Suroma's core cities have been bombed into ruins, the remaining people will certainly be busy with reconstruction and will not actively participate in united government affairs. This gives us the opportunity to lie low among them."
Hearing this, Tianci fell into thought and felt that Han Qiu's words seemed very reasonable.
"There's also..." Han Qiu smiled, "My fiancée should also return to Suroma. Perhaps we can rekindle our past romance."
"Yishan?" Tianci was stunned, thinking how could that be possible.
Back then, that woman had been ignored and humiliated by her father and fiancé in front of the whole world during a live stream. Her hatred for the two of them could be said to run bone-deep.
"The probability of a woman falling in love with the person who hurt her is greater than falling in love with someone who sacrificed for her." Han Qiu said calmly.
"Moreover, the emergence of this rule once again proved my judgment correct, that Awakened Ones exist in the universe as the leaders and representatives of civilizations.
What do you think Yishan will do when faced with me, a future leader who still has 'lingering feelings'?"
"I see." Tianci had not expected this layer. "But Chairman, if that Administrator is also an Awakened One, then..."
Han Qiu fell silent.
He knew that the guy who could produce the Convention was the true Awakened One.
Though he, an imposter, could currently still use the excuse of "I did not use Query Authority, so as an Awakened One I still do not know of the Convention's existence" to bluff the public.
But... if similar information unique to Awakened Ones appeared again and he did not know it, then the credibility of his Awakened One identity would plummet in people's hearts.
Confidence was the key, the cornerstone, and even the critical step in his long-standing plan to elevate himself into the class of world leaders. There absolutely could not be any mistakes.
Han Qiu thought to himself that before that happened, he had to become a true Awakened One and plug this fatal loophole.
It was like a person with not a penny to his name who relied on painting grand visions to pull funding into the game. If the project succeeded, he was a genius pioneer. If it collapsed, he was a fraud.
In Han Qiu's view, there was no difference between a genius and a fraud. The only difference lay in the result.