Su Li knew that what others couldn’t understand was the Pope’s motivation.
Why would he do this?
What was his reason for doing this?
And what was his ultimate goal?
These three questions could explain everything.
Religious hegemony ant the Pope would completely trample human rights underfoot. Was Ophelia’s personality inherited or influenced by her environnt?
Su Li subjectively believed it was probably both.
If the Pope didn’t have deeper ambitions, then as the Pope of the Church of Light, even when facing King Amikbi directly, there would be no possibility of the king standing above him.
Mutual checks and balances were usually the best manifestation of peace between powers.
So if the Pope wanted to break this balance, it could only be because…
Only one person could ascend to the highest throne.
What he wanted wasn’t to be equal with others, but to be truly unique and supre.
Considering the Pope’s age – he was already over 70 now, which ans he was over 50 twenty years ago – that was even older than the previous Bishop.
At that age, how could he achieve the highest position?
It seed almost impossible.
In this world, human life expectancy wasn’t much different from modern society. For soone in their 50s to start from scratch and achieve a position that no one in history had ever reached – just having such ambition would seem terrifying, let alone the fact that the Pope had actually taken action.
If his goal was truly to beco the highest-ranked person in the world, then was Xiao Zuo really just brainwashed by Ophelia?
If the Pope used this reason to brainwash Xiao Zuo and ordered him to view Ophelia as the center, then all of Ophelia’s current actions – belittling Xiao Zuo without him retaliating – would also make sense.
Going back to the third question Su Li asked Ophelia.
Since Ophelia’s departure from Inner City had other reasons that Su Li couldn’t learn through existing channels, it ant that this vast net, which only showed a corner on the surface, must have also caught areas or forces that Su Li hadn’t yet paid attention to.
The Pope wouldn’t move against the King directly, otherwise, once Xiao Zuo reached his current level of power, the King would have no chance of survival.
Euphia’s father’s current situation proved this point.
Conversely, why wouldn’t the Pope move against the King directly?
From Ophelia’s perspective of wanting to beco King without getting her hands dirty, there was a high possibility that the Pope also didn’t want to have such a stain of harming others when he ascended to the highest throne.
Then who in the current Inner City could directly change the existing royal family structure?
It probably could only be the Dark Church forces represented by Lan Zhe.
“Given that brainwashing Xiao Zuo occurred, and considering that the Church of Light mbers must kill anyone with dark elents on sight, if they secretly hide a dark elent wielder and orchestrate a pursuit after brainwashing, the actions of so Dark Church mbers could easily be guided,” Su Li reasoned.
While others had been confused by the previous deductions, now they understood.
When suspicious glances fell on Lan Zhe, he angrily responded, “How could I possibly be that controlled dark elentalist? Where have you put Na’an and her husband? If I were that person, I’d curse myself to die a horrible death!”
Su Li: “…That’s unnecessary. Perhaps people are looking at you because they want to know if you know who that person is.”
Lan Zhe imdiately: “…Cough.”
Su Li held his forehead. “Seems you don’t know either.”
“Then let share my theory.”
“I believe the most likely person to guide the actions of Dark Church mbers is the Dark Holy Maiden.”
“Think about why Lan Zhe was hunted for so long? The tiline stretched from his escape all the way to Na’an’s husband’s death by siege – it dragged on far too long. Would the the Church of Light really need that much ti to kill a child?”
Moreover, there was another point – Lan Zhe’s parents wanted him dead…
Could a child unwanted by their parents really have the determination to live in the face of death?
Perhaps driving Lan Zhe to the Beast Forest was part of the Church’s calculations.
Because in the city, there was still a possibility of the plan being discovered. But if they acted in the Beast Forest, only miraculous creature like Na’an’s husband would show rcy to humans, given how monster beasts naturally opposed humans.
This might have been another reason why Lan Zhe survived.
However, Su Li, being quite self-aware, added, “Of course, I’m not saying Lan Zhe lacked the ability to resist, but rather, what if the undercover plan had just been activated at that ti?”
“Could Lan Zhe possibly have beco the role that guided others’ actions within the Dark Church?”
“The answer is yes.”
Not only possible, but extrely likely.
Lan Zhe’s affinity for dark elents was too high.
Once such a person was brought into the Dark Church, even if those eccentric dark elentalists suspected sothing was off about Lan Zhe, most would think that dark elentalists would eventually follow their nature – being controlled by others would be impossible.
And in fact, not only did Lan Zhe not beco an undercover agent, he spent his days thinking about undermining the Church of Light.
Conversely, what could the Church of Light see through the naturally rebellious Lan Zhe?
—Those with absolute dark elent talent cannot be controlled.
Therefore, the Dark Holy Maiden, who currently maintained a low profile while holding real power, beca a possibility.
“So the most likely things to happen next are—the King dies or is injured by the Dark Church’s hands, Xiao Zuo gains fa during the attack on Sadina City and reveals his true identity. When people in Inner City question why such a prince existed without his identity being leaked, the reason would beco simple – because the King, who could no longer hold his position, didn’t want the person truly qualified to inherit this country to be taken away by the Church.”
“There are many reasons why Xiao Zuo would inherit the throne. First, Ophelia’s talent definitely couldn’t compare to Xiao Zuo’s. Another point is, considering the premise that sothing will happen to the King, how could matters caused by soone who can no longer sit on the throne affect the children?”
“So the Church cannot implicate the royal family through the apparent marriage alliance – this will beco a point that Amikbi officials must defend. Otherwise, they would have to let the seemingly overbearing Ophelia take the throne. After all, Qi is still in Sadina City.”
“Of course, all of this is probably within the Pope’s calculations.”
“When all Amikbi ministers believe that Xiao Zuo is their unanimously approved new king, everything will develop step by step as the Pope calculated.”
Su Li smiled bitterly, his knuckles turning from pink to stark white as he clenched them.
“Not long ago, I even thought I could delay her actions against this city by controlling information about Ophelia.”
But now looking back, everything had beco more complicated.
However, when Su Li’s smile revealed bitterness, Egbert imdiately said, “Lord Su Li doesn’t need to be sad. Without your information analysis, the only thing people in the city could do would be fight to the death, rather than having other possibilities like now.”
Euphia also agreed. “That’s right.”
“At least from my perspective, I could never have deduced so much from the available information.”
“Co to think of it, I’m still very curious about how you can think of so much.” Euphia was referring to that kind of information prediction that she couldn’t even describe.
From Su Li’s thought process, apart from Egbert who had gradually shown he could keep up during his growth, there was only Ophelia as an opposing force.
The forr still had much room for growth, while the latter could only keep up with what Su Li looked down upon.
Now it could be said that everything Ophelia could think of was just the most basic layer of what Su Li had deduced.
Although for Euphia, or rather for everyone present, while they had beco sowhat accustod to relying on Su Li’s deductions in terms of intelligence and following his guidance to grow, when growth showed little change in the short term, Euphia would feel guilty whenever she paid attention to Su Li’s age and height.
—Wasn’t this really oppressing a child?
If they couldn’t oppress children, they could only push themselves to grow first.
Faced with this question, Su Li paused before trying to describe it in the simplest possible terms.
“There’s a mory technique called the mory palace, and when organizing intelligence and its derivative information in the brain, what’s usually needed is a mory maze.”
Su Li could simulate reality’s developnt in his brain based on existing information.
“Different people in different locations, with different habits and individual personalities, will have different ways of acting. Their actions happen to be connected to nearby people, so individuals form organizations, and conflicts and changes between organizations will cause changes in the world’s existing pattern… all of this gets simulated accordingly in the mory maze.”
“And the reason I can so decisively connect seemingly completely unrelated information and intelligence and give a final summary is because…” Su Li tapped his temple, “my brain has already produced several simulations beforehand.”
“For example, possibilities like if Ophelia’s father isn’t the Pope, then who else could it be?”
“After running through several possibilities in my brain, only the most likely possibility would be presented to you.”
To the point where the most likely possibilities that were finally determined mostly beca true, and Ophelia even revealed that people in Inner City had passed on intelligence about a “prophet” in Sadina City.
But this wasn’t so mystical prophecy – it was the inevitable result of building up from the foundation.
Unlike actual building materials, the information derivation represented by intelligence progression was all completed in simulations in Su Li’s brain.
And this wasn’t a difficult thing for Su Li.
So he said, “It’s like on a rainy day, when you know you’ll go out, you retroactively think about what you would do if you went out today.”
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