Chapter 966: Chapter 521, I Want It Too!!!

Chen Haixu can exercise his veto power, forcibly rejecting Gu Hang’s proposal at this meeting, despite the unanimous agreement of the other eight Principal Sages.

But if he does so, what will he face next?

What secret agreement has Gu Hang reached with these eight, which could make them all turn against him?

Will these clandestine agreements go further and threaten him?

The eight Principal Sages may not directly threaten his position, but if Gu Hang, a powerful external ally, is introduced, can he, the Founding General, hold his seat?

All these factors lay before Chen Haixu, who saw the smile on Gu Hang’s face, a smile seemingly asking him:

Do you really have the ability to forcibly veto this proposal?

He hesitated.

He actually didn’t dare.

The situation was beyond his imagination.

But it’s equally impossible for him to be coerced into casting a supporting vote without knowing anything.

Unable to veto and unwilling to agree, amid the gaze of others, Chen Haixu, the dignified Founding General and highest leader of the Mechanical Sect, was momentarily stumped.

After a while, he slowly opened his mouth and said, “Meeting adjourned for a moment. Could Mr. Gu please step out temporarily? We need to discuss among ourselves…”

Gu Hang stood up, saying, “Fine, but please don’t keep me waiting too long.”

Chen Haixu finally breathed a big sigh of relief.

Though the issue wasn’t resolved, his greatest concern was Gu Hang using the current voting situation to force him into making an immediate decision.

That would make the situation awkward, even pushing both sides into an irresolvable predicament.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Gu Hang was very… ‘considerate.’

He even felt somewhat grateful to Gu Hang.

After Gu Hang left the room, Chen Haixu’s gaze swept over the Sages.

Their attitudes varied, but most felt too awkward to meet his eyes.

Only when his gaze finally landed on Wu Jiarong did he clearly see that this youngest, Principal Sage, whom he had promoted, was fearlessly meeting his gaze.

It seems the issue lies here.

“Tell me, what exactly is going on!” Chen Haixu fixed his gaze on Wu Jiarong.

Wu Jiarong smiled, “Actually, it’s not complicated at all…”

…

Indeed, it’s not complicated.

It’s merely a black box.

Gu Hang is remarkably charismatic and also possesses Spiritual Energy capabilities. However, Gu Hang has always exercised restraint in using the latter.

Because if he wishes to achieve effective control, the target’s behavior under mind control becomes quite obvious and can be easily detected; to avoid detection, the implanted thoughts need to closely align with the target’s own ideas, requiring a certain level of compatibility, and it also takes a relatively long time to perform a ‘mental surgery’ on the other party.

Gu Hang neither has the means to harshly use spiritual powers to influence these Principal Sages’ thoughts nor the conditions to hold these Principal Sages in order to perform mental surgery.

Actually, he doesn’t need to.

To persuade them, Gu Hang indeed never used any special means, nor would he disdain doing so.

Just presenting a top-tier weapon like the black box sufficed.

For these high-ranking members of the Mechanical Sect, while considerations for the sect’s reconstruction and revival plans are indeed very important and deeply cared for, the importance of all these paled compared to ‘technology’ in their eyes.

The higher the ranking of the Mechanical Sect members, the deeper and more irresistible their thirst for technology.

And how to acquire new technology?

Lower-ranking Mechanical Sect members might still have learning and inheritance as ways. But for high-ranking Mechanical Sect members, the scope for learning and inheritance has become very, very small.

Perhaps each possesses unique proprietary technology, but on one hand, these proprietary technologies sometimes are merely small tricks or unique, unreplicable artisan product designs; on the other, because they are ‘proprietary,’ these naturally would not be easily passed on to others, even if they are colleagues.

Such proprietary cherish is an easily occurring problem within the Mechanical Sect. No matter how much they try internally to promote breaking this status quo; even the Central Empire and various levels of government are trying to engage in various technical cooperation and exchanges with the Mechanical Sect.

However, this atmosphere within the Mechanical Sect has persisted for thousands or tens of thousands of years, so how could it be easily changed?

Learning and passing on some unique technologies is difficult, not only causing significant problems for the internal circulation of technology but also seriously restraining the Mechanical Sect in researching and innovating technology, leading to a severe waste of resources.

Many technologies probably already exist and many people have mastered them. However, due to a lack of dissemination, often when those who hold the technology die, it results in the technology being lost; and even if they haven’t died, as long as they refuse to spread the technology, others with similar technical needs still have to consume resources to research it again.

Moreover, the Mechanical Sect itself is quite resistant to ‘innovation.’

Technology is the law of ancestors, a routine effective for thousands of years, best left unchanged. Even minor effective modifications could be temptations from the abyss, eventually resulting in some terrible problems. Not to mention some genuine major innovations like producing a new product, which could very likely be knowledge from the unclean abyss, forbidden knowledge, ultimately resulting in products that might be a demon’s plot, leading to very, very negative outcomes.