Darth Malthael's expression turned somewhat strange. He had never expected Luminara Unduli to propose such a form of cooperation.
The New Jedi Order's intentions were not difficult to guess. Providing materials to rebuild the Temple was indeed their only overt demand, but the hidden benefits throughout the process were numerous.
They had seen from the Twilight Covenant that he was not particularly fixated on either the Light Side or the Dark Side, and that he genuinely intended to expand education in the Force. That was why they had made this request.
Darth Malthael did not know Ilum's exact location, but he knew roughly where it was. It lay somewhere in the Northwest Territory of the galaxy, extremely remote, without even stable hyperspace routes. That was why Ilum was so difficult to find without its coordinates.
Because even if you had the coordinates, you still could not get there if you did not understand the patterns of those intermittent hyperspace routes.
But precisely because of that, while Darth Malthael could not go there himself, he could also prevent the Jedi Knights from going there. Naturally, he could not track one or two small ships. But if there were large cargo vessels, or a continuous flow of supplies, they would certainly not escape the joint surveillance of the Fourth Group and the Geth.
Ilum had been abandoned for thousands of years, and the Temple there had long since fallen into ruin. It was fine as a refuge for a handful of people, but rebuilding the Jedi Order's Temple there was absolutely impossible. The planet also had no ability to sustain itself and had to depend on long-term, stable supply deliveries.
At the same time, with the Kingdom of Dawn's support, rebuilding the Temple on Ilum and beginning the instruction of younglings was,