By this point, Dark's thinking had become extremely clear.
Successfully forming an alliance with Gavin Noth and Stanley Longfellow would be the starting point.
With that starting point, the subsequent negotiations would become much simpler. First: establish an "advantage."
Even if that advantage might be false. Second: implicit pressure.
Two of the four factions had already formed an alliance. If you did not join, you would fall behind.
Since three of the factions had similar goals and were in direct competition with one another, no one would want to fall behind.
Moreover, the Holy Church and the Elf race had irreconcilable conflicts. Fundamentally, they could never form an alliance on their own to contend with the other two sides' cooperation.
Now, only with the academy acting as an intermediary was it possible to bring all four factions together.
Thus came the third point: reducing risk.
As the intermediary, as well as the initiator and leader of this cooperation, the academy clearly stated that it would not participate in the competition among the other three parties.
That was also extremely crucial to making this cooperation happen.
The essence of all these points, however, rested upon the academy's credibility.
Fortunately, Saint Marian Academy had built its reputation over a thousand years, so there was no major issue with its credibility.
Furthermore, because the academy had no real "information advantage," it would deliberately avoid probing into the true purposes of the various parties throughout the negotiations. This would naturally form an information barrier.
It would make the other three factions feel that their own information was not being pried into, creating a particular sense of security.
Dark's negotiations with Bishop Sabrina Vermeer continued afterward.
Setting aside other factors, the atmosphere of these negotiations was fairly pleasant. It merely took a little extra time