"Your Majesty, the route for buying soul tools through the Sun Moon Empire's black market has now been completely destroyed. It seems Xu Cheng learned some secrets while he was in the Star Luo Empire..."
A minister spoke with a troubled expression.
"Alas, back then, I never imagined he could leave the imperial capital alive, so I let him visit the auction. Who could have known?" Xu Jiawei had grievances he could hardly voice and shook his head helplessly.
After Xu Cheng broke through the defensive lines and returned to the Sun Moon Empire, he began a sweeping purge of "moles," crushing every lead they had once been able to contact in the Sun Moon Empire's black market. In the past, they had barely kept from falling behind by buying the Sun Moon Empire's cutting-edge technology there. Now, with that route gone, they were left completely in the dark...
"Can our own soul tool technology really never catch up?" Xu Jiawei demanded, a trace of anger in his voice.
"Your Majesty, our soul tool technology is far more advanced than Shrek's..." the minister said helplessly. "But the main measure of a nation's soul tool strength is its number of high-level soul engineers. For example, between us and the other two empires, even if we include Shrek, we don't have a single Level 9 Soul Engineer..."
Xu Jiawei: "..."
He automatically ignored everything that followed. The earlier remark about being far ahead of Shrek, however, delighted him.
"Ahem, very well." Xu Jiawei's anger vanished like smoke. "We've already allocated considerable funding to the Soul Tool Department, but now we're facing a changing era and a crisis of national survival. Double its funding again..."
"Thank you, Your Majesty!!!" the minister exclaimed excitedly.
He oversaw soul tools and knew perfectly well that research