After the mysterious city lord disappeared, the Nine Great Elders were no longer satisfied with making decisions together through the Council of Elders.
Some of them wanted a greater say.
And the way to gain a greater say very likely lay in possessing more curios.
This guess had not come out of nowhere.
Cao Xianming had factored in one crucial piece of information...
No matter which faction in Mechanical City it was, all they asked for were curios.
It did not matter whether the curio had made it onto the curio rankings.
Nor did it matter how outrageous the cost of using it was.
As long as it was a curio, it would do.
What did that mean?
It meant those curios very likely were not intended for people to use.
Instead, they were incorporated into Mechanical City through some means Cao Xianming could not yet analyze.
More curios meant control over more of Mechanical City.
And now...
Yang Yong had simply stopped crafting!
The Mechanics in Mechanical City took ten days to half a month to craft a single curio. Their speed could not compare with Yang Yong's at all.
Now, apart from the Third Elder, the other elders should all be getting anxious.
Of course, the Second Elder might not be anxious.
After all, Yang Yong had previously crafted thirteen curios for him, so he already had enough bargaining chips.
But that was not necessarily true of the other elders.
This stratagem was called Drive the Wolf to Swallow the Tiger.
They wanted Yang Yong to keep crafting curios?
Sure.
Then they could find a way to bring back the thirty-one Survival Convoy members stranded outside.
Weren't they elders?
Didn't they wield immense power?
Didn't they want curios?
Then they could go up against the Third Elder.
Cao