When it came to the voting session by the council members, the original number of over a hundred candidates was whittled down to just over thirty. At this point, a round of anonymous voting was conducted to eliminate most of them, leaving only five. Then these five took turns to deliver speeches for the final round of vote solicitation.
Strange had initially thought that the other four would merely be cannon fodder, but in reality, their speeches were quite well-constructed and not entirely devoid of content. Some spoke about strengthening interstellar security management, some emphasized the recovery of the Great Teleportation Gate area's economy, and others talked about focusing on aiding weaker civilizations—essentially, everything sounded sincere and plausible.
Strange hadn't prepared any speech manuscript; he didn't know what to say. He figured that since he was the Supreme Magician, talking about things related to magic couldn't be wrong. So he spoke about the joint development of magic and science, focusing on enhancing the level of magic education, essentially adapting the framework used in establishing Magic Academies on Earth.
What he didn't expect was that after he finished speaking, the entire conference hall fell into complete silence. Strange wasn't panicked; these Three Great Empires clearly intended to use cold violence, determined to disgrace him today. He couldn't care less about these petty people; after finishing his speech, he flicked his cloak and went down.
"Damn it!" said General Skrull, gritting his teeth as he watched the electoral process from the backstage, "These humans are indeed cunning, coming up with such a solution! This will surely unsettle people's hearts."
"The human race indeed has a significant advantage in magic. Currently, besides a few native magic races and those using divine power, there are probably less than three-digit races that can wield magic. Most can only barely use it, whereas there are very few like the human race who are proficient in it. Who wouldn't covet their teleportation portal?"
"But this Supreme Magician is just talking; can he really teach us the teleportation portal? Even if he did, how many races could learn it?"
"Couldn't learn the teleportation portal, couldn't they learn something else? Even if one civilization had one person who could become the Supreme Magician's disciple, wouldn't you jump at the chance?"
General Skrull and the Duke of the Shi'ar Empire both let out a sigh.
Despite appearances that the Shi'ar Empire is a civilization capable of using magic, it's not really the case—they use divine power, which is the Asgard system. Their strength comes from the Twin Gods of Xiea, but unlike Asgard, they are not as powerful; they only achieved a balance of quantity and quality to squeeze into the ranks of the Three Great Empires, having been the last before improving recently.
The Kree Empire and Skrull Empire are even worse off, having had no magical heritage from a very early stage. Although it's said that all paths lead to the same end, magic power is clearly closer to the origin. The closer the power is to the origin, the lower the loss and higher the efficiency, making it more formidable.
In their hearts, they also harbor another concern. Precisely because the two strongest of the Three Great Empires are both mechanical civilizations, any civilization within their jurisdictions wanting to develop a mechanical civilization must submit to them. Even those civilizations whose technological level is only slightly behind theirs are under their control due to starting late, forced to obey them rather than overthrowing them and taking the lead.
Over the years, the Three Great Empires have also used technological lockdowns or control of critical resources to restrain many promising civilizations to ensure that their status remains unshakeable.
But if Strange were really to initiate magic education, truly teaching several magic civilizations, even if they weren't as powerful as humans, even ten percent or one percent could invalidate over half of those technological restrictions.
Even if it weren't possible to teach an entire civilization, if a very advanced civilization produced a powerful mage, the consequences would be similar. Although magic speaks of talent, it's not inherently exclusive to humans; who can say that amid so many civilizations, none would possess a slight magic talent?
If they really managed to bypass the technological blockade, these civilizations could become a formidable force, and the Three Great Empires, already somewhat weakened, could be exploited. Should these people act unethically, taking advantage of the situation to backstab the Three Great Empires, the cosmos might indeed fall into chaos.
Originally, during the speech session, the Three Great Empires had arranged some actors to disrupt the process. It didn't matter what this human leader said; they only needed to be snide, creating an impression that humans were merely country bumpkins, unfit for the stage, effectively disgracing them.
This tactic, although somewhat childish, cost them nothing. If successful, great; if not, there was no loss—so why not disgust the humans a bit?
But who would have thought that after Strange finished speaking, many civilizations developed their own little machinations? The previously arranged actors, preoccupied with their agendas, didn't have time to cause commotion; some were busy tapping on keyboards, sending messages to their people, others whispering with companions, even exchanging looks with some allies.
The eerie silence persisted for several minutes. Strange took this as an intimidation tactic by the Three Great Empires, flew back to his seat, and continued to meditate with his eyes closed, ignoring whatever was being said since it wasn't worth listening to anyway, sparing himself the annoyance.