Wars in the endless space are rare; high-level civilizations do their best to avoid fighting. But conflicts do happen.

Everything is about incentives; if the benefits of fighting exceed that of not fighting, high-level civilizations have no fear of battles.

Mortals aren’t always rational; they may do things that don't benefit them. But immortals almost always calculate things rationally.

Looting resources, information, etc., is not generally possible, so high-level civilizations do not start a battle over these.

One thing that can cause fights between high-level civilizations is big dream worlds, ownerless phantoms, and illusion worlds, as recently happened between two rank 11 civilizations.

A massive rank 11 illusion world appeared between Clocks civilization and Mount Sect.

Clocks civilization was mage-based, but Mount Sect is a cultivator; regardless of their ways, an illusion world is useful for both.

If it were a rank 12 illusion world, the Anti-Rachel would have intervened and taken over everything. For rank 11 illusion worlds, however, Anti-Rachel doesn't care.

Rank 12 civilizations around the two rank 11 civilizations kept themselves in check. For example, the Nobles' civilization was quite close. Still, it declined to go after the illusion world because it knew that if it went for it, the rank 12 Kingdom of Heaven, an angel-based civilization rival to Nobles, would also come for it.

Nobles' civilization wanted to avoid confrontation; for a rank 11 illusion world, it chose to ignore it. Other rank 12s did the same; a rank 11 illusion world is not worth the risk of conflict.

As a result of this check and balance, in many cases, rank 11 space resources would be left to rank 11 civilizations and not be consumed by rank 12s.

This only works, though, if the rank 12s don’t have a compact. In many cases, rank 12s have treaties that peacefully divide all available resources. In that case, nothing that can attract rank 12s will be left to rank 11s.

Fortunately for rank 11s in this area, the balance of power of rank 12s is chaotic for now. Recently, there has been a new rank 12, a new powerhouse that caused the former treaties to become ineffective and inoperational.

Until they agree on a treaty, the low-level resources would be left for rank 11s.

Clocks Academy and Mount Sect were the biggest forces nearby, not counting rank 12s, and were the only ones who realistically could take over the illusion world.

They both sent their people there, and soon, a conflict broke out.

...

Clocks civilization was not particularly old; it was only around for about 10 billion years. It had over 100 rank 11 mages and thousands of rank 10 mages.

The difference in power between rank 10 civilizations is not huge; after all, rank 10s usually have only a few rank 10 individuals.

But, among rank 11s, the difference in power is often enormous. The reason is the huge hurdle of rank 12; the overwhelming majority of rank 11 civilizations will get stuck in rank 11. Only very few lucky ones may be able to achieve some breakthrough and calculate a universal law.

For this reason, many rank 11 civilizations have been around for a long time and accumulated many rank 11 individuals but cannot break through. There are rank 11 civilizations that have billions+ of rank 11 individuals.

For Clocks civilization, their strongest rank 11 was called Mage of Shining Rays. He had over 100,000 complete laws and was by far the most powerful.

Clocks's governance system was straightforward; every complete law had one vote. For example, Mage of Shining Rays has 100,000 votes, while a rank 10 mage with one complete law has 1 vote.

As for mortals, they didn’t have any power; the weak had no voice.

Clocks civilization was very advanced; their magical technology was far beyond anything any technology could achieve. They had over 20,000 rank 10 worlds and 155 rank 11 worlds.

Even with that massive scale, they had somehow managed to set up instant communication lines between worlds. In effect, it was an interworldnet.

It was available only to immortals, so no mortal could use it except for some lucky mortals in mage academies.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Technically, Clocks was a massive mage academy, but internally, it had many factions; there were other mage academies within; it's just that they all were still part of the Clocks academy.

…

Miles was admitted to the Illusion Mage University 160 years ago, and today is one of the young talents.

Only after a bit over a century had he reached rank 4! Of course, that is because of the elite university's massive help, but it still shows his affinity.

He has even been granted the right to use Interworldnet. He can only observe public debates and not write or participate in any discussion.

There has been a debate recently about the appearance of an illusion world nearby. Miles has been extremely interested as an apprentice of the Illusion Mage Academy. A rank 11 illusion world is a precious treasure; it can help him to increase his mastery to master level!

He is already a quasi-master at 173 and will take at least 1,000 years to reach mastery, but with the help of an illusion world, he can reach master level or even maybe quasi-grandmaster level far sooner.

Unfortunately for him, he cannot participate in the debate, and from the looks of it, the academy will give up on it.

Miles had no idea that the academy was already fighting with another civilization over the illusion world; that part was not available to non-immortals.

In fights among immortals, mortals only have one use: cannon fodder. Honestly, mortals are barely even considered cannon fodder.

Using mortals as cannon fodder is a waste, and not everyone will do it. Some want to kill off their unproductive mortal population, so they grab them en masse and use them as cannon fodder or contribute them to Anti-Rachel for contribution points.

But, Clocks civilization was against it; they treated their mortal population quite well. It is evident by the fact that a mortal like Miles was allowed to see immortal mages chat.

Because mortals are not useful in fights, immortals won't even bother telling mortals if a battle occurs.

It is the polar opposite of battles between low-level mortal countries, where battles only harm the poor and weak. In those countries, they conscript ordinary people while the rich run away.

In Clocks civilization, though, only immortals will be sent out to fight in case of a fight, and mortals won't even notice.

Mortals cannot survive in the chaos of endless space, so even if one sends out a trillion rank 9s, they all die from the chaos before draining the enemy. To use them as cannon fodder, one must first use a battlefield formation and clear the chaos, allowing mortals to move in the endless space.

For the battle of the illusion world, no one used a battlefield formation. Battle formation can benefit one side greatly, but that is in normal fights.

In this battle, to be effective, one must make a formation very close to the illusion world, but an illusion world has a disruptive effect. It takes specialized expertise to create a stable formation around an illusion world.

The illusion world just appeared, and none of the two rank 11 civilizations around it had the capacity to build a formation close to it.

Clocks wanted to pull out because they had been losing in the recent confrontations.

Mount Sect is around 12 billion years old and is stronger than mages in pure fighting power.

Both sides are members of their respective greater alliances. Clocks is a member of the Mage Alliance, and Mount Sect is a member of the Cultivation Alliance.

As everyone knows, the most influential person in Anti-Rachel was previously the leader of the Cultivation Alliance; his existence gives all cultivation civilizations at least a moral boost.

The greater alliances didn’t intervene, but Clocks must consider future diplomatic effects if they get too far deep into the fight with cultivators.

Because of this, they have been negotiating a deal that grants them 30% of the illusion world while the other 60% goes to Mount Sect. The deal is likely to be agreed on by Mount Sect.

The remaining 10 percent goes to anti-Rachel.

If it can be solved peacefully, no one wants to fight.

Until now, only a few rank 10s were killed from both sides; the battle looks grand and terrifying from the perspective of a mortal, but it was really not serious from the perspective of immortal civilizations.

These rank 11s are not hot-blooded and will always try to reach deals if possible. The result of a battle between Clocks and Mount Sect is uncertain, but Clocks conceded because it realized it had less chance to win.

Rank 11s don’t like bragging; the two civilizations lived near each other for billions of years and knew each other well. There is no point in trying to show oneself stronger than one really is to make one have better negotiating standings. No one would be deceived anyway.

But Miles didn’t know all these details, so he was sad that the academy would abandon the illusion world.

"If I could study it!" Miles began daydreaming. He has been able to study tiny rank 9 illusion worlds here in the academy, but rank 9 is completely insignificant compared to rank 11.

It would be revolutionary to be able to study a rank-11 illusion world.

Miles knew he couldn’t do anything to change the outcome but still wrote a letter to his academy’s dean, expressing his opinion. As a genius, he was sure the dean would at least read his letter.

…

The negotiations between the two civilizations continued, and they soon reached a final deal.

Clocks civilization would be granted a 30% stake in a new corporation that would be set up to manage the illusion world, while Mount Sect would hold a 49% stake.

The remaining 21% will be given to Anti-Rachel’s investment arm.

It was acceptable to mount sect because the most influential person in anti-Rachel was a cultivator.

Anti-Rachel has a hedge fund that manages assets all over the endless space.

It is called World Invest. It is managed like a corporation and is owned 100% by the Anti-Rachel alliance; it doesn't have individual investors. Effectively, the person who runs it is whoever controls Anti-Rachel.

Giving shares to Anti-Rachel is a tactic many low-level and weak civilizations use. By giving Anti-Rachel shares, they can deter rank 12s from interfering.

Usually, World Invest is a passive investor, so Mount Sect’s 49% would be enough to control outcomes. Still, they cannot be too outrageous; they do not have a total majority, and Anti-Rachel may vote against them if they act too outrageously.

After both sides ratified the deal, it went into effect.

…

Miles looked at the screen with bright eyes; the immortals were looking for research assistants to send to the illusion world, and he had been chosen as one!