As it turned out, Loki was truly pleased to hear this. When he heard what Hammock said, he nodded and said with pride, "I knew there was something fishy about the whole thing."
Then his eyes narrowed as he said, "It seems that Forced Exchange still hasn’t given up on making me surrender my Cave Heaven. I guess I have to teach him a lesson."
Hammock was glad that he had said something pleasing to his master. But he didn’t want to mislead his master, so he still said, "To be honest, an alliance isn’t completely bad. The opportunity to work with other divine people without worrying about them stabbing you in the back is a welcome one."
"This is especially the case in the second heaven, where divine beings can’t use the power of their Cave Heaven. It is very easy to be besieged by spirit creatures, so having more people working with you is good."
"There is also the fact that you can use the power of your alliance to steer the direction of the development of the sect by using the combined voting power of everyone in the alliance to vote for favorable conditions for everyone in the alliance."
"For example, in the case of a House of Commerce, the money cultivators can use this alliance to make changes in the sect that will favor money cultivators and suppress the cultivators of the other pathways."
If Loki were stuck with using one pathway, he would have liked to use the power of the masses to suppress other pathways. But since he could use any pathway he wanted, he didn’t take this so-called advantage of an alliance seriously.
What he was more interested in was the second heaven and how divine beings couldn’t use the power of their Cave Heaven there. He wanted to know why that was the case, and he wanted to know what kind of power they could use there.
But before he asks about these things, he decides to ask about something else that Hammock’s talk of voting had made him curious about.
So he said to Hammock, "Why are we voting anyway? Where is the founder of the sect? Why can’t they decide everything about the sect?"
When Hammock heard this question, he immediately began to shake his head again. His reaction was similar to when he heard the question about surrendering one’s Cave Heaven. But this time, there was a hint of fear in his expression.
Even his voice was fearful as he said, "No one has seen a Dao Lord, and no one knows where they are. No one even knows if they are alive or dead. It is their Supreme Metac that handles everything in their absence."
Then he lowered his voice and whispered to Loki, saying, "It is rumored that Dao Lords are everywhere. A divine being of the seer pathway once tried to find Dao Lords and went bad. She could only rant and rave that Dao Lords were everywhere in the Sea of World."
The way Hammock was behaving rubbed off on Loki and made him cautious, too. He looked around to make sure that no one was listening to them, even though no one should be able to hear what they said since they had spoken in his Cave Beaven.
A Cave Heaven is supposed to be a microcosm that is independent of the outside world. So no one else should have any power in his Cave Heaven.
But when he remembered that he currently had a Divine Position belonging to a pathway in his Cave Heaven, he decided not to take any chances and moved to change the subject as quickly as possible.
He said, "So what was that you were saying about the second heaven? Why can’t we use our Cave Heaven there? If we can’t use our Cave Heaven, then what can we use?"
Hammock seemed to relax after hearing this question. He would have continued to flak about Dao Lords if Loki had insisted because he couldn’t disobey orders. But he would have been terribly uncomfortable doing so.
Now that the topic had been changed, he was happy to go along with the change. He answered the question by saying, "The second dimension is for the dead. Cave Heavens can’t operate in the second dimension because they would be forced into an inactive state."
"Only the cultivation rank, stats, and Divine Metacs can be used for power in the second heaven. That means, the power of divine beings here is (Cultivation Rank) × (Stat) × (Divine Metac)."
Since he had gotten all the answers he wanted, he said to Hammock, "Now tell me, what exactly is your plan for this small world? How do you plan to make the will of the world make you the world king?"
This question made Hammock somewhat excited. So his eyes widened, and he spoke rapidly as he said in reply, "The criteria for becoming the world king are very simple, actually. I just need to kill half of the other world guardians."
"Since there are five of us, I need to kill two world guardians and absorb their power core. Once I have three portions of power, I will be able to synthesize the symbol of authority and ascend to become the world king."
Loki immediately smiled and said, "I see. In that case, let’s make you a world king as soon as possible."
As soon as he said this, the sound of space shattering rang throughout the Cave Heaven. Then a tear in space appeared in the sky.
The tear in space led from the Cave Heaven to the first dimension. Specifically, it led from the Cave Heaven to the small world. Hammock could tell this because he could see the scenery of the small world through the tear in space.
A tunnel had opened behind the tear in space that led to the first dimension. Hammock could see through this tunnel, which meant that whoever was outside of the tunnel would be able to see him through the tunnel and even enter the Cave Heaven through the tunnel.