During these 24 hours Zhao Chen had given Leona.
Zhao Chen had not been idle either.
Through the Fox Empress Su Yaya's good offices in bringing the parties together.
He was able to meet with several neutral tribes.
Zhao Chen sat in his chair and shut his eyes, and in the instant the full-system communication apparatus opened—
at the moment Zhao Chen opened his eyes again, several figures had appeared before him.
The most conspicuous was that colossus of near three meters, covered in brown fur, whose thick-set frame could presumably crush a T1-grade combat mecha with ease.
This was the Fury Bear tribe's chieftain.
To either side of the Fury Bear chieftain stood two individuals somewhat alike in form.
One was a dog-headed folk of some stature, stooped like an old man or woman; though set beside dog-headed folk in general, these individuals were smaller and thinner.
They were the Hound tribe.
The other side somewhat resembled the Hound tribe, but seemed more noble: fur of gold and black intermixed from head to foot, and a frame rather more solid than the Hound-folk's.
Their dress was wholly different as well, and appeared of more honorable standing.
These were the Golden Leopard tribe.
The last two could be identified by their outward form alone.
One in white fur, with a keen look in the eyes, his presence second only to the Fury Bear chieftain's, but with more of wisdom in his gaze.
The Frost-Wolf tribe's chieftain.
The other hung in mid-air, possessed of a fish's tail, the upper body fair-skinned, the breast covered by two shells.
Very like the mermaids of Zhao Chen's imagining.
She was the chieftainess out of the Siren tribe.
All five chieftains of the neutral tribes had assembled.
"I hear you wished to see us?" The Fury Bear chieftain, with that temper of his, spoke first.
"I did." Zhao Chen nodded.
The Fury Bear chieftain looked down upon Zhao Chen. "You are at present the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's enemy. What do you mean to do, seeing us?"
"To urge you to join our camp — or rather, to join the Hundred Beasts Alliance founded by the supreme leader Charlotte," Zhao Chen said.
The Fury Bear chieftain folded his arms across his chest and gave a cold snort. "On what grounds?"
"On the grounds that I can bring you more of what you want." Zhao Chen said it with confidence.
"How do you know what we want? And what capacity have you to satisfy what we want? Besides which, do you suppose that if you gave us what we wanted, we would willingly join your camp?" the Golden Leopard chieftain put in abruptly.
Zhao Chen said, calm and unruffled, "Because you all share one characteristic: your strength is not great — at least not before the Dragon-folk tribe and the Giant Lion tribe. Yet you are unwilling to accept their exploitation, and so can only form these so-called neutral tribes and huddle together for warmth. You have no great loyalty to the Warhammer's old order. If there were a better choice, I believe you would certainly throw yourselves into the embrace of a new age."
"Then it remains to be seen just what it is you can give us that we want." The Hound chieftain wore a look of greed.
Zhao Chen had of course come prepared this time.
"Your Hound tribe has no great racial gift of its own — or rather… your one racial gift is that you breed well. Your racial numbers are the greatest within the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth. And so you take the export of manpower as your chief source of income. Your Hound tribe's soldiers and laborers are the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's cheapest 'commodity.' If you are willing to join the Hundred Beasts Alliance, I can change your circumstances of life. Give you basic living rights as persons, and better living resources — rather than eking out a bare existence and suffering contempt by exporting your own people as cheap labor."
The Hound chieftain's face darkened — not that he was angry, but because every sentence this man spoke was fact.
And spoke to the Hound tribe's sore places besides.
The Hound tribe had no skill they excelled in as other races did; they could only rely on their own people doing those things of low cost, low yield and low value, so as to let their tribe continue and hold that so-called standing among the twenty great tribes.
To which end they supplied their own soldiers to one tribe and another without cease.
As with the Black Tiger legion fleets lately destroyed by the Owl Dragon Legion — above 100,000 interstellar warships, near 100 million soldiers, of whom 30 million came from the Hound tribe.
And those 30 million Hound tribe soldiers were, without exception, employed in the most menial work.
Suffering oppression out in the world was a matter of course besides.
All along the Hound tribe had wished to change their tribe's standing by their own efforts, supposing that the more they gave, the more others might come to think well of them.
But in fact, to this day, in the eyes of the other Warhammer tribes, the Hound tribe was merely a tribe that exported cheap labor.
"Golden Leopard tribe — in point of race you are in fact much like the Hound tribe. Do not be in a hurry to retort." Zhao Chen, seeing the Golden Leopard chieftain grow somewhat angry, signed to him to hear him out first. "Your situation is essentially similar to the Hound tribe's. Your one advantage is perhaps that you are better at fighting; but upon the field that makes you only a higher grade of cannon fodder. Happily, in those days one of your excellent chieftains decided to walk another road. And chose to take up the interstellar trade. Within your Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, interstellar merchants are in fact deeply despised. You may even be reckoned an existence baser than the Hound tribe. But you have, all the same, upon the strength of the interstellar trade network you built, improved your own tribe's conditions of life. You hold 60% of the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's trade routes; at least 40% of all interstellar trade in the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth has to do with your Golden Leopard tribe. And in external interstellar trade above all, you hold an astonishing 80%. Granted that those Warhammer tribes look down upon your Golden Leopard tribe. That cannot obscure the fact that your Golden Leopard tribe is now the wealthiest per head among the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's twenty great tribes!"
The Golden Leopard chieftain's angry look eased a good deal; he thought back over the Golden Leopard tribe's development these years, which was in truth not much better than the Hound tribe's.
Wherever they went they met with scornful looks.
Blamed by others as lackeys, as middlemen, as good-for-nothing interstellar merchants.
"But I do not consider the interstellar trade a base occupation at all; on the contrary I hold that the interstellar trade is the very first priority in the development of every interstellar domain to come. Only the interstellar trade can change the poor and backward condition of life in the several star systems. But there is one great defect within your Golden Leopard tribe's trading system. And that is that you have no background of actual industry; nearly all your goods are either half-finished or finished products, and in doing business you must watch the faces of others. And as it happens, I have in my hands a complete industrial system, and a great many goods in demand. Indeed I now have several mature interstellar trading groups besides. If you wish to learn about them, I can let you look at their materials. I think very highly of your Golden Leopard tribe's experience and ability in the interstellar trade."
This man's words seemed to touch something deep within the Golden Leopard chieftain.