novelonline Chapter 4175 is about the Supreme Sorcerer (5)
Chapter 4175 is about the Supreme Sorcerer (5)
Chapter 4175 is, The Supreme Mage (Fifteen)
Schiller has said everything; what can the Supreme Wisdom say?
If he continues to emphasize a gradual approach to environmental protection, he'll be preventing his colleagues from achieving success and forcing them to abandon their responsibilities in building interstellar society. If he continues to emphasize emotional issues, then Schiller might have to be invited to be a psychologist. But if he agrees, environmental protection will have to be implemented whether or not. Moreover, as the Speaker's permanent secretary, he'll be the one to push it forward. Everyone knows he represents the three great empires; if he takes the lead, won't those opportunists work themselves to the bone, digging themselves into the work?
Schiller has essentially blocked all avenues for finding excuses. Whether it's the rise of great powers or the dignity of ordinary people; whether it's interstellar society or interstellar councils, it seems there are no more excuses to stop the implementation of environmental protection work.
“Alright,” said the Supreme Wisdom, “I’ll go arrange the work right away.”
He left after saying that. Strange curled his lip in disdain and said, "Is that all he's capable of?"
Then it suddenly occurred to him that this plan might have backfired, and he slammed his fist on the table in frustration, saying, "Is that all he's capable of?!"
Do you really think he'll obediently go to work?
“What else can he do?” Strange asked. “Although I’ve never been involved in politics, I understand that he can use all sorts of methods to dissuade me, to delay or stall, but he can’t really confront me. Because in a way, we are in the same interest group. As he said, we are in the same department.”
"The loss of power by the Speaker is of no benefit to the Speaker's Permanent Secretary. If the Speaker and the Permanent Secretary were to fight, it would greatly diminish the prestige of the Interstellar Council, which is something the three great empires do not want to see. So no matter what, he has to put on a show."
"That's the problem. How do you push forward a task you don't want to push forward?" Schiller asked.
Strange thought about it carefully and said, "I will delay as much as possible, until I can't delay any longer."
"We can't delay any longer, you still have to do it, don't you?"
“It’s a job after all,” Strange said. “Even if I don’t want to do it, I have to do it eventually. Maybe if I drag it out until the last minute, I can just do it half-heartedly, which is a little revenge on the person who forced me to do this job.”
“That’s what most people think,” Schiller nodded, “and many people do it. That’s fine, but there are better ways.”
"for example?"
"The more you don't want to do something, the more you should do it. First, shout the slogans loud and clear until everyone is annoyed. This is to reduce everyone's sensitivity."
"Sensitivity?"
"Yes. When you hear a word for the first time, you think about its meaning, but if you hear it many times, you will turn the word into a symbol. Its original source and the meaning it is meant to express will be diluted, and it will become an image."
“I don’t quite understand,” Strange said.
"You've used emojis before, right?"
"You mean meme images?" Strange thought for a moment and said, "I usually only use yellow face emojis, but my interns really like to post meme images from the internet in the group chat. There's a cat that's really popular lately, and when I opened the group, I thought it was a pet-raising discussion group."
"Do you know this cat's name? Do you know who its owner is? Do you know why the owner took this picture?"
Strange shook his head and said, "Of course I don't know, and I don't care about these things."
"Okay, do you remember the cat's posture? Its general shape? Was it long-haired or short-haired? What was it doing when the photo was taken?"
"Please, those pictures are all edited into a mess. Some have put a helmet on the cat, some have lasers shooting out of its eyes, and some have a huge circle of text that keeps spinning. How am I supposed to remember what a cat looks like?"
"That's what I mean. When something is repeated a lot, people become less sensitive to it and it becomes a specific symbol. Your impression of this cat meme is no longer the breed, appearance, personality, etc. that people care about most when they get to know a cat, but 'the meme cat that's been popular lately,' isn't it?"
"You mean the Supreme Intelligence will repeatedly carry out environmental protection work until people start to abandon its original meaning and treat it as a symbol?"
"That's right. If nothing unexpected happens, he will link environmental protection with you and promote it as a slogan for the Speaker's administration. In this way, when people mention environmental protection, they will only think of it as 'one of the three fires of a new Speaker,' rather than why we should do environmental protection and how we should do it."
Strange scratched his head and said, "So what should we do?"
"Don't rush, this is just the first step. Just shouting slogans won't work. After all, we're putting pressure on him, so we still need to do real work. And in the real work, the first thing to do is to get everyone involved."
"What do you mean?"
"The more people involved, the wider the range of departments involved, and the more ambiguous the division of responsibilities, the more difficult it is to carry out a task. So if you don't want to do this job, you must find more people to do it, and preferably a large number of unrelated people."
"For example, if it involves the approval of funds, you have to drag everyone in charge of finance into it, such as the cashier, accountant, and finance personnel; and as long as money is involved, there will definitely be issues of legality and security, so you can go to the legal department and security department; after the money is withdrawn, you can go to the bank and other companies' finance departments. Just in the finance part, you can drag at least seven or eight departments and dozens of people into it."
"In this situation, even if everyone is extremely conscientious and responsible, without any complaints, neither afraid to take responsibility and shirking their duties, nor deliberately making things difficult for you, and perfectly completing their work, the commotion caused will make people in other departments feel that it's making a mountain out of a molehill, and may even make leaders in other departments think that the leader who assigned you this task is mentally ill."
"What if your boss comes and interrogates you?"
"You were just doing your job. After all, when it comes to money, you have to be extremely careful."
"I get it, isn't this just overcorrection?"
"No, overcorrection emphasizes depth, while this approach emphasizes breadth. If it were truly overcorrection, we should find someone with connections and harass them with this task every day, forcing them to continuously deepen their understanding of the task. When they get annoyed, they will naturally go to the leader."
“Luckily, we don’t have any connections here,” Strange said. “So, what’s next?”
“The work usually ends here. With so many departments and so many people involved, everyone is looking for each other, and no one can manage anyone else, but everyone can also manage everyone else. In the end, it just becomes a mess and a complete disaster. And because it is not implemented well, if the leaders insist on doing it, they will also lose their prestige and will most likely call it a halt.”
"What if we continue without calling a halt?"
“That would cause some trouble. There are risks involved, since you might have to take responsibility if something goes wrong, but if the harm to him is greater if this work is completed, he will definitely do it.”
Strange actually wanted the Supreme Intelligence to do this, since such a setup could easily delay things for a few days. However, now that Schiller has seen through it all, he will definitely take measures and won't let the Supreme Intelligence stagnate; it probably won't last long either.
"Then what do we do?" Strange tried to subtly inquire about Schiller's approach, hoping that this might reveal the answer to the Supreme Intelligence.
“We don’t need to do anything,” Schiller said.
Strange frowned, but he couldn't understand why Schiller would say that. Fortunately, Schiller quickly explained.
"To be precise, we already dealt with it a long time ago. Didn't you clearly express your dissatisfaction with the three empires at the morning meeting and ask people to take sides?"
"Uh, is this how you deal with it?"
"Of course. The premise for dragging everyone into this mess and making things really chaotic is that everyone is unwilling to do something so thankless. But what if there are scabs among them?"
"You mean..."
“You have clearly expressed your stance of severing ties with the three great empires, and because you are the Sorcerer Supreme, the number one magician in the universe, there will definitely be people who choose to stand on your side. For the people of the three great empires and the Supreme Intelligence, the job they would rather avoid is a good stage for them to make a name for themselves.”
"They need your help and are eager to show their loyalty, but they have no opportunity to do so. At this time, the Supreme Intelligence, in order to make the work impossible to carry out, drags everyone into the mess, and even assigns a series of tasks to those peripheral departments that are completely unrelated to this, to ensure that no one who wants to show their loyalty is left out—isn't this a golden opportunity?"
"So those people will do a good job?"
"Not only that, they will not only do their best to complete their work, but also spontaneously form factions and confront the faction of the three great empires. Once the confrontation occurs, it will not be easy for the three great empires to slack off, because these opponents of the three great empires will definitely report them, seize on their weaknesses, nitpick and make a mountain out of a molehill, just to undermine the other side's prestige."
"At this point, you can absolutely stand up for them, because no matter what, it's wrong not to do your job properly. As long as the evidence is strong enough, you can even fire a few as a warning to others; and if you can catch them doing something wrong, you can take the opportunity to announce the dark matter eruption, cause public panic, and then let them see the ugly faces of the three great empires. After all, they are the ones who consume the most cosmic resources, and now environmental protection is the thing they are least willing to do; they created this mess themselves, and instead of cleaning it up, they want to drag the universe down with them—no matter how you look at it, that's a bit shameless, isn't it?"
Strange almost wanted to applaud Schiller. Although he understood that if this series of plans were to be carried out, he might be the one to suffer, he still couldn't help but cheer for such a brilliant and fluid fighting style.
The classic tactic of winning one faction from another remains highly effective. As a leader, you may lack expertise in many areas, but you must be able to strategically divide your subordinates, ensuring there's always a faction at your disposal to act as your tool, cutting away the parts you don't want. If you can get everyone vying to be your tool, then even if you lack other skills, you'll undoubtedly be a successful leader.
Strange seemed thoughtful. In fact, he was now a little hesitant. Although letting Schiller continue might make him take the blame, he could learn a lot from it.
Strange knew his greatest weakness was that he wasn't born into a privileged family. While his rise from the bottom had given him a stronger will and more life experience, it had also inevitably left him lacking in high-level political insight and the skills to navigate power struggles. Becoming Speaker of the House would be a perfect opportunity to fill those gaps.
Strange looked up and met Schiller's grey eyes, like snow under moonlight, carrying an inhuman, chilling coldness, as if he had already seen through something. He saw greed in them, and he saw his own greed.
Strange quickly looked away, took a deep breath, looked down at the list Schiller had handed him earlier, and said, "I need to personally contact these people who have sided with me and inform them for me."
"Yes, Your Holiness."