About five li, which is roughly 2.5 kilometers.
"Second, after each use of control, there must be a half-month interval before controlling a second person again."
"Third, if it's used repeatedly on the same person or their bloodline clan, the effect will continue to weaken."
"Fourth, there must be other conditions that restrict or counter the mirror, but what exactly they are, we in Gladiolus Kingdom still haven't figured out.
We only have a vague guess."
"Otherwise, the remnants of the Anxiao Hall wouldn't have handed the mirror to Salvia Kingdom so cleanly back then.
If Salvia had that kind of divine artifact, they wouldn't have stayed hidden within their borders for a hundred years.
They haven't even increased the number of vassal states, and their domestic recovery has been slower than ours in Gladiolus Kingdom."
Elara narrowed her eyes.
"Prince Leland, may I ask what your guess is regarding the fourth point?"
"Yes," Prince Leland said in a slightly deep voice.
"But before I say anything, let me emphasize again that these are just speculations without concrete evidence.
They can only offer a direction for thought."
"Because over the past century, ever since Salvia got that divine mirror, other than using it against our Gladiolus Kingdom, they haven't really used it on other countries.
So, some of our lords have speculated that each use might come at a great cost to the mirror's owner.
That's why Salvia only dares to use the mirror against us, not casually elsewhere."
"However, since every Salvia monarch after obtaining the divine mirror has lived reclusively in the deep palace, and even if they had to go out because of range limits, they always did so in absolutely secure and secret environments.
The servants around them were also selected through rigorous screening."
"Moreover, in these years, each change of monarch in Salvia has been very stable and normal.
The average reign has even reached thirty to forty years.
As of now, it's only the fifth generation since Salvia obtained the mirror, so we haven't found more evidence about this."
"This was our main speculation," Prince Leland said, raising his wine cup for a sip before continuing.
"Besides the possibility that the mirror exacts a heavy price on its user, others in our kingdom have also guessed that there might be additional restrictions on the right to use it.
For example, maybe unless Gladiolus Kingdom is completely destroyed, the mirror can't spread its power too broadly to other forces."
"Or maybe the divine power of the mirror has a specific range where it can be used.
Also, the remnants of the Anxiao Hall might still hold divine bloodline blessings that can suppress the mirror."
"There are many such guesses, but they are still only guesses.
They can't serve as solid advantages when we take action."
"What we can truly rely on are only the first three rules we've discovered over a hundred years, paid for with countless royal blood.
Those are absolutely dependable."
This was also why Prince Leland hadn't mentioned Salvia's divine bloodline blessings earlier.
Ever since Salvia launched a backstabbing attack on Gladiolus Kingdom, they've used the mirror on the royal family many times over the past hundred years.
The mirror's effect on the royal clan has now diminished to almost nothing.
This was a hard-won reversal, achieved only by the Gladiolus royal bloodline sacrificing an uncountable number of lives.
Now, Gladiolus has replaced all key positions in the country with royal clan members, making it impossible for Salvia to exploit weaknesses anymore.
This is also why, in recent decades, Salvia no longer dares to provoke Gladiolus openly.
Elara frowned, deep in thought.
This mirror was indeed very powerful.
Although it no longer worked on the Gladiolus royal family, it could still fatally affect others like her, Dahlia Prince Yu, and Gareth without anyone noticing.
No wonder the System had warned her.
With a divine artifact capable of silently controlling or even killing someone, if she and Dahlia Prince Yu hadn't come to question the Gladiolus prince, they might have died without ever knowing why.
While she was thinking, Gareth beside her looked at Prince Leland and asked, "Can the mirror's master only be the reigning monarch of Salvia in each generation?
Has there never been another case?
Is there another way to become the mirror's master?"
"Yes.
Each generation's mirror master has always been the Salvia monarch.
This generation is no different."
"As for how to replace it," Prince Leland shook his head. "After my ancestors in Gladiolus Kingdom discovered the existence of the mirror, they sought help from the Shrine of Divine Servants, but the mirror came from the Dark Sky Hall, which once rivaled the Shrine in power. The Shrine couldn't break its spell. We only know that the mirror, like Salvia Kingdom's treasury, will always pass on to the reigning emperor of Salvia.
If the emperor is killed, it will automatically pass to the closest royal bloodline. No one outside of the Salvia royal line has ever taken it."
Elara lightly tapped the wine glass in front of her with her pale finger. "Then… what if we just smash the mirror?" Prince Leland's eyelids twitched. He hadn't expected Elara's first idea would be to destroy something that everyone coveted as a divine treasure.
After all, it was such a powerful divine item. Even leaders of top-tier forces would first think about how to obtain it, not destroy it outright. But when their ancestors realized it couldn't be transferred to anyone outside the Salvia royal bloodline, there were indeed those who once considered destroying the divine mirror outright.
Unfortunately, the mirror was impervious to blades and spears, unaffected by fire and water. No matter what method was used, not even a scratch could be made on its surface. What's more, the mirror was connected to the Dark Sky Hall.
If someone were to seize it, they could easily be branded as an ally of the Hall, drawing hatred and rejection from the Shrine of Divine Servants and many powerful factions across the continent. So even though some prominent figures from powerful factions were once interested in the mirror and considered responding to Gladiolus's ancestors' pleas to seize it from Salvia, because of the Dark Sky Hall's sinister reputation, the mirror's strange conditions for inheritance, its awkward and clumsy usage, and possibly hidden dangers such as what Gladiolus suspects as a major unseen cost, many central continent factions who came to investigate eventually lost interest after just a few visits.
The ancestors of Gladiolus Kingdom were baffled at first. But later, they came to understand. After all, the major factions in the central continent mostly possessed divine vein blessings far more powerful and practical than the mirror.
Some of those blessings were even the very foundation upon which their powers were built. So once they realized that Salvia's divine mirror was not as useful as imagined and might even be dangerous, losing interest was natural. Seeing Prince Leland's expression, Elara and the others understood that the mirror most likely couldn't be destroyed for now.
That made things very difficult. That mirror would be an unavoidable threat of death, capable of targeting Elara, Gareth, and others at any moment. The room fell into silence.
Prince Leland looked around at everyone and spoke: "So I say, if you plan to attack Salvia Kingdom, it's best if none of you lead directly. Let Gladiolus go to war.
Gareth can lend us military strength and terrain advantage, and Miss Bai can provide divine weapons. With Gladiolus's forces and your support, sweeping through Salvia and its lackey vassals won't be hard." That was how he put it.
But Elara, Gareth, and Gareth didn't travel all this way just to let Gladiolus fight the whole war. First of all, whether they led or not, based on what Gareth previously told her and what Elara discovered through System analysis, she was certain Salvia and its three vassal kingdoms had already targeted her and Plumera due to the divine vein totems Lord Gregory once leaked to them.
She didn't know what exactly was in those totems or what the other nations figured out from them. But whatever it was, it was a threat to her and Plumera. She had to personally strike it down.
Otherwise, even if she stayed hidden now, one day she might still appear in the mirror and die without understanding why. As for Gareth, he sought her out because the rapid rise of Dahlia Kingdom had drawn the attention of those vassals. They would never let him go either.
So no matter what, whether they participated or not, they all faced the risk of being controlled and killed at any moment. Secondly, this was a war Elara had already decided to fight. Not just fight, she wanted to win.
She wanted revenge. She wanted to take back all the resources those nations had taken from Lord Gregory, doubled. She even wanted to seize the vast lands those nations occupied.
She was an empress. An empress couldn't be without ambition. And as for the northern nations, and even the vast land behind the second-tier Salvia Kingdom, Elara made no secret of her desire to claim it all.
So in her original plan, Plumera was always meant to send troops into battle. Only by doing so and playing an irreplaceable role in the three-nation alliance war would she have enough reason to ask Gareth and Prince Leland to divide up the victory's spoils, including the lands Plumera wanted.
But now, that mirror from Salvia Kingdom was a huge obstacle in her plans. Elara furrowed her brow. No matter how she looked at it, that mirror had to be removed.