Since in such circumstances the future situation was full of uncertainty, it was difficult even for Xu Yuan to accurately predict what might happen.
Although Xu Yuan's forces were powerful, and if he wanted to end the Trial Grounds quickly, he could easily do so by directly launching an attack on those two factions, doing that would make the whole purpose of the Trial Grounds meaningless.
If Xu Yuan wanted to control the timing of when the Trial Grounds would end, he had to make Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM come looking for him on their own within two days.
What kind of situation would make Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM take the initiative to come to him?
First, if their forces surpassed Xu Yuan's.
Second, if their forces were equal to Xu Yuan's, but they realized that no matter how they developed, they still wouldn't be able to surpass him.
So Xu Yuan's strategy had to be built around these two situations.
The first one could be ruled out right away. Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM weren't idiots. They had both seen Xu Yuan's abilities and knew full well how powerful he really was.
Therefore, Xu Yuan could only start from the second situation.
And that was exactly why he had those disaster villagers who were about to be captured leak information about the Rainforest.
Xu Yuan didn't plan for them to reveal the Rainforest's actual troop numbers.
Right now, his forces far outnumbered Annoying village HIM's. If they told the truth, Annoying village HIM might think there was no chance of winning and wouldn't dare to attack at all.
So the information Xu Yuan wanted the disaster villagers to leak was that the Rainforest had about four times their current troop strength.
At the same time, the disaster villagers also had to pass along another key piece of information, the Rainforest's army was still growing.
When Annoying village HIM received this news, he would start thinking about an important question.
After capturing the disaster villagers, could his own troop growth keep up with the Rainforest's expansion? If everything followed Xu Yuan's plan, the answer would definitely be no.
According to the information the disaster villagers leaked, the Rainforest already had four times the troops Annoying village HIM had, and it was still growing steadily. It would be almost impossible for Annoying village HIM to catch up.
Knowing that he couldn't overtake the Rainforest's forces no matter what, Annoying village HIM would only have one option left if he wanted to win the Trial Grounds, seek cooperation.
And the number of people he could cooperate with was very limited. First of all, the players could be ruled out completely.
Players were far too unpredictable, and right now, Annoying village HIM was working with the Void Iron Golems.
Having worked with them for so long, he had definitely noticed the hatred other factions had toward the Void Iron Golems.
So if Annoying village HIM wanted a reliable partner to strengthen his side, Tyrant HIM was undoubtedly the best choice.
First, Tyrant HIM was strong in his own right. The faction he led must have considerable military power.
Second, both Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM feared Xu Yuan's strength, which made their cooperation all the more likely.
After all, they had all entered the Trial Grounds from the same starting point. Tyrant HIM's army was likely on par with Annoying village HIM's, or even slightly larger in number.
If the two joined forces, their total strength would effectively double.
And with the help of the disaster villagers, Annoying village HIM's army would more than double again.
With this new advantage, Annoying village HIM's forces could almost match the Rainforest's strength as reported by the disaster villagers.
That fit exactly with Xu Yuan's second scenario, their power would equal Xu Yuan's, but they would realize that even continuing to grow wouldn't allow them to surpass him.
So once Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM succeeded in forming an alliance, their first move would surely be to take out Xu Yuan's faction.
But what they wouldn't know was that every step they took had already been arranged by Xu Yuan himself.
What's more, they didn't know that the disaster villagers who leaked the Rainforest's information were Xu Yuan's planted spies.
Their troop strength, their development plans, every move they were going to make, all of it was under Xu Yuan's control.
Of course, that was only the surface meaning of Xu Yuan's plan.
The deeper meaning of his move was hidden entirely in the word "cooperation."
And that was also the key to carrying out all of his future plans.
Back when Xu Yuan realized that people like Blue Demon and Mustard were completely different from how he had originally imagined them to be, he understood that he couldn't rely on stereotypes to judge every being in this world.
It was at that moment that he started thinking about Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM.
When he first encountered them, Xu Yuan instinctively assumed their personalities matched the ones described in fan stories he had read in his past life.
Annoying village HIM pursued peace, but he tried to achieve it by forcing everyone to share the same thoughts. Tyrant HIM, on the other hand, believed in solving everything through war.
That was Xu Yuan's old impression of them.
But now, Xu Yuan no longer viewed them through that fixed lens. Even if they shared traits with those fictional versions, they were not the same.
Just like Blue Demon and Mustard, they could change. Their views and beliefs could evolve too.
Once Xu Yuan realized that, he started to ponder a bigger question.
The true HIM created the Trial Grounds and brought Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM from two different planes into this world to participate in it. He did so to find someone capable of solving the world's current problems.
Everyone knew there could only be one winner in the Trial Grounds. So if that winner wasn't Annoying village HIM or Tyrant HIM, what would happen to them?
Would the true HIM fuse their powers together? Or send them back to their original worlds?
The first option could be ruled out, there was no way the true HIM would do that.
As for sending them back, that didn't seem likely either.
Xu Yuan didn't know exactly how the true HIM brought them here, but it must have taken tremendous time and energy.
And the true HIM couldn't have known which of them would win.
So if he spent all that effort bringing Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM into this world only for them to lose and be sent back, wouldn't that be absurd?
No, that wasn't something the true HIM would do.
Since the true HIM had planned so carefully, he must have considered the possibility that neither Annoying village HIM nor Tyrant HIM would win.
If that happened, the true HIM surely had a next step prepared for them.
Based on everything that had happened in the Trial Grounds and what Xu Yuan had learned about the true HIM, he deduced that this plan could be summed up in one word, cooperation.
The true HIM specifically designed the Trial Grounds, making peace the ultimate goal, because he wanted to find a way to bring stability to the chaotic world.
Only someone who could succeed in this trial would have the strength to restore order and peace in the real world.
In other words, the one who won the Trial Grounds would step out into the real world and actively take part in solving its problems, maintaining peace and balance.
The victor's strategies and future plans would serve as a model for resolving the world's crisis.
If Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM could willingly work with this victor to face the challenges of the real world together, they might learn valuable lessons from him.
Through this cooperation, they could exchange ideas and insights, eventually finding solutions for their own worlds, achieving peace and prosperity.
The true HIM had once hinted that Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM were both different versions of himself from separate planes and timelines.
Although they lived in different worlds and had different personalities, they shared one thing in common, they both loved their worlds deeply and wanted to protect and fix them.
That explained everything.
Their worlds were full of problems they couldn't solve alone. So, the true HIM brought them here to compete in the Trial Grounds.
If they managed to win, their own world's issues would be resolved as well.
If they lost, they would have to learn to cooperate with the victor.
By helping to solve this world's problems, they would gain the experience needed to fix their own.
Perhaps by that time, they would be able to return to their worlds.
Only then could the true goal be achieved, a win for all three sides.
Because Xu Yuan had analyzed all of this so deeply, he decided to make cooperation the core of his entire plan.
Xu Yuan was determined to make Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM work together.
For people at their level of power, cooperation with an equal was rare. Both had strong opinions about how their own worlds should work, and their beliefs were deeply ingrained.
They were stubborn and proud, that stubbornness was the very reason their worlds' problems could never be solved.
Xu Yuan's move was, in essence, to use external pressure to force them into cooperating.
This way, they would have to listen to and consider each other's perspectives.
If they could successfully cooperate this time, it would be a huge breakthrough, proof that they could finally break free from their rigid ways.
Once that happened, they wouldn't cling so tightly to their own views, and they'd be open to others' advice.
One act of cooperation would lead to another, and another.
If Annoying village HIM and Tyrant HIM could work together, then why not with Xu Yuan too?
And if they could accept Xu Yuan and cooperate with him, wouldn't that mean the Trial Grounds would be completely over?
Xu Yuan's plan might seem like it was only paving the way for ending the Trial Grounds, but in truth, he was thinking much further ahead.
This plan was meant to prepare for future cooperation between him, Annoying village HIM, and Tyrant HIM even after leaving the Trial Grounds.
After all, when the true HIM fought the Void back then, he also gathered the strength of every living being in the world, yet he still only managed to seal the Void.
That made Xu Yuan uncertain whether, after winning the trial and obtaining the true HIM's power, he could really defeat the Void.
Especially since Notch still existed as an unpredictable variable.
So Xu Yuan needed to secure more variables of his own.
After explaining the exact information the disaster villagers were to deliver, Xu Yuan sent the Pillager King to "train" them.
Xu Yuan carefully examined the area around the meat field, then turned to Fat Cow and instructed him.
"You need to completely renovate and rebuild this place so that it looks more like an underground base."
"At the same time, build several safe escape tunnels. It doesn't matter where the others lead, but one of them must connect directly to the area near the Rainforest."
"In addition, seal off the passages between the meat field and the other areas for now."
The purpose of these arrangements was to make the information the captured disaster villagers would leak seem more believable.
Since the Forest Region and the Rainforest Region weren't adjacent, if the disaster villagers knew anything about the Rainforest, they would have to have some kind of special route.
And the passage Xu Yuan designed was meant to serve as that seemingly reasonable special route.
After all, Annoying village HIM was a cautious thinker, not someone easy to fool. If you were going to act, you had to make it convincing.
After giving those orders, Xu Yuan paused to think, then looked at Fat Cow again.
"Send someone to inform Black Blade."
"Two things."
"One, tell him it's time to wrap things up on Grayfist's side."
"Two, tell him to change the notices in the Rainforest's outer trade zone."
"Replace more than sixty percent of the signs with ones that say weapons, equipment, and minerals can be exchanged for food."
Xu Yuan had let Grayfist act freely for quite a while, but now it was time to reel him in.
Steve had already laid the groundwork, meaning half of Black Blade's players were already "spies."
Also, Grayfist's subordinates had always been the ones trading with the Rainforest.
The Rainforest's rules had gradually been softening the distance between players, animals, and monsters, slowly breaking down their barriers.
After such a long period of trade, Grayfist's men were surely influenced by it.
Most of them probably no longer wanted to attack the Rainforest.
In that case, Grayfist couldn't really force a battle. After all, he wasn't without reason, he just had a temper.