What Lei wanted to do was the approach Dyon and Clara wanted to take initially. The problem was that the husband-wife couple didn't have the time to research the completely new field of formation theory it would take to construct such a Network. So, they relied on their mortal world knowledge, making use of Dyon's former title as a coding genius of his mortal world instead.
The issue with that approach was that it was inefficient. As a result, Clara was at a disadvantage in her negotiations with the Sapientia. Since they had to spend so much capital to start and maintain the Network, Clara was only able to corner off 30% of the shares despite being its sole inventor.
However, Lei and her team of researchers had already spent countless millennia developing this branch of formation theory for the sake of their hive mind. If they implemented their findings, the Mortal Alliance would be able to sustain the maintenance and growth of the Mortal Network alone.