If we look to the above drawing the main article get 20 links from 20 articles, because every one of those article just have one links. If no other article that link to that article, those article will lost from search engine and their link calculation will removed. For example article 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20 don’t have external link to them so the link from these article are not calculated anymore because those article not listing on search engine. So the main articles just have 11 links because other link is lost. To make this link available to the main article you should create article that link to the articles that lost from search engine. Then we create other article says that articles are article 21 to 40 that link to articles 1 to article 20. The calculation of link to the main article will merge again for awhile as long as the availability of article no 21 to 40 exist in search engine. If no external link created to those article 21 or until 40 then sometime this article will lost from search engine. And link calculation also lost. And so on and so on.
More article you created on internet that link to article 1 to 20 or link to article 21 to 40 then the main article and the supported article will have strong strength article and more easily to merge in the first page of Google search engine.