Early the next morning, Zang Murenqing prepared the horses for Bai Zhongqi and Ze Pei, ready to set off on their journey. Ze Pei wanted to leave some money for the grandma who had sheltered them over the night, but neither the grandmother nor her son would accept it.
Last night, the village's youth Gang Naj and Xu Erli, who had listened to Bai Zhongqi's "storytelling," came early to see him off, their faces full of reluctance to part.
Gang Naj came with a basket of fruit he had picked at dawn, offering it to Bai Zhongqi and said, "Teacher Bai, please be sure to defeat the Evil Dragon and save everyone. I will work hard too, and someday, I too will become a man who can help everyone."
Xu Erli, with red eyes, said somewhat shyly to Bai Zhongqi, "Teacher Bai, please be sure to come back to visit the village when you have time."
The sincerity in the villagers' hearts touched Bai Zhongqi. He nodded and gestured his thanks to the people of the village.
Ze Pei stood crisply by Bai Zhongqi's side and asked softly, "Why don't we stay here and use this as our base?"
Bai Zhongqi shook his head and said, "There's not much strategic space here, and it's also far from the core population area of the Northeast Land. Maybe more importantly, I kind of don't want to disrupt the peaceful and beautiful life of the people here. If you find something particularly lovely, you tend to tread lightly, reluctant to change anything."
Ze Pei looked at him with clear eyes and said, "Back on Earth, you had the same idea."
Bai Zhongqi paused while arranging the bags on the saddle, then turned around and gave Ze Pei a big smile, "Perhaps."
After bidding farewell to the people of Riverside Village, Bai Zhongqi, accompanied by his two disciples, embarked on their journey.
Zang Murenqing asked Bai Zhongqi, "Teacher, we left the Great Snow Mountain to slay dragons. What should we do?"
Bai Zhongqi smiled and said, "If it were up to you, how would you choose to act?"
Ze Pei ventured to say, "Although Teacher is powerful, to deal with an enemy the size of a dragon swarm, we need to find more like-minded comrades-in-arms. Ordinary people aren't very useful, so should we find more dragon slayers?"
Bai Zhongqi shook his head and said, "Dragon slayers might indeed be able to fight dragons, but there's no denying that dragon slayers failed during the last Era of the Dragon. Dragon slayers have their weaknesses, the most notable being that they lack organization, leadership, and a clear program—they only have a single purpose. They don't know where others are and cannot leverage each other's strengths, fighting on their own. Imagine, if the dragon slayers were united, with a tight organization and discipline, clear orders and prohibitions, and wise and effective strategies, then the dragon swarm might actually have been exterminated by humanity last time."
After hearing Bai Zhongqi's words, Zang Murenqing and Ze Pei were filled with longing. Zang Murenqing said, "If it's really as Teacher says, and dragon slayers can form an organization, then maybe there is hope."
Bai Zhongqi joked, "It seems that you, my friend, never really believed that humanity could win."
Zang Murenqing was slightly embarrassed and defended himself, "I just didn't want to be overly optimistic, leading to a misjudgment of the situation."
Ze Pei said, "Assuming that it is possible to unite all dragon slayers and form an organization, it's likely that every Lord on both continents would have to bow down to us. Dragon slayers could become the de facto rulers of this world. However, during the last Era of the Dragon, the vast majority of dragon slayers were killed by the dragon swarm. How many are still alive, and how many new dragon slayers have been born in these sixty years?"
Bai Zhongqi smiled and said, "In fact, it's not just dragon slayers; even ordinary people, when given an organization that can harness their strength and equipped with the right tools, can defeat the dragon swarm without it being a surprise."
Zang Murenqing patted the Gatling Beast hanging from his horse and said, "Teacher, if ordinary people could all be equipped with such divine artifacts, then an army of ten thousand ordinary people could probably inflict a lot of pain on the dragon swarm."
Ze Pei pessimistically said, "But weapons from the Ruins as powerful as this are rare, and it might be a pipe dream to equip an army of ten thousand."
Bai Zhongqi said to his disciples, "I mentioned the term 'productivity' to you yesterday. What seem like divine artifacts to you now, the Gatling guns and rocket launchers, once a society grasps their principles, that is, the scientific knowledge and industrial capability, then manufacturing such things is no harder than peeing."
Zang Murenqing had an epiphany and said, "So, Teacher means that the stronger the productive forces of a territory, the more powerful weapons it can produce, supporting more people, and thus becoming stronger, right?"
Bai Zhongqi nodded and said, "Right now, dragons are a civilization far superior to Yimoduoya, taking a path of individual evolution, a kind of biotechnological civilization. But that path is not viable for us humans, for our bodies can hardly evolve to a very powerful state in the span of a few decades. However, humans have their strengths. Our reproductive capabilities are better, we have a larger population, and we can utilize scientific knowledge to create tools that assist us. With a tight organization, we can wield greater power. Facing the dragon swarm won't be so difficult then."
Zang Murenqing clapped his hands and said, "Teacher really is amazing. We never thought of these principles before. Before, we lived in fear, not knowing how to deal with the dragon swarm, but now we have a path laid out by Teacher. If we follow it, we can surely defeat the dragon swarm."
Ze Pei, naturally inclined to ponder, raised a question, "But every sixty years, the dragon swarm comes to our world, and each time, most of the planet's people are devoured. If we haven't developed the strength to eradicate the dragon swarm and they decimate our population, with many knowledgeable individuals dying, we'll have to rebuild our productive forces all over again. Won't the same consequences ensue in another sixty years, leaving us no way out?"
Bai Zhongqi nodded in agreement and said, "Ze Pei sees the issue very clearly, and you're right, following the usual path might indeed lead to that outcome. But any race or civilization that follows a similar path encounters a situation called a technological explosion, which refers to the sudden, short-term discovery and mastery of new sciences through education and experimentation, resulting in a drastic increase in productivity and a rapid advancement of civilization."
Zang Murenqing excitedly said, "So, what we need now is a technological explosion, right?"
Bai Zhongqi smiled, "The technological explosion I have in mind is already in progress."