Bai Zhongqi fastened his computer. It wasn't Zhang Yingxi's old-style laptop anymore but a new product manufactured from the Homeland Stone industrial base, specifically for — playing games.
"This time flow speed gap is really troublesome," Bai Zhongqi rubbed his nose, full of helplessness.
He sent a heap of information to Iridium Star, and the other side, like a haughty goddess, took ages to respond. If he wanted to chat with Han Jiaxue or Zero, he had to send a message and then wait hours to see what their reply was.
Gaming had also become extremely tedious. A fast-paced RTS game seemed to have turned into a turn-based one. He made a bunch of maneuvers, only to wait a long while for the other side to start executing.
"I should get out quickly. Staying in this fish tank is not a long-term solution." From the novelty of a planet highly similar to Earth to the fun of helping the people of Eastern Land change their fate, Bai Zhongqi felt that his infinite lifespan hadn't done much to improve his patience.
Little Mustache later sent another message; the group of Elders in the seniors' activity room, even though they were clear about who was provoking them, lacked a strong sense of alert and urgency. Back in the day, one-handed Celestial Collector caused immense upheaval among the Pilgrims. Even though several Elders had been killed by the Pilgrims, the Elders were a bunch of weirdos who felt indifferent even when killed.
Overall, the Elder Race was a group without ideals, without hatred, without goals. Maybe it was precisely because of their lack of ambition that the multiverse ultimately didn't face major turmoil; otherwise, each of the Elder Race could have caused a universe to perish hundreds of times.
"The most extreme approach would probably be to kill everyone in the fish tank until Yongxi finally shows himself. But this method is just too dark; I can't do it." Bai Zhongqi sighed.
Yongxi was recuperating and waiting to make another move, while he also lacked a method to find Yongxi. The dead Star Warriors had not provided any information about Yongxi, but he had come to a somewhat chilling conclusion.
In the fish tank of Azure Planet, including humans, the lifespan of all creatures so far was just over a month, exactly the length of time he had been in the fish tank.
"Does that mean the people in the fish tank are actually manufactured lives, and their memories and history are completely fabricated?"
This outcome surprised Bai Zhongqi, but also not quite. The Chancellor, when he learned of this situation, suddenly wavered a bit on the people's pursuit of a noble ideal.
"People's feelings are also instilled; all their will and beliefs are just what the Pilgrim wants them to show, not emotions generated autonomously by them. So what's the point in maintaining these things?" Bai Zhongqi felt quite disillusioned, and even started to question the emotions and mentality of regular humans. The crucial thing about an idea isn't how it came about, but that people believe in it and act upon it.
What Bai Zhongqi needed to understand was why the Pilgrim induced these things in the people here. What effect exactly did this carefully arranged world and situation seek to achieve?
For now, Bai Zhongqi didn't know, but he was preparing to handle various situations.
Standing in the "tide of the era", observing ambitious warlords, passionate progressive youths, iron-boned soldiers, stunning beauties, and despicable, cunning aggressors, Bai Zhongqi had the illusion that he was in a play.
To paralyze the hidden hand behind the scenes, Bai Zhongqi had to keep acting.
Shortly after the victory on White Island, the nation was brimming with confidence, believing that they could definitely drive away the invaders. By then, Bai Zhongqi had already stopped his lectures. This left many youths, who regarded him as their Spiritual Mentor, quite disappointed. However, many believed they had absorbed enough wisdom to contribute to their country like Mr. Bai.
Bai Zhongqi continued to provide Zhang Shixiong with increasing amounts of equipment, so much so that Zhang Shixiong no longer knew how best to utilize them. Although his military force was still limited, the various autonomous combat vehicles, fighter jets, and warships were enough for him to wage war against any major military nation.
In reality, the Chancellor had turned warfare into a simple SLG game, producing various machines that resembled battlefield computers in the Homeland Stone industrial base, grandiosely called "Battlefield Command Terminals" (BFCT). It seemed like a data-link system, but was in fact a system that could truly control unmanned weapons in combat.
According to the real command structure, the highest commander would authorize a lower-level commander with tactical control of a unit, like Zhang Shixiong delegating control of a self-propelled artillery battalion to one of his majors, who, holding a BFCT, could directly operate the battalion on the terminal.
The terminal could display the complete terrain of the battlefield, show marks of friendly units on the electronic sand table, share the battlefield images captured by other tactical units' cameras, and more importantly, directly control the troops to advance or attack using buttons and a mouse.
Bai Zhongqi had essentially transformed a complex military operation into a simple computer game. In fact, this form was also the direction of real digital troop development.
Although Zhang Shixiong's officers' understanding of a digital army and modern combat tactics was limited to the learning files distributed by Bai Zhongqi, possessing such powerful devices meant they could focus simply on unleashing firepower, without needing to worry about anything else.
Under such overwhelming confidence, Zhang Shixiong declared his intention to campaign northward, to reclaim three thousand miles of territory beyond the border. His actions naturally elicited widespread acclaim within the country, but equally naturally triggered the vigilance and panic of other warlords such as Dongfang Xun.
No one knew exactly where Zhang Shixiong suddenly got his plethora of weapons and equipment, but the Qing State army, seeming to have a cheat enabled, was exceptionally formidable.
At this time, Prime Minister Dongfang Xun once again made a foolish move, coercing the heavenly sovereign to issue a decree chastising Zhang Shixiong for his wild ambitions and troop movements, ordering him to immediately return to his original position.
Unexpectedly, this decree sent shockwaves throughout the land and elicited widespread condemnation of the heavenly sovereign and Dongfang Xun as treasonous, foolish rulers.
At that moment, there was no way Zhang Shixiong would obey the sovereign's call as Yue Fei once did. His troops set out from Li Anfu to the north, completely ignoring the intercepting but hesitant to truly engage forces of Dongfang Xun's army, marching for over a week to reach beyond the border.
Meanwhile, Dongfang Xun, frightened by the Qing State army's approach to the Capital, fled westward, becoming a laughingstock to all.