"And now, please welcome Professor Farlo Vernint of the Shionel Universities of Humanities!"
A huge round of applause ensued as an elderly man walked onstage, waving at the large crowd that had gathered that day, before proceeding to shake the hand of the man who announced and introduced him. The two men then took a seat, waiting for the applause to die down before engaging in a dialogue.
"Professor Farlo is one of the foremost authorities on the happenings of the Shionel Dungeon and its impact on the economy. He has published many research papers on the matter, as well as the bestseller book on the topic called the Dungeon Chronicles," The host cheerfully explained, before turning back. "Professor, thank you so much for coming on tonight."
"Thank you for having me," The professor smiled.
"Professor Farlo, we have a lot of exciting things to delve into," The host energetically began. "For one, it's been a year since the Shionel Dungeon was discovered and opened up. And rapidly soon after a supplier and consumer market quickly formed, surrounding the Shionel Dungeon and the untold resources that it could provide to the world. The sheer impact that it has had on our country is truly immense, is it not?"
"Well, I think immense is an understatement, Jimmy," The professor began with an interested tone. "Frankly, I think the impact that it has had is nothing short of historical and revolutionary. The Shionel Confederation is a state that was formed on the basis of commerce. Among all the nations in this section of the Panama Continent, our nation's population has the highest proportion of merchants and businessmen. We're the only nation whose international consumer market dwarfs our domestic market, and we're truly the only nation whose supplier market dwarfs our domestic consumer market. Meaning our economy truly runs on the countless merchants, businessmen, and entrepreneurs who offer goods or services. Commerce is the bloodline of our nation. That is why the discovery of the Shionel Dungeon, which is nothing short of an oasis of untold resources, is a boon to our nation. The world wants what it can provide, and we answer the call and supply the demand."
"Indeed," The h0st replied. "You're truly correct in saying that it isn't short of revolutionary. The GDP per capita has increased by a factor of eight in the span of a single year! That's an absolutely unprecedented spike in the economy since the very founding of the Shionel Confederation!"
Professor Farlo nodded vigorously. "Furthermore, the GDP per capita has increased despite the population also spiking up due to mass immigration. The net annual GDP in the past twelve months has been the single highest recorded GDP in any continuous twelve-month period in the history of our great nation."
"Not only has the discovery of the Shionel Dungeon invigorated our economy, but it has invigorated many parts of our culture as well," The host remarked. "This is one particular consequence that I am personally familiar with our little weekly discussion events. There's so much to talk about that we have considered doubling the number of events we hold a week to get to all of it! The biggest and most exciting aspects of all of this are the countless Martial Squires that have taken part in the exploration and plunder of the Shionel Dungeon. Those are the most fun to talk about it."
That earned an approving cheer from the crowd that strongly agreed with that sentiment. The crowd had basically begun to treat the most prominent Martial Squires that raided the dungeon as superstar celebrities.
S-rank Martial Squires earned a lot of admiration and attention. It was to the degree that they had their own dedicated fanbases and fan clubs. For a brief period of time, Martial Squires had gained more prominence than higher Realms.
Of course, this was very temporary, once the dungeon was largely raided and plundered, the artificially boosted value and prominence of Martial Squires would soon dissipate, and things would return back to normal. Every generation of Martial Artists would experience having their value artificially boosted temporarily, and also experience Martial Artists of lower Realms experiencing the same thing.
"The cultural impact of the Shionel Dungeon on our nation has not been small," The good professor nodded. "If there's anything to be criticized about the impact of the Shionel Dungeon, it would be the fact that the impact of the Shionel Dungeon has had an adverse effect on our culture. That is one of the strongest critiques that critics leverage against the Shionel Dungeon."
"Oh, and what exactly is this so-called adverse effect?" Jimmy asked with curiosity.
"I should clarify that this isn't my stance or my personal view," The professor prefaced. "But to characterize their argument, it is that the discovery and open policy of the Shionel Dungeon has invited far too much foreign influence into our country. It is generally not desirable to have an abrupt and huge amount of immigrants hailing from different cultures and languages join and settles into the country in such an inorganic and unnatural fashion. It dilutes the original culture of the country and threatens to usurp the nation. Furthermore, it leads to a lot of cultural tension and even conflict. Multi-culturalism without a tying identity is generally undesirable. After all, the world is an example of that, and the world is at war."
"I see," Jimmy frowned. "That makes sense, yet, I feel as though that doesn't apply to a nation like the Shionel Confederation."
"I agree," The professor nodded. "Any concerns regarding culture are, in my opinion, misplaced. The Shionel Confederation was not born out of a population with a united culture. If anything, the original constituents of the originally established Shionel settlement were vastly more diverse than the current state of the Shionel Confederation. Yet there was one force and also one identity that was strong enough to unite them despite that. Do you know what that is?"
Jimmy smiled knowingly. "Money. They were merchants."
"Exactly!" The professor grew more animated. "Their identities as merchants, as people who employed resources, capital, and manpower to produce demanded goods and services to earn a profit is the fundamental identity that united them together to create a nation!"