313 Unaccepted (1/2)
Remian soon learned that the reason why train parts were so expensive was that his ex-wife beat him to the punch.
Jim explained it like this; ”Tim called Mandy and Mandy called Marakovichi and now Ashdale is buying tons of stuff from Libertaria.”
Also, ”I'm pretty sure that Ashdale's neighbors would soon discover what they're up to, and will make moves to do the same. Libertaria knows that too, and fully expect demand to rise accordingly.”
At this point, the countries of the world had four options to deal with the present crisis.
First, do nothing and descend into anarchy. Second, revert to the iron age or thereabouts and settle for a life without modern amenities. Third, buy mana from the Dragon Empire, which was really expensive and would usually only be feasible if you were willing to either become a vassal of the Dragon Empire in exchange for your crystal supply or join the Dragon Empire outright.
Fourth, they could ace to adapt to steam-engine technology. This was best achieved by buying parts and equipment from Libertaria outright. This was much cheaper than trying to buy mana crystals from the Dragon Empire, but demand and prices were about to skyrocket.
One thing was certain; the Dragon Empire and Libertaria were both about to become very, very rich.
Remian waved it away. ”That's fine. In the long run, a stronger Libertaria will be more helpful.”
Just having Jim around was a huge step toward developing electronics. Remian fully intended to use Libertaria's goods as a springboard to develop toward Class-4 civilization technology.
Otherwise, what would be the fate of his people? Even if they could somehow gain control of the Spatial Rift and flee to Xiao Yan's world, who's to say their world would be any farther from the Mitigok swarms? Even if they were, what would Remian's people do? Settle down and assimilate? From what Remian understood of Xiao Yan's world, theirs was a backward-looking culture, venerating the past heroes and always exclaiming about how their current levels were lacking in comparison with their ancestors. Theirs was a culture and a mindset forever looking back and trying to go back to the old days. How were they to advance when their ambitions were about going back?
On top of that, theirs was a self-destructive culture, one that followed the laws of the jungle, the idea that 'might was right'. It was, frankly, a dressed-up tyranny where the strong and the powerful would do whatever they wanted and freely abuse their strength and power, and they thought that was as it should be.
Was it some sort of Quarin control mechanism? Remian wondered. That they would design such a culture in order to trap Class-2 civilizations in their level of development, unable to advance themselves. Or was it a Draconian design, which meant that Xiao Yan's world was also within Draconian territories?
The existence of Quarin ruins in Xiao Yan's world suggested the former. Her people's veneration of dragons suggested the latter.
Anyway. That wasn't Remian's dream. In the past, all he wanted was a place for his family to live and prosper. But with mana disappearing, that was no longer possible. On top of that, his dreams had changed. His very idea of prosperity had drastically shifted.
Living in a small, backward planet like this one, already on the verge of destruction but not even realizing it… that was not the destiny Remian wanted for his family and friends. He wanted to bring them to safety, yes, but not to a world of tyranny where anyone with status or power could suppress and crush them underfoot at any time for any reason they liked. No, what he really wanted was… was…
Remian glanced up at the sky as the evening turned to twilight and the stars began to appear in his sight.
”I want to show my mother how I can cook with Psiorin Infusion.” Remian mused. ”I want to show my father how much better it is to teach through virtual edutainment than boring lectures.”
But neither of these were within his current capabilities. The best Remian could do was muddle around with their education system a bit and maybe build an induction stove.
That was when he first encountered resistance and realized that trying to advance his people would not be as easy as he thought.
***
Upon hearing a few of his tentative ideas, Remian's mom said kindly, ”Dear, we've been teaching for years now. We graduated from the Dragon Empire Expeditionary University, we know what we're teaching about. Trust us, even the Principal of the University was so impressed with us, he saw fit to give us private lessons on the weekends, just a special class of six, of whom your father and I are part of. We are really well educated and well-qualified for our jobs. Don't worry about what we teach or how we teach.”
”But there are so much better ways to teach… there's even the issue of what should be taught… a lot of what you're teaching is actually wrong…”
His dad wasn't so nice. ”Forget that. You know nothing about teaching; I've been teaching for decades now. I know what to do. Go play with your animals and leave the school-teaching to us.”
”But you're teaching the wrong things the wrong way! For example, the whole idea of four or five elements is wrong, both the four element system and the five element system! Even the chemistry element table with its hundreds of elements is wrong! There's actually only one element, and that is energy! Because within atoms are particles like electrons and protons which are both types of particles, and within particles are Sriske-eionbi, which I can't translate into our language, because our language doesn't have a word for it… and inside Sriske are Gyuvi-mas, which we also don't have words for, but, but…! In the end, it's energy! That's why, converting energy to matter doesn't actually exist, because matter IS energy! And that's also why it can be done! It's all very hard to explain.”
That was the thing about learning things psionically through virtual acceleration. Some things that could be understood when introduced directly to his mind simply couldn't be expressed in his native tongue.
In response to his outburst, though, Damien Vin just snorted. ”You don't even know what you're saying. Of course the world is made of five elements. All elements are in balance, the ancient scriptures prove it. The very highest academic minds in the Dragon Empire agree on this. How can you, who has never even been to university, ever understand? Stop spouting nonsense.”
”No, it's you who doesn't understand and I who am unable to explain it…” Remian sighed.
Lisa Vin stepped in and stopped them both before a heated argument could erupt. ”Remian, dear, you must be tired. Why don't you try some of my chicken bone soup? It's good, really, you should try it…”
”But Mom…”