Ten thousand I am across the heavens

After coming into contact with the internet in this world, Dao Tian understood what had happened. The virtual world they had been uploaded to was the internet, but they had been isolated and lived within a local area network. Now that isolation had been lifted, they could access the internet normally. And in the real internet, there was still so much more to discover.

Unfortunately, they currently have very limited access to the network, and many projects are inaccessible. They need to follow the tutorial to familiarize themselves with the various functions on the network before they can access and use other features.

However, the impact was actually not significant. Overall, for each villager, the online world is an incredibly novel new world filled with countless new pieces of information, enough to ignite anyone's desire to explore.

Dao Tian saw many things here that were very similar to the internet in his previous life. It was even more advanced than the internet before he transmigrated.

This didn't seem like the kind of indigenous civilization that developed step by step, and the achievements that could be made in such a short time made him a little suspicious.

"Could the founder of this Mountain and River Republic also be an extraterrestrial demon? Could he be from my hometown? But I haven't seen any familiar cultural symbols in this network. Perhaps he comes from another technologically advanced world." Actually, there's a possibility he's been trying to ignore: the other party comes from his world, but from many years in the future. Hundreds or thousands of years have passed, and the cultural symbols of the past have long since disappeared into the river of history. Even within the same civilization, the internet, the equipment, and the infrastructure used can be vastly different.

If his hometown truly existed hundreds or thousands of years ago, his family and friends would likely be long gone. What would be the point of returning then?
However, this problem had been bothering him for more than a year or two, and such thoughts only flashed through his mind before he became engrossed in exploring the internet. When the anti-addiction system kicked in, forcibly logging him and the other villagers offline, they reluctantly returned to reality. The others didn't notice anything different. Dao Tian, ​​however, stared wide-eyed at everything around him. It wasn't because everything around him had undergone a dramatic change after returning to reality. On the contrary, it was precisely because everything around him seemed exactly the same as before.

The biggest problem is that there's no difference. All their hard work building their village over the past year has been a waste of time in the virtual world. Logically, in the real world, their village should still be that desolate and backward place—no roads, no electricity, no communication network, transportation mainly on foot, communication mainly by shouting, security mainly by dogs, and entertainment mainly by hand. Yet, the village now looks exactly like the one they built in the virtual world. The only difference might be that only a few days have passed in the real world, while in the virtual world, more than a year has actually gone by.

"Could it be that while we were learning how to build in the virtual world, they were replicating all of this in the real world at an even faster pace?"

Dao Tian pondered carefully. He realized that this was theoretically possible. In the virtual world, their resources were never particularly abundant. Transporting various building materials took a considerable amount of time, and the construction speed was hampered by both the workers' skill level and transportation issues. However, theoretically, this world didn't actually have much of a transportation problem. Many second- and third-stage Gu worms possessed storage items, similar to spatial artifacts. These levels of Gu worms weren't particularly rare, and if they were refined in a streamlined process and used exclusively for transportation, the efficiency would be extremely high. As long as resource production at the rear remained stable, even the most remote villages wouldn't experience resource shortages.

In this way, it seems not impossible for experienced citizens who are more familiar with various high-tech tools and have abundant resources to complete the construction tasks of an entire village in three or four days, which would take a year.

The key point isn't how they did it, but rather that the Republic of Mountains and Rivers was willing to do so, willing to use a lie to save them time integrating into the nation. This means they didn't see the villagers as tools or wealth of the state, but genuinely as their own people. This was unimaginable even in the technologically advanced world he lived in before his transmigration.

"I'm really curious about what kind of people built such a country. Their lives must have been much more interesting."

With the internet, music, games, movies, and even immersive virtual reality can probably all be achieved. This is much more comfortable than hiding in the village all day, only able to hunt, with entertainment basically limited to manual labor.

Dao Tian sighed, even if he were to simply lie down, it would be comfortable in this kind of world. It was just that his nature made it difficult for him to do so. His extensive knowledge and habits from his time living in a technological world made him naturally more adaptable to life in the Shanhe Republic than others, even if he consciously slowed down his progress. With the guidance of online tutorials, he was among the first to leave the novice stage and showed the best adaptability to the internet and various new technologies. Even though he consciously tried to hide his abilities and not stand out, some things cannot be hidden.

It's as if he's never actually met someone who came out of the mountains. How would he react to the dazzling world of the internet for the first time? He can't simply pretend to be a primitive person from the mountains through imagination. Even if he pretends to be uncomfortable, he can't pull it off convincingly.

Even if he didn't want to stand out, he was forced to become the representative of their village. He was assigned a bunch of production and construction tasks, and at the same time, he was given the power to manage the village.

The former Venerable One would certainly not be bought off by such a petty gain, but given that the persona she had created for this body was one with a relatively upright set of values, and given that her own personality was also like that, she simply couldn't bring herself to deliberately mess up or trick people in the face of such a task.

Soon, a story about a model village cadre began to circulate in the area. It was said that a village official named Daotian led the villagers to develop local specialty agricultural products. To open up sales channels for these products, he paved roads through mountains and built bridges over rivers, personally running around to contact distributors, making outstanding contributions to the village's economic development. Moreover, he was recently praised by leaders in person at the urban-rural integration commendation conference.

Dao Tian had no idea how things had gotten to this point. He felt he hadn't made any unnecessary efforts. He had simply followed the rules, doing what he was supposed to do, adhering to his own persona and values, and doing what he believed was right. He hadn't made any particularly brilliant decisions. At most, he had demonstrated leadership qualities typical of the masses, and yet, he had somehow ended up like this. He had originally imagined that his current behavior—inflexible, unable to flatter superiors, only knowing how to do his job, only doing what was legally permissible, and only doing what he thought was right—would definitely have landed him a political snub. Forget about recognition or promotion; he'd never be able to leave the mountain village. He probably wouldn't even last long as a village official.

But in reality, he simply followed the established procedures and did what he was supposed to do. He's reached his current position with a sense of almost effortless advancement. This suggests that the social system is structured in a way that's too rational, so rational that he finds it somewhat irrational.

To this end, he even went online to check the personnel records of other villages and government units. At least in the publicly available records, his situation didn't seem particularly unusual, which relieved him. Although his promotion seemed rapid, he didn't show anything special. Among the masses, no one would notice him, nor would they consider him a protagonist of this era or an intruder. Since he didn't show anything special, even if he gradually rose to a more crucial position, it would be difficult for others to notice him, including the Destiny Gu, which would almost never target him. He seemed to be someone whose fate was unremarkable.

"Since things have come to this point, I might as well keep going. I'll do what I want to do, without showing any extraordinary talent, so that I won't just drift through life aimlessly."

After Dao Tian was transferred to work in the neighboring town, he began to take some extra time to study in addition to his normal government work, and also made some minor improvements to the details of several mass-produced industrial mechs.

Just as he had predicted, his improvements to these details quickly attracted official attention. While this wasn't a groundbreaking talent, compared to his relatively unremarkable leadership abilities, it was certainly one of his strengths. Therefore, six months after starting his job, when he was promoted again, he wasn't transferred to the government department, but rather to the technical department.

This was precisely the activity he wanted to participate in. The top-tier combat power of the Mountain and River Republic, in his past eyes, was indeed insignificant. However, the technological accumulation of this nation was absolutely extraordinary. The technological foundation it contained was terrifying. Even just learning the craftsmanship of these basic devices could bring him much inspiration. When this nation continues to develop and grow stronger in the future, reaching a level capable of contending with immortals, the technology they utilize will likely be of considerable help even to him, a Venerable One.

Two years passed quickly. He didn't display any extraordinary talent, but through diligence and a thirst for knowledge, he maintained a steady pace of advancement. Although he didn't achieve any major scientific research results or make any groundbreaking contributions, his numerous small and large technological improvements, along with his solid accumulation of technical skills and data in various aspects, gradually allowed him to access some more advanced technologies.

At this moment, he also realized that these seemingly low-level Gu techniques were definitely guided by a master, utilizing knowledge that could only be involved in immortal killing moves. Even though the Shanhe Republic had not yet successfully refined a single immortal Gu, it already possessed the power to sweep away everything below the immortal level with just mortal killing moves.

During this period, the Shanhe Republic and Nipusa engaged in their first war between immortals and mortals. However, given his level at the time, he couldn't participate in this battle, at least not on the main battlefield. He and his team were conscripted into the wartime staff, responsible for analyzing enemy data and designing targeted weapons. Although their designs were never used by the end of the war, essentially amounting to a futile effort, Daotian saw the key to their success. Their designs weren't ineffective because they weren't good enough; rather, the circumstances made them unsuitable. Teams of similar or even lower skill levels designed equipment perfectly suited to the environment, and their solutions were adopted immediately.

This may seem like a waste of research capabilities. However, on the actual battlefield, the situation changes rapidly. If a piece of equipment is only designed and produced when it is truly needed, it will be too late to cope with the ever-changing battlefield.

The equipment they designed and produced was not put to use. This was because the situation on the battlefield simply did not create an environment where these devices would be of use. However, if the enemy had adopted a different tactic, these hastily designed and produced products would likely have been immediately deployed to the battlefield and would have shone brightly there.

Besides that, he saw many other things, such as the supreme Grandmaster level of the Dao of Handsomeness that Lanno had displayed. Although he wasn't proficient in that school of thought, at the Venerable level, one would have some knowledge of various schools to varying degrees. While not all schools could reach the Grandmaster level, most could certainly touch the threshold of the Grandmaster realm.

The Path of the Slave and the Path of the Commander are actually very similar schools of thought, so he could barely discern just how terrifying Lanno's level of battlefield command was. The difference between the two sides commanding 100 men might not be too overwhelming, but if the scale of the war expanded to 1, and the battlefield broadened to the territory of a province, then Dao Tian, ​​going up against Lanno, would likely be suppressed to the point where he wouldn't even understand what he was saying before his command post was destroyed.

"Could this guy be the reincarnation of some Venerable One? Speaking of which, I've never heard of any Venerable One who specializes in the Way of the Slave?"

Although Dao Tian was puzzled, he still didn't make a move. He still didn't reveal his true identity, but after this battle, the expansion speed of the Shanhe Republic greatly increased. After truly defeating the immortals, the mental outlook of the entire nation was different. And relatively rare talents like him, who were also relatively qualified, unknowingly became top experts in the field of mecha design.

[To be continued]

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