Governing the country, enriching the people, an unparalleled imperial tutor

The assessment came sooner than he had expected. He stood in front of the curved screen, his gaze shifting from the slowly rotating gray-white sphere, a warmth spreading again from between his brows.

This time, it wasn't a slow infiltration; something was rapidly decompressing, spreading across the entire surface of his consciousness. A message landed directly in his consciousness: "Evaluation complete. The fourth option is accepted. The rings are no longer restricted in weight or quantity. You will gain an additional sensory ability in the modern world: three to seven days before a major event, you will be able to sense its direction of formation, though you cannot determine its intensity, scale, or specific nature. You may freely choose two items from the moon to take with you for modern researchers to study, thus advancing your scientific progress."

The warmth continued unabated, pushing forward: "In exchange, you must not reveal the existence of the moon's interior to anyone not present. You must not use node-sensing abilities to alter the overall course of history, only to adjust your own position. You must not proactively teach cross-world knowledge to anyone without permission. Assessments will be repeated periodically without prior notice."

If you have any intention of destroying this agreement, we will immediately turn you into a game instance, just like Wang Mang.

The warmth began to fade as the last sentence ended, retreating from his brow to the back of his neck, slowly moving down his spine, as if someone were slowly reeling in a thread from a distance, the thin film covering the surface of his consciousness being rolled back layer by layer.

He tried to probe his consciousness into the ring, and the space expanded in that instant, without boundaries, as if someone had pushed down all the walls of an entire warehouse, leaving no top, no bottom, only a continuously expanding blank space.

He looked up, ready to leave, and saw a circular indentation between the two spherical objects. The indentation hadn't been there before; its edges were clearly defined, as if it had been opened and closed repeatedly.

He walked over and squatted down. The crystals on the ground were darkening in color, transitioning from transparent to translucent, as if an evaporating shell was peeling away layer by layer from the surface. Before he could reach out and touch them, a warm sensation surged up from the soles of his feet, spreading up his calves, climbing along the inside of his knees to the outside of his thighs, as if something was slowly rising from beneath the ground in response to his approach.

At the bottom of the dent, a layer of fine, grayish-white powder is gradually emerging, reflecting light with subtle shimmer, as if the powder contains a high proportion of metallic particles. Scattered above the powder are several pieces of dark gray gravel, with fine silver crystal patterns on their surfaces, resembling natural structures formed under high pressure.

He couldn't see the edges and shapes of the pebbles clearly. They seemed to have distinct facets, but they retained the characteristics of minerals in terms of light transmission. The silvery crystalline patterns on the surface showed extremely uniform lines under the light, with each line running almost parallel.

A message came in: "Samples from the lunar core region. You can take some with you. They'll be useful for what you lower humans call aerospace materials, energy structures, and surface coating modifications."

He crouched down, reaching into the slowly heating space. When he touched the first piece of ore, he felt that its surface temperature was slightly higher than the surrounding air, as if it had just been transferred from a continuously heated location. He grasped the ore, turned it over, and examined it—it was dark gray with fine, silvery-white crystalline patterns on its surface, resembling a natural structure formed by the crystallization of some kind of metal oxide under high temperature and pressure.

He placed it into the silver ring. Upon entering the ring's space, the ore automatically adjusted its size, as if recompressed by some force field within the space, adjusting it to a more suitable state for storage. He then grabbed a handful of the grayish-white powder; the powder was finer than he had expected, shimmering with subtle reflections in the light. As the powder passed through the ring's surface boundary, it automatically coalesced into a small, solid mass, as if its molecular structure had been rearranged. He closed the ring, stood up, and the color at the edge of the hatch was fading, slowly regaining its original transparency.

He glanced one last time at the slowly rotating, grayish-white sphere, then turned and walked a short distance. As he passed a patch of slightly darker ground, the jade pendant vibrated briefly. Then a warm light surged up from beneath the ground, enveloping his entire body from his feet upwards. The fall occurred again, this time with direction: he was moving upwards, passing through layer after layer of fading membranes, the surrounding light fading from clear white to warm yellow, from warm yellow to grayish-blue, and from grayish-blue to darkness. The traction line loosened as it passed through the last membrane, as if someone at a distance had untied the end of the rope from its fastener and reverted to its original direction.

As he descended back to the bottom of the well, he braced himself against the solid rock surface. His flashlight, still hanging on his shoulder strap, was switched on. The beam of light climbed up the well wall, illuminating the moss in the cracks between the bricks and the deep vertical groove. He climbed up the rope. The moss on the bricks was a little slippery than during the day, but the edges were still there. Stepping on them, he felt the edges of the cracks were worn smooth and shiny, as if many people had trodden the same section of brick countless times, polishing the edges into a smooth, stable curve.

When he climbed out of the well, it was already dawn. The morning light was filtering in from above the courtyard wall, spreading a warm, even color across the bluestone pavement, casting fine shadows on the dust and locust blossoms that had accumulated in the cracks of the stones the night before.

Zhao Lingxi was still standing under the old locust tree. Dust clung to her clothes, and her hand remained half-raised, as if it had never truly been lowered since the moment he went down. She watched him emerge from the well, and her hand finally fell back to its side: "How long has it been?"

"Not even an incense stick's time." Lin Yanzhou squatted down by the well, brushing the dust off his knees. "Have you been standing here the whole time?"

"Yes, I've been waiting for you," Zhao Lingxi said. "After you went down, I leaned here and counted my breaths for a while. Just when I was about to forget the numbers, you came out."

He walked back to the Imperial Preceptor's residence along the streets and alleys. The streets were starting to fill up; some people were loading goods onto carts, others were squatting by the door brushing their teeth, and the morning market stalls were being set up. As he walked through the sounds and smells and stepped into the courtyard of the Imperial Preceptor's residence, Xiaolan was standing under the eaves, holding an empty tray in her hand. She seemed to have been standing there for a while, and she stepped aside to make way for him.

He went into the study and sat down at the desk. He reached out and touched the silver ring. The minerals and powder were still inside. He could feel that their weight and volume inside the ring were different from those he had worn before. They were heavier and denser, as if each had its own weight and occupied its own fixed space, quietly resting there.

The world's technology is about to undergo a major transformation.