Itō Hidetaka Regained His Confidence
Inside the Raging Waves instance.
Looking at his fleet, which had vanished without a trace, Itō Hidetaka fell silent for a moment before suddenly bursting into laughter.
"Hahahaha."
"Non-Combat Mode? How laughable, how utterly laughable! Lin Ye really treats instances like child's play."
"Lin Ye is practically giving us a chance to clear it."
Seeing how confident Itō Hidetaka was, Shancheng Kojirō smiled as well and politely asked:
"Mr. Itō, have you come up with a strategy to conquer the instance?"
"Not yet. After all, we still don't fully understand the rules. I just think Lin Ye's Non-Combat Mode has lowered the difficulty of Raging Waves far, far too much."
"With all weapons disabled, wouldn't that mean his own Nation-Destroying Fleet and aircraft carriers are disabled too?"
"Without the disparity in military weapons, our chances of conquering this instance will shoot straight up."
Itō Hidetaka truly breathed a sigh of relief.
The reason he had been afraid of Raging Waves before was that he knew the power of the TF58 Nation-Destroying Fleet, with its hundreds of warships.
So he had only one strategy for this instance: avoid a direct engagement with the Nation-Destroying Fleet at all costs.
That was also why Itō Hidetaka had previously come up with the idea of skipping the missions and attacking Eagle Sauce Country's mainland directly.
But now, Lin Ye had actually locked down his own Nation-Destroying Fleet.
Clearly, with everyone's military weapons locked down, Lin Ye, who possessed the more powerful weapons, was bound to be the one at a disadvantage.
This strange move could be said to have reduced the difficulty of Raging Waves straight to zero. In Itō Hidetaka's eyes, the instance was no longer purgatory difficulty at all, but an honest-to-goodness easy difficulty.
An instance that relied neither on military might nor on overwhelming technological superiority, and purely tested logic and economic management, could generously be called a level playing field for all; put bluntly, it was lowering its own worth!
Because if it came down purely to brains, there was really no fundamental difference between an LV0 noob and a high-level big shot.
An LV0 might even stumble into the right answer, beat an old master with a flurry of wild punches, and clear the instance when no one expected it.
Lin Ye probably hadn't expected that most of the twenty thousand people who had entered the instance this time simply didn't have the high-level authorization to bring weapons into it.
So whether weapons were locked down or not made absolutely no difference to them.
On the contrary, every one of these students and professors from Heian-kyō University had a sharp mind.
They could be said to be perfectly suited to this Non-Combat Mode.
The Emperor clearly hadn't thought that far ahead when he made the decision, but he had stumbled into the right answer and unwittingly given himself the most suitable team.
"Lin Ye... you really are too arrogant." Itō Hidetaka shook off his earlier anxiety and suddenly perked up.
"You'll pay for your self-importance."
When Itō Hidetaka finished speaking, the other challengers gathered around him grew excited as well.
"Mr. Itō has a point."
"Without having to face a carrier fleet, we have a great chance of clearing it!"
"We've always studied economic management models at university. This is right up our alley! If it really comes down to economic warfare, we're confident!"
"As expected of Mr. Itō, his insight is sharp. Everyone else only noticed how novel this mode was, but Mr. Itō saw the essence of the matter at a glance."
Hearing Itō's views, the spectators watching the instance couldn't help discussing them too.
[What a shame. Does that mean we won't get to see the famous Nation-Destroying Fleet this time?]
[Why do I also think Mr. Itō Hidetaka has a point? What could be interesting about an instance without weapons?]
[Don't tell me these people are really going to exploit a loophole this time...]
[If Itō Hidetaka really wins this way and gets the technology in the instance too, then it would definitely be because of a flaw in the instance's design.]
[I really don't know what God Ye is doing.]
[To the person above, don't oversimplify things. After all, Eagle Sauce Country's economic level in this instance is far higher than the challengers'. Surpassing Eagle Sauce economically can't be that easy.]
Lin Ye had just finished shopping for daily necessities and was leisurely drinking a beverage in his car.
He took the opportunity to enter his instance's livestream and have a look.
He happened to see Itō Hidetaka holding forth, as well as the spectators' various arguments.
Lin Ye could only shake his head helplessly.
"You really are oversimplifying Raging Waves."
"If it were really that mindless, why would I have added a mode like this to the instance?"
Lin Ye was a little disappointed, disappointed by how shallow this world's understanding of instances was.
In most people's eyes, an instance's strength was entirely determined by the quality of its military weapons.
That wasn't exactly wrong, but it was far too one-sided.
Although Lin Ye hadn't created any instances in his previous life, he had played plenty of games.
A game's difficulty and the ingenuity of its level design weren't necessarily tied to hard data like its file size or numerical values.
Getting Over It and Sheep a Sheep from his previous life were both minigames that looked very simple, even somewhat childish, yet they had left many expert gamers scratching their heads in frustration.
As long as the mechanics were well designed, an instance could be made difficult even without any weapons.
That was especially true of Raging Waves.
Eagle Sauce Country's military strength was only one reason it could become one of the Five Permanent Members.
The various forms of hegemony that arose from its military strength were Eagle Sauce Country's true foundation.
The dollar's hegemony allowed Eagle Sauce to control the world's entire monetary structure and reap the world's wealth at will.
It made the whole world foot Eagle Sauce's bill!
Media hegemony allowed Eagle Sauce Country to control the direction of public opinion throughout the world, and in turn control universal values.
Under Eagle Sauce's propaganda, all its actions would be cloaked in the name of justice.
Under this kind of brainwashing, even the people of hostile countries would come to believe that Eagle Sauce was in the right.
Oil hegemony allowed Eagle Sauce to control the world's energy supply. By tying oil completely to the dollar, it had effectively seized a firm grip on the lifeline of other countries' industrial development!
Technological hegemony made Eagle Sauce the world's undisputed overlord in advanced and cutting-edge technology. In research and development in virtually every field, Eagle Sauce was at the forefront of the world.
When Lin Ye designed the Raging Waves instance, he focused primarily on two areas.
One was naval power; the other was the setup of its hegemony!
In Lin Ye's view, with Eagle Sauce's hegemony behind it, economic warfare was no less difficult than military warfare.
"Looks like it's time to show this world that war without gunpowder can be terrifying too."
Lin Ye took a sip of his drink, exited the livestream, and slowly started the car's engine.