An Unexpected War

Setting aside his sigh, Lin Tuo observed a little longer and confirmed nothing unusual was happening.

The Aether cloud was not a physical entity after all, just a mass of energy. While it had a certain tendency to flow on its own, the movement was very slow, so there was no worry about loss in the short term.

However, though quite a few people had tried to cultivate, this traditional breathing method was extremely inefficient.

Lin Tuo estimated that the five hundred points of Aether he had injected would be enough to last a long time.

So, after collecting Aether from the "Creation Mode" sandbox a second time, Lin Tuo did not continue pouring it into Yang City. He simply stored it in his body as a reserve.

Under Time Acceleration, the recovery rate of Aether was also considerable.

Lin Tuo simply made a schedule, set an alarm on his phone, and got up every few hours to absorb more.

No incidents through the night.

In the blink of an eye, it was the next morning.

Inside a certain office building in Yang City.

When harsh light streamed through the window into the empty office, Li Tai, who had been meditating cross-legged all night, felt his eyelids twitch, and then he finally woke.

"Phew."

Exhaling a breath, he adjusted his breathing rhythm back to normal with some discomfort, and his consciousness finally cleared.

"Did I sleep here all night?" Li Tai was visibly stunned when he saw his surroundings.

His memory was still stuck at yesterday evening!

After a few seconds of dazed confusion, he subconsciously pulled out his phone to check the time, and finally snapped fully awake, astonished.

He tried to stand up, and his body felt surprisingly light.

It was nothing like the state of sitting all night.

Logically, staying in that position without moving for so long should have left his legs numb and unable to support him, but in fact, the tingling was very mild!

He twisted his neck, and with a brief crack of his joints, Li Tai was shocked to find that the pain in his cervical spine was gone!

His entire body felt unexpectedly light, too.

It was as if his body had regressed a few years, back to his college days.

"This... how... could it be..." Li Tai stared at his own hands in disbelief. After a moment of stunned silence, he quickly walked to a full-length mirror in the company.

In his mind, after a whole night, he must look haggard.

But when he saw his reflection, this usually steady department manager let out a startled cry.

"Ah!"

In the mirror, far from looking haggard, aside from some oily grime on his skin, his eyes were surprisingly bright, radiating a sense of vitality from the inside out.

"Could it be... that Breath Technique actually works?!"

Meanwhile, in a certain residential complex in Yang City.

Inside a warmly decorated bedroom.

"Purr... purr..."

When Zhou Mo was woken by her cat's purring as it lay on the bed, she rubbed her eyes, groggily checked the time, and then nearly jumped up with a start:

"It's already morning? How... how did I fall asleep?"

Zhou Mo was a bit dumbfounded.

Last night, as soon as it got dark, she had tried to sit and meditate, but somehow, the more she practiced, the sleepier she got, and she had unknowingly dozed off.

"Damn... this technique isn't some kind of hypnosis, is it..." Zhou Mo's pretty face fell, and then, after thinking it over, she picked up her phone and called her best friend.

A moment later, the call connected.

Zhou Mo: "Shan Shan, did you... practice the Breath Technique last night?"

"I did."

"And... how was it?"

After a brief silence, Zhou Mo heard her friend's voice become unusually serious: "I meditated all night. When I woke up, not only was I not tired, I felt more energetic than ever, like I'd even gained some strength...

My skin improved a bit too... This thing might actually be real.

Mo Mo, you practiced too, right? How did it feel?"

Zhou Mo blinked her big eyes, hesitated, and then carefully said: "I think... it's really effective at improving sleep quality."

Jiang Yishan:??

In this early morning, a similar scene played out across every district of Yangcheng City.

Although most people did not feel anything too obvious.

Given a large enough population base, there would inevitably be some with higher talent.

With Lin Tuo's help, after just one night, many had clearly sensed changes in their bodies.

For a few individuals, the changes were especially pronounced.

And this was only the result of a single night of cultivation.

At the same moment.

The "Mysterious Warrior" who had spread the cultivation method, the mastermind behind the Takk Black Box incident, the current head of Lishan Martial Arts School, the Science Communication Ambassador of Chi Kingdom... Lin Tuo had finally finished washing up and arrived beside the Evolution Sandbox.

"Mm, after one night, Chi Kingdom has already changed this much?"

Lin Tuo rubbed his eyes, somewhat surprised.

Before him lay a rapidly shifting continent.

After a night of development, Chi Kingdom's appearance had undergone a dramatic transformation compared to before.

The most obvious changes were the large cities and the massive heavy factories standing in the suburbs.

If during the last observation Chi Kingdom had still been in the post-agricultural reform period of light industrial development.

Then after a night of acceleration, it had successfully completed its first Industrial Revolution.

Officially stepping into the era of large-scale industry.

Machines replacing manual labor, factories mass-producing goods, a free market regulated by the state... the urbanization driven by population concentration was also essentially complete.

This was reflected even in the architectural styles.

"Rumble rumble..."

When Lin Tuo temporarily adjusted the time to 1:1, dispelled the clouds, leaned down, and brought his face close to the sandbox to observe the details, he heard a very faint rumbling sound.

Following the sound.

He saw a black steam train crawling across the plains like a wild bull on a long iron track.

It was a passenger train, each carriage almost indistinguishable from the next, filled with the beauty of industrialization and standardization.

Under Lin Tuo's gaze, it slowly pulled into a platform.

Then, dense black specks poured out, boarding horse-drawn carriages to enter the city.

At that moment, it was night in the sandbox, and Lin Tuo was even surprised to see some light sources resembling electric lamps.

Unfortunately, they were too small to observe in detail.

"Could Chi Kingdom have already evolved to the electrical age? Learned to use electrical energy?"

Startled, Lin Tuo quickly called up the Virtual Panel and began checking the "Operation Log." After skimming through the records, he slowly let out a breath.

"Mm, it seems the second Industrial Revolution hasn't officially started yet, but it's not far off. If I go by history textbooks, this should be the eve of the electrical age..."

Lin Tuo sighed, observed a bit more, then withdrew his gaze and reactivated the automatic time adjustment.

The light and shadow on the continent began to shift rapidly once again.

"Mm... judging by Earth's history, they'll probably be able to build all kinds of electrical appliances, cars, and even airplanes very soon."

Lin Tuo looked down at the human society in the sandbox with a hint of awe.

Although he could easily destroy this world if he wished.

He had to admit that the entire process of human civilization's development, the "vigorous power" it displayed, still gave him a profound shock.

"Unfortunately, according to the rules of the Evolution Sandbox, once the civilization level inside the sandbox catches up to Earth, the time ratio between the two will become 1:1. Otherwise, I'd really look forward to seeing them reach a higher level of civilization."

Shaking his head, Lin Tuo stopped thinking and prepared to switch to "Observation Mode."

But just at that moment.

Suddenly, in his field of vision, on the Virtual Panel, the green arrow behind the Aether concentration abruptly turned into a yellow horizontal bar.

It paused for a moment, then turned into a red, downward-pointing arrow!

"What happened?" Lin Tuo was stunned.

This symbol meant that the Aether inside the sandbox was beginning to decrease!

How was that possible?

Right now, Chi Kingdom should be in an era of thriving progress, so why would it decrease?!

Alarmed, Lin Tuo quickly turned his gaze to the sandbox.

Then, to his surprise, he saw a series of flashes of fire briefly appear within the sandbox!

Lin Tuo shut off the Time Acceleration as fast as he could, and the scene within the Sandbox sharpened into clarity.

There, on a certain plain at the center of the Sandbox, dense black squares of troops were gathered in formation.

And from time to time, faint flashes of fire flickered into view.

Lin Tuo's pupils contracted.

That was a battlefield—smoke and gunfire blazing!

Operation Log:

[Year 741,048 of World Evolution. The reigning emperor of Chi Kingdom died. The first-in-line crown prince ascended the throne. That same year, the Governor of Xizhou raised a rebellion, leading the armies of Xizhou to crush the Imperial forces on the Sunset Plains and march on the Capital.]

The war had begun.

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