For hundreds of thousands of years, humanity had gazed up at the starry sky and shouted, "Our journey is the sea of stars."
Yet the universe was too vast.
So vast that when the material vessels humanity painstakingly calculated and pieced together within the Solar System attempted to cross distances measured in light-years and confront the unknown, the emptiness was so dense and boundless that it filled people with powerless fear and despair.
Faced with astronomical units that generations could exhaust their entire lives without crossing, the sea of stars seemed impractical. It seemed that the humans of Earth, carrying the Shanhe Civilization and the Dayang Civilization, could only circle endlessly within the Solar System, like prisoners locked in a cage with no hope of escape.
This state of affairs might last for hundreds of years, thousands of years, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
Until some technological breakthrough.
Or the destruction of civilization.
It was an iron wall stretching across their path. When humanity looked up, there was endlessness; when it looked down, there was endlessness; when it looked left, there was endlessness; and when it looked right, there was still endlessness.
But the appearance of the War Zone directly bored countless holes through that iron wall!
Compared with the unreachable sea of stars, the dimensional ocean was smeared straight across everyone's faces.
Beyond the sea lay infinite matter! Infinite energy!
Everyone in the world—even people in vegetative states—had one chance to accept the War Zone's summons and enter the Artificial Divine Realm for a trial. Everything gained during the trial, whether wealth or power, belonged to them. Even if they failed the first trial and lost their eligibility, it did not matter. As long as they subsequently completed their Life Cluster cultivation, they could still apply to the War Zone for another trial.
It was easy to imagine.
When such an opportunity to completely change one's life appeared before them, anyone would feel a desire welling up from the deepest depths of their heart.
On the very first day the War Zone descended, that desire would drive tens of millions of people to choose to enter the Artificial Divine Realm and undergo the trial. Within a mere seven days, nearly all 8.4 billion people across the globe would experience one of those wondrous journeys to another world.
Of those 8.4 billion people, the number who completed their first trial was not large. But there were always the lucky, the strong, and the prepared who would quickly stand out, bringing earth-shaking changes to the world in just a few short months and becoming the decisive military forces that mattered in the new era.
As one of those 8.4 billion,
Lan Yi's first Artificial Divine Realm trial was of moderate difficulty.
He was not lucky, nor strong, nor prepared. He entered the Artificial Divine Realm as a man already driven into a dead end, his hopes utterly ashes, making one final desperate gamble with a ruthlessness that spared nothing—not even himself!
In fact, during his first trial, even his activated Life Cluster could not display much of its power because he lacked cultivation methods and protective Daoist Arts. Instead, his martial arts and robust physique became Lan Yi's foundation for survival. And back then, there was one person who was like both teacher and friend to him.
That person was Huo Yuanjia.
Artificial Divine Realm time: 1909 AD.
The rulers of the feudal dynasty, immersed in their dream of the Heavenly Dynasty, were jolted awake by two wars of utter humiliation at the hands of the foreign powers. Treaty after treaty ceded sovereignty and humiliated the nation. They measured China's resources to win the favor of foreign nations, and the Imperial Court had become a tool for foreigners to suck the marrow from its bones. The nation's self-respect had scattered to the winds.
The people of Xinghan were forced to recognize their backwardness—and the backward would be beaten.
Beaten with whips.
Without realizing it, they would come to hate or worship those holding the whips.
And when faced with foreigners whose sturdy ships and powerful guns represented scientific advancement, standing high above them and handing down punishment, the dream of the Heavenly Dynasty's people shattered with a crash. Faced with the whips and the severe psychological gap this created, many chose not hatred but a feverish worship of all things foreign.
Foreign rifles and foreign cannons, foreign matches and foreign ashes, foreign tea and foreign cloth.
No matter what it was, as long as it carried the word "foreign," it was first-rate. They wished they themselves—and even the ground beneath their feet—could be transformed into things bearing that word. With a single shake of their bodies, they would become advanced civilization, scientific progress, and superior people.
Even the once-prosperous Fist Cult vanished without a trace before this sudden shift in the prevailing mood, no longer daring to casually utter the words "exterminate the foreigners."
At this time, in Puhai,
because of the policy of mutual protection, it had escaped the ravages of war. Instead, because it had prioritized protecting foreign nationals, it had received great praise and become one of the safest major cities along the coast. The International Opium-Exclusion Conference pushed it even further onto the international stage, while the ironclad gunboats swaggering along the Yangtze were also happy to choose the city as a place to dock and rest, conveniently protecting the property and safety of their nationals.
Apart from the International Opium-Exclusion Conference, Puhai currently had another grand event that stirred the hearts of the people.
That was the martial artist Huo Yuanjia, who had defeated a foreign strongman on the racetrack's arena. He was now preparing to establish the Jingwu Gymnastics Association. In the dying days of the Qing, as national power declined, they raised the slogan of promoting martial arts, studying physical education, and forging strong and resolute citizens. Only by training in martial arts and strengthening their bodies could the people rejuvenate the nation's fortunes.
This was the setting for Lan Yi's first Artificial Divine Realm trial.
Shiliupu Kaitai Wharf.
Lan Yi was extremely conspicuous at that moment.
In 1909, the average height was around 164 centimeters. The foreigners who could come to China, whether from the East or the West, were mostly pampered and well fed on meat, eggs, and milk, and were generally much taller than the Xinghan commoners, who had suffered oppression and exploitation and were severely malnourished.
Lan Yi, however, stood 188 centimeters tall.
Moreover, when choosing the trial, Lan Yi had not accepted the War Zone's service to alter his short hair and shirt. Thus, in the eyes of the many sallow-faced dock coolies, this Lan Yi, dressed in Western clothes and towering like a giant, was a great person they absolutely could not afford to provoke.
The nearby rickshaw pullers had thought about coming over to solicit his business and earn enough to scrape by. But when they saw Lan Yi's expression as he stared at the warship gliding slowly past, those worldly-wise men all sensed that something was off. Some of the more timid ones simply hauled their rickshaws away from the wharf.
These creatures at the bottom of the food chain had remarkably keen instincts.
Lan Yi's mood truly was not good.
He had entered the Artificial Divine Realm at the wrong time.
According to his memories, he should have descended in Jinmen one month before Huo Yuanjia fought the strongman. But now he was in Puhai, and the time had already reached the eve of the Jingwu Gymnastics Association's founding.
This was probably the result of the War Zone dynamically balancing the difficulty.
"Your Excellency cuts an imposing figure. Watching the warships by the river, you look deeply worried at the white men's warships running rampant. I cannot help but feel a desire to make your acquaintance and discuss the future of the competition between yellow and white people. I am Tadokoro Koichi. May I ask your honored name?" (Dongyang language)
After observing him for a moment, a Dongyang man shorter than Lan Yi but clearly taller and more robust than the surrounding laborers came forward to speak to him.
Clearly, Tadokoro Koichi had mistaken Lan Yi, who wore a shirt and kept a crew cut instead of a queue, for a Dongyang man.
Most importantly,
Lan Yi possessed the bearing of a citizen of a great nation, something rarely seen among the Xinghan people of this era.
Lan Yi cast Tadokoro Koichi a glance but did not answer.
Tadokoro Koichi, who had been walking along the river with his female companion, immediately felt the pressure of someone above him. Rather than becoming angry, he grew even more respectful and switched to honorific speech.
"Have these East Asian sick men disturbed your mood, Your Excellency? I can disperse them all on your behalf."
"East Asian sick men?" Lan Yi bared his teeth in a grin, their whiteness especially stark and feral beneath the sunlight.
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