With virtual sprites, virtual laboratories, vast stores of knowledge, and a convenient environment for global communication, Nie Yun had given Earth's technological development wings through these unparalleled research conditions.
Then every country discovered, to its dismay, that if it did not use the Technology Tree virtual world, it would still be crawling along while everyone else raced down the fast lane of research. Even with several times the effort, it could only eat their dust...
They even had to put their aging bones through grueling flights of more than ten hours just to attend an academic conference, while everyone else only needed to put on a helmet to mingle face-to-face with countless scientists from around the globe...
Never mind the wasted time and money. More importantly, they would lose touch with the world's mainstream scientific community. That was countless times worse than shutting their borders!
Even America could not guarantee that it could keep pace with third-rate countries' research under such unequal conditions.
Life was like... well, that. If you couldn't fight it, you might as well enjoy it...
So the result was... everyone became remarkably cavalier!
"Only the Ghost Captain can access the backend data anyway. Our research probably isn't even worth his attention. Let's use it for a few decades first, then worry about confidentiality once we've caught up to his level..."
Practically every country comforted itself with this spirit of self-delusion, then happily began enjoying the research benefits the Ghost Captain provided.
But there was no such thing as a free lunch, and Captain Nie certainly wasn't running a charity.
While they enjoyed the convenience Nie Yun's technology brought them, they had effectively become his employees.
In just a few short months, this place had already supplied him with a wealth of technological inventions and inspiration: autonomous