Chris

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Chris; identified as Chris Lin by Pietro 1.
Original Name	克里斯
Alias(es)	Prince Chris; Crown Prince Chris; King Chris. Players initially regard him as their tutorial NPC 8 347 421.
Species/Race	Occupies a human prince’s body; his more powerful original nature remains unspecified 2 571.
Gender	Male
Age	His inherited body is eighteen at the beginning of the story 2.
Affiliation	Kingdom of Bagnia; operator of The Sims of the Industrial Age, later renamed Rise of the Empire 2 107 421.
Occupation/Role	King of Bagnia; military commander, administrator, game operator, and former unlicensed physician 10 107 421 550.
Residence	Initially owns a five-story apartment building in Inyama, the Bohemian capital; later lives and works in Bagnia’s royal palace 2 437.
Spouse	Queen Elena Tia 420.
Children	Elena and Julie are each expecting one of his children by Chapter 571 571.
Status	Alive; undergoing a painful restoration of suppressed power after a World Tree falls 571.
First Appearance	Chapter 1, “Trouble at the Door” 1.

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Partial restoration of original power — no named rank	571	A World Tree’s collapse weakens the world’s restraints, causing his soul and body to begin returning to a more powerful original state. His senses sharpen and suppressed power becomes accessible. He believes another tree’s fall would force him to ascend.

Background / History

The neglected prince and his replacement

The original Chris was Bagnia’s youngest royal child, with three older brothers and two older sisters. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father showed him little affection. Chris later describes being abandoned at the Seminary of the God of Light at five; his childhood memories place his dispatch to Bohemia as a hostage at nine 2 201.

The royal family paid his tuition but provided no living expenses. He remained at school throughout the year, wore only his uniform, and could not afford to return home. At eighteen, he graduated from seminary and entered Bohemian University, only for Bagnia’s revolution to end his financial support 2.

After the prince died from cold and hunger, the present Chris took his place, inheriting his memories and medical knowledge. A functioning modern smartphone and shopping platform allowed him to escape poverty and purchase an apartment building in Inyama 2 10.

Life in Inyama

Chris initially wanted comfort and an uneventful retirement. When royal steward Pietro demanded that he restore Bagnia’s monarchy, Chris refused: he had neither money nor influence, and his eldest brother was already organizing a restoration army 1 4.

Instead, he created The Sims of the Industrial Age through a game studio, recruiting players from twenty-fifth-century China. Their payments financed purchases from twenty-first-century online stores. He selected ten initial players and supplied clothing and frozen meat for their summoned bodies 2.

Alongside this business, Chris continued his predecessor’s low-cost clinic for the poor. Because he lacked a medical license, he worked at night to avoid arrest. He also supplied inexpensive imported goods to Isaac, whose distribution network made him a popular outlaw in the slums 8 10 11.

The assassination attempt and flight

Connie and the players interpreted Chris’s royal background as the beginning of a restoration storyline. Without his authorization, Lin Ruoyu’s group attacked the carriage of Chris’s eldest brother, Prince Flower. Chris discovered the operation through player activity logs and feared that a captured player would expose his connection to the attackers 12 23.

Although initially angry, Chris admitted that he had summoned the players without giving them meaningful guidance. He accepted substantial responsibility for the resulting disaster and fled Inyama with Isaac, Connie, and the players 23 25.

During the journey, Chris overheard followers praising his medical work and cheap supplies. Alibaba attributed to him a grand ambition to build a country without starvation or arbitrary noble violence—a supposed lifelong dream Chris did not remember having 27.

Establishing a foothold in Bagnia

At Bich Town, Chris fed starving residents, recruited militia, and promised land to supporters. His relief effort also became a means of control: families monitored dissent, and the former mayor was hanged after Bruno reported his proposed revolt 57.

Chris subsequently led militia against the Restoration Army while players assaulted Bolas Fortress. He marched on foot to preserve scarce horses for reconnaissance and transport, equipped soldiers according to their physical abilities, and used Isaac’s Rangers to delay the enemy 89 95 96.

After Bolas was captured, Chris supplied it with food, weapons, medicine, and a resurrection array. Count Dirac recognized him as the genuine prince, but misread Chris’s candid explanation of his flight as evidence of an elaborate succession conspiracy 101 102.

Reform, warfare, and the crown

As his territory expanded, Chris established civil and military departments, announced examinations open to players and locals, and delegated military recruitment and intelligence work to Isaac and Connie. He also renamed the game Rise of the Empire and planned to increase its closed beta from 500 to 2,000 players 106 107.

Chris refused the Restoration Army Council’s attempt to make him a figurehead. He exposed its factional divisions and confronted its envoys with Dirac’s warning that some members intended to assassinate him 138.

His campaigns increasingly combined player assaults, modern artillery, deception, and extensive logistical preparation. Against the Retalians at Hegrande, he kept players available as a reserve assault force, reinforced the threatened southern front, and ordered heavy guns to strike when the enemy’s attack faltered 195 209 359 363.

Chris married Elena Tia as a political partner and was crowned King of Bagnia. His land reforms and examination system earned particularly strong support from soldiers, villagers, and common-born scholars 420 421.

Annexation and consolidation of Minisia

After Minisia’s collapse, Young Charles offered Chris its crown and enabled the kingdoms’ merger. Chris’s Minisian ancestry and marriage to Elena helped soften resistance, while players rapidly defeated scattered noble opposition 472 508.

Annexation forced his government to expand beyond the small administrative structure that had served Bagnia. Chris recognized that brutal suppression alone could not secure lasting loyalty, and planned an inspection tour to demonstrate royal authority, examine living conditions, and expose opponents 479 508 509.

During the tour, he audited Tavitsky’s administration, rejected ceremonial banquets and showcase villages, and questioned ordinary farmers directly. He retained useful officials under varying levels of oversight, punished serious corruption, and found signs that former Minisians were beginning to identify as Bagnians 517.

The demonic invasion

When demons breached the world’s crystal wall, Chris sensed the damage directly and recognized simultaneous attacks on two World Trees. He redirected players toward the eastern elves, dispatched most of the First Fleet, and placed Bagnia under total-war mobilization 550.

A later World Tree collapse began undoing the restraints on his own soul and body. Despite the pain, Chris ordered the destruction of demonic meteors, planned to return to Votradnoi, and considered strengthening player bodies. He feared that another tree’s fall would force him to ascend and leave behind his kingdom and growing family 571.

Appearance

Chris is described as fair and handsome, with features strongly resembling Bagnia’s former king 89 102.

• Dark brown eyes — Dirac considers their distinctive color characteristic of the royal family 102.
• Mole beside an eyebrow — a childhood feature that helps Dirac confirm his identity 102.
• Modern clothing — his twenty-first-century fashion confuses Pietro and his companion 1.
• Practical military dress — wears a green military overcoat and a Lei Feng hat while addressing his militia, looking more like a sentry than a prince 89.

Personality

Chris begins as an independent, comfort-seeking pragmatist. Having worked excessively in his previous life, he sees no reason to sacrifice his new security for a royal family that neglected his predecessor. Appeals to bloodline and inherited duty initially carry little weight with him 1 2 4.

His compassion is practical rather than theatrical. He treats poor patients despite low earnings and legal risk, recognizes poverty as a problem medicine cannot solve, and tries to return part of Isaac’s payment because the smuggler’s work is dangerous and poorly rewarded 10 11.

Early in his military career, Chris resists treating local lives as expendable. He warns militia that they may die and explains how to protect their families if he loses. He draws a sharp distinction between mortal locals and players, whose deaths do not destroy their higher-dimensional selves 89.

As ruler, he becomes considerably more coercive. He uses forced labor to cultivate obedience, authorizes summary executions and confiscations, and ends a loyalist purge without investigating it. Welfare and political control increasingly operate together in his government 170 240 333.

Chris is also conscious of his limitations. He does not regard himself as a military, economic, or weapons-design genius, and depends on specialists, player invention, and adapted historical institutions. By kingship, his desired retirement has become a life of paperwork and responsibility; he openly envies players’ freedom to leave or quit 314 335 437.

Abilities & Skills

Cross-world procurement and trade

Chris uses a working smartphone shopping platform to obtain goods from twenty-first-century Earth and finance them with player payments and local wealth 2 11.

• Imports food, clothing, medicines, armor, and manufacturing materials, allowing him to sustain refugees and equip armies 96 129 170.
• Exploits the difference between twenty-first-century prices and twenty-fifth-century players’ purchasing power 2.
• Finds that moving goods toward the higher-dimensional world encounters resistance; attempting to retrieve a hundred used laptops causes the sky and ground to shake 129.
• Abandons bulk-resource exports in favor of valuable metals such as gold 129.
• Must balance advanced imports against divine scrutiny; returning a thermal imager ends his sensation of being watched 129.

Player summoning and resurrection

Chris brings players into the world using physical material and manages their accounts, bodies, and respawn infrastructure 2 15.

• Uses frozen meat as material for the first ten summoned bodies 2.
• Revives dead players, including one whose corpse is unavailable 23.
• Personally inscribes resurrection arrays with silver and gold on steel plates; the fortress array permits repeated revival while corpses and meat are available 101.
• Disables sexual functions as a safeguard against future legal violations 4.
• Can approve refunds and delete accounts 15.
• Considers loosening restrictions on player bodies as his own restraints weaken 571.

System management and remote observation

Chris designs game systems, announcements, quests, rewards, and recruitment policies around the world’s real political and military needs 37 107 550.

• Reuses the Protectorate player module, unintentionally enabling Home Alone’s private-army system 37.
• Reviews activity logs to reconstruct player actions 23.
• Uses forum posts, livestreams, third-person views, and map functions to follow distant operations 300 475 550.
• Conceals the extent of his real-time monitoring from players because of privacy concerns 326.
• Adjusts recruitment to available content and military capacity rather than assuming more players are always beneficial 283 485 550.

Medicine

Chris inherits his predecessor’s medical knowledge and supplements local treatment with modern pharmaceuticals 10.

• Diagnoses illnesses, prescribes herbs, and treats wounds in an improvised infirmary 9 10.
• Crushes tablets into hot water so impoverished patients take them immediately rather than save or sell them 10.
• Treats Isaac’s deep chest wound after an ambush 15.
• Limits food portions for starving townspeople to prevent illness from sudden overeating 57.
• Works through the night tending wounded soldiers after battle 101.

Military command and weapons assessment

Chris emphasizes reconnaissance, supply, terrain, fortifications, and controlled use of reserves 195 200 202 363.

• Selects chain mail for militia who lack the conditioning to fight effectively in breastplates 96.
• Uses skirmishing Rangers to delay a stronger army rather than seek a decisive engagement 96.
• Refuses an enemy commander’s provocations and prepares earthworks instead of ordering an exhausting frontal attack 202.
• Restrains Marlow’s advance to Tavitsky to prevent inexperienced troops from becoming overextended 324.
• Evaluates player-made weapons by reliability, safety, cost, and field performance; commissions trials instead of trusting demonstrations alone 315.
• Demonstrates precise sword control by cutting an envoy’s necklace without injuring him 201.

Supernatural perception and suppressed power

Chris can perceive threats to the world at a level beyond ordinary sight, though the full extent of his original power is not disclosed 550 571.

• Senses the crystal wall’s breach as pain and disruption within the world’s fundamental laws 550.
• Recognizes demons as beings he has encountered repeatedly before 550.
• Detects attacks on both the eastern and western World Trees 550.
• Begins recovering suppressed power when a World Tree falls, but expects further collapse to force his ascension 571.

Government and Reforms

Policy / Institution	Implementation
Civil-service examinations	Opens recruitment to players and locals. Later examinations in Chinese language, law, and arithmetic provide a route into government without noble connections 106 421.
Military farmland	On the King’s Plain, army service earns 50 mu and militia service 20 mu. Land cannot be sold or repurposed; rights depend on continued service, with limited family and retirement protections 293.
Land acquisition	Gains control of over 80 percent of the King’s Plain through purchases, emergency requisition, alternative compensation, progressive agricultural taxes, and audits 293.
Agricultural assistance	Funds irrigation, interest-free loans, improved crops and seeds, seed subsidies, and grain relief. Churches and a player-run department teach farming methods 293.
Local administration	Introduces the baojia system with respected village leaders as neighborhood chiefs, using the King’s Plain as a testing ground for wider reform 293.
Official and military benefits	Supplements restrained cash salaries with supplies, healthcare, education, and land; benefits increase with rank 221.
Blue Banner Army	Creates a force for Minisian refugees, using land rather than military pay to build belonging and loyalty 335.
Commercial support	Gives the Han-Tang Warriors personnel, tax exemptions, and business referrals for their transport network and territorial expansion 170.
Anti-corruption oversight	Uses audits and interdepartmental checks; distinguishes useful but compromised officials from corrupt, incompetent ones rather than dismissing everyone indiscriminately 517 538.
Control of religious authority	Restricts preaching and rejects attempts by church leaders to override political rule 131.
Total-war administration	Orders military mobilization, wartime production, rationing, and strict control of public opinion after the demonic invasion 550.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Modern smartphone — provides access to shopping, player systems, forums, and broadcasts 2 300 550.
• Medical case — a wooden case lined and covered with cowhide, carried to his nighttime clinic 10.
• Dagger — nearly thrown at Isaac when the wounded smuggler forces open his apartment door 15.
• Sword — used to intimidate Albert de Molson through a controlled cut to his necklace 201.
• Telescope — used to survey battlefield movements from the heights 352.
• Thermal imager — returned after Chris suspects it attracted the Earth Mother Goddess’s attention 129.

Relationships

• Elena Tia — Wife and Queen of Bagnia. Their marriage begins as a political arrangement; Chris initially feels little affection, but later refers to her as a woman he loves. She is pregnant and deeply concerned about his safety 396 420 508 509.
• Julie — Archives officer and head of the Palace Secret Guards. Chris distrusts the political risks posed by her feelings and keeps her close during his inspection tour. She is later revealed to be expecting his child 517 571.
• Isaac — Smuggling partner, trusted companion, and military subordinate. Their cheap-goods trade helps the poor; Chris later appoints him to increasingly senior military roles while recognizing his command limitations 11 107 324 346.
• Connie — Isaac’s daughter and Chris’s intelligence chief. Her early succession scheme helps precipitate his flight; she later supplies reports, handles covert networks, and becomes Intelligence Bureau Director 12 25 107 346.
• Lin Ruoyu — Veteran player and leader of the Extreme Warriors. His unauthorized attack on Prince Flower exposes Chris’s failure to guide the players; Chris later entrusts him with militia while demanding avoidance of needless casualties 23 136.
• Bruno — Loyal officer and eventual Guard Captain. He reports the Bich Town mayor’s revolt and earns Chris’s trust through honesty, intelligence, and fighting ability 57 95 507.
• Dirac Siso — Former royal master of ceremonies, later marquis and senior commander. Recognizes Chris’s identity, warns him about an assassination plot, and presses him to address marriage and succession 102 138 319 346.
• Prince Flower — Eldest brother, initially Chris’s rival in restoration politics and the target of the players’ assassination attempt. Later serves as Bagnia’s ambassador in Bohemia 23 346.
• Princes Edgar and Lucas — Elder brothers whom Chris treats as potential political instruments rather than close family. He sends them to diplomatic posts in Bohemia while retaining their children at the palace 346.
• The former king — Father of Chris’s inherited body. Chris resents his abandonment and regards his attempted return as a threat, arranging player operations against him 201 291 296 300.
• King Charles — Minisian cousin and political enemy. Uses assassins, hostages, and diplomatic pressure against Bagnia; his destructive domestic purges later make Chris’s takeover easier 309 400 469 472.
• Duke Young Charles — Facilitates Minisia’s merger with Bagnia and commands the former royal guard as the Blue Banner Army. Chris keeps him visible and dependent on Bagnian resources rather than trusting him unconditionally 508.
• Street-Sweeper / Kan Jie — Player appointed temporary Inquisitor, authorized to investigate enemies, recruit helpers, and seize property in exchange for half the proceeds 240.
• Earth Mother Goddess — Calls Chris ambitious and predicts that he will shatter the world’s order. He disputes her characterization and resents being denied a reply 104.
• Aranka / Alanka — Earth Mother Goddess priest and divine vessel who later challenges Chris’s restrictions on preaching. Their dispute becomes an unresolved struggle over church and state authority 104 131.
• Polka Saven — Occultism and magic adviser. Chris employs him for consultation and magical items rather than forcing him into dangerous battlefield service 396.

Notable Quotes

“Restoring the kingdom is his business. What does it have to do with me?” 1

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” 10

“My return was purely an accident. What I'm doing now is simply because someone wants me to do something.” 104

“Reclaiming the land is itself the purpose.” 333

Trivia

• Alibaba’s account of Chris’s supposed lifelong dream surprises Chris himself; his reputation as a visionary develops before he accepts such a role 27.
• Chris is bewildered when mayor Diu Ni Leimu appears dressed as a Mechanicus Cult priest, recognizing the imagery from Warhammer 40K 319.
• Despite controlling vast supply networks, Chris realizes that easy online procurement has made him overlook how badly ordinary armies can suffer from shortages 202.
• He enjoys watching player combat broadcasts from his study, considering them more exciting than films 475.