Who Was It Written For?

Li Wei arrived at the factory early, but the owner he was looking for, Erwin, was nowhere to be found.

He was not in a hurry, though. According to the original owner's memories, Mr. Ervin's factory had grown from a family workshop into this small factory. His home stood right beside the factory, and his whole family even lived next door to the workshop.

And this wealthy man still cared deeply about his business. Almost every night, he personally came to inspect the workshop.

Li Wei only needed to wait patiently, and he would soon see Mr. Ervin.

For now, it was not yet time for the shift change, so he joined the workers waiting for the night shift and casually chatted with them.

They were all rough Zaunites with little in the way of culture or entertainment. Naturally, nothing refined came out of their conversations. Before long, the topic inevitably drifted into lewd territory.

They talked about wild Zaunite girls, Piltover young ladies, Shuriman female mercenaries, beautiful Bilgewater pirates, young Freljord Warmothers, and even all sorts of Ionia beast girls. Their stories grew increasingly outrageous, and Li Wei found himself getting into it too.

"Hey, Mr. Summoner."

Janna, hiding in his pocket, listened with a deep frown—though she was a bird now and did not actually have eyebrows.

At last, she could not resist asking through their mental link, "Summoner, is this your plan? Sitting here idly and wasting all your time on such vulgar subjects?"

"Just chatting. And what do you mean, vulgar subjects? Ahem, I'm only human."

"To be honest, I'd like to find myself a pretty wife in Runeterra too. Preferably a nonhuman species that doesn't exist on Earth. Animal ears, wings, tails, living skin... I'm good with all of it."

Janna: "..."

She secretly decided that even if she regained her power, she would try not to turn back into human form too often.

"But didn't you say that workers are our natural followers?" Janna questioned. "If so, why aren't you spreading your ideas to them? Why are you telling filthy jokes here instead?"

"You said Zaunites need to think. Then why aren't you inspiring them to think right now?"

Janna pressed him with question after question.

Li Wei could not help but laugh. "Janna, Janna, you've been a god for too long. You really are out of touch with the ground."

"Do you think my theories are some kind of brainwashing music? That if I just blasted them through a loudspeaker in the factory, everyone would listen in rapture?"

"This..." Janna fell thoughtful.

"Do you know Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?"

Of course she did not.

Janna learned another new term.

"This theory divides human needs into five levels from bottom to top. Applied to the goals we need to pursue, those five levels are:"

"Physiological needs—having enough to eat. Safety—having one's life and property protected. Social needs—having an organization and like-minded friends. Esteem—earning social recognition. And self-actualization—pursuing great ideals."

Janna had spent thousands of years helping ordinary people at the bottom of society. She was not some fool who would ask why they did not simply eat meat.

Once Li Wei explained it, she immediately understood:

Those Zaunite Apprentices could barely afford enough food, and every day they lived in fear under the double oppression of gangs and Enforcers. Their safety was not protected at all.

Their most basic physiological and safety needs had not even been met. Was this really the time to talk to them about self-actualization and great ideals?

I'm hauling bricks on an empty stomach. Who has the patience to listen to some educated man showing off his learning?

"To mobilize them, we first need a certain degree of strength. At the very least, we need to let them fill their stomachs, keep them safe from threats, and show them hope that the struggle can succeed."

"So the article I wrote was never meant to be handed directly to the apprentices."

"Then who was it written for?" Janna asked.

"For people who can eat their fill and have time to think, but who are not living especially well either—people who have suffered to some extent and felt oppression."

"You mean..." Janna thought for a moment. "Piltover's local workers?"

"More or less." Li Wei hesitated somewhat.

Piltover had commoners and workers too. In theory, they were indeed people who could be won over.

But these Piltovans...

They had it far too good!

Although they did basically the same jobs, sometimes even at the same factory, Piltover workers received benefits and pay more than ten times greater than the Zaunite Apprentices.

They only worked eight hours a day and five days a week. Half a year's salary was enough to buy a Hextech Flyer.

They lived in houses, ate steak, wore suits, drove Hextech Flyers, and flaunted their lives in front of the suffering Zaunites every day. Their lives could not be any better.

If some Zaunite country bumpkin went over and started talking to them about faith...

Those Piltover workers would probably just laugh and ask, "Jannaism? What the hell is that? Isn't the life I'm living right now exactly the Jannaism you're talking about?"

If they were especially uncouth, they might even throw around insults like "sewer rats" and "Go back to Zaun."

Although Li Wei believed there had to be many Piltovans who could become sympathetic comrades in the struggle, the original owner's memories, filled with pain and torment, constantly reminded him that Piltovans were not friends.

At the very least, he could not be too naive.

"Compared to these Piltover workers, who have already been bought off by the excess profits seized by developed capitalism through military, technological, and financial hegemony..."

"I'd rather prioritize developing Zaunite immigrants living in Piltover."

"They can already eat their fill, but they have truly suffered too. They should understand us better."

Li Wei voiced his thoughts.

Janna immediately identified the target group they could most easily reach right now. "For example, Zaunite students studying in Piltover, like your sister?"

"Mm." Li Wei nodded.

Zaunite students studying in Piltover truly were his best targets for recruitment.

"Then how do you plan to begin?"

"Uh..." Li Wei was stumped.

Ideals were full, but reality was skinny.

Those international students were all from Zaun, but they were also the gifted elite who had already gotten one foot through Piltover's gates.

Would they really have the patience to pay attention to a lowly fellow countryman like him?

That troubled Li Wei.

In the end, he was only a king of empty talk. Talking strategy on paper was easy; taking action was hard.

"We'll play it by ear."

"There will always be an opportunity."

Elsewhere, at Piltover University's Hextech Academy.

Lina hurried to the school and arrived at the classroom where the interview assessment would soon be held.

There were already dozens of people in the classroom. They had come to wait for the interview assessment, dreaming of becoming Professor Jayce's students—the finest talents of Piltover University's Hextech Academy.

The interview had not begun yet, and the professors had not arrived.

Yet the dozens of students had already naturally split into two distinct groups, sitting clustered on opposite sides.

Lina naturally knew how they had split into two groups—

The group on the left consisted of international students from Zaun.

The group on the right consisted of local Piltover students.

Piltover students had always looked down on Zaunite students, believing they were poor freeloaders who had come to take advantage of Piltover.

The Zaunite students, meanwhile, tried hard to integrate with the Piltover side. Unfortunately, their warmth was always met with coldness, bringing discrimination and humiliation time and again.

Over time, they came to resent the Piltover students in secret as well, believing them all to be useless greenhouse flowers who had only gotten in because they were born into good families.

Just like the Twin Cities separated by the canal, these young people who studied and lived beneath the same roof naturally divided into two camps.

Lina naturally sat on the left, beside her fellow Zaunites.

But a girl stood up from the Piltover camp.

Holding a thick stack of manuscript paper, she walked over with an arrogant expression.

"Lina, you finally made it. I thought you were afraid of embarrassing yourself in front of Professor Jayce and had quietly run away."

"Kaya." Lina gritted her teeth as she looked at the silver-gray-haired girl before her.

Kaya Ferros, her university classmate, was a noble young lady from the renowned House Ferros of Piltover.

Because Lina's usual grades always surpassed hers, and the small-minded Miss Kaya was unwilling to lose to a lowly Zaunite, Lina had somehow become the target of her resentment.

At first, Lina had not known Kaya's identity, and she had publicly humiliated Kaya several times, leaving her unable to respond.

By the time Lina learned that Kaya's surname was "Ferros," a name that few people even in Piltover dared provoke—

She had already become a thorn in Kaya's side. It was too late to back down.

"Miss Kaya, what can I do for you?" Seeing that this young lady had once again come to pick a fight for no reason, Lina could only swallow her anger, meekly pretend that nothing was wrong, and endure the humiliation.

But Miss Kaya merely lifted her chin elegantly, shook the stack of manuscript paper in her arms, and asked Lina in a teasing tone:

"This manuscript paper was given to me by the teachers to distribute for the interview assessment later."

"Lina, would you like—"

"It's 'free.'"

At the word free, Lina nearly wanted to take the entire stack of manuscript paper.

Such a large stack was worth several loaves of black bread!

But that hateful woman was smiling.

"No, thank you."

Lina swallowed her broken teeth along with her anger.

"I brought my own manuscript paper!"

Enduring the humiliation, she took the notebook containing Li Wei's article from her bag and placed it on the desk before her.

"Tch." Kaya had thrown several punches at thin air and was already in a foul mood when she opened her mouth to say something else.

Then footsteps sounded outside the classroom.

A tall, handsome man in a suit slowly appeared at the classroom door.

"It's Professor Jayce!"

Kaya no longer had time to make things difficult for Lina, and Lina no longer had time to care about her.

Every student present excitedly raised their heads, offering the man their most fervent admiration.

And he deserved that admiration.

Jayce Talis, the inventor of Hextech, the man who had led Piltover into a new age and represented the future of scientific civilization.

The Hextech Academy they attended existed because of this man.

Naturally, the students worshipped Jayce beyond measure, their eyes constantly fixed on him.

Only then, behind Professor Jayce's brilliance, did everyone belatedly notice another figure:

It was a middle-aged man leaning on a cane.

His face was pale, his curly hair disheveled, the dark circles beneath his eyes heavy, and his body thin. He limped as he walked, as though a gust of wind could blow him over.

Standing beside the fit and vigorous Jayce, he looked like an unremarkable attendant.

"Who is this gentleman?"

"Hey, I think I've seen him at school before. Does he work in the laboratories?"

Noticing that the man had appeared alongside the great Professor Jayce, the students could not help speculating about his identity.

"I'm Jayce's friend."

"You may call me Professor Viktor."