"This was a world skilled in wielding the power of the mind."
"Long ago, wizards discovered it. Then they explored it, opened it up, developed it... just as wizards had done in other worlds. But gradually, things changed."
"The patterns by which magical tides rose and fell in this world kept changing. Many spells failed at the slightest provocation. Native mages whom wizards had painstakingly cultivated often defected once they matured... Even many fruits grown by nature were harmless to the natives but deadly poison to wizards."
"We all know that the mind is a very secretive thing."
"A world proficient in mental power was also more resistant to outside changes than other worlds... Well, in the words of wizard investigators, this world was too selfish. Merely for its own existence, it prevented the people living in it from pursuing a better future."
The gentleman slowly and softly recounted the history of this world to Zheng Qing, explaining the origins of these "aquariums." As the young publicly funded student listened, he could not shake an awkward feeling.
In his simple understanding, this was probably the history of a struggle between a colony and its colonizers—oppression and resistance, appeasement and suppression. The colonizers believed they had brought civilization, while the colony believed it needed independence more.
From an objective standpoint, it was difficult to judge which side had the better argument.
But from the wizards' standpoint, wizards clearly represented the direction of advanced productive forces and the inevitable trend of the times. Like every story of colonies and colonizers throughout history, the primitive, backward civilization had been shattered beneath the crushing force of an advanced foreign civilization. The developed "New World" basked in the glory of magic, bursting with Life Force.
"Of course, that Life Force is all just an appearance."