As one of Shrek Academy's few Level 8 Soul Engineers, Qian Duoduo stared fixedly at that thin sheet of black glass!
No soul power!
No visible traces of any miniature core arrays engraved on it!
Yet the thing lit up anyway, and its light was steady. The colorful "little squares (app icons)" displayed on its screen were so exquisitely detailed that Qian Duoduo began questioning his entire life!
What... what the fuck made this thing work?!
This definitely surpassed level ten-it was a legendary level-eleven divine soul tool that needed no soul power to operate!
Qian Duoduo roared inwardly, his hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
And the row of "left-behind children" squatting on the ground ahead, their faces smeared with soot from the bottoms of cooking pots, had never seen anything like it either.
Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, Tang Ya, and the others stared at the screen, their mouths dropping open in astonishment. Even their feigned vacant gazes turned into genuine shock.
"Holy shit..."
Ma Xiaotao, sporting two rustic braids, gaped at the screen, which was as clear as another real world, and blurted out, "This thing... is ten thousand times clearer than even the finest projection stones in our Inner Court Library!"
At these words, the Shrek higher-ups, who had still been reeling in shock, broke into cold sweats.
Projection stones?!
You were a factory girl from a remote village in Daliang Mountain, just back from working at an electronics factory in the county town! Where would you have heard of projection stones from some Inner Court Library?!
What if this blew their cover?!
Smack!
Before Su Xian could react, Mu En's sharp eyes and swift hands went to work. With the terrifying reaction speed of a Limit Douluo, he slapped Ma Xiaotao on the back of the head, sending her stumbling.
"Cuihua! You wretched girl, did working at that electronics factory in the county town turn your brains to mush? All you ever do is read novels!"
Speaking in a thick rural accent, Mu En scolded her in exasperation, "What's all this nonsense about stones? That's high technology Teacher Su brought from the big city! Stop running your mouth and embarrassing our Niulai Village!"
The slap left Ma Xiaotao seeing stars. She immediately realized she had made a terrible mistake and hurriedly clutched her head and shrank back behind the others.
Fortunately, Su Xian noticed nothing amiss. Instead, he was amused.
He smiled and waved a hand. "Uncle Mu En, don't blame little Cuihua! It's perfectly normal not to have seen this before. It's called a tablet computer. Its functions are a bit like the smartphones you use. I keep my usual lesson materials in here."
Only after hearing that Su Xian suspected nothing did everyone breathe a sigh of relief, as though granted a pardon.
"Uncle Mu En, I can't see. Sorry for the trouble, but could you tap the screen for me and find the video file called 'The Scale of the Universe'?" Su Xian held the tablet computer out toward Mu En.
"Right away, Teacher Su." Mu En hurried forward, poked the screen twice with his rough fingers, and opened the video.
"Children, neighbors! What I want to tell you in this first lesson today is just how insignificant we humans truly are."
"And precisely because we are so insignificant, why must we abandon ignorant feudal superstitions and use science to build a great civilization?"
As Su Xian's solemn voice faded, epic background music that seemed to come from an ancient starry sky rose from the tablet computer's high-quality speakers.
The video began playing.
The first image was the blue Earth.
Then the camera began pulling back at a terrifying speed.
Earth rapidly shrank on the screen, becoming an insignificant blue marble in the Solar System.
Then the Solar System, too, became a luminous speck of dust on a spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Next, the camera shot out of the Milky Way Galaxy, crossed the Andromeda Galaxy, and revealed the boundless Virgo Supercluster, the Laniakea Supercluster... and finally, a densely packed view of the entire Observable Universe!
Inside the wooden house, there was absolute silence.
Only the science narrator's rich voice echoed from the tablet computer. "A light-year is a unit of distance. Before the vast universe, humanity's several thousand years of history do not amount to even an instant at the universe's birth..."
At that moment.
Shrek's all-star cast was utterly dumbstruck.
For ten thousand years, the soul masters of the Douluo Continent had believed that Douluo Star was the center of the world.
They had thought that cultivating to become a Level 99 Limit Douluo would let them move mountains and fill seas, unrivaled beneath heaven.
They had thought that Tang San, the God King who had ascended to the Divine Realm, was the supreme ruler governing the workings of everything in existence.
But now, the images inside this "divine soul tool" told them:
In the universe, Douluo Star was less than even an invisible speck of dust!
And what did that so-called Divine Realm amount to before these superclusters spanning tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of light-years, containing untold trillions of stars?!
Mu En suddenly felt how laughable it was that he had spent most of his life fighting over Shrek's little patch of land, over things like martial soul orthodoxy.
Ancestor Tang San became a god?
On the universe's unimaginably magnificent scale, so-called gods were probably just a bunch of slightly stronger frogs at the bottom of a well!
Shrek's horizons were simply too narrow, too ignorant!
The video ended, and the screen gradually dimmed.
But everyone inside the house, including the "villagers" peeking through the windows outside, remained immersed in the tremendous shock of that starry expanse, unable to pull themselves free.
"Children, how do you feel after watching that?" Su Xian felt around and switched off the tablet, a smile curling his lips.
"Teacher Su... we're... we're so insignificant..." Bei Bei wiped the black soot on his face, his voice trembling. He truly had been shaken.
"That's right, we really are insignificant!" Su Xian nodded, but his tone abruptly shifted, becoming proud. "But as long as we master science and the truths of industry, we can conquer this sea of stars!"
"Neighbors, let me give you an example. Our Huaxia usually values peace, but if fighting really breaks out, our modernized Combined-Arms Force, several million strong, has absolutely nothing to fear!"
With a sweep of his hand and spittle flying, Su Xian launched into an introduction to modern firepower. "Tens of thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles, thousands of supersonic fighter jets! If we encounter backward civilizations still practicing feudal superstition and wielding broadswords and spears, there's no need to waste words. Just scour the ground with one round of firepower, and in minutes, we'll blast them into nuclear ruins without so much as a scrap left!"
They listened as Su Xian described "intercontinental ballistic missiles" and "supersonic fighter jets" capable of striking precisely from tens of thousands of li away and destroying a city in an instant.
Inside the house, Qian Duoduo, Xian Lin'er, and the others felt their scalps prickle.
They did not doubt Su Xian's words.
If that place called "Huaxia" could produce miracles like tablet computers that needed no soul power, its level of industrialization must have reached an utterly inconceivable realm!
"To give you a more intuitive idea..."
Su Xian smacked his lips and habitually reached for a negative example. "I'll use Shrek Academy from that novel I told the village chief about before as an example of what not to do!"
At the name "Shrek Academy," everyone's hearts gave a simultaneous lurch, though they had still been reeling in shock a moment before.
"That Shrek Academy calls itself the best on the continent, strutting around every day thinking it's invincible."
Su Xian curled his lips, his face full of derision. "But what if our country sent over a fully staffed Heavy Modernized Combined-Arms Brigade? A hundred thousand rounds of long-range rocket artillery filling the skies, hundreds of heavy bombers carpet-bombing the place!"
"What fucking Super Douluo! What Limit Douluo! Under saturation fire delivering tens of thousands of tonnes of explosive yield every second, they'd all be scattered into outer space-bodies, soul rings, and their fucking ashes!"
Su Xian delivered those words.
Although they did not understand the precise workings of "rocket artillery" or a "combined-arms brigade," violent images like "a hundred thousand rounds fired in unison" and "even their ashes scattered" were enough to send chills through them!
"Do you know why Shrek would get bombed so badly?"
Su Xian gave them no chance to catch their breath, delivering his final, ultimate judgment-and his favorite segment, the "daily Yan-bashing":
"Because Shrek's higher-ups are a bunch of arrogant fools who fiercely reject advanced productive forces!"
"Especially that Martial Soul Department dean named Yan Shaozhe!"
Su Xian pointed into the air and cursed in bitter anguish. "It's that old bastard! Every day, he hugs his chastity arch of martial soul orthodoxy and acts like he's somebody! Industrialized soul tools are clearly the future, but he insists on turning back the clock! He makes the entire academy fall behind the times!"
"So, children! You must study science and culture diligently and strive to grow strong! In the future, leave these mountains to conduct scientific research, build aircraft carriers, and build spaceships!"
Su Xian concluded earnestly, "Whatever you do! Never, ever copy those complacent dumbasses at Shrek! Especially that Yan Shaozhe. He's the classic example of what not to do, someone who'll be nailed to the Pillar of Historical Shame. Understand?!"
Bei Bei and Xu Sanshi bit their lips so hard they nearly drew blood, barely managing to keep from laughing aloud.
Meanwhile, in the farthest corner of the group of "villagers" squatting outside the door.
Yan Shaozhe wore a tattered straw hat and an old farmer's heavily patched clothes, with two chicken feathers still stuck to his face.
At that moment, both his hands were clawing at the yellow mud on the ground, his ten fingers almost digging a pit into the earth!
Motherfucker!!!
Yan Shaozhe let out a despairing wail in his heart.
I've already fucking stepped down and handed over my authority!
I've already fucking disguised myself as an old farmer so thoroughly that even my own mother wouldn't recognize me!
Why?!
Why, when you're watching a science video about the universe and giving a lesson on modern firepower, do you still have to cross the sea of stars to drag me out and flog my corpse, you blind bastard?!
Am I just fucking doomed to be at odds with you for the rest of my life?!!!
Before you continue