"Achoo!"
"…"
"Sorry, sorry…"
Facing the blaming gazes of others, Li Lin showed an awkward smile, repeatedly bowing in apology. At the same time, he quickly shrank back, took the several books he had reserved onto the table, and started looking at them. Confirming Li Lin wasn't making any more out-of-line actions, these people slowly retracted their suspicious gazes.
Even in such a strange world, the inheritance of knowledge remained a serious and solemn matter. Pop bookstores and the like were acceptable, but libraries still maintained a style of silence. There were even several staff members wearing research lab coats who came to the library to look up materials. Unsure if they were just there to show off . But overall, it gave the impression that this place was very high-end.
However, after reading a series of introductions above, Li Lin felt increasingly puzzled.
He thoroughly understood why Texas said his writing was politically sensitive, because this world was inexplicably comparable to the dark world of Warhammer he described; although in terms of bloodiness and cruelty, it couldn't compare to Warhammer, which casually wiped out several races or even entire kingdoms, it was comparable in terms of ignorance.
Laterano, with its theocratic, extremely serious nature, enjoying a certain degree of privilege. Kazimierz, seemingly a nation of knights, essentially a slave-owning state. Ursus, with severe racism and extreme xenophobic tendencies. And the Sarkaz people, wandering everywhere, unwelcome, treated as the source of infection. A region like Columbia, to some extent, was actually the rising star of hope for the entire society. Although this rising star was now陷入 (xiànrù - sunk into/mired in) civil war and unable to attend to other matters, they were surprisingly the most advanced nation socially. This couldn't help but make Li Lin doubt the level of the so-called great politicians here.
According to the politics lessons he learned as a child, all social structures originated from productivity and economic foundations. Judging from the mobile cities and industrial equipment of various countries, both industrial and economic foundations existed. But this only further highlighted the magical aspect of the backward social system. Logically speaking, with such economy and productivity, they should have long realized what knowledgeable workers could achieve.
But here? They were persecuting Oripathy patients and exacerbating social conflicts and divisions. In Li Lin's original history, although capitalists used every means to exploit workers, they also knew the most basic principle of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages (趨吉避害 - qū jí bì hài). They would promote worker aristocrats to divide the workforce, but what were the people of this world doing?
Courting death? Haven't they experienced various rebellions and world wars?
Seems like there was one, but it seems no lesson was learned…
Li Lin frowned, pondering, flipping through the latest scientific research journals borrowed from the newspaper section. Among them, the section where Rhine Lab and Umbrella Bio exchanged barbs on the biology board looked particularly eye-catching. And the scientific research reports from Raythean Technology also occupied a considerable portion of the section.
The rest was a paper published by a strange fellow under the name 'Blood Mage' regarding the connection between Oripathy and blood lesions. Squeezed into a small section by Umbrella and Rhine Lab. And Rhine Lab, one look and you knew, either paid money, or the newspaper's chief editor had some under-the-table deal (Pinyin initials often implying shady/sexual transaction). A full-body photo of a woman named Saria was placed prominently on the front page, below which was a headline full of power.
'Order will surely triumph over chaos; disordered power will be broken by order.'
"Science is just there; discovery or not is humanity's affair, application or not also. What does our death and revival have to do with this universe?"
Nonsense.
Looking at the scientific research report published by Rhine Lab, Li Lin sneered.
Rather than being some scientific report, it was more like a piece of useless talk. The entire thing was 'I think', 'I feel', and some lukewarm appeals.
What era is this still playing this game of giving up eating for fear of choking ? Scientific research, apart from human beings themselves and materials, has no so-called limits. Awe? If humans knew awe, then damn it, they shouldn't have played with that fire two hundred thousand years ago. After all, for beasts, lightning and fire are the greatest awe.
Skipping the biology section, after flipping through most of the materials, Li Lin frustratingly discovered the industrial technology herein was either related to Originium Arts or was 'I reckon' (meme implying illogical/unscientific reasoning) type stuff. Materials science aspects were mostly black boxes; several completely unrelated things could form products with unbelievably good performance through Originium Arts and some simple machinery. No need for tall reaction vessels, no need for huge industrial facilities, nor much precision instrumentation.
These things could even be manufactured on some mobile small factories and workstations.
After reading the introductions regarding science, Li Lin felt a pang of pain in his head.
He felt his impression of the Terra world seemed to need reorganizing.
"…How is it? Did you find anything useful?"
"No good. Always feel like the people here don't know how to use a gold mine, makes me inexplicably somewhat angry."
"?"
"It's nothing, I found some clues, thank you."
"Oh…"
Texas tilted her head, her ears twitched, showing a somewhat puzzled expression.
She couldn't quite understand the reason for Li Lin's headache. As a native of Terra, she felt it was perfectly normal for an industry to be built upon a certain Originium Arts practitioner. Originium Arts itself, like a diploma or way of thinking in some sense, was something the natives of this planet inevitably possessed.
But in Li Lin's eyes, someone who had absolutely nothing and could only rely on himself, the Terra world, possessing countless black technologies and black materials, was undoubtedly being wasteful. Even according to Li Lin's meager knowledge from graduating university every two years (likely self-deprecating hyperbole), he could recognize: if you can push a city forward on the ground, you can definitely throw tens of thousands of tons of bricks into space. At the very least, building two space elevators should always be possible.
But the people here? They hadn't even seen much of the sea. To say this wasn't an intelligence problem, Li Lin really didn't believe it.
'Write some sci-fi. People here probably haven't even landed on the moon.'
Looking at the scattered introductions above, Li Lin nodded with determination.
"…Are you still going to look around here?"
"Huh? What's wrong?"
"Exusiai called us back, said there's an urgent mission."
"Urgent mission? Isn't today a day off?"
Looking at the phone Texas handed over, Li Lin looked at the text message on it, raising his eyebrows somewhat surprisedly.