Ming Dynasty, New Rome, and Infinite Divine Machine

"How did you know?"

"Because how can you expect someone who has never had a good meal to cook for you? She should have said that her staple food used to be only olives and grape juice. So her cooking has always been terrible."

As she spoke, Victoria's face showed a painful expression, as if it was a past that was too painful to recall.

"She used to cook?"

"Yes," Victoria nodded. "We went hunting before, and we killed rabbits. She didn't eat everything, but she could eat the prey. She killed the rabbit, roasted it over the fire—and I didn't see the rabbit's body until sunset. This creature usually burns sacrifices when she reduces meat, the way she roasts pigs and cows. She cooked the rabbit the same way, and the bones were almost burned away."

The rabbit's tragic death scene swayed back and forth in front of her.

"."

"So, has she made progress now?"

"No, she didn't, but it was steamed."

"I see. I once heard that with a rice cooker, even a monkey can make a bowl of steamed rice. With steady steam, even Phaethon can make human food. Lucky Shangluo, you made the right choice. You chose to let her 'steam'."

Chapter 361 Philosopher’s Stone

"Wow!" Shangluo discovered that this was indeed the case until now—Phaethon had only cooked instant noodles and tea on his own initiative, and he had only asked Phaethon to steam the steamed bread. These were actually all cooked with the power of water, and because there was no pressure cooker, the highest temperature was only around 100°C.

"Ah, this. Should I be happy?"

"You should be happy that your physical and mental health has not been damaged. But I'm also glad to hear that she's doing well now."

"Do you know anything about her?"

Victoria nodded. "I know she was punished for failing the mission and all that! Was she sold to you as a maid? Why is she the one cooking for you?"

"What on earth were you thinking? No, of course not."

"Then what is she doing now?"

Shangluo thought about it - this question cannot be answered directly, as it involves the transaction between him, Daozu, and Helios.

Although Victoria is the emperor, this cannot be told to her.

"She is practicing."

"Practice? Is she a mendicant?"

"No. She's training in the city, learning how to live like a human being."

"Um do you need any help?"

"Have you any money?"

Victoria blinked. "You're really direct, but I can't give you money. It's not that I don't want to, it's because the currencies on both sides are not compatible—you've seen it, right? Things like Yongle Tongbao are not accepted in your country. You might think it's the exchange rate unit, but it's precisely because there is no exchange rate that I can't send you money through any official channel."

"So the economic exchanges between the two sides are so closed?"

"Because we are two independent global markets, we have no interest in each other's territory. While a global market can bring efficiency, it also creates more problems. So we both stopped there and built two hemispheric markets. Therefore, we felt that letting Aurora take over our remaining shell would actually cause trouble for Aurora—and indeed, it would."

"Well, forget it. I won't cause you any more trouble."

"But other things besides the money are easy to talk about. Or would you like some Roman denarii?"

"What is that?" Shangluo asked.

"You may have seen too much of the drachma. Actually, the drachma is a historical currency. The real currency we use is the dinar. You put dinars in vending machines in Constantinople, and you use dinars to ride the bus. If you want dinars, I can give you a lot of my own pocket money. But dinars are probably useless here, except for transactions with the Romans."

"It seems, okay?"

"If you say it's okay, then I'll send some over. I'll have the internal security take it over later. You can handle it as you wish. Ah~~" she said with a sigh of relief. "What? It turns out Phaethon is doing quite well. I thought she was confined at home in Rhodes Island."

"Oh, right, there's something I need your help with." Shangluo still remembered it. "Can you help her transfer the archive file for 'Heroes' Tour'?"

"That's easy. Just ask her to send me a souvenir, and I'll take care of the rest. But why is she in such a hurry for this? Doesn't she plan to come back anytime soon?"

"Yes." Shangluo nodded, "Maybe, I won't be able to come back for at least a while."

"Should I go see her then? Is it convenient?"

"Ah this."

If people saw the living conditions of him and Phaethon, where one of them ate instant noodles and the other ate steamed bread,

"It's not very convenient." Shangluo shook his head repeatedly, "If you want to come, please call us for consultation."

"Oh, all right. I'm going to go over there when I have time—don't worry, I'll call when I do."

"But there's another reason why she wants to save the game. We're planning to conduct a test on the Blackstone Network soon. We have many pre-set scenarios, and one of them is to import the mature structure of Heroes Tour and start playing directly."

"Is this how you play? It seems pretty good."

Victoria glanced outside. "Then, let's get to the next thing. Come with me to activate the network. Although this isn't really my responsibility, since I'm here, I'll just go over some important matters with you. First, let me ask you a question. We mentioned the Philosopher's Stone before, right?"

Shangluo nodded.

"Originally, this was top secret—that's why I only let you in, and not your friends. But these will gradually be handed over to the Ming party, so I can tell you in advance: guess where the Philosopher's Stone is? It's in this room."

"what?"

Shangluo was stunned. A sacred object so large, capable of supporting a simulated philosopher king, was actually right here in this room?

Behind him was a portal in the center of the hall. Caesar sat peacefully at the other end of the hall. On this side was a painting, and outside the painting stood Alexander. Alexander also heard the question. He smiled and looked at Shangluo, watching Shangluo looking for the location of the Philosopher's Stone.

The entire hall is carved out of marble, and there is no place to inlay "stones".

"Are you sure the stone is in this hall?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And you've seen it more than once just now."

"."

Shangluo looked around again. The surrounding scenery did not change until he cast his gaze on the painting.

He looked past Alexander, past the frame, into the huge painting. In the magnificent golden palace, directly above the sky, a shining red gem sat in the sky, guarded by angels.

"Yes, that one?" Shangluo pointed at the ruby in the painting.

"That's right." Victoria nodded. "The Philosopher's Stone is right there. Can you guess it?"

"It would be hard to guess if you hadn't been warned. It was hard for me to guess that you could actually enter the painting in the first place."

"No, you can't get in at all. Only shadows can enter and exit this painting, and you are not a shadow."

"Then how did the Philosopher's Stone get in?"

"Because the actual situation is this - the Philosopher's Stone was designed and manufactured entirely within this painting."

"Oh~~" Shangluo suddenly realized, "So you mean, we can also hide the server like this?"

"I see you have a pretty good magic weapon. Is that the one... the one that stores steamed bread?"

"Don't mention steamed bread, I'm hungry."

"Anyway, it's that scroll of yours. I suggest you design and create your world within the scroll, just like we did, to ensure safety. Of course, this is just my suggestion; how you execute it is up to you."

Chapter 362 Dreaming

"So, where do you plan to place the core that supports 'Long Dream'? Will it fit in that scroll of yours?"

"Of course." Shangluo knew that there was room for a small world inside, a real small world. After all, it was a map of mountains, rivers, and states.

Shangluo placed a teapot inside, completing a nesting doll, tightly encasing it. Within the teapot, there was no sense of a 'big world' outside—the only exception being the world snake that grew within the teapot and at one point crawled out.

Now that we're going to run it with that teapot, all we have to do is find a place to plug the server into.

"If you need, you can also choose some other parts." Victoria pointed at the screen, "such as the Philosopher's Stone."

"The Philosopher's Stone is also possible?"

"Well, after all, we're all on the same path now, like grasshoppers on the same rope. Helping you adapt is helping ourselves. However, a Philosopher's Stone as large as the one in the picture might not be convenient, because everything here is life-size, and that Philosopher's Stone is the largest ever. I can only give you a smaller one, and the effect won't be as good."

"How do I use the Philosopher's Stone?"

"You put it where you can see it from anywhere, and that's it. The Philosopher's Stone can give still objects a false spirit, allowing them to interact with you—in other words, create silhouettes."

"Can you simulate monsters?"

"Yes. I said that because you said you might use it to play games."

"Yeah," Shangluo nodded. "That's been a great help. As you saw before, we have Tianyi Guiren. I can also dispatch a lot of Tianyi Guiren to act as actors there—but I can't just let them play monsters and serve as targets. They work so hard here, and then they have to get beaten up. That's just not fair."

[Oh~~ The former young general said he was very touched. As expected, Jishie-kun, you still care about them.]

"It's human nature. After all, although everyone is here to serve in the Thunder Department for my sake, and I can issue military orders, in the final analysis, everyone is here to work, right? Why should I make it difficult for everyone to act as sandbags? So when the time comes, everyone can just go in and act as friendly units, and the sandbags will naturally spawn."

Afterward, he thanked Victoria, "Now we have a much wider variety of games to play. Our extras are all very hard-working, so we can't ask them to play overly intense scenarios—like a small-scale Hero's Tour, which is fine, but large-scale multiplayer games with constant monster farming and constant rotation are too grueling."

"But you have to be careful," Victoria reminded. "You know without me even telling you that these Roman technologies have two sides."

"So what are the two sides of the Philosopher's Stone?"

"We have no way of completely controlling what's refreshed unless you put a lot of effort into it. For example, this 'School of Athens' painting is a highly detailed portrait we spent enormous effort on. We locked in each person's identity through cultural elements, tied them together through relationships, hinted at them through scenes, and added some famous scenes to achieve the desired result. For example, this is Alexander."

Alexander nodded slightly.

"How can we be sure that he is Alexander and not someone else? First, we need to identify Alexander's essential elements—Alexander wears a helmet, Alexander is an 'emperor,' and Alexander was a student of Aristotle. What we need most is to be sure that the philosopher king is actually him."

"Ah, so you've targeted his master?"

"That's right. We zeroed in on his mentor, Aristotle, and then Plato. We don't just need Alexander; the more philosophers, the better. But Plato and Aristotle must be at the center. So, in what scenario would they be at the center? It would naturally be the 'Plato Academy' or the 'School of Athens.' From this, we determined the main body. The others are then arranged according to elements."

She pointed to Alexander's original position. "The Great's position is on the left side of the painting, corresponding remotely to his mentor, Aristotle. After determining the subject of the painting and the focal point of the entire painting to lock in these two key figures, Plato and Aristotle, we used the helmet as an element to lock in Alexander and painted him in. The more similar the painting is, the more accurate the positioning will be."

"Then you've been very successful. Not only did you bring Alexander back to life, but you also revived many other philosophers."

"There's just one flaw. Didn't you notice that there's one missing figure from the list of sages of the classical era? And one who made outstanding contributions to the natural sciences. You can probably guess it's the most famous one."

"Archimedes?"

"To Archimedes."

"Didn't the lock succeed?"

"No, we have successfully recreated Archimedes' presence. We have recreated him drawing circles."

"Ah, isn't that the classic scene: he's drawing circles on the beach, and then the Romans come and he yells, 'Don't bother me drawing circles,' and then he's stabbed to death by the Romans?"

Victoria covered her forehead with her hands. "Yes, that's it. We didn't want to copy this, but if we didn't copy this, we would have to copy the scene of him taking a bath. As a result, after copying it, he kept drawing something there, and kept drawing. No matter how we asked, he said, 'Don't disturb me while I'm drawing.' And then..."

"and then?"

"Then one day, he suddenly disappeared. Alexander said he shouted 'Eureka!' and then jumped off the screen. No one saw him again for three months. Three months later, the Syracuse Academy of Sciences submitted a technical blueprint for the development of the 'Vulcan Core', signed by 'Archimedes, son of Phidias.'"

"Wow, so that's how it works. It really does draw a perfect circle."

"Indeed, this really took us by surprise. Furthermore, Archimedes himself seemed to be still angry. He refused to share the technical details with the 'Romans,' so he only discussed them with us, whom he considered the Greeks. Ultimately, he kept the technical details within the Syracuse Academy. However, he was still nominally a member of the Council of Philosophers of the Muses, so he also participated in the discussion of technological ethics. Ultimately, the Muses unanimously decided to lock up the Vulcan's core technology."

Chapter 363 Important Recipe

"Your luck is pretty good, isn't it?"

"I feel the same way. I think if we were unlucky, we would have been finished several times over. But did you prepare anything for that scenario?"

"I want to ask, what will happen if you are not prepared?"

"That's possible. How should I put it?" She pondered for a moment. "It might become a spirit. I read that in 'Liao Zhai'. There might be the most reasonable demon under natural conditions."

"Huh?" Shangluo touched his head - he thought about it for a long time but still couldn't figure out what kind of monster could come out of the teapot.

"Anyway, it's really useful, so I'll take it."

"Then I'll pack it for you when you leave. Next comes the most important part: you'll need to use the Black Stone to construct a continuous dreamscape. Are you ready? If so, we'll go to the conference room next door to sign."

An ordinary room, an ordinary table, and an ordinary view outside. But Shangluo knew that all this was just the default setting, and he could switch to any place if needed.

Victoria took out the agreement she had prepared long ago.

"This is a confidentiality agreement," Victoria explained. "I have to ask you to sign it because the method of constructing the Great Dream is too simple, which may lead to people having improper desires for the remaining Black Stone."

"Too simple?"

"Yes. It's so simple that anyone who steals the Black Stone can create their own dream. Once you sign, I'll tell you and you'll know."