Ming Dynasty, New Rome, and Infinite Divine Machine

"The forum is functioning normally. But now things are getting complicated."

The shaking had stopped, and the "Forum" had been deployed. But on the distant horizon, the towering tower had already been erected.

"Does this mean that every time we deploy a server in this server, a corresponding entity will appear?"

This isn't surprising to me, as the essence of the lighthouse system in Rome is similar—enemy levels and health points are flattened and visualized. Similarly, programs and other things are visualized here as well. Perhaps storing a password here is actually storing it in a safe.

"I say, which of your things doesn't kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of your own?"

I don't think this is a big deal. Others aside, Shangluo, do you really know how to program? Don't forget, you're the one who 'unpacked' this thing.

"Ah, that seems to be true. Now I can understand it better."

So, perhaps concreteness is the best option for you. For example, if you don't know how to crack a code, instead of struggling with a bunch of symbols, it's better to just smash a concrete, physical safe.

"But if I understand it, doesn't that mean everyone can understand it? Now the technical barriers completely disappear. Anyone can physically threaten our forum."

【But on the other hand, we can also take any means to protect it. 】

"I'm not worried about our people right now—it's not that I completely trust everyone's character, but everyone uses real-name registration online now, and everyone corresponds to a star in the sky. If anyone wants to cause trouble, I can just follow the network cable and kill them. But I'm worried about those jellies. There are wild monsters in this world. Our server doesn't seem to be peaceful. What is this? Is it a bug? After all, the original bug was just a real bug in the server."

[Luckily it doesn't look like a bug, it just looks like jelly]

"Then I'll leave these to you, Your Excellency, the Marshal of the Central Altar. Since you have the military token, take the troops and go kill the bugs."

[Alas, I just wanted to have a good birthday, why am I so exhausted? I'll work overtime, but then I won't be available all the time. Call me on Fetion if you need anything. You go ahead and do your work, I'll take care of this.]

"Then I'm leaving?"

[Okay, go ahead and do some publicity. I'm also about to start work here—Ahem, all units, please take note, enter the decompression queue according to your numbers and start entering the venue.]

Another star field in the sky began to light up, the largest of all. The densely packed stars formed a square.

"what is that?"

It could probably be called a 'switch stand,' since the switchboard that's been answering your calls was also carved out of the Dushan Dayuhai. Compared to your passage, it's probably more of an employee passage, allowing a whole bunch of people in at once. Please move aside! You're blocking the way.

"Huh?" Shangluo glanced down—the ground before him was already illuminated by the stars. Tender green bean sprouts were sprouting from the ground under the starlight.

The starlight shone on the tops of his shoes. He took a step back, and a few bean sprouts sprouted where he had just stood.

In a flash, a square bean field sprouted from the square area. The bean sprouts began to sprout at the speed of gourd babies, and eventually, bean pods appeared. But the pods didn't turn yellow. Instead, they began to expand like balloons, swelling to the size of a honeydew melon—a "triple melon."

"Pop", the first bean pod that sprouted opened, and three beans jumped out at once.

"No wonder it's the employee entrance. So many can come in at once."

Soon after, Shangluo discovered that it was not just mung beans that came out, but also many other colors.

The bean fields resembled the five-colored earth of the Temple of Heaven: black beans in the north, mung beans in the east, red beans in the south, white beans in the west, and yellow beans in the center. These yellow and mung beans weren't the same varieties sold commercially, but simply different colors. At least in terms of size, the only difference between yellow and mung beans seemed to be their color.

Yet, among the many beans, there was one that stood out from the rest. In the very center of the five-colored soil, right in the middle of the soybean sprouts, a golden bean vein stretched out, bearing a single, enormous pod.

The pod is divided into four petals, corresponding to the colors of the four directions: east, west, south and north, with a yellow spherical shell exposed in the middle.

Suddenly, the bean pod silently split open—like Nezha emerging from a flower ball. The four petals of the split pod were filled with the spiritual energy of nature, reflecting a five-colored light. In the center of that light, there was a...

A bean appeared.

【Ah~~ Let me show my face too. 】

"You look like a bean. I thought Nezha was going to show up."

[Ah, I hadn't planned on growing myself yet. But it's not convenient to control these beans with just commands, so I put the seeds in.]

"Will anything happen to you? I mean your personal safety."

"No. Nothing will happen until it grows. Now it's just a bean, but it doesn't look very good. I don't have a mirror now. What do I look like now?"

"That's not too surprising. You looked exactly like the first time I saw you, a ball."

[Tsk, is it still like this? I thought I'd have arms and legs to come out of the pod. I'll just stay in the ball for now. I'll test the sound and change the channel later.]

"Hello? Hey hey hey?"

Apollonia's voice came from the middle of the bean field: "Can you hear me?"

Shangluo made an OK gesture to her.

[Okay, I'll stay here for now—and precisely because I have to stay here, as I said before, I can't reply to you all the time. Let's contact each other via Fetion. Oh, and don't leave so quickly. Let's see how much tar this team consumes when we go out later.]

"Um"

"How's it going?" Apollonia asked him on Fetion.

"The current consumption rate is about 5 liters per hour, which translates to about 15 wen per hour. How many beans did you put in?"

About four or five hundred.

Shangluo had counted the oil consumption when Wen Yuan and the others were here. Based on current oil prices, each person needed about one liter of crude oil per hour, which was three wen.

3 wen per liter, that's the price of crude oil. Converted into refined gasoline, it's much more expensive, but that's about the price of crude oil.

These hundreds of beans are only equivalent to the fuel consumption of five or six people.

"So cheap? Did they buy children's tickets?"

Chapter 374 Sofa

"That's about right. Tsk, how come I'm so cheap even if I count them? I thought I could use ten liters of oil per hour."

"If you want to eat 30 cents an hour, then get out of here and don't stay in there."

【Tsk, stingy.】

"Is it because I'm stingy? You stay in there for 24 hours without coming out, 30 an hour, 720 a day, that's more than a month! Half of my monthly budget goes to you, and we still have water, electricity and other expenses."

[Oh, by the way, the cost price is 3 cents per hour. How much do you plan to charge them per hour?]

"Then let's say at least 8 wen. Is that too expensive?"

[It's not really expensive. But considering the spending power of students, it seems a bit high.]

"This may require some subsidies from the national surname."

Shangluo calculated that there were actually less than a thousand Qigong practitioners who could enter Hutian in this way, because the Dushan Great Jade Sea was only this big.

Based on this amount, Guoxing's subsidy shouldn't be very high—he could certainly lower the price to cost, but he'd rather seek subsidies than lower it. Because this affects the future operating costs of the service, the price must be determined before the first launch.

Eight cents per hour—this was the standard price Shangluo intended to set. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive either. Any Qigong practitioner with independent financial resources could afford to be online for eight hours a day.

As for students, it is impossible for them to be online for eight hours a day.

"It would be great if we could get some oil from Victoria. Their oil is usually two or three times more durable, or even four or five times as long. The oil we use here isn't carefully selected, so we burn a lot every day. Right now, the only thing limiting our ability to expand our service is this freight elevator at Jinyiwei."

Currently, fuel is delivered to this level of the Imperial Prison via a freight elevator. The Imperial Prison is, after all, a facility run by the Imperial Uniform Guard. A few barrels of fuel a day might be fine, but if it were constantly being transported, it would cause considerable trouble for the Imperial Uniform Guard. A single or two inconvenience would be fine, but if it were a daily occurrence, he'd be embarrassed to continue providing maintenance services there, even if the Imperial Uniform Guard didn't complain.

"But let's just make do with this for now. Next, let's try the forum."

The forum is the new core of the spiritual network function that Shangluo has been preparing.

He had noticed one thing before - that Fetion cards could only be delivered through interpersonal relationships.

Games like these were already very popular among the students in Yujing, but Gao Shiyu and the others in Fengjing had only heard of them and had not yet started playing them.

Although students have a universal transfer network, this network does not guarantee "timeliness." A student must download the game in Yujing, then physically travel to Fengjing and share it with his friends there before the game can be accessed in Fengjing.

This process had probably already begun. However, not everyone in the Qigong circle in Fengjing knew each other, and Gao Shiyu hadn't encountered anyone he knew who played games.

Furthermore, Fetion groups are essentially "message threads." Different topics are constantly scrolling by every day, and it's easy to miss some information.

Forums are different. They store information and allow users to post messages. Once posted, the message remains there, regardless of whether you read it immediately or not.

And most importantly, Wen Yuan's experience with the network is that it's as comfortable as using an "iron lung." No more "self-breathing," just following the network's rhythm—of course, this comes at a cost and requires fuel.

"Okay, then I'll try it first."

He opened the forum client——

"Huh?" He just noticed that this client actually had an icon. It was a pineapple.

"Apollonia, did you set this?"

[Isn’t it cute? This pineapple is so cute.]

"Surprisingly, the flat design is quite good. How's yours?"

In shipbuilding

"Huh? What are you doing?" Shangluo thought they might be debugging technology or something, but he didn't expect it to be such a concrete job as "shipbuilding".

Because I've realized I can't reach the Tower of Babel. So, I have no choice but to build a boat. I'm going to hang up first. I need to go over there and shout. They're rolling leaves to make sails. Once I build the boat, I can go on an expedition to the Tower of Babel!

"Then I wish you good luck." He could even hear the sounds of large-scale construction over there, with Douzi shouting "Hey Ha Hu Hey" as if they were building some huge ship.

Anyway, it works fine. Although the forum is currently unmaintained, it seems to be running normally.

He opened the big pineapple icon, and the background of the interface was still a bunch of pineapples.

Since it is a real-name system for Internet access, no one needs to register, and the public part of his personal information is directly displayed - avatar, name, number, etc.

There are no partitions in the forum now, only the "Pineapple Chat" section.

"What kind of taste does this guy have? Why are all these pineapples? What kind of kindergarten aesthetic is that?"

But his art skills are surprisingly good. The various icons are very well designed, which Shangluo himself cannot draw.

"Forget it, let's just use this for now."

He clicked the "plus sign" in the lower right corner and posted the first post in the forum:

How to use the forum

"OK." He closed the forum and contacted Gao Shiyu first:

"Come online quickly." He sent a message.

Gao Shiyu replied in less than three seconds. Like a downpour after a long drought, he said, "Right away."

He stared at the tar scale and watched the tar begin to "move".

In less than a second, the tar began to move, indicating that Gao Shiyu had started to go online.

The forum was silent for a moment. The empty space contained only his previous post, "How to Use the Forum." It seemed Gao Shiyu was still familiarizing himself with the forum's functions and interface, and figuring out how to type.

With a "pop" sound, the second post appeared in the forum.

Where are the people?

The post's body, like the title, was the same: "Where's the person?" Gao Shiyu didn't have a nickname, using his real name. His profile picture was a milky, jelly-like mass of unidentified matter, resembling the kombucha fungus he'd photographed earlier. It was one of the few moving things he'd ever seen, and it was quite adorable.

A smile appeared on Shangluo's lips, and an impulse prompted him to click on the reply.

Behind the flashing cursor, he silently typed two words: sofa.

The reply was sent, and the word "sofa" occupied the second floor.

"Comfortable."

Chapter 375 Roast Duck

"Okay, let's just promote it next." After connecting Gao Shiyu to the Internet, he couldn't let him stay here alone all the time. He also pulled Gao Qingyu in.

"Shangluo," Gao Qingyu asked, "is he sitting right next to me? Why should I go to the forum and talk to him?"

“Because he can see it because you typed it.”

"Okay." She didn't say much, because she definitely knew her brother better than Shangluo.

He could talk anytime he wanted. But Gao Shiyu could only truly see when connected to the internet—even different from what he normally saw with Torch. Because Torch's vision only provided information, what he saw was ultimately different from what others saw. Only when he activated the forum did he see exactly the same thing as everyone else.

"Actually, I'm quite grateful. Many people have shown him excessive care, but only you treat him like a normal person. Even though he doesn't say it, he actually likes being called 'little blind man'."

“Because he’s not really blind.”

"Yes, he can actually take care of himself, unlike the blind people who really need help. It's hard to describe how he is here."

"Barrier-free access?"

"Yes, that's about the same. He can be like a normal person here, get along with you normally, make friends normally. This is what he has always longed for. After all, back home, everyone knows each other very well. The parents of his classmates all work in the same unit. Since he was a child, his parents have always told him to take good care of him."