Chapter 293: What Is An Orc?
In the year 2108 of the Han calendar, December. Almost a month after Xian Han and the beasts directly clashed, a meteorite swarm streaked across the sky once again.
In the direction of the Qinling Mountains, large combat airships equipped with laser weapons stood ready. This time, most of the meteorites landed near the Ural Mountains, while a considerable portion fell in the northern part of Dragon State (North America).
The perspective shifts to across the great ocean. Due to Dragon State’s long history of confederation culture two hundred years ago—well, that is, tribal alliances—although reforms have taken place, regional forces remain quite powerful, and the central authority cannot implement total information control.
So tabloid reporters swarmed in to report firsthand materials; the government simply couldn’t stop these paparazzi with their flashing cameras from probing for firsthand news everywhere. Then all sorts of messages flooded the New Village Street Newspaper.
Upon learning of the southern region’s “shameless gawking” atmosphere and the spread of funny cartoons mocking “Orcs knocking each other’s heads with clubs as utterly stupid,” Xie Ming said helplessly: “Are you (Southern Federation) all acting like nothing happened?”
Xie Ming then mocked himself: “No mistake, I like scrolling my mobile phone too. Gawking in the south is just human nature.”
The great unification process starting from the Qin and Han dynasties accustomed people to unity, yet they often forgot why division occurs. Dragon State, which was still tribal just a few hundred years ago, now serves as a perfect comparative textbook.
In this era, humanity’s pursuit of “news” has precisely become another demand alongside “food” and “water”—that is, the demand for information.
When print media (newspapers, etc.) can reach every household and require real money to purchase, quickly investigating news becomes an important task akin to “grain production.”
In the print media era, fabricated sensational news like “Shocking!” or “It’s actually like this?!” was rare.
Because if the news wasn’t truthful, no one would buy it, and it would devolve into tabloid gossip.
This differs from the rules of the 21st century. In the information age, news is free; even if print media is truthful, no one buys it. Moreover, in the internet era, the cost of news dissemination isn’t physical like paper—it’s nearly zero. This leads information-age media to opt directly for information bombardment, paying no heed to news authenticity.
Of course, returning to the present, Dragon State’s bureaucrats could only express helplessness: banning newspapers from obtaining news is like banning the sale of alcohol.
Xian Han’s lords, who keep northwestern warfare tightly under wraps, chimed in: “Exactly, exactly.”
Xian Han’s intelligence department is very active in Dragon State; they continuously buy out-of-district newspapers and fund Dragon State media to cultivate “senior investigators.”
One photograph after another appeared alongside newspapers; in northern Dragon State—that is, the Jia’nieda region—”upright beasts” also appeared.
As rumors of Bigfoot and green-skinned people spread wildly in northern Dragon State, panic erupted in various cities.
Craftsmen slaves who toil 12 hours a day in factories for meager wages, like chicken and duck in a poultry farm, become “enthralled” upon suddenly hearing doomsday news; as the message spreads, doomsday rumors flood the entire north, leading to riots and vandalism on the streets.
A Xian Han censor commented: “This is simply a case of camp panic.”
Xuan Chong, aware of the reasons for camp panic, explained: “People who feel psychologically imprisoned over the long term will, in a highly stable environment, anticipate the status quo being broken”—just like how he enjoyed reading apocalyptic literature in his student days, due to the constant exam pressure from endless schooling. Thus, when any minor event arises (like lights out during evening study), every individual in the group subconsciously hopes it escalates to change the status quo.
The “soul-calling panic case” of the Qianlong era and the “American alien broadcast chaos” are both like this.
This large-scale camp panic cannot be analyzed solely through passive factors like “blind conformity and blind faith”; it must also consider the “active” role of each snowflake in causing an avalanche.
Qin Tianyi once said: In a powerful dynasty, the corvee laborers under strict watch; when the shackles on them grow heavier and inescapable, any stir makes the laborers want to seize the chance to riot and flee, deliberately exhausting the great masters.
Currently, all sorts of “big green alien invasion” news is flying around in Dragon State, to the point that some tribalism supporters within Dragon State have begun, under the banner of “defending against invasion,” intercepting national highway trucks and seizing materials.
Dragon State’s army has no choice but to dispatch to major cities to control the surroundings.
Amid this chaos, Jemint (Xie Ming), from the family controlling “Earth Shield Company” where he transmigrated, seized the opportunity to recruit armed forces in the north.
Due to Dragon State’s parliament being party-based government, Jemint’s family conducted a series of interest exchanges. The vast majority of parliament members voted to tacitly approve Jemint and these magnates breaking boundaries in the north to recruit troops.
The concept of principles exists in the ultimate responsible person of Eastern “sacrificial” culture. But for the Mediterranean region’s “lip-service lord system” with multiple responsible parties, it doesn’t exist. When everyone has responsibility, no one does.
In reality, compared to Xian Han’s side, the number of alien beasts in northern Dragon State is very small.
The largest gathering is just over five hundred; though they have learning ability, their weapons are very backward—mostly cleavers or even wooden stone tools.
Right here, Xie Ming’s company reacted very swiftly, using natural granite fortifications to sweep away these alien beasts still stuck below the primitive technology threshold.
As for why the difficulty is so low for Jemint here, it requires explaining this area in northern Dragon State.
From Xuan Chong’s previous-life perspective, Canada is characterized by sheer vastness. On the globe, it’s not just thirty-eight hundred thousand square kilometers larger than previous-life China—it’s noticeably a whole circle bigger. Because its eastern territory actually envelops a fully enclosed inland sea. Excluding that inland sea, its area is 9.98 million square kilometers; hence Canada’s huge frame, with an inland sea inside ten times larger than the Bohai Sea.
This inland sea embedded within looks perfect for navigation at a glance—nearly turning half the country into inland sea. It’s a piece of perfectly heaven-chosen land.
But! Truly venturing deep inside reveals the sigh that such barren land actually exists on the entire Earth.
The inland sea that seemed advantageous is actually a nightmare severing civilization’s development.
In the previous life, this place was called the “Canadian Shield.” This area—fully half of eastern Canada, a full five million square kilometers—encircles Hudson Bay.
The soil here is extremely scarce; like the granite peaks of Yellow Mountain, it’s all exposed rock.
The perfect inland sea is the main culprit of the shield, because during the great geological ice age, each iceberg melt led to massive floods rampaging across this vast plain, ultimately like a flush toilet, using ice age-accumulated water resources to wash away the precious bit of weathered soil from the rocks into the inland sea, scraping the ground clean like asphalt after a heavy rain.
In the East, due to the second terrace Loess Plateau and rivers transporting and depositing from west to east, Divine Land’s regions take “soil,” this precious resource, for granted.
Xuan Chong: In later generations, even great deserts can be farmed by altering soil mechanics. But the Canadian Shield area might truly be hopeless.
Two hundred years ago, during Xian Han’s great expansion, they tried to enfeoff various unclaimed lands; after geographers inspected this place, they could only laugh and cry: “The plains are truly vast plains, but there’s no soil. Rivers flow exposed over granite bedrock, with shrubbery growing only in rock crevices.”
Back then, Xian Han’s imperial family disciples wouldn’t give up; they brought Luoyang shovels everywhere here, trying to find places to sow wheat. They discovered plenty of gold mines, but still lacked the most ordinary soil.
How to put this? Historically, when dynastic capitals were besieged, jewels and gemstones were extremely expensive but couldn’t exchange for a dou of grain.
Only where farming and settlement are possible, with prosperous population, do minerals count as “rich.” But without settlement, no matter how many minerals, they’re not yours.
Others can take them (with sparse population meaning no right to resist). Thus, Xian Han’s imperial family spat and collectively abandoned this land.
The famous Xian Han geographer Xu Zhen: “Whoever truly covets the gold mines here and migrates in; rest assured, centuries later during ‘heaven and man contradiction, great chaos under heaven,’ the entire clan will be utterly extinct.”
In Xian Han’s spacetime, Hudson Bay is called “Ice Heart Sea.” This naming signifies the despairing hearts of those pioneers back then.
Now these alien beasts probably just didn’t know the situation; seeing this land from space with its bays and green lushness (growing from rock crevices), they thought it a good place, resulting in a “splat!”—the meteorite spaceship hard-landed, shattering and exploding into pieces.
Meanwhile, the internal mushroom spores scattered, striving to absorb sunlight.
The Ouks took over a month to grow the first batch of beasts. But in acquiring weapons, they encountered the same problem as the northern Native Americans: no coal mines, no smelting.
Over billions of years on this land, glaciers repeatedly formed and receded, with great floods scraping the surface time and again, long ago stripping away any oil (organic deposits).
They couldn’t even dig trenches; this group of orcs wielding clubs and stone tools, occasionally with some trebuchets, ended up like dead flies in front of a screen, littering the ground with desiccated corpses baked by the sun.
…The exam paper appears, time to do the questions…
In Earth Shield Company, Jemint is in the laboratory, looking at the latest research data. Behind him, in a glass enclosure, some orc torsos are anesthetized and undergoing live dissection. The Ouk’s skin is cut open, veins injected with unknown medicine.
On both sides of the laboratory, a row of electronic screens hangs high. Three screens are directly conversing with Jemint. These three are classmates in this “exam.”
Jemint extracts a beast’s nerve bundle, places it under the microscope, observing this tissue structure that has both flagellate protozoan and plant characteristics.
Meanwhile, another group analyzes mineral indicators in orc tissue, judging the beasts’ “sprouting” areas via enrichment of trace elements like “selenium.”
One group hurriedly submits a report, having discovered abnormal “organic phosphorus compounds” in some beast bodies.
Under Jemint’s questioning, the researchers speculate: “Ocean—these beasts may be seeking a breakthrough in the ocean.”
Hearing this, Jemint opens communications to talk with “Green.”
At this moment, Green is in the northeastern bay, training wild dolphins to operate dorsal sonic weapons, forming an underwater detection troop.
Beside the massive aquarium pool, Green uses telepathic supernatural ability to issue assembly orders to the dolphins. Nearby, wooden speedboats carry charge bags, allowing dolphins to attach the magnetic charge bags under enemy warships.
After hearing Jemint’s message, Green says: “Confirmed? Interstellar orcs entering the ocean—never seen in other standard plot types.”
Xie Ming: “You not having seen it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. You should feel that permissions have expanded; this world’s plot has gone off the rails.”
Green: “Got it, just seal off the sea mission, right?”
After ending communications, Green activates his ability, and the dolphins in the bay begin “obeying orders” to form ranks.
At Earth Shield Company headquarters, after persuading teammates to investigate, Xie Ming makes another call, notifying the Atlantic coast guard to mobilize a batch of old warships to Ice Heart Sea.
After confirming the chimneys on these old warships can still smoke and the gun barrels can still turn, Xie Ming breathes a sigh of relief.
He returns to his laboratory, hesitates, opens his mobile phone, checks remaining “traffic,” and taps the download interface. In hesitation, he opens a simulation game called “Biochemical Infestation.”
Once downloaded, blood-red power swirls around him, condensing into a blood crystal on his wrist.
Contained within is a “consciousness virus” capable of rapidly altering organics; obtaining this, he heads to Lab Three, to the mushrooms, to begin infestation experiments.
Xie Ming chuckles self-mockingly: “Am I creating evil orcs?” But he shakes his head. Because these orcs that jumped ship from interstellar space are evil enough already.
…Students show their supernatural powers…
The perspective shifts to the Dayuezhi Plains area. Xuan Chong summarizes his findings during a warfare lull.
Xuan Chong: “These beings from beyond the heavens seem barbaric and absurd, entities our ethical logic can’t comprehend. But actually, they may be an advanced intelligent species evolved in a special direction.”
“What we can observe on the battlefield now is their bizarre ‘weapon assembly methods’ and powerful ‘tactical learning and imitation ability.'”
Xuan Chong’s pen tip lands on the “society” column: “They perhaps have a ‘perception’ beyond our imagination, able to directly ‘see’ the operational systems of other species they encounter, like us humans.”
Allow me to use the word “see,” because in the current war, we’ve discovered this group of orcs can rapidly imitate and approximate our military organization tactics.
On the slide materials, ten hours ago, Ouks were using skirmish lines to assault Han army positions! This skirmish line was exactly what Xuan Chong had been drilling in the rear.
Xuan Chong slowly says: “When they make such an ‘expression,’ we know they can directly ‘see’ our social activities.”
The reasoning logic is as follows.
Ancient saying: “How can you, not a fish, know the fish’s joy?”
Reply: Make the “joy” the fish itself narrates respond, rather than having someone answer for the fish.
Extending further, two people debating if another is deaf: “You’re not him, how do you know he can hear?”
Reply: “If I call him a fool and he slaps me back with a big palm, then he’s not deaf.”
By this logic chain, now Ouke Orcs can learn human tactics, assemble human equipment into weapons, charge over repeatedly slapping humans with big palms—this shows they possess an ability to “hear” human social communication information.
Xuan Chong thus guesses: The beasts can, like “monitoring radio frequencies,” eavesdrop on social conditions in various human circles.
The closer the circle communications in human organizational activities, the “louder the volume” in the Ouks’ “sense of hearing.”
Currently in Xian Han, the highest communication frequency is among industrial production groups. So after the Ouks landed, they spontaneously formed crude workshop organizations based on what they “heard.”
When Xian Han’s army pressed up, in their “hearing,” the “volume” of military tactics organization communications grew louder, so these Ouke Orcs, after just dozens of days of defeat, immediately “mastered” Xian Han’s tactical assault system.
Why can Xuan Chong guess this? Because he himself can hear “waaagh!”.
Also because that orc leader, before dying, looked at Xuan Chong with the gaze of “looking at one’s own kind.” Death wasn’t resentment, but relief—dying at the hands of an opponent who “should settle him.”
Xuan Chong’s pen tip trembles slightly as he writes: “They conjure from nothing the ability to assemble our industrial scrap into weapons, mirroring our tactics like a mirror, quickly keeping pace with iterations.”
In this world, does physics have theoretical elaboration on “brainwave dissemination in human communication”? Xuan Chong doesn’t know.
But transmigrating to this plane, Xuan Chong has witnessed true qi constraining birds, Tesla magnetic fields highly controllable to the point of optical invisibility.
Xuan Chong has no reason to deny the possibility of “aliens sensing Earthlings’ organizational communication brainwave states.”
Writing to here, Xuan Chong pauses; in this plane, his cultural level is insufficient—some previous-life plane terms, words coined in his original world, can’t be clearly expressed.
Xuan Chong now guesses: In this plane, when intelligent life (humans) communicates and actions reach a collaborative state, a “same-frequency” phenomenon may exist. Qin Tianyi, this art student, came here for the special exam precisely because of this.
These alien beasts can simulate the social states in humanity’s “consensus” response processes.
If the alien beasts truly evolved this way, they are likely a “military machine” crafted by a higher cosmic race.
Because the Ouks’ traits make their development goal too singular—this race “evolves for battle.”
