Chapter 68: I Can’t Even See a Middle School Student’s Tail Lights

Chapter 68: I Can’t Even See a Middle School Student’s Tail Lights

Chen Feng felt quite helpless about this.

Highly developed technology and humanity’s vast knowledge base system had resulted in extremely refined social divisions of labor.

Although it was said that the human brain’s potential was limitless, life and time were finite.

Only a top scientific master of the current era, with terrifying intelligence surpassing their time, could possibly achieve the kind of encyclopedic mastery that allowed them to dabble in multiple fields.

But based on his previous understanding, during his past few visits, this era simply had no such person.

Gods existed only in fantasies.

Even the most elite scientists could only delve ever deeper into their respective fields, let alone Chen Feng, a new recruit whose background was that of a Subsistence Allowance Recipient from an artificial Embryo and who had never received any higher education before.

Currently, he had taken a shortcut and become an external staff member of the Pangu Institute.

The Pangu Institute and the Xuanwu Institute were also departments of equal standing, but it was a pity he was only an external hire for Pangu.

Besides, the difference between the words Pangu and Xuanwu was vast, and the two fields were not related.

As for the achievements in medicine and biology involved at the Pangu Institute, he mostly couldn’t understand them. As for treasure books like the Millennium Pharmacopoeia, which covered everything and involved explanations of various drug synthesis methods and ingredients, he couldn’t access them as an external staff member.

Lab rats had rights, but not enough privileges.

Blocking these “outdated” scientific achievements was, in a sense, the World Government’s protection for non-professionals. To be useful in postmodern society, one didn’t need to delve into the entire thousand-year history of technology; they should focus their precious energy on things they could use right now.

So, unless they were specialized researchers in the field, they were simply not allowed to see it.

Protecting a researcher’s time was equivalent to protecting their life.

Want to touch it? Still had to find a way to become a full member.

Forget it, I’ll figure it out later.

Really push me?

Ten years and a little over three months?

I’ll grind it out!

For me, that’s less than a year’s effort anyway!

But the cost of switching paths now was too high. Chen Feng was still exploring and didn’t dare gamble rashly.

And he could only become an intern at an external cooperative unit of the Xuanwu Institute? That was too pathetic, and the predicted access level probably wouldn’t be very high either.

If he really wanted to save the world, instead of all these fancy maneuvers, it would be better to keep copying a few dozen more of Liang Yuan’s songs, forcefully pushing Ou Junlang’s status in art history even higher, making sure that guy could never go back to the Ouhe Group. That alone would be a great deed.

A side note, Liang Yuan’s fate seemed pretty tough too; he still existed in history, just missing three of his representative songs.

And in this life, Liang Yuan’s achievements had declined slightly; he failed to break into the top 1000 of the previous millennium, but he was still a fierce artist in the 21st Century and had still harassed Zhong Lei.

Chen Feng definitely planned to give Liang Yuan a deep, personal greeting, making his name disappear from the history books.

During this 21st Century phase, there was nothing with high technical content to copy, so Chen Feng had no good ideas. He shifted his attention in another direction.

Over in the 31st Century, with his current access level, he could actually look up some substantial information.

These were technologies that current humanity could use, that needed to be pushed forward, widely present in high school and university textbooks.

When he was a Subsistence Allowance Recipient and a private before, he didn’t even have the right to look at textbooks. Now that he was a second-class citizen, he finally had the right to learn.

But…

He completely couldn’t understand it. It felt like reading pure gibberish.

He couldn’t even grasp the concepts of the various technical terms, let alone sentences composed of countless terms?

He lowered his standards and looked at middle school textbooks.

He refused to believe it. He was, after all, under the state of mental sharpness brought by the Coagulation Serum…

These were the basic knowledge for engaging in technically skilled work. He could somewhat understand a little now.

At least he recognized these words and had a vague concept in his mind.

But…

String Theory, Superstring Theory, Anti-Relativity, Neutrino Analysis, Entropy and Enthalpy, Principles of Fundamental Forces in the Universe, the Euphony Equations, the Relationship between Heuristic Thinking in Artificial Intelligence Networks and Geometric Mathematics, the Contingency and Regularity of Low-Energy-State Quantum Frequency Fluctuations in Quantum Communication…

Chen Feng slapped himself in the face hard.

What was all this!

I’m flipping through middle school textbooks!

Did middle schoolers a thousand years later play like this?

For the first three years as a lazy Subsistence Allowance Recipient, he had neither the qualifications nor any desire to ponder the world’s essence, unaware of how terrifying it was.

This time, a sliver of worldly ambition stirred in him, ignited by “Baptism of Fire” to want to improve a bit, so he gingerly touched this terrifying Pandora’s box.

Now it seemed, things like three-year drills and five-year college entrance exams were absolutely weak.

Forget it, better to honestly remain an ordinary person who only knows how to use things, without knowing why they work this way.

The World Government’s classification of the population had meaning.

Those who lived without using their brains were either Subsistence Allowance Recipients or practical operators; they didn’t need to care about the principles.

Those who lived using their brains, even if they were just grassroots employees related to research or production, were probably people whose intelligence Chen Feng, with his 133.233, couldn’t possibly comprehend.

“Weiwei, when you mentioned a learning time of ten years and over three months, did that mean without eating, drinking, or sleeping?”

“Yes, and it must be with one hundred percent perfect concentration.”

“I concede.”

Chen Feng, who knew his limits well, immediately gave up on trying to comprehend this era’s technology.

He shifted his attention back to the historical evolution of the Ouhe Group, planning to follow this thread forward and understand the entire millennium’s changes.

But a strong wave of drowsiness abruptly assaulted him. His eyelids instantly became too heavy to keep open.

The sofa automatically morphed into a bed. A box emerged beside it, and two long mechanical arms extended from below, pulling out the bedding inside and steadily covering Chen Feng.

Where his head rested, the sofa bulged a bit more, forming a snug, fully enveloping pillow.

Hissing metallic sounds came from under the bed frame as the sofa-bed automatically adjusted to his body curves, forming the most ergonomically supportive curves.

Chen Feng’s sleep this time was fairly sound.

He had a very long nightmare.

In the dream, he was roaring.

“Who said electrons aren’t discretely random in distribution! Relativity is relativity! How can there be anti-relativity! Light has wave-particle duality! Light and particles are both light! Quarks really are the smallest subdivision! They can’t be divided anymore!”

His mentality was completely shattered.

The next day at noon.

Chen Feng woke up on time, neither more nor less, having slept exactly ten hours.

He had too many dreams last night, leaving a slightly dizzy, tipsy feeling in his head.

Chen Feng wasn’t in a hurry to get up. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the sofa, lost in thought, feeling the sofa automatically prop him up.

He knew what he had dreamed about last night; the memory was very clear.

This “dream within a dream” was truly terrifying.

Well, whatever. As long as he didn’t harbor any unrealistic hopes, he would never be disappointed.

He’d just go back to studying historical materials. Better not dream any grandiose dreams of becoming a tech tycoon.

Currently, this path was a dead end blocked. Wait until later.

Thinking of the high-intensity learning cycle of ten years and over three months that Weiwei mentioned, converted in terms of his time, he would need at least thirty years, meaning over thirty trips back and forth across the millennium.

Who could withstand that?

Wasn’t it better to first earn more money, keep lifting Ou Junlang higher, and see if he could continue squeezing out Zhong Lei’s potential?

It was a pity he couldn’t copy the song “Baptism of Fire” this time, but it was fine, Zhong Lei had other new material this time.

“Chen Feng, how did you sleep last night?”

Having just finished washing up and eating the temperature-controlled nutritional meal delivered through the pipes, Chen Feng walked out of the dormitory door and saw Ding Hu’s stubble-covered face scrutinizing him up close.

Chen Feng took a step back. “Brother Hu, aren’t you going to lead the training?”

Ding Hu shrugged. “I have them running laps. Came back to check on you. Not bad, no issues.”

“You were worried I wouldn’t wake up?”

“Ha, how could that be. It’s just that Professor Ouyang asked me to keep a closer eye on you. You’re the treasure of all humanity now, you know.”

Chen Feng shivered. “Don’t be so sappy, ‘sweetheart’.”

“Ugh…”

This time, Ding Hu was the first to lose.

Ding Hu froze for a long time, shocked by that ‘sweetheart’, before remembering the business at hand. He slapped Chen Feng’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Where to? Regular training?”

Chen Feng wanted to say he really had no interest in regular new recruit training anymore; he had already done it three times before.

They say third time’s the charm; doing it again was a bit too much.

Ding Hu shook his head. “No. Considering your special circumstances, the higher-ups decided to let you directly enter adaptation training for the Azure Dragon Armor, starting with theoretical knowledge and simultaneously beginning simulator operations.”

“That’s great!” Chen Feng breathed a long sigh of relief.

He really… was already tired of showing off based on foreknowledge in routine training he knew by heart.

The two walked side by side deeper into the Base. Chen Feng remembered last night’s military song “Baptism of Fire” and said, “Right, Brother Hu, I didn’t have time to look yesterday and still couldn’t find out why ‘Baptism of Fire’ became a military song. Can you tell me a bit about it? Even if it’s a long story, you can make it short.”

Ding Hu sighed. “Alright. You know what? Actually, ‘Baptism of Fire’ can’t exactly be called a military song.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s our battle song for all humanity.”

“Huh?”

“Do you know the Xuanwu Research Institute?”

Chen Feng’s interest immediately grew. “I know. What’s the connection?”

“The story of ‘Baptism of Fire’ becoming our battle song starts from the predecessor of the Xuanwu Research Institute. It’s a very long story, and also a very sad one…”