Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1572 New Lake Nemi
"You can move everything? So... you're serious? You want to move the entire Lake Nemi there?"

"It's a small matter. But I just don't know if you care about a data copy or if you want the land moved as well."

"Just move the memes away—'Listen, doesn't this foolish pope know that Saint Constantine moved the imperial power, the Senate, and all Roman virtues to Constantinople? Nothing was left in Rome except a bunch of fishermen, peddlers, bird catchers, bastards, commoners, and slaves,' a quote also found in 'Nikephrus II Rebukes John XII.'"

"So how did the fisherman offend you?"

“My lord, that’s not the point. The point is—this isn’t the first time the Romans have done this. They did it once before when they moved from Rome to Constantinople. They can certainly do it again now. I’m confident the Romans will do it this time.”

“Okay.” Shangluo nodded. “Since you’ve made up your mind, I’ll call Victoria now.”

"So that's why," Victoria was still in the library.

She would never feel bored here. The Library of Alexandria had everything; she could stay there for a month without leaving the library.

"Wait a minute, I'm drinking tea. Let me throw this teacup away first. Okay. Could you please say it again? I'm afraid I didn't hear you clearly."

"In short, it seems we are dealing with a stock market guru. Blowing up the economic system was just an unintentional act on her part, and her actions have only just begun."

"What terrible things did I do to deserve encountering these demons and monsters?"

"What you say is true."

In reality, judging from the current situation, what Rome is encountering is indeed much "strange." Perhaps it's bad luck, or perhaps it's a problem with its fortune, Rome is often inexplicably knocked away by powerful beings passing by.

Ultimately, it all boils down to Rome's weakness. Look at the east; they remained unmoved throughout major events and were even able to prevent problems before they arose. For example, this matter is actually quite easy to investigate; you could just ask around at Lake Nemi and you'd know. Victoria could more or less guess some of the reasons. But they waited until you came to resolve it without coming up with a concrete solution. You see, that's the crux of the problem.

“Indeed,” Victoria could only nod. “Ultimately, Rome was too weak—but it doesn’t matter, now that we’re in our comfort zone. The main reason Cybernia is suffering an economic blow is because the drachma was the currency used in the past.”

"Wait, you're not using drachmas anymore?"

"We're still using it, but it's not as important to us as it used to be—currency is for exchange, right? The purpose of exchange is to share what we have. But everything here is data. What are we sharing? Everyone has 'something,' no one is without. What's truly scarce is no longer resources, but everyone's time and attention. The old monetary system is increasingly losing its original meaning, and companies are withdrawing from the stock market and moving into Cybernia's new production model."

"Oh, I see. So the reason you suffered economic losses earlier was because you didn't want to fight?"

"No, that's not it. It's simply that we can't beat them—economics is inherently chaotic, and who can be as chaotic as an elf? We couldn't even imagine that her purpose in making money was to lick every single coin. Anyway, if he stops when he comes to Cybernia, that's certainly a good thing. I guarantee she can make a lot of money, meet her expectations, and at the same time, her actions won't cause any losses to Rome—and she can even become a new driving force for Rome."

"We said before that we would provide some assistance to Karin's family, right? Should we address this together?"

"Is their home near Lake Nemi?"

"It's very close, probably a few hundred meters away."

"Then... let's just move the entire town of Achiria over here. I can handle that; all I need to do is scan and model the whole region and move it over. But speaking of which, where in the system do you plan to place it after moving it over?"

"She likes counting money, right? Then let her work on electronic payment systems."

“…” Victoria paused for a moment, “I feel like you’re some kind of wicked genie. Someone wishes they could count money until their hands cramp every day, and you arrange for them to be a cash register?”

“This is different from a cash register—our Miss Fox has made it clear that she doesn’t want to do a cash register. After all, a cash register can’t directly extract money from this system.”

"Oh, so you want it to become part of the financial system's architecture? That's a bit of an idea I can't comment on; I've never seen anything like it before."

"Don't worry, I've seen it, it works really well. It can increase the efficiency of retail payments, but it will charge a 0.6% transaction fee."

"How do you even know numbers? Well, since you have the knowledge, I'll listen to you."

Victoria's decision in this regard was very decisive—since she had decided to entrust everything to Shangluo, she would do so completely and would not offer any further opinions on the decision-making process.

"Phew." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, it was a close call."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I thought these animals also had a kingdom in the spirit world, where animal fairies sat in a row according to their hierarchy and nature, and their king was a rat or something."

"Did you see something strange?"

"I watched the videotapes in your room. They showed a mouse becoming the king of the cat kingdom and stuff like that. There was also a black cat sheriff in the police station who was catching a monkey-eating eagle."

"You've got them mixed up! These are two different cartoons!"

"These two aren't the same? The art style looks very similar to me, both are exquisite."

"Because these two films were indeed produced by the same animation film studio, and only five years apart. Um, I think you were watching a compilation, right?"

"Shangluo, can I show it to someone else?"

"No! I didn't say this before, but I'm telling you now. These things in my house can only be viewed at my house, not elsewhere." Technology is one thing; it's an objective reality. Every stroke in these artistic creations bears the creator's fingerprint.

It's not a good thing for these artistic works to flow in through public channels, because it will disrupt the original development trajectory.

Of course, Shangluo didn't mind sharing these things with his friends, since his presence here was itself a disturbance. His main purpose was to ensure that the cultural industry in the Ming Dynasty could maintain its independence from his "hometown" in the future, thus allowing for the production of unique artistic works.

For example, he's actually quite looking forward to seeing what it would be like if Wang Lingguan were adapted into an animated series or a tokusatsu drama. Currently, the creative process is mainly limited by technology; the filming of Wang Lingguan is too slow to be broadcast as a weekly drama series.

"Wait a minute." Just as they were talking about the environmental design of Cybernia, Shangluo suddenly remembered something. "Victoria, do you think Cybernia could be used as a stage set?"

"What do you mean? You want to make a movie about Cyprus?"

"No. I mean—for example, after we move Lake Nemi here, can we adjust the seasons and sunlight exposure of Lake Nemi?"

"Of course you can."

"Ah! Look, isn't this a wonderful photography studio?"

"Huh? Is it really that important when making a movie?"

"This is extremely important." Shang Luo had at least participated in the filming of an advertisement, and soon after, he would also have a "part-time job" as a stunt double at Yan Qiu's place.

According to his observations, a significant amount of effort is actually put into set construction during filming—because lighting directly affects the quality of the film. Natural light is not always sufficient, and sometimes a studio must be used to achieve stable lighting.

A very real problem is that sunlight is dynamic. A shot may appear continuous to the viewer, but it could be completely discontinuous during filming, with gaps of several days or even longer in between. This is all part of the editing process.

However, relying entirely on natural light can cause problems in the editing process.

Therefore, the simplest solution is to find a photography studio and set up a fixed lighting scheme for different time periods in the morning, noon, and evening.

Also, if it's not a sitcom, there are no fixed locations during filming, which means that lighting and sound recording need to be constantly adjusted according to the location of each scene.

But here, everything is different.

If Cybernia could provide a customizable photography studio, then lighting and cashiers wouldn't even be necessary during filming, because the entire process of the space could be preserved—sound, images, and so on, all arranged on a timeline.

This eliminates the need for lighting, sound recording, and even a photographer. Ideally, all unrelated personnel should be kept out of the way, allowing for the most accurate simulation of the natural environment.

This leaves the work to the editor. Editors can cut details from any angle within a 3D environment. In a sense, the editor's job becomes that of a "historian," editing a past event to extract a viewing experience that can be projected onto a fixed screen.

This is a completely new way of creating, and it can be extended to actual historical work. And all of this can be done in Cyprus.

"Ah!" Victoria thought for a moment, "So Cybernia is that important?"

"Isn't this your world? Didn't you notice?"

“Well, I don’t know everything either. Besides, I’ve been slacking off at your place lately, so I don’t know much about the latest developments here. I think other people have noticed the same thing. But among these people, it seems that only you can move the whole thing forward immediately.”

“Cebernia has great potential. The Fox Lady we're about to call, along with Karin, can create a real world. A second world that isn't virtual, but truly capable of supporting everyone's lives. Karin may be creating a game, but if the lives of so many people intersect within that game, then the game is more than just a game; it becomes a way of life.”

“Shangluo.” Victoria noticed the word. “You’re talking about lifestyles. Actually, the Roman Empire, which used the Pantheon, the city of Rome that once had a religious supermarket, was also a competition of various lifestyles, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Shang Luo nodded. “That’s why I said it’s exactly the same. What your life is like depends on how you allocate your time, because life is a verb, and the exercise of a verb requires interaction, and interaction is necessarily related to time. The future world will be a world where different lifestyles compete with each other.”

"Then, Cyprus is unlikely to be peaceful, because the exact same thing happened in Constantinople. You might know that the Grand Circuit in Constantinople had a motorsport festival. It used to be for horse-drawn carriages, but now it's for racing cars. According to historical tradition, there were several teams in the motorsport festival—the citizens of Constantinople would choose their own team, and a huge number of fan groups emerged between the different teams. These fan groups could even cover most of Constantinople's population, forming four huge camps: the Blue Party, the Green Party, the Red Party, and the White Party."

"Ah," Shangluo remembered, "I think I've heard of these things before. So they're still around?"

"Would you believe me if I said the Citizens' Assembly is also divided into the Blue Party, Green Party, Red Party, and White Party?"

"????"

"Yes, it's true. Sports have always been inseparable from politics. Historically, the most intense conflicts have been between the Blue Party and the Green Party, and now it's between the Red Party and the White Party. You could even label the citizens of Cyprus one by one according to their party affiliation, and they would all accept it gladly."

"How did this thing become something similar to an ethnic group?"

"Believe it or not, they're practically reproductively isolated from each other—though that's a joke, this activity has been going on for over a thousand years and has become part of Roman tradition. If you were to divide them up using a video game, I'm sure they'd form four gang-like entities and go on a killing spree. I think that's how it would turn out."

"

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(End of this chapter)