Chapter 1224 – Sounding Out
Gaia 6th year, 12th month, 30th day, a System Notification sounded out around the world.

“World Notification: this is the 6th anniversary of Earth Online, the game will have its 7th update, effective immediately. Please go on the forums to check it out.”
…
The moment the notification went out, Ouyang Shuo went online to check the updates as usual.

1. Removal of refugee spawning

Due to the global situation already being settled, Gaia decided to remove refugee spawning. If the Lords wanted an increase in population beyond the natural process, they could only fight wars.

To dynasties, population meant labor.

Regardless of the era, labor was the foundation of a country. Gaia removing spawns affected dynasties with large territories the most.

Amongst them, Great Xia was naturally the most affected.

With the latest size of Great Xia, just a year of spawns would bring in close to 100 million. Removing the spawns meant that their rate of population growth would fall.

This also meant that they would not be able to maintain seven million troops for a long time.

Ouyang Shuo was depressed about it, but there was no flaws to this, and Gaia had a good reason for making this change. Since they wanted the game to be real, such a bug should not exist.

The various territories would have to go from chasing for quantity to chasing for quality.

2. Changing the settings of the trial lands

From the 7th year onward, after a country was wiped out, its players would no longer be teleported to the trial lands. Instead, they would obtain NPC like treatment, and they could either surrender or join other dynasties.

In theory, such a setting weakens the difficulty of wiping out a country.

However, this was on the condition that the two countries had a similarity in culture or things would be difficult.

Gaia made this move to solve the problem due to removing the spawning of refugees. The huge player group was undoubtedly a talent pool and treasure to a territory.

Ouyang Shuo could not help but wonder whether the legendary trial lands were already filled with players, which was why Gaia removed that setting.

The trial lands still had not revealed its mysterious veil.

3. Changing the settings of the beast caves

The beasts would not charge out of the caves immediately. Instead, they might use the cave as a center to build a solid base to slowly eat away at the surrounding territory.

This also meant that the beasts were becoming smarter and harder to deal with.

In the foreseeable future, there would be monster forests, monster mountains, monster valleys, and more in the wilderness, becoming a huge problem.

Similarly, there would be more good places for adventure gamemode players to be at.

4. Releasing the rewards of the 1st industrial revolution.
Removing the technology tree restriction of the 1st revolution, as long as the world had relative research ability, they could develop relevant items and technology.

The 1st industrial revolution started with the birth of machines with the steam engine as the symbolic item. Machines replaced manual work, starting revolutions in metallurgy, sewing, agriculture, and more.

Sewing machines, steam engine, steam powered cars, steam powered ships, and the like were all born.

Gaia was trying to spread such technology to move the wilderness from an agriculture civilization to an industrial civilization to totally change the global landscape.

Ouyang Shuo felt lucky, lucky that he had started the full scale industrialization at the start of the previous year.

From now on, apart from wars, the world would have a new round of economic and technological battles.

Any Lord with a brain would be able to guess that Gaia would definitely remove the 2nd and even the 3rd industrializations.

Before this, whichever dynasty had better technological preparation and skills storage would have the lead.

The above four were the main contents, and there were no new information pieces, signaling that the game world that Gaia had built was becoming more and more perfect.

Gaia was reducing its interference in the game world and allowing it to develop on its own.
…
Shanhai City, palace.

Another year had passed. Ouyang Shuo stayed alone in the Imperial Reading Room, looking back at the past year.

Since the Federation had disbanded and Skynet took over, although there two new opponents had appeared, Ouyang Shuo had placed down the heavy burden and started to show his skills.

Toward the outside, although Morocco Province fell, he had taken down Johor, Piao, three islands of Java, Ethiopia, Maldives, Hawaii, and Ecuador, a bountiful harvest.

Internally, he had done even better, taking down Han and Qing and making Jin, Sui, Shu, and West Xia submit. Along with Xiong Ba and Zhan Lang joining, him unifying China could not be stopped.

The expansion of the territory resulted in an upgrade of military strength, population, and resources.

After a year of hard work, Great Xia had huge breakthroughs in terms of both internal politics and external diplomacy, slowly breaking out of the control of Silver Hand and Azure Badge and building a stable foundation.

Although that was the case, Ouyang Shuo showed no signs of relaxing.

The 7th year of Gaia was one that was filled with many opportunities and challenges, and he need to proceed forward.

Internally, he needed to continue to perfect the military and improve its quality. Externally, with the Africa and America battlefields as a medium, he would start world domination.

Apart from expanding, internal politics was really important.

Ruling this huge dynasty so that it did not deviate from its path was his mission.

Especially with industrialization coming aggressively, Great Xia needed to change and move its resources to perfect the industry organization and deepen the dynasty’s roots.

Apart from that, along with a new layer of nobles rising up, how to balance the various powers and strength their stance against the external enemy was a huge test for Ouyang Shuo.

With a huge dynasty spreading for thousands of miles and hundreds of millions of people, Ouyang Shuo could not even go and tour the land.

He needed to rely on the civil servants and generals.

Historical talent system, native system, player system, commoner system, Han Dynasty system, Tang Dynasty system, royal family system, imperial relative system, core system, overseas system…

The current Great Xia was filled with many dynasties and provinces, having many factions and groups. It was extremely complicated like a huge net.

Ouyang Shuo stood at the center of that huge net.

Today, Ouyang Shuo had just hit 30. In the history of China, he had to be the youngest person with the heaviest burden.

One must not only look at how Great Xia was soaring ahead. Ouyang Shuo had taken charge of the capital, having civil servants helping him internally and generals externally. He was able to enjoy glory and honor. However, no one could understand his pains.

As long as he was in the Capital City, he had to spend the whole day till the dead of night to read memorials, exhausting all his energy. He was unable to relax at all.

To use ‘on thin ice’ to describe his situation was really apt.

Such hard work was both a rare learning opportunity and a responsibility he could not push away.

Normal players, even top ones like Blood Romance, could not even imagine that emperors like Ouyang Shuo were not even on the same level as them.

One could even say that they belonged to two different worlds.

Ouyang Shuo was strong, not only because his talent but also because of the daily training in the 6th year.

An environment could change and train someone.

The position Ouyang Shuo was at was the dream of many, but it was something one could not get. It was like Gaia was using large amounts of game resources to develop Ouyang Shuo’s talent.

Hundreds and thousands of historical talents, hundreds of millions of civilians, and even huge amounts of players could be seen as part of his training, pushing him from a commoner boy to his current level.

This was both an opportunity and a furnace.

Tempering him into steel was the final goal.

Although Ouyang Shuo had not forgotten his original purpose, he had no choice but to take up the responsibility of spreading Chinese civilization to the rest of the world and make it the foundation for the future on Planet Hope.

Such a responsibility in the hands of a normal person like Ouyang Shuo was naturally terrifying.

Since the 5th year, Ouyang Shuo’s advantages had ceased to exist. He had to fully focus and learn properly to direct the dynasty in the correct direction.

He had to worry every moment, as any tactical mistake would result in huge losses for the dynasty.

Outsiders only knew that Great Xia was proceeding smoothly, but how would they know that Ouyang Shuo had many sleepless nights to set a strategy for the dynasty?

Only his wife could understand.

For that, Song Jia resigned from all her roles and gave up on her dreams. She became the woman behind Ouyang Shuo, managing the back palace and helping him make a little heaven that he could rest well in.

The husband and wife duo heavily relied on one another.

The road to the top was never a smooth and easy one. Most of it consisted of thorns, loneliness, sacrifices, and giving up on one’s dreams.

Just as Ouyang Shuo was deep in thought, a crisp voice spread from the outside, “Brother!” The voice was like a fountain washing away at the depressing atmosphere of the room.

It was like a ray of light shining into Ouyang Shuo’s heart, making him smile uncontrollably.