mechanical court

"You are right!"

Ptolemy raised his neck, plucked up the last courage, and said loudly: "You are a unparalleled powerhouse in the world. Even if the empire is destroyed, your majesty can survive alone. Therefore, I am really worried that you will treat the empire as private property and rush to once. Another gamble—if this continues, the great Menesian civilization will come to an end sooner or later."

"Well said! You have spoken out the thoughts of many people... You regard me as a tyrant and think that I only have myself in my heart. But I am not angry, I am very glad that you can tell the truth." Ivan looked at him calmly, with a smile on his face. Instead of showing anger, he smiled instead.

Chapter 1 Fifteen Disillusionment

However, Ptolemy felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar at this time, and he was afraid for a while, and even wished to slap his own big ear with his hand.

After plucking up the courage to vent out the emotions that had been buried in his chest for a long time, Ptolemy finally calmed down, and knew that he had made a big mistake, and he might die because of these words in the future.

Although the Sun King didn't look angry, who knows what His Majesty really thinks in his heart.He can express that he doesn't care if he is in a good mood, but what should he do when he is in a bad mood?

Will it be settled after autumn?

Thinking about it carefully, although I said these words frankly, there will be endless troubles.

"Didn't you imply just now that you are clever enough to refuse other people's persuasion, and your words are enough to cover up your own mistakes? Why don't you do that?"

Seeing him standing in front of him silently, Ivan stood up from the bench, walked over and patted him on the shoulder:

"Ptolemy, you are a smart man. I watched you step by step from an idle royal family to a cabinet minister. How can I not understand you? You already regard me as a gambler in your heart. Even if I have a mouth all over If you can’t tell clearly, why don’t you walk with me.”

"Go, where are you going?" Ptolemy was taken aback.

"Outside the sky!"

While speaking, Ivan's expression froze, and he grabbed his shoulders vigorously; a cold and hard metallic luster appeared on his skin, which was almost transparent, spreading to the whole body with clear metal pit lines.Immediately afterwards, his body radiated a lot of starlight from the inside out, interweaving radiation to form a projection of the universe; thousands of rotating stars could be vaguely glimpsed, showing a change in time and space different from the outside world.

The space in the study suddenly twisted and rotated, as if being squeezed up and down by some huge force, and soon there was only a pale afterimage left.

The whole three-dimensional space seems to be photographed into a plane in an instant, and then the sides are folded once, and the two coordinates that are far apart are also overlapped.After that, the flatness and two-dimensionality disappeared immediately, and the surrounding scenery returned to a three-dimensional space.

"..."

When Ptolemy came to his senses, he found himself suspended in the vast sea of ​​clouds, with a white circular steel city below.

The city is built on a plain with dense water networks. Countless trains pass quickly along the roads and bridges, and the traffic lights flicker frequently to control these long steel dragons; and every station on the track has a huge lifting platform, and mechanical equipment can handle the trains. The goods retreated into the platform, and the platform full of goods fell into the ground immediately, and then the underground rails pulled them to the next destination.

There are various factories in the city, and in the center is a reaction furnace similar to a metal volcano; a pipe with a diameter of tens of meters discharges a large amount of metal raw materials, which are continuously poured into the furnace.When the top cover is closed, the color of the volcano will quickly turn from black to red, and dozens of blazing pillars of fire will be ejected from the circular holes.

"Your Majesty, where is this?"

"This is Eaton Star, to be precise, it is the federal control zone of Eaton Star."

Ivan grabbed his shoulder with one hand, pointed to the steel city below the sea of ​​clouds with the other, and explained calmly:

"This city belongs to the Eaton Star Development Consortium. You can think of it as another Hyperion Development Consortium, except that the people on this planet have succumbed. You see, the Federation dominates everything on this planet, and they Occupied the Eaton Star market with advanced manufacturing. Now Eaton Star is full of Federation products, and even has no currency of its own."

"Digital currency?" Ptolemy's pupils shrank and his expression became serious.

"Yes, the economy of this planet is a set of data, which is linked to the central intellectual brain that manages the digital currency of the Federation. This means that the Federation people can use a digital symbol that is not even paper to continuously suck away the planet. all the wealth."

With that said, Yiwen refracted the light with the absolute domain, let the two enter the stealth mode, and entered the city.

The city is divided into five districts, and the five sectors form a complete circle, which is the entire territory of the city.

The city is full of dragons and snakes, colleges, hospitals, casinos, factories, wholesale markets, etc. You can find everything in it - the most shocking thing is the impoverished slums that occupy half of the urban area, where women don't even have a pair of pants .

"I don't understand! The production capacity of the federal people is so strong. They can obviously make everyone live a life of adequate food and clothing. Why are there so many slums?" Looking at the poor people who were barely human and hungry, Ptolemy endured asked angrily.

"However, this production capacity only belongs to the federal people. They came to this planet to make money, not to do charity. To them, Eatonians who cannot create value are garbage and can be discarded at will... As for those Eatonians who can create value people."

Ivan turned around and pointed to a tall white tower in the distance, motioning for the other party to see for himself.

With Ptolemy's super vision, he could vaguely see many Etonians in combat uniforms climbing up the spiral steps outside the tower, one by one like climbing termites.

"Mercenary?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes, the Federation's positioning of Eaton Planet is like—the source of war cannon fodder. Because of this, they will not develop the economy for this planet. Because these Eaton Star's cannon fodder is Eaton Star's best-selling product, Once Eaton's economy picks up, the number of people willing to serve as cannon fodder will definitely shrink—this situation is not in the interests of the Federation."

"It's just insane!"

Ptolemy clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and his body trembled violently due to excessive excitement.

one-one-one-one

Western star field, Taal Jupiter.

The capital of Tal Jupiter, the City of Moonlight, is a city built in the central area where two long rivers meet. These two surface runoffs flow southward for more than 700 kilometers, and then flow into the sea in the Sfenlik area.

The area where the two rivers flow is the most prosperous area in Talmu. In the past, this area was once called Tree China, because it is rich in giant trees, and people like to build houses on trees.Therefore, the Talmu civilization, also known as the Jumu civilization, has its own culture, language, religion, and even worldview and political system.

But since the federal power extended here, everything has changed.

First, the original regime in Talmu was overthrown and replaced by the Consul Republic that the federal people liked, and then the religion worshiped by the local tree gods quickly withered, and was replaced by the Holy See of Truth that the federal people believed in.Then came the reform of the language. The original language as a pictograph was regarded as a symbol of decay and obsolete. After being abandoned, it was replaced with a federal-style alphabet language.

In the end, even the education received by local children was uniformly federal.

……

Ivan and Ptolemy were walking on the streets of Moonlight City in stealth mode, watching the Talmu people who were speaking the official language of the Federation all over the street silent.

Looking at a tree god statue that collapsed on the road and no one cared about it, Ptolemy said bitterly:

"Where is Taal Jupiter here, it is simply a shrunken version of the Kashini Federation!"

"Yes, they gave up their own history and culture, and turned Talmuth into a replica of the Federation. They couldn't even understand their own ancient books. What's even more ridiculous is that even so, they still haven't been accepted by the Federation. Every year, I apply for the division that wants to become the Kashni Federation, but I get rejected every year." Ivan raised his head, looked at the space fortress suspended in the sky, and said in a flat tone.

"...This is the so-called wanting to be a dog but not getting it."

Ptolemy shook his head with a sigh, and said in a tone of hatred:

"The living standards of people on this planet are not very good. Not only are the core industries controlled by the Federation, but they can't even be self-sufficient in food."

"It's not that there is no way to be self-sufficient, but the agricultural products of the Talmu civilization cannot compete with the agricultural products of the federal industrialization, causing the self-cultivating farmers to go bankrupt. They have to work for the federal people, earn their virtual currency, and buy their food."

"It's just knocking the bone and sucking the marrow!"

"..."

The corner of Ivan's mouth raised slightly, and instead of answering his words, he asked:

"Ptolemy, let me ask you, can the giant tree civilization that has lost its language and writing still be called a giant tree civilization?"

"No, it doesn't count."

Ptolemy shook his head, looked around at all the federal-style buildings, and fell into a long silence.