After a round of criticism towards the Mountain People, Ian assigned them a task in the central part of the Bison Mountain Range.
That task was to find the corpse of the Icefog Dragon, or its resting place, near the ’Great Snow Peak’ of the Bison Mountain Range.
For the Mountain People, it seemed not too difficult a task.
But those who have truly ventured into the mountains understand how difficult it is to search through a dozen peaks in such a high-altitude area.
However, despite the formidable challenge, the Mountain People were incredibly enthusiastic, even to the point of being fervent.
Because this was Ian’s first ’Holy Command’ issued under the name of ’Dragon God’s Emissary’—it was a directive he had never given before since the founding of the Supreme Spirit Sect; if accomplished, the glory it would signify was unimaginable, and every tribe wished to be the first to fulfill the task.
With the Mountain People’s issues resolved, things within the Xia Hui Territory were also proceeding smoothly.
Within four months, with the quiet promotion of the municipal government, a culture of keen learning gradually spread throughout the Xia Hui Territory.
Many families wanted to send their children to school for education.
This was due to several reasons.
Firstly, having someone in the household studying would qualify them for municipal subsidies—this was fundamental.
Secondly, based on this, students with top academic rankings could receive awards from the school, obtain scholarships, and material rewards like fruits and grain, and would have a better chance of finding jobs at the Alchemy Workshop.
In this regard, learning itself equated to benefits, and excelling meant potentially ’earning money’... instead of leaving children at home or having them assist with crafts, why not send them to school?
Schools, as public facilities, not only address educational dissemination but also help parents with childcare.
Then, there’s an interesting, almost anecdotal, yet real reason.
That reason is Ian himself.
It must be noted that attractiveness is indeed very useful in advertising.
To what extent is it useful?
It can motivate people to study quantum mechanics!
The father of quantum mechanics on Earth, Max Planck, was able to attract wave after wave of people to study quantum mechanics just because there was a picture of his youthful self in physics textbooks.
At the core, learning itself is an interest, and if you want someone to be interested in something... the most straightforward approach is indeed to have a good-looking person promoting it.
Ian, as a Lord, is strikingly handsome, and his promotion of the benefits of learning, declaring that his territory needs learned individuals... having reached this point, ’Why should we learn?’ is no longer a question, but ’Why not learn?’ is.
The principle of top-down influence cannot be overstated.
Finally, there’s another factor that fueled the people’s desire for learning within the territory.
At the beginning of December of Terra Year 774, with the assistance of the Elvish expert in Canaan Moore, the ’Information Terminal’ server was finally established in the Silver Peak Castle of the Xia Hui Territory.
With help from Yisen Gard in applying for approval and Crown Prince Carlos approving it, the Xia Hui Territory became the seventh trial site in the Empire to implement the information network management system, as well as the only terminal trial site in the South Ridge.
Under the modifications by Ian and Adalbert, the ’Heart of Terra,’ after five months of operation, gradually matured and secretly took control of the local information network in the Xia Hui Territory.
The first batch of users was, of course, municipal officials.
This was not a privilege for the officials; Ian needed to use the Heart of Terra to fully manage the Xia Hui Territory’s government, enabling it to directly take over government operations during critical moments.
The second batch of users was those individuals who excelled in both child and adult schools.
The Information Terminal could do many things; firstly, as ’mobile communication devices,’ it completely replaced the Empire’s internal ’communication devices’ similar to ’landlines’—the convenience of this is self-evident, making information exchange smooth and instant.
Secondly, as a product used for many years in Canaan Moore, the Information Terminal came equipped with many functions—such as assisted calculations, notebooks, basic common-knowledge inquiries, stopwatches, heart rate, and body temperature detection... practically a versatile little assistant everyone wanted.
Currently, the third batch of Information Terminals is being manufactured, with distribution standards being residence and tax payments in the Xia Hui Territory for over a year.
Unlike Canaan Moore, Ian even planned to add some small functions to the Information Terminal.
For example... games.
Spider Solitaire, Minesweeper, Snake, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, Tetris... and so forth.
The Information Terminal couldn’t handle overly complex things, but these simple games received rave reviews and even sparked waves of gaming fever within the Xia Hui Territory.
Competing on who could sweep mines the fastest, who completed the most Sudoku puzzles, who could last the longest in Tetris...
For Earthlings, these games might be considered outdated.
But for Terra’s impoverished people, who had lost their civilization and entertainment for a long time...
This was truly a delight!
To this, Ian was encouraging.
In Ian’s view, games are indispensable for the development of a civilization.
The original games were a simulation by Humans of social production, a form of learning through entertainment.
Later games promoted critical thinking, enhanced thinking patterns, and cultivated diverse cognitive abilities.
And even later... for example, the game industry on Terra greatly promoted important related industries.
The game industry boosted the development of computers, electronic core chips, graphics cards, and other specialized electronic facilities. These high computing power, highly specialized equipment, in turn, became the precursor to many technologies later on, such as AI technology on Terra.
Lenin once said: If a person does not know how to rest, he also does not know how to work.
Games are an extremely important component of the machine.
Indeed, this is true. A society that does not understand ’play’ and ’rest’ is absolutely unhealthy.