Chapter 50: Expanded Field of View
Dust swirled.
The corpse of the Supreme Bright King and the colossal handprint slowly emerged from the dust, growing clearer with each passing moment. From atop the city walls, the sight was utterly devastating.
The original forty-two residents of Gao Family Village had witnessed such a spectacle before, yet the repeat performance left them just as awestruck. With a chorus of soft thuds, they dropped to their knees, filling the ground in an instant.
Next, the new villagers, followed by Bai Yuan's tenants and retainers, knelt in succession, bowing their heads to the earth in profound reverence.
Even Bai Yuan, ever the picture of pride, was utterly stunned by the scene. The impact on him, in that moment, surpassed even that felt by the common villagers.
He turned his head to see San Shier and his wife, Mrs. San, dutifully kneeling alongside the other villagers.
A murmur rose from every throat: "All hail the Heavenly Lord!"
Just then, the curtain on Bai Yuan's large family carriage was flung aside. A middle-aged woman and a young man emerged, quickly followed by Bai Yuan's wife and son themselves. The instant they stepped down, they too dropped to their knees, their bodies pressed to the earth, heedless of the dust and mud staining their garments.
Bai Yuan surveyed his surroundings. He was the sole figure still standing in Gao Family Village, an incongruous sight among the kneeling populace.
Indeed, during the Ming Dynasty, many scholars considered Daoist robes to be the height of fashion. Daoism, in the popular consciousness, was a perfectly legitimate faith, and its immortals were, without question, worthy of reverence.
Having thus reasoned with himself, his knees no longer felt so stubbornly rigid.
Bai Yuan finally knelt, joining the chorus: "All hail the Heavenly Lord!"
From "the sky," Li Daoxuan observed the multitude of tiny figures kneeling below. A slight curve touched his lips as he prepared to bid them rise.
Suddenly, a strange sensation prickled him.
From each kneeling figure, a faint cluster of luminous specks ascended, hovering in the air like myriad fireflies. These shimmering points then drifted towards the Dao Xuan Tian Zun Temple at the heart of the village, gathering together.
The village's existing population of over one hundred and fifty, combined with the more than one hundred individuals Bai Yuan had brought, swelled the total to nearly three hundred. Each person emitted a single point of light, creating a swarm of almost three hundred luminous orbs that sequentially streamed into the Dao Xuan Tian Zun Temple, coalescing within its walls.
Then, the temple erupted in a brilliant golden radiance!
It was as if a colossal golden lantern had been ignited within the diorama box.
The miniature figures appeared oblivious to the golden glow, not even a flicker of their eyelids. Yet, Li Daoxuan found himself blinking, momentarily overwhelmed by its brilliance.
When his vision cleared, he was astonished to discover five new buttons arrayed in the corner of the box, each labeled: "East," "South," "West," "North," and "Center."
A peculiar intuition stirred within Li Daoxuan, akin to suddenly understanding a pivotal game mechanic.
Could these five buttons possibly do what I suspect?
Time to find out!
He pressed the "East" button.
The village within the box seemed to instantly glide slightly towards the left, noticeably shrinking the visible area to the village's left while expanding the view to its right.
He pressed "East" again, and the buildings and miniature figures glided further left, revealing yet another segment of the rightward vista.
He rapidly tapped the "North" button a few times.
The entire village appeared to drift southward, and the northern field of view expanded, revealing a small hillside. A stand of skeletal trees, their bark entirely stripped, covered the slope.
This was the very hillside where Zheng Daniu had previously felled trees, a place previously beyond his sight, now clearly visible.
"The field of view can now pan in all four cardinal directions," he mused.
Li Daoxuan was ecstatic. "Haha, the field of view has finally expanded!"
So that’s it, I finally get it! Starting with the Deity Temple was indeed the correct strategy. The temple serves as the central point, and the number of worshippers dictates the radius of my observable world.
Initially, a mere hundred or so worshippers hadn’t met the minimum requirement for field of view expansion. But with the addition of another hundred-plus, the condition was now satisfied. Thus, the five "East, South, West, North, Center" buttons materialized on the box, empowering me to navigate and observe the newly revealed portions of the world.
Li Daoxuan enthusiastically hammered the "North" button, but quickly realized it had become unresponsive...
Rather, despite his presses, nothing happened; the field of view refused to budge further north.
"Has the northern edge of the field of view been reached?" he wondered.
A tap on "Center" instantly re-centered the view, snapping back above the Dao Xuan Tian Zun Temple.
He then cycled through all four directional buttons, East, South, West, and North. Taking out a ruler and applying the 1:200 scale, he swiftly calculated that the village’s field of view had expanded by approximately 500 meters in each cardinal direction.
A modest increase, to be sure!
Naturally, this was due to the relatively small increment in worshippers.
But that was beside the point. Simply understanding the mechanism for field of view expansion was a significant breakthrough. Moving forward, by consistently increasing his worshippers, he could ensure continuous expansion.
"Hold on," he pondered. "If I could exploit a bug, a loophole in the system, and physically lift the Dao Xuan Tian Zun Temple with my hand, then re-place it at the very edge of the expanded view, wouldn't I be able to see even further?"
No sooner had the thought formed than he acted, reaching out for his Daoist temple.
But it was futile. The diminutive temple was enveloped by a peculiar protective barrier, preventing his hand from grasping it.
Li Daoxuan opened a Notepad file on his computer and meticulously logged his discoveries for the day.
1. The focal point of the diorama box's field of view is the Dao Xuan Tian Zun Temple, and its radius is directly proportional to the number of worshippers.
2. The field of view can be navigated using the five directional buttons—East, South, West, North, and Center—but the objects and miniature figures within maintain their consistent 200:1 scale relative to the real world.
3. The box incorporates an anti-exploit mechanism, preventing any physical manipulation of the Daoist temple by me.
With these points recorded, he stretched luxuriously, a deep satisfaction blossoming within him.
Peering back into the diorama box, Li Daoxuan saw Gao Family Village bustling with activity. The villagers, much like after the last bandit raid, were already hard at work cleaning up the aftermath.
A group of villagers were diligently removing the bandits' corpses. Their clothing, naturally, was stripped off—not a single scrap of fabric could go to waste. All weapons were confiscated and distributed, and any scattered copper coins found on the bodies were claimed by whoever happened upon them, a matter of pure chance.
The naked bodies of the bandits were carried out of the fortress. A large pit was dug on the hillside, into which they were unceremoniously tossed and buried.
Thanks to Li Daoxuan's biased intervention, the entire village had emerged largely unscathed. Ironically, the most seriously injured was one of Bai Yuan's own retainers. While tipping a pot of scalding oil down onto the attackers, he had accidentally splashed some onto his own leg.
Now a patch of skin on his leg was badly blistered, and he groaned miserably with pain.
A few villagers were rinsing his leg with cold water, hoping to alleviate the burning sensation. However, they possessed no specific remedies for burns; beyond the cold water rinse, their options were exhausted.
Li Daoxuan pulled open his drawer, rummaged for a tube of "Potent Brand Burn Ointment," squeezed out a minuscule speck, smaller than a sesame seed, and gently lowered it into the diorama.
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