Zao Ying peeked into the library and immediately froze for a second.
The place was a mess of manuscript paper everywhere, sheets piled on desks, spilling onto the floor, overlapping like fallen leaves after a storm. At the center of this chaos, a middle-aged man hunched over a table, completely absorbed, his brush moving nonstop across the paper.
Next to him stood a young noble-looking boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen, arguing with him in a rapid, heated exchange.
Zao Ying listened for a few moments and her brain almost shut down.
"Mass… coefficient of friction… lateral force… longitudinal force…"
What in the name of Jianghu were these words?
Meanwhile, Li Dao Xuan, watching from above, actually understood quite a bit.
Song Yingxing was progressing frighteningly fast. It had only been a few days, yet he had already finished everything at the elementary math level and was now working through first-year physics and chemistry. His pace was just slightly behind the young master beside him, but he was catching up like a man possessed.
Naturally, that made the young master feel pressure.
Song Yingxing spoke while scribbling furiously, "After learning that matter is composed of things like molecules and atoms, I can roughly guess why a spring, when heated until red-hot and then rapidly cooled, regains its elasticity. It must be that the heating and cooling process causes changes at the molecular or atomic level, though we currently have no way to observe such changes directly."
The young master replied without hesitation, "If we build a magnifying lens, we should be able to see it, right? We already studied the principles behind magnification. We could ask a glass craftsman to make one and test it."
Song Yingxing shook his head slowly. "Difficult. Too difficult. Our glass craftsmen can at most produce lenses that magnify two or three times. To observe molecules or atoms, we would need magnification in the hundreds. That level of craftsmanship is far beyond them."
Hearing this, Li Dao Xuan suddenly had a realization.
In the modern world, when students learned physics, chemistry, or biology, they did not just read textbooks. They had experiments. They had microscopes. They could actually see cells, bacteria, and other microscopic structures, which made the abstract knowledge tangible.
But his little people had none of that.
The "immortal tools" described in the Heavenly Book were far beyond their reach. Building such instruments themselves was basically impossible.
And without experiments, how could science truly take root?
That would not do.
Li Dao Xuan immediately opened an online shopping app and started searching.
As expected, there was no such thing as a "miniature microscope for tiny people." Everything was designed for normal human scale, which made it absurdly large for the miniature world.
But then he noticed something interesting.
A small microscope, when placed upright, was only slightly taller than the rooftop of a five-story school building in the miniature world.
If he placed the microscope next to the school, the tiny people could climb up to the rooftop, build a platform, and access the top viewing lens from there.
Meanwhile, the stage where samples were placed was roughly at the height of the second floor.
They could simply climb out of a second-floor window and place objects onto the stage.
Using similar methods, many modern experimental tools could be adapted for use by the miniature world.
Li Dao Xuan grinned. Problem solved.
Without hesitation, he started adding microscopes, physics apparatus, chemistry sets, and all kinds of experimental equipment into his cart like a man on a shopping spree.
Buy, buy, buy.
At that moment, Zao Ying finally spoke up, "Excuse me… who is Master Song?"
Song Yingxing lifted his head from the mountain of papers. "That would be me."
Zao Ying said, "Instructor He told me to come find you. He said you could provide design drawings for bows suitable for cavalry use."
Song Yingxing waved his hand casually. "Ah, something this trivial again. Let me think. For cavalry, the obvious choice is the Kaiyuan bow. Border troops typically use that. Don't tell me your Gao Village Family cannot make Kaiyuan bows yet?"
The young master beside him chuckled and shook his head. "We cannot. We have never developed bow-making technology here. Dao Xuan Tianzun skipped the entire tech tree."
Song Yingxing clicked his tongue. "Fine, I will draw one."
He picked up a brush and paper and began sketching rapidly.
Within moments, the Kaiyuan bow was fully drawn, complete with detailed annotations explaining materials, curvature, and structural design. He handed the paper to Zao Ying as if he had just scribbled a grocery list.
"Take it."
Then he immediately buried his head back into his research, completely ignoring her existence.
Zao Ying stood there holding the blueprint, her mind slightly blank.
Who exactly was this man?
He could casually draw the standard weapon of border cavalry on the spot, with full technical detail, like it was nothing.
This place… was seriously not normal.
She walked out in a daze.
Above, Li Dao Xuan could not help but chuckle.
That Kaiyuan bow was fine for now, but it was just a transitional phase. Once firearms were mass-produced, even cavalry would switch to guns.
Dragoon units.
Just thinking about it made him grin.
Then suddenly, something caught his attention.
Outside the box, a line of text began to glow.
At first, Li Dao Xuan thought one of his villages was ringing a bell to call him, but when he looked closer, he realized it was his "Rescue Index."
It had quietly reached exactly 1500 points.
And beneath it, a new button had appeared.
"Expand."
The button was flashing.
Li Dao Xuan's eyes lit up instantly.
"A new function? Expand… don't tell me it's exactly what I think it is?"
To be honest, he had been wanting to expand the box for a long time.
The current box was just over two meters long and a bit more than one meter wide, giving him a viewing area of only about 500 by 300 meters.
That field of vision was already too small.
As his territory grew larger, the limitation became more and more obvious.
Recently, he had even noticed that he could no longer keep up with rainfall.
Because he could only see a 500 by 300 meter area, he could only make it rain within that limited zone. And rain was not something you could just sprinkle casually for a few seconds. To properly nourish the land, it needed hours, and it had to be repeated every few days.
There was no way he could manage that for every village.
So instead, he had resorted to building large reservoirs and letting villagers dig irrigation channels themselves. It worked, but it was far less effective than natural rainfall.
Now, this "Expand" function was clearly meant to solve that problem.
Li Dao Xuan was ecstatic.
He immediately reached out to press the button.
But just before his finger touched it, he froze.
Then he slowly withdrew his hand.
He looked around his surroundings.
The box was currently sitting in his bedroom. To the left was his computer desk, to the right his bed, a chair in front, and a wall behind.
There was practically no extra space around it.
If he pressed "Expand" now and the box suddenly grew larger, something would definitely get crushed.
Maybe the furniture.
Or worse.
The box itself.
If furniture broke, it was no big deal. He could always buy new ones.
But if the box broke…
The consequences were unimaginable.
The miniature world could suffer a catastrophe and everyone inside could be wiped out.
The miniature world could merge with reality, and suddenly Ming dynasty people would be running around everywhere.
Or the two worlds could collide and explode, taking everything with them.
Just imagining it made his scalp tingle.
"No way. I need to move it first."
Li Dao Xuan looked around again and made a decision.
The bedroom was too small.
He had to move to the living room.
He cleared out a large open space in the middle of the living room, then carefully dragged the box out of his bedroom and placed it there, preparing for what might be a very, very big upgrade.