Alan sat down on the couch and grabbed the cup of coffee he was presented with.
— You can't drug me. I have a high resistance to poisons.
— No, no, don't worry. I just have an excellent friend and wanted to give him something to drink.
— I don't like coffee. Give me something else.
— Sorry, sorry. — Jaon looked at a servant, and she ran out of the room.
— I'm not happy. — Alan was not happy. That is unsurprising, seeing as his free day was stolen.
— I know, but I had no idea you made plans. I'm sure that you are angry because of that, but we should let bygones be bygones, and move on with our lives.
— Then, how about you just let me continue what I wanted to do? — Alan was extremely frustrated.
One sentence couldn't describe his negative emotions after Jaon told him to cancel his plans and go to the lab. Some talented scientists wanted to hear a lecture about research methods. Alan realized that he made a mistake by revealing his vast knowledge.
— You know I can't. Please do it for me. They're already here, so you just have to work with them for a day. I will pay you a lot. — Jaon joined his palms together into a praying pose.
Alan went silent and thought about what to say.
— Okay. But if they won't be cooperative, I'm out. — Reluctantly, he agreed.
— Great! Thank you for agreeing.
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— Welcome to my lecture on why the Zharian civilization is progressing slowly. — Alan sat down on a chair situated next to a whiteboard. — My name is Alan Coello, and I hope you will enjoy my teachings. — He looked up and saw the bare sky. The lesson was happening in a coliseum-like open space.
Students from the academy came to listen. Everyone pulled out their tablets to watch a video feed of a whiteboard next to a man wearing old, foreign clothes. He had cheap-looking pants and a jacket with an image of a sun trapped in a shield. It was Alan in his Sun Guardian uniform.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
— After each section ends, please ask questions to your heart's content. There should be a button that can do that on your devices.
Alan opened a bottle of water and took a sip. It took him quite some time to collect enough from Etia's hair in a process comparable to milking a cow.
— So, let's start with the positives of your situation. First, you can focus on everything not related to war. On the planet I was born, a war would start every few years. Because of this, all countries had to put a lot of effort into researching new weapons, like tanks, guns, and others. — He didn't know much about this planet's lost history, but he understood that not many conflicts were present.
Alan took a black pen and wrote: “+ peaceful focus” on the left side of the whiteboard.
— The next plus for you is how rich in materials your planet is. The surface area of your country is very small, and the only island is equal to around three percent of Earth's, land. Since you got that far with only a limited amount of resources, means that this limit is very high. If you can spread mining operations throughout the whole of Zhar, you will have enough building materials to colonize your stellar system. My civilization needed to spread around the entire world to collect enough resources needed to make a small city on the nearest planet.
Many people in the audience started listening more eagerly. At first, they thought that Earth was just a better plat, so Alan's tips were not useful. Now, there was a chance for them to jump over their limits.
— I talked over your positives, but now I will explain why they were negative for your development, and how to fix that. First, you need to make better weapons. Let me tell you a story from my home planet. — Alan stood up to turn around his char and sit in it backward. He didn't know that it was something women do to show they're interested in someone. Unsurprisingly, many people started laughing.
— Chuckle all you want, it's normal for me. Anyway, back to what I was saying. In the beautiful year 1939, a war encompassing the whole world started. Three years later, a project started. After working for around three more, they launched a bomb able to destroy a whole city In a blink of an eye. That was considered a tragedy, but it allowed for further research, which threw Earth into an era of peace. That also allowed us to use the source of that bomb's energy as a cheap and readily available energy source. Until the day I left my home planet, the quality of life was growing rapidly, and the top fifty countries were at peace with each other.
Alan made a pulse and allowed some people to formulate questions. In a few minutes, many notifications popped up on his phone and he touched one of them. It read, “How many countries are there?”
Alan picked up his bottle and took another sip.
— There are over 200 countries, but there were more in the past.
“How strong did the weapon get?”
— Enough to wipe out all zharians. Don't worry, you're very far away.
“How can we fix that?”
— The answer is very simple. — Alan took out a cigar and put it in his mouth, before lighting it up. — It's an announcement from your president, by the way. We're going to start a war.