Chapter Fourteen: Perseverance

"Seven hundred push-ups in an hour? Hah, that's not something you can do just because you have hands," Li Daoran muttered to himself.

"I'm just an ordinary person, inexplicably burdened with the fate of all humanity. Fine, I'll give it a try. But let me say this first—if I can’t do it, there's nothing I can do about it. Don't blame me," he said.

After negotiating with the void for a moment, Li Daoran took a deep breath, adjusted his mindset, and determined to succeed in one go. The task seemed to allow unlimited attempts, but in reality, the more he tried, the slimmer his chances. If he failed the first time, it was almost certain he wouldn’t finish it today.

He shook out his hands, got into push-up position on the floor in his room, and began. Beside him, Dabai counted mechanically.

After half an hour and four hundred push-ups, Li Daoran felt he could make it. Sweat pooled on the floor; he didn’t even have time to wipe his face.

He persisted, sweat dripping into his eyes, mixing with tears as he squinted. His pace slowed, but the thought of each volunteer who had suffered for him flashed through his mind, his parents, and Chen Ming’s words: "As long as you have legs."

Finally, with Dabai’s announcement—seven hundred—his watch chimed with a task completion notification. Li Daoran managed a smile as he collapsed to the floor, but this time, he didn’t black out.

After a long while, feeling returned to his body. He slowly sat up, his arms aching to the core. Too tired to change, he went straight to shower, the sticky sweat leaving him uncomfortable.

Afterward, Dabai used a dryer to blow him and his clothes dry together, and Li Daoran felt much better.

Lying in bed, he glanced at his watch. He had completed 700 push-ups in 56 minutes and 48 seconds. Task complete.

"Please select your courses. Today's options: Mech Maintenance, War Command, Starship Navigation, Battle Armor Operation, Sniper Artillery, and more.

Please choose at least two as your main subjects. There will be a monthly assessment. Passing a subject grants one merit point. Multiple selections allowed.

Minors: International Situation, Diplomatic Discourse, Internal Affairs Guidance, Moral and Political Thought, etc.

Please choose four as your minors. Assessment every two months; passing a subject grants one merit point. Multiple selections allowed."

The dazzling array of courses left him dazed. There were over a hundred main courses covering every aspect of war, all freely selectable. There were over two hundred minor courses, making four hundred in total.

Li Daoran hadn’t asked how many merit points were needed to exchange for a genetic serum, but if he chose and passed all the courses, he could earn 500 points in two months. As for passing the exams—he already had plans to cheat. With compulsory education behind him and billions helping him take open-book exams, how could he not pass? The only question was whether he could select that many courses simultaneously and whether he had enough time to absorb all the information.

With that, Li Daoran opened International Situation first. This, he’d discovered, was a loophole—or perhaps it was by design. Even if he didn’t select a course, he could still preview it.

He chose it because humanity urgently needed to understand this world, and the name alone made it clear: this was exactly the information he needed.

His watch projected a three-dimensional image into the room. Leaning in bed, Li Daoran watched intently at first.

But gradually, he could no longer follow. The course was dry and tedious, nearly putting him to sleep. He set it to maximum—10x speed. The course was about eighty hours; if he chose it, watching an hour a day would suffice before the two-month assessment.

Afraid he wouldn’t learn it? It didn’t matter—that wasn’t his problem. The main subjects were trickier, especially things like Mech Operation, where cheating would be impossible since it required hands-on practice. As for War Command, he wasn’t worried; just because he didn’t understand didn’t mean all humanity wouldn’t.

And so, he stayed in his room for over eight hours straight. Dabao fetched lunch and dinner from his stomach, and Li Daoran didn’t pause, eating one-handed in bed—a must-have skill for any recluse.

It was mind-numbing; at 10x speed, the images flashed by in an instant, yet he had to keep his eyes glued to the screen, missing nothing. Forced to endure such boredom without falling asleep was a challenge in itself.

After finally getting through it, he remembered that humans didn’t understand the language or script of this place—his head throbbed at the thought.

Seriously? Would he have to watch again on Water Blue Star and translate as he went? That would be the death of him. No, he’d have to find a way for humanity to learn the common tongue—after all, that was his goal this time.

He considered for a moment. "Dabai, get me a basic character guide and a dictionary."

"Alright, sent. Please check your watch."

His watch flashed; a basic language course and a universal language dictionary had arrived. The dictionary was an intelligent, searchable software, not a dense paper tome. But when he saw its size, despair washed over him—it was ten times larger than all the courses combined. If he had to translate it all for humanity, he’d die of old age before finishing.

He opened the basic language course and set it to 10x speed. He’d given up resisting—how much they could learn would depend on their own abilities. He would never be anyone’s translator in this life.

The next morning, Dabai woke him. Groggy, he brushed his teeth and washed his face, staring at the dark circles under his eyes in the mirror as a headache set in again. The basic course was over a hundred hours; he’d fallen asleep somewhere in the middle.

Eating breakfast, he checked his watch—new task: finish 700 push-ups in an hour.

"Not again? Never mind, I’ll finish the language course first and do the push-ups tonight."

He opened the language course; the watch was smart enough to pick up where he left off—60 hours, 20 minutes, and 35 seconds in, just over an hour left.

Just as he was about to finish, the space around him shattered.

He opened his eyes to find himself back on Water Blue Star.

Chen Ming stood by his side, waving a hand in front of his face. "Hey, you’re back."

Li Daoran blinked, sat up, and replied, "Yeah, I’m back."

Chen Ming gave him a hug. "You’ve worked hard."

Li Daoran's eyes grew red. He quickly rubbed them, making the white-coated doctor nearby tense up, wanting to speak but holding back.

In the end, the doctor couldn’t resist. "Mr. Li, please don’t rub your eyes. It’s a bad habit and can easily cause eye damage. In severe cases, it might even lead to blindness."

"Ah, oh, sorry. I understand," Li Daoran replied hastily.

Chen Ming released him, asking anxiously, "Are your eyes uncomfortable? Should we check them? Is it because you stared too long over there? Are your eyes sore? What’s wrong exactly?"

At his words, every doctor in the room became alert.

"Medicine? Eye fatigue relief? What? You didn’t prepare any? What’s your job, then? You didn’t prepare something so important? Levofloxacin, erythromycin? Are you out of your mind? Who’s responsible if something goes wrong? You dare use antibiotics? Tomorrow, I don’t want to hear your voice again, understood? Massage? Good idea—now, immediately, find someone, got it?"

He hung up, looking at Li Daoran with a pleading expression.

"I’m fine, really. If there was anything wrong, you’d have noticed by now, wouldn’t you?" Li Daoran said, easing the doctor’s nerves.

"Now that you mention it, my eyes do feel a little sore," Chen Ming said, putting on a show.

The doctor tensed up again, making more calls.

"Hurry, tally up how many people are experiencing eye discomfort. What? It’s subjective and hard to quantify? I don’t care. I want a report in ten minutes—understood?"

He hung up and, looking grave, walked over to Chen Ming, paper and pen in hand. "Mr. Chen, can you describe your symptoms?"

Chen Ming laughed. "I’ve been awake for almost two days, same as you. Don’t your eyes hurt? I was just joking. It’s probably nothing."

The doctor shook his head. "We still need to keep track. If there really are side effects, it’s no small matter. Don’t take it lightly."

Chen Ming shrugged, patted Li Daoran’s shoulder, and said, "You did great—better than me."

"Really?"

"At least I couldn’t stare at high-speed footage for hours on end. You did great."

"It’s nothing. I used to spend a whole day at home watching trashy movies without moving."

"Hah, trashy movies have made a great contribution to humanity."

"And those 700 push-ups?"

"Isn’t it just a matter of having hands?"