A Thousand-Year Empire, Beginning with a Tribe

I’m here to conquer. I’m a barbarian, and I’m going to fight every famous battle in history. I am mighty and valiant, brave, wise, and resourceful. I will unite all the tribes. Spear in hand, long hair flying, I’ll ride freely across the wasteland with my loyal followers, gazing up at the stars and letting out a roar. The stars are packed tight across the night sky: they’re the enemy’s orbital platforms armed with space-based lasers. Great chieftain, you will face electromagnetic railguns, stealth aircraft with anti-gravity technology, drone swarms, and seas of robotic dogs. Are you confident? I am the noble Ji Zhuren, versed in strategy and well-read in Sun Tzu’s Art of War and the Thirty-Six Stratagems. I once remotely controlled a backward tribe over the internet and used my strategic genius to help it rule a country. Believe me, it’s all true. Don’t arrest me. I’m not sick. I should be locked up for war crimes, not kept here and shot up with tranquilizers. A new journey awaits. Is this the seventeenth layer of hell? No matter. I’ll start with a primitive tribe, keep winning against stronger foes, and conquer my way to the heavens until I expose the lies of the celestial realm. From today on, call me Ji Xuanyuan.