On the other side, Levi had already begun his work for the night.
The factory he worked at was not large, and its business was quite niche: they manufactured Hextech audio equipment, which were essentially magic-powered home stereos driven by Hextech gemstones.
Levi's job was to sit at a cramped workstation, gripping an electrothermal Mithril soldering iron, and solder components and Mithril circuits onto the printed circuit boards of those Hextech stereos.
The work wasn't physically exhausting, but it required absolute precision. A single soldering mistake would ruin the entire board, taking a chunk out of his already meager salary—Mithril was a precious material, and excessive waste meant he had to pay out of pocket for the damages.
Constantly repeating the same labor while having to ensure zero mistakes every second of the day undoubtedly placed immense mental pressure on a person.
Levi had only been sitting there for two hours, yet he already felt dizzy, his vision blurring.
He had to put down the Mithril soldering iron and rub the sore corners of his eyes.
"What's wrong, Levi?" asked the coworker at the adjacent station, a skinny guy who looked like a monkey, his voice laced with concern.
Levi 'remembered' him. This guy was named Baku, the original owner's best friend in the factory. Naturally, Baku was also from Zaun.
"Are you sick today?" Baku asked.
"No."
"If you're not sick, why are you so soft today?" Baku smirked. "You're already spent after just two hours? Isn't that a bit too fast?"
Levi pretended not to hear the crude innuendo and simply complained from the bottom of his heart, "Two hours is already exhausting, okay?"
"Exhausting?" Baku paused. "Isn't this way easier than when we were in Zaun?"
"Uh..." That was actually true.
You couldn't find a job as easy as soldering circuit boards back in Zaun.
Over there, there were only sunless black mines, steel mills with splattering slag, chem-plants flowing with sewage, and machine shops filled with iron shavings...
To mine iron ore, this Levi's grandparents were buried at the bottom of a mineshaft.
To smelt iron into steel, his father slipped and fell into a furnace.
To forge steel into parts, his mother's hair was caught in a machine.
Now, Levi had finally made something of himself.
He only needed to sit in a bright, safe factory in Piltover, assemble the mechanical parts shipped over from Zaun, install the core Mithril circuit boards and Hextech gemstones, and process them into stereos.
It wasn't tiring, it was safe, and it paid well—at least compared to Zaun.
"What do you have to complain about!" Baku encouraged him kindly. "Levi, we have to work hard. Don't let the shift supervisor catch you slacking off!"
"..." Levi had no comeback.
He suddenly realized that he seemed to have misjudged the situation earlier.
He originally thought that the Zaunite apprentices were a massive powder keg, ready to explode into a sky full of sparks with just a little ignition.
But the reality was:
Because they had the purgatory-like life of their Zaunite hometown as a comparison, this group of Zaunite apprentices who had managed to escape to Piltover actually seemed quite satisfied with the status quo.
"Hey, hey, Levi, seriously, don't rest for too long!" Baku continued to kindly remind him. "If you get fired for slacking off, you'll be deported straight back to Zaun."
"You don't want to go back to Zaun and mix with those worthless losers again, do you?"
"..." Levi was even more speechless.
Great, they hadn't even gotten Piltover residency yet, and they were already discriminating against their poor relatives back home...
No wonder Baku was so content—thinking about the poor relatives across the canal who drooled with envy at him every day, of course he'd work with extra vigor!
"But don't you think we aren't doing much better right now?" Levi calmly started to fan the flames. "In the eyes of those Piltovans, what difference is there between us and the people back in Zaun?"
"..." Baku instantly went silent.
He held it in for a long time before finally squeezing out a sentence, "Who told us to be Zaunites... Our lives are cheap."
"Zaunite lives are lives too. Why should they be cheap?"
"We clearly do the exact same work as those Piltovan workers, maybe even more of it and heavier tasks. Why are they treated so much better than us?"
To prioritize the employment of its own citizens, Piltover mandated that at least fifty percent of every factory's workforce must be local Piltovans.
And the salary and benefits of these local Piltovan workers were almost ten times that of Zaunite apprentices in the same positions.
This inequality was glaringly obvious.
A slight poke was all it took to spark a fire.
"Sigh... what's the point of saying all this." Baku's face darkened with frustration. "No matter what we say, aren't those Piltovans still riding on our heads?"
"No, is it really the Piltovans riding on our heads?" Levi struck while the iron was hot to guide him. "Were those policies discriminating against Zaunite laborers made by the Piltovan workers we see every day?"
"Those Piltovan workers are just ordinary people too. Should we blame them for all this?"
"Of course we blame them!" Baku didn't even pause.
Gritting his teeth in hatred, he immediately started cursing, "Those damn Piltovans take high salaries every day without doing any work. Whenever there's a job, they push it onto us... We're practically raising those fat pigs for free! And we still have to get called Zaunite scum and sump rats by them every day... All the benefits go to those Piltovans, but when something goes wrong, the blame falls entirely on us Zaunites... No matter how well we work, we can't get a promotion or a raise, while any random dog from Piltover can become our boss..."
Baku cursed for several minutes straight, and the content of his insults didn't even repeat.
It was clear just how much he hated those Piltovans.
This gave Levi a massive headache.
"Mr. Summoner." The bluebird Janna shifted in his work uniform pocket, quietly communicating with him telepathically.
"Is this what you mentioned before..." She had learned many new words today and wanted to put the theory into practice whenever she found the chance. "...shifting the contradiction?"
"Yes," Levi replied.
"It seems this child is hating the wrong people," Janna sighed with compassion.
"Not entirely. After all, the contradiction objectively exists. It doesn't just disappear because we talk about theories and shout slogans."
"Piltovans have already formed a systemic discrimination and collective oppression against Zaunites, and this is the type of oppression that Zaunite laborers like Baku encounter the most in their daily lives."
"Meanwhile, the major business owners who truly bring him suffering are too far removed from his daily life, leaving him with no way to direct his hatred at them even if he wanted to."
"Then what should we do?" Janna asked.
She was gradually realizing that Levi was leading her to do something world-shattering. This was a task that even a goddess like her would find confusing and helpless.
But Levi, whose practical experience was zero, wasn't actually doing much better than her.
Faced with Baku's blood-stained outpouring of resentment, he didn't know how to persuade him either.
Those hardships were Baku's personal experiences, far more persuasive than Levi's grand theories.
Left with no choice, he could only listen quietly to Baku's venting, casually advising him not to get too worked up. "Baku, calm down a bit... If the shift supervisor hears you, you'll be in trouble. He's from Piltover too."
"Sigh..." Baku stopped cursing.
The fire Levi had stoked in him seemed to have finally burned out.
Then the guy sighed melancholically, "Sigh, if only I were a woman."
"Huh?"
"It's so great being a woman. Just climb into the bed of one of those Piltovans, get a marriage certificate, and you become a Piltovan."
"Look at those female workers in our factory. They've all hooked up with shift supervisors and technicians... Aren't their lives much easier than ours?"
Levi: "..."
'Is this what the hell you're thinking about after cursing for so long?'
'If you're going to fantasize, at least dream a little bigger. Have some ambition!'
"Hey, why are you looking at me like that? Looking down on me?"
Baku's emotions had stabilized, but his smile turned sleazy again.
"Levi, think about it yourself—"
"If a rich Piltovan woman wanted a sugar baby, would you fucking refuse? You probably wouldn't even be able to pull your pants up fast enough!"
"Fuck off!" The speech of Zaunites contained a high concentration of maternal insults.
Levi also cursed, adapting to local customs, "Do you think everyone is as spineless as you? Sleeping with a rich old lady just for some money, don't you find that fucking disgusting!"
"Heh, what if it's a young, rich woman?"
"Bah, why would a young, rich woman ever look at you? Any woman who'd want you couldn't be anything good. Aren't you afraid of catching a disease!"
"Screw you! Why can't the one who fancies me be a pure and beautiful young lady?"
"I'm just giving an example—"
Baku actually started fantasizing seriously with him.
"For example, our boss, Mr. Ivern's daughter."
"If she took a liking to you, could you really refuse?"
"Hmm?" Levi frowned slightly.
The original owner's memories told him that Boss Ivern did indeed have a daughter.
But this young lady seemed to have contracted some strange illness. All year round, from morning till night, she hid in her home next to the factory, almost never stepping out the door.
The original owner had never seen what she looked like, nor did he know her name.
"Have you seen her?" Levi was actually a bit curious.
"Never seen her."
"If you've never seen her, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Do I need to see her! It's not like you haven't seen Mr. Ivern and his wife. How could their daughter not be pretty? If Mr. Ivern wanted to recruit you as his son-in-law, could you control yourself?"
"Heh, why couldn't I?" Levi smiled aloofly. Since they were just bragging, acting aloof cost nothing.
"How can a sparrow understand the ambitions of a swan?"
"I wouldn't just casually become someone's son-in-law, even if it's Mr. Ivern."
"Unless Mr. Ivern's daughter chased me—"
"Then there might be a tiny sliver of a chance!"
Right as he was bragging...
"Levi!"
Suddenly, a majestic and deep male voice rang out from behind him.
Then, a slap smacked him on the head.
"My daughter chasing you?"
"Keep dreaming!"