Bai Zhongqi took the TMALST because he wanted to go home to see his parents.
As the esteemed Chancellor, the actual leader of the Star Alliance, Bai Zhongqi could have taken a ripple boat to the city where his parents lived, but he also wanted to take this opportunity to see for himself what state the United Empire had developed into after such a long time.
Cities like the Imperial Capital were already on the more aggressive side. In order to meet the service needs of tens of millions of people at one go, the Imperial Capital built a new maglev transportation system in just a month, all public buses and trams were now running in the sky, and people who purchased air cars began commuting in midair.