Chapter 717 439: Time Flies Like a Shuttle

The studio of the Dawn Realm game development team was located in the same city where Su Mo lived.

After gaining fame and success with the Dawn Realm project, the team attracted immense interest from numerous investors, expanding to seven or eight hundred members.

However, the producer of Dawn Realm remained true to their original vision, refusing to follow some investors' suggestions to develop pay-to-win gachas, and continued to focus on independent development of domestic single-player games. Reportedly, they had several projects in development simultaneously.

Today, the studio was visited by a particularly special guest.

"Squeak—"

The producer, sitting in their office, heard the door opening, looked up to see the visitor, and stood up with an enthusiastic smile: "Hello, hello, Mr. Su Mo, right? Please have a seat."

Su Mo sat down on the chair and nodded in greeting to the producer: "It was rather abrupt of me to say I wanted to have a face-to-face chat with you, sorry for the disturbance."

The producer replied warmly: "It's no trouble at all. I remember you quite clearly; you were the first player to achieve 100% completion during the soft launch for a thousand players. I've wanted to invite you to visit the studio for a long time."

"Later, I heard you were hospitalized. I even organized a donation for you at the studio, though I'm not sure if that was helpful. Have you fully recovered now?"

Su Mo said, "Yes, I've completely recovered, thank you very much for your concern."

The producer said, "No worries. So, you mentioned on Q that you have something to discuss with me, what is it exactly?"

Su Mo earnestly recounted his entire experience of "traversing" into the Dawn Realm, including his illness and the consciousness loop reconstruction therapy, to the producer.

Even though Su Mo had tried to condense it as much as possible, the story was still long, taking several hours to complete.

The producer listened intently the entire time, becoming quite absorbed in the tale by the end.

"Oh my god..." After Su Mo finished speaking, the producer couldn't help but exclaim.

He wasn't particularly interested in the consciousness loop reconstruction therapy itself, but was purely fascinated by Su Mo's journey through the Dawn Realm.

"This is incredible! The events you experienced in the Dawn Realm are a hundred times more exciting than the base game content!"

He even said, half-seriously, "You actually managed to take down Ou Chenyu, which means Dr. Chen, that boss, definitely needs some nerfing."

At that, both of them burst into laughter.

After the laughter subsided, the producer became more serious: "So, you mentioned you want to go back... Su Mo, as someone who frequently interacts with virtual worlds, I completely understand how you feel."

"I'm not going to encourage you to be more open-minded, saying that side is fake, and this side is real, but you need to understand: returning to the Dawn Realm is impossible."

"Haven't the doctors already told you? Even putting aside the technical limitations of consciousness transfer, your consciousness data no longer exists."

Su Mo quickly said, "It doesn't matter if it no longer exists, it can be recreated."

"Previously, while gaming with a friend, something he said inspired me — if the choices are identical, the process is identical, then of course the final result will also be identical."

"What I want to discuss with you is whether the studio could release a large DLC, with Dr. Chen as the main character and the injection of the Ancestral Blood Code as the starting point, to then fully recreate my journey through replication of all my experiences."

"Finally, by using certain technology, convert this content, consistent with my experiences, back into consciousness data, so that vanished world can be reclaimed!"

The producer pursed his lips, looking somewhat hesitant, wanting to say something, when Su Mo interrupted: "Funding is not an issue! I may not have money now, but I can go earn it. If one day I earn enough, I'll come back to you!"

The producer raised a hand to calm Su Mo down, saying with a complicated expression: "I completely understand how you feel right now, and your ideas are very innovative, but to be honest, they're a bit naive."

"Not to mention how much advanced technology your plan would require, you've conflated the concepts of 'game' and 'world.'

"While our team often calls Dawn Realm an 'open world,' at its core it's still just a game."

"What is a game? It's just a series of codes and data, nothing more."

"Let me make a comparison," he pointed through the window at someone in the office working with a modeling software, and asked, "Do you know who that is?"

Su Mo glanced at the person and shook his head: "No, I don't."

The producer said, "His name is Old Yang, our chief modeler. He's 45 years old. Ten years ago, a major corporation laid him off. He has two children at home, and a multi-million mortgage on his house. Coincidentally, I met him when he was at his wit's end, and we hit it off and decided to start our business, leading to our success today."

"It's normal that you don't know Old Yang, because to you, he is just a passerby. If you hadn't come to our studio today, you might've gone your whole life without speaking to him or even knowing he exists."

"But whether you know him or not, Old Yang is a real person with his own life story, as far as the real world is concerned."

Saying this, the producer opened the computer and launched the Dawn Realm game, casually pointing to a random NPC on the screen, asking "Do you know who this is?"

Su Mo shook his head: "No, I don't."

The producer said, "Of course not, neither do I, because our game never designed the backstory for this person. He's just a temporary NPC generated by code. Once he leaves your field of vision, this existence disappears forever."

Placing a hand on Su Mo's shoulder, he said earnestly, "Do you understand now? The difference between a 'game' and a 'world'?"