Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 773: Chapter 733: You Can’t Eat That!

After his last appearance in the Tower Climbing Battle, Lincoln completely disappeared from the players’ sight.

His daily life became rigidly regular – going to work on time but not leaving on time – he had actually become that person who works overtime every day!

Of course, this didn’t last for long.

After a few days, Quentina, the housekeeper of Cloud Dream, had to remind him not to work overtime.

Lincoln was confused, “What’s wrong with me working overtime?”

With a heavy heart, Quentina said: “Your constant overtime makes it difficult for the employees.”

After being puzzled for a while, Lincoln finally understood and stopped working overtime.

But after leaving the company, he didn’t want to work at home, and getting up early was something he just couldn’t do…

In the end, he had no choice but to break his good habit of “finish today’s affairs today”.

Still, despite this, the development progress was very fast, since both he and Mavis were completely committed to this project.

Even Little Chun was complaining in the group: “Pokémon” is being raised by a stepfather, Lincoln wouldn’t show up if he hadn’t been searching for him.

Lincoln didn’t want to appear too biased, so he summoned a technical team from the Prosthetic Journey Company to join the “Pokémon” project.

Although the technologies they had developed for the [Eight Sides] navigation software mostly satisfied the requirements of the mixed-reality game, enabling the Pokémon to interact with the environment.

But that was just basic interaction.

The developers of “Pokémon” were not content with this. They hoped to elevate this interaction to a whole new level—

Not only would the Pokémon run on the ground, climb trees, swim in the water, and fly around electrical wires and obstacles…

They also hoped that the physical entities in reality could provide abundant feedback.

For instance, when a Pokémon uses a fire attack and scorches a trash can, it would show an explosion effect, and the metal railings would melt; cracks would appear on the ground; virtual bubbles would burst when they hit real obstacles… and so on.

Given the current technological capabilities, these features are theoretically possible, just requiring a considerable workload.

Thus, Lincoln pulled technical support from [Prosthetic Journey] for them.

As for himself, if he’s considered a stepfather, so be it! He truly lacked the energy.

*

Interestingly, back when the development of “Chang’an” had not yet gone on the fast track, players were being impatient and urging Cloud Dream to hurry up.

Now that the development is picking up the pace, no one is paying attention anymore.

Even Wu Di, who had been pushing them relentlessly every day, stopped commenting.

Everyone is caught up entirely with the New Year’s activities, so much so that they’re nearly overwhelmed.

Everyone is progressing at their own pace.

Some people claim 30 victories in the Extraordinary Battlefield in one day, earning an Armament Box; the next day, they complete 30 hunting tasks and get the Grappling Hook; they would also have time to play the 1V4 confrontation game as an Iron-Blooded Warrior after completing the [Cross-Border Pursuit] within the same day.

While they were doing all these, they even had time to slay the Giant Dragon and collect the Dragon Pearls! Their efficiency was baffling.

But such players are only a minority within the minority, the hardcore of the hardcore.

They seem to be everywhere only because they are extremely active, coupled with the magnifying effect of the Internet, which can give people the illusion that everyone is moving quickly.

But in reality, most players were still trying to catch up.

If you don’t believe it, just look at Shuihua.

This girl goes to school during the day, does homework and reviews in the evening, her gaming time is really squeezed out of her schedule.

Recently, she has been nearly developing dark circles under her eyes.

It was only thanks to Lance’s help that she managed to get the Armament Box on the third day. If she were to rely solely on herself, she probably wouldn’t have gotten it until the weekend.

This is also the average progression of players who go to work or school during the day.

——As for Lance, he had taken leave with just cause, of course.

As for the [Giant Dragon Invasion] event, Shuihua generally arrived when it was almost over for a quick fight to snag up some damage, grab the [Dragon Pearl] and hightail out of there, not tarrying for even a minute.

The Dragon Girl, out of curiosity, had tried to find her.

Unfortunately, her luck did not hold up there——

After half an hour of fruitless search, Shuihua decisively abandoned the mission.

Her gaming time was too valuable to squander in such a way.

Of course, Shuihua eventually got to meet the Dragon Girl, thanks to her network — pointing to Camille Victoria.

Ever since the Dragon Girl made her second appearance in Camille Victoria’s virtual house, a great many people had been contacting Camille Victoria, hoping to see the Dragon Girl up close.

A wealthy person had even offered a direct price: “I will give you 200 rockets just to see the Dragon Girl!”

But Camille Victoria rejected them all.

She couldn’t articulate why herself.

When she first started playing “Assassins’ Alliance”, she could clearly tell that the virtual characters were all NPCs.

Even the important characters in the plot, like Firefox and Cross, the female protagonist and the protagonist’s old dad, Cloud Dream had been so painstaking, with the tasks’ behaviors, actions, dialogues, and so on, being very rich in details that it almost seemed real if you didn’t scrutinize it.

But Camille Victoria was still very aware: these were all virtual characters; they were all phoney.

She felt absolutely no emotional burden.

Although she did strive for the perfect ending, she had failed many times throughout, and when old Dad or Firefox died, all she felt was the frustration of game failure and felt no guilt towards these characters, not to mention feeling heartbroken.

But Connar was different.

Camille Victoria truly felt she was like a little sister, and emotionally, she couldn’t bear it if she was hurt.

She didn’t know how Cloud Dream had managed to pull it off, if not for many people asking her, wanting to see Little Connar, she wouldn’t have even been aware of this change.

For some time, Camille Victoria even suspected that Connar wasn’t a virtual character, but rather, a little girl that Cloud Dream had found in real life to play the part.

For this, she had specifically contacted Lincoln, and asked about the situation.

Lincoln had simply replied very annoyingly: “Guess?”

Camille Victoria was so frustrated she was gritting her teeth, but was helpless to do anything.

After calming down and thinking for a while, Camille Victoria had then gone to the latest introduced event, had a chat with the captain of the hunting ship.

After their chat, she went to the metropolis to find the homeless host of “Metropolitan News”, Qiang.

——This poor guy really had it rough, every time a giant dragon appeared, “coincidentally” it would pass by his house, and the entire building would end up in ruins.

Later, many players had even set up a firepower position on the rooftop of that building, waiting for the giant dragon to appear, so they could bombard it with heavy firepower at the first opportunity.

In the tent of the metropolitan refugee camp, Camille Victoria and Qiang had another chat.

In the end, she strongly felt that: either Cloud Dream had hired actors for all the key characters, or they had made a technological breakthrough in this aspect.

They are just like real people!

So, in the end, only a few close friends had the opportunity to meet Connar through Camille Victoria.

And Camille Victoria had first asked Connar, who had granted permission, then she brought one person over each day.

When Shuihua entered Camille Victoria’s virtual house, Connar was nestled on the sofa, her little tail was sticking out of the couch and plugged into a row plug, charging in a drowsy state.

Then Camille Victoria took out an amber-colored Dragon Pearl, handed it to Connar, intending to ask if Connar knew it.

But before she had the chance to ask, the previously drowsy Connar suddenly opened her mouth wide, “Ah woo” and swallowed the Dragon Pearl all at once.

While swallowing, her petite neck noticeably protruded a large bulge.

Seeing this, Camille Victoria was almost shocked stupid, and she quickly shook Connar’s shoulders and shouted:

“Spit it out! Spit it out! You can’t eat it, spit it out quick!”