The Boss Behind The Game

Lu Wu nodded, using his consciousness to release a new quest in the game:

“Perpetual Quest: Soul Collector”

Seek ghosts who are newly born in the underworld. Upon discovery, they can be sold at the shop at a rate of 100 soul coins per soul.

At the same time, in order for the players to understand newborn ghosts, Lu Wu asked Bei Li to design pictures and link them to the quest list. The players would be able to discern the souls more easily.

The reward of the quest was the best out of all. Quests that solely depended on luck like this also made the game more interesting.

Whether it would be a lucky day or not solely depended on the player’s looks.

It was the third day since the game was uploaded.

During that time, the number of players in Battle Online had increased to 48. Many of them played the game because of Chen Ziyu, Wang Damang, and the gang’s recommendation. They were the gang who wanted to build the first guild in the game.

Basically, everyone who had not tried the game yet was highly dubious of it. However, only those who had played the game would realize how modernized and playable the game truly was. Nobody could bear to stop playing the game once they had the experience.

Lu Wu and Bei Li, who often observed the players’ every move via the artifacts, also understood Chen Ziyu and the gang’s thoughts. They planned to include the guild option in the next optimization.

In order to check on the players more conveniently, Lu Wu and Bei Li went to the underworld once again. He asked Bei Li to forge a subring of the battle ring in the laboratory.

The ring could not survive on its own, but depended on the existence of the master ring. New options of checking on players and releasing quests were also included, and Bei Li was officially the gamemaster of Battle Online.

…

Mu Qingshui was a professional game evaluator at Platform173. His job scope was to try out all sorts of new games and write reports of his experience, then post them onto the website. Although his pay was rather high, he was bored.

Exiting another game again, Mu Qingshui took off the virtual reality headset and massaged his head, looking reluctant, “What are the authors of these mediocre creations that could flood the streets even thinking? I can’t believe they want to participate in the New Game’s Player Killer List Contest. What a waste of my time!”

He then launched the webpage, gave an evaluation score of 2 under the previous game, and ditched it into the eliminated list.

As he scrolled through the table of games to be evaluated, Mu Qingshui was frustrated seeing more than a hundred games pending.

Glancing at the other game evaluators who were doing their jobs, Mu Qingshui took a deep breath. He clicked on the table and chose the next pending game according to order.

“Hmm?”

He originally planned to test out the game by playing it right away, but the description of the game left him dumbfounded.

A simulation game of just 800 megabytes? Are you kidding me?

Mu Qingshui found it ridiculous. Even a game like that had the courage to partake in the contest. The authors really did not know their place at all. It seemed like he had to propose setting higher participating requirements next time.

When he read the description, Mu Qingshui was about to give a score of 1 then place it in the eliminated list.

Nonetheless, he recalled the company’s rule of a minimum of a ten minute test run per game. Mu Qingshui sighed as he loaded the game into his virtual reality headset and put it on to start his test play.

However, what happened next invoked him to question his life.

The moment he entered into the underworld, the surroundings and the slight breeze were so surreal as though he had traveled into a new world in a split second.

After choosing his character class, Mu Qingshui was completely won over by the game opening. He was planning to quit the game after playing for some time, but he explored the world in the game instead, finding pleasure in it.

One hour… two hours… five hours passed by as time slipped away quickly. He was so immersed in the game that he forgot he still had many other games to evaluate.

On the way to the Ghost Mountains, he was lucky enough to come across a newborn ghost as described in the quest panel, and he was rewarded with 100 soul coins. He was exuberant because of that.

After he had sold it to the shop, he bought a blue dagger, which improved his efficiency of creature killing significantly.

He had chosen the character class of a berserker. When his attributes increased, Mu Qingshui could experience a sense of flying while he walked, just like in the movies.

His exploration went on until an alert about the twelve-hour playing time limitation popped up. He was then exited by force.

An annoyed Mu Qingshui clenched his teeth with fury, “Dang! I was going to kill the Warrior of Wreckage with a single blow! Who the heck was the one who set the time limit? I’m gonna give him a bad review!”

Mu Qingshui took off his virtual reality headset visibly annoyed, but he was then stunned – the evaluators around him had already gone home and a new shift had started. It was already 3 AM.

“Shoot! Today’s evaluation tasks…” Mu Qingshui felt his teeth ache. As a professional game evaluator, he was so attached to a game that he forgot about his work.

Nevertheless, Mu Qingshui was impressed with the game and was speechless. He gave a score of 10 for the evaluation.

He spent half an hour writing the evaluation report for the game and posted under it. Then, he put the game into the re-evaluation list.

In order to ensure the fairness of the competition, all games must be reviewed once by every evaluator, and the average score would be taken. That was why Mu Qingshui’s evaluation data alone could not determine whether a game could go into the next round.

Mu Qingshui was effervescent as he felt he had discovered a precious treasure.

Whipping out his phone, he hesitated and wavered before he called the boss of Platform173 with gritted teeth.

Ring… ring…

The phone rang seven or eight times before someone picked it up, “Hello?”

“Hello boss, I’m a game evaluator from Platform173, my name is Mu Qingshui!” Mu Qingshui introduced himself at once.

Wu Guoyi was stunned upon hearing that the caller was a game evaluator from his subordinate’s company. He glanced at the time on his phone, his mood worsening, “What is it? Also, how did you get my phone number?”

“Please don’t be mad yet, boss. I only want to report to you a possible opportunity that can expand Platform173 quickly. We can overpower other gaming platforms and become number one.”

Wu Guoyi who was about to get mad found it ridiculous. It was a good thing for workers to be concerned about the development of the platform, but it was also rude to call someone at this hour. Besides, can’t you just inform your supervisor first?

Nevertheless, Wu Guoyi did not speak his mind. He gave it a thought and decided to listen on to the weird worker.

“Alright, I’m all ears!”

Mu Qingshui felt even vivacious, speaking in a determined manner, “Boss, you probably know about our new game contest, right?”

“Of course, it was I who proposed the event!”

He was a gaming aficionado. Due to his passion, the thought of setting up a gaming platform blossomed within him, which led to the rise of the largest gaming platform in the country. The evaluation event was proposed by him and implemented with the board of directors’ consent.

“Boss, we’ve found a treasure this time! During the evaluation, I discovered a game that feels almost 100% real. I test-played the game for a whopping twelve hours without spotting any flaws. Moreover, the leveling up in this game is completely different from other virtual reality games. It is an epoch-making recreation!”

Upon hearing the news, Wu Guoyi’s expression became sullen. He switched on the bedside lamp and sat up.

“What game is it? Which gaming company is the producer from?”

Sensing that Wu Guoyi was interested, Mu Qingshui answered hastily.

“It is produced by a small gaming platform. The name of this game is Battle Online. What’s more, a very bizarre thing about this game is its data pack – it’s only the size of 800 megabytes. I couldn’t believe it either after evaluating it.”

Wu Guoyi who heard him almost thought that Mu Qingshui had gone nuts, having conducted too many evaluations.

800 megabytes was around the size of a single item in a virtual reality game. It was a total joke for it to be the size of an entire game.

Drawing a deep breath, fury burned in Wu Guoyi again, “What is your name?”

“Boss, my name is Mu Qingshui, and my work ID is #387!”

“Good, you can go to the finance department to clear your accounts tomorrow!”

Mu Qingshui who was exuberant suddenly snapped back to reality, just like a bucket of cold water had been poured onto him.

Realizing that he was about to be fired, Mu Qingshui was anxious, “Please, boss, if you have the equipment around you, you can try out the game! If what I have said wasn’t true, I will resign myself without having you fire me!”