The slowly sinking sun melted into the horizon of Sunset Province, but Ideal City was already draped in the curtain of night.
Inside a semi-transparent sightseeing elevator, Fang Chang glanced at the business card in his hand, then shifted his gaze to the holographic screen projected on the viewing window.
Behind the flickering floor numbers lay a kaleidoscope of neon lights, but looking straight down revealed an abyss with no visible bottom.
The towering skyscraper beneath his feet was known as Yunjian University.
Integrating an entire university into a single corporate high-rise sounded absurd on paper—as if its students were mere office workers clocking in each day—yet in a place like Ideal City, it felt astonishingly natural.
After all, the people living here were nominally employees of an enterprise vast beyond comprehension.
Most graduates went on to become engineers, filtering into various corporate departments and functional subsidiaries.
Replacing "university" with "HR Department's Onboarding Training Division" made the concept much easier to understand.
Still, truth be told, even though the university took its name from the province, the sensation of riding an elevator straight through the cloud layers gave it a literal taste of being perched among the clouds...
The display froze on floor 227.
With a soft chime, the alloy doors behind Fang Chang slid open to either side like a subway arriving at its platform.
Pulling his eyes away from the layered neon beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, Fang Chang turned and stepped out. Guided by the address on the card, he followed the corridor without pause.
Before long, he stopped before a sleek silver door.
Barely had his fingers hovered over the buzzer when the door slid open with a soft swish, revealing a face beaming with overwhelming warmth.
"Welcome! My dear friend, you must be the Fang Chang who's been taking Endpoint Cloud by storm! Haha, please come in! What brings such a celebrity to my doorstep? Or are you curious about my research?"
Fang Chang blinked, slightly taken aback. Looking at the man's exaggeratedly enthusiastic smile, then back at the business card in his hand, his expression grew somewhat peculiar.
*Ai Chen, Male, Age 55. Professor of Neural Algorithms and Bionics at Yunjian University; Technical Consultant for Kangmao Group's Product R&D Division. Primary research fields: logical simulation of fuzzy algorithms, mind uploading, etc.*
It was definitely him; Fang Chang had found the right man.
Assuming he didn't have an identical twin...
"I apologize for intruding at such an hour. I hope my visit isn't disrupting your evening."
"Intruding? Nonsense! What could be more delightful than a hero of the Alliance taking an interest in my research?"
With a cheerful smile, Ai Chen ushered Fang Chang into his office and continued, "And you arrived at the perfect time. An hour earlier, and I'd still have been stuck in the lab."
The office was spacious, decorated in a minimalist yet tasteful style. Fang Chang's attention, however, wasn't on the room, but on the man before him.
Unlike the stereotypical, scruffy professors of academia, Ai Chen was impeccably groomed. Though in his fifties, he looked barely thirty.
Dressed in what looked like a tailored suit and leather shoes, with his hair slicked neatly back, he looked less like an academic and more like an attorney or a high-flying banker.
Ever since arriving in Ideal City, Fang Chang had accompanied Ambassador Shu Yu to all sorts of functions, drumming up investment and sponsorships for the Alliance.
Aside from that, he hadn't forgotten his other purpose for coming here—to find a way to upload consciousness into a circuit board.
Players had infinite lives, but NPCs only had one. Even if the idea sounded fantastical, he figured that since the game was set in a futuristic sci-fi world, there had to be a way to permanently preserve human consciousness.
Much like a phylactery or a Horcrux used to store a soul in a fantasy setting.
Fortunately, his status as a war hero opened plenty of doors, and the viral videos circulating across Endpoint Cloud had turned him into an Ideal City celebrity—an influencer of sorts.
Upon hearing that he was interested in his field of study, the professor had immediately agreed to meet.
The two settled onto the sofa.
Fang Chang obliged Ai Chen's request for a commemorative photo. After exchanging brief pleasantries, he stated the purpose of his visit.
"...I'd like to ask whether there is a way to upload consciousness onto the cloud or something akin to a hard drive."
Perhaps because the topic touched his area of expertise, the middle-aged professor set aside his flamboyant smile, his expression turning pensive.
Yet he didn't appear to be pondering the academic theory itself; rather, he seemed to be weighing how to phrase his response.
After a silence that lasted nearly five minutes, he let out a soft sigh.
"Would you care for a cup of coffee?"
Fang Chang paused.
His intuition told him that whatever was behind that look, it wasn't likely to be good news.
"No need... Just a glass of water is fine, thank you."
"One coffee, one lemonade," Ai Chen gestured toward the bionic assistant standing nearby.
The assistant gave a subtle nod and stepped into an adjoining room. Moments later, it returned with a tray, courteously placing silver cups before both of them.
"Please enjoy, sir."
Leaving behind those words, it retreated to the side and stood quietly against the wall.
To avoid the uncanny valley effect, most bionic androids either replicated human facial features and realistic actuation down to the finest detail, or omitted facial features entirely in favor of exaggerated, stylized masks.
This android belonged to the former category—not only completely lifelike, but strikingly beautiful.
"I'm sorry about your situation. I understand what you're thinking, but... that isn't something science can achieve."
Ai Chen picked up his cup and took a sip of coffee to moisten his throat. His gaze rested upon the lovely bionic assistant across the room. After admiring it for a moment, he suddenly spoke up.
"My wife left me three years ago."
Fang Chang froze, hesitating. "Couldn't even the medical facilities in Ideal City treat her?"
The bionics here could replace every single organ in a human body; he could hardly imagine an illness modern medicine couldn't cure.
Professor Ai Chen gave an embarrassed cough. "When I say left, I mean she ran off... She went with a traveling merchant from the wasteland, chasing her dreams of adventure and excitement."
"...I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize, it's nothing, and it's already in the past. Everyone has the right to choose their life, and where she goes is her own freedom. If anything, it's petty of me to keep dwelling on it, haha."
Setting his coffee cup back on the tray, Ai Chen smiled and nodded to the bionic assistant, signaling it to clear the cup away.
Watching the assistant's back, his voice sounded lost in distant reminiscence.
"To be honest, I once thought about fashioning it after her. Not just her appearance, but her memories and thoughts... copying all of it together."
Sharply catching the key phrase, Fang Chang's breath caught in his throat. His hands clenched around his knees, gripping them tightly as if seizing a lifeline.
"And what happened?"
Ai Chen smiled faintly. "Naturally, I succeeded."
Fang Chang looked in astonishment at the bionic assistant, then back at the professor sitting opposite him.
"Then it's currently..."
"Right now, it's just an ordinary assistant android. Because later on... I wiped its data."
Fang Chang sat stunned.
It took him a long while before he managed to speak again. "...Why?"
"I already told you the reason. Because it isn't something science can achieve."
Before Fang Chang could interject, Professor Ai Chen continued.
"The woman I loved was gentle, kind, beautiful, generous, and passionately uninhibited... But in reality, that was merely my idealization. There is no such thing as a perfect human in this world. Bravery comes with recklessness, caution with hesitation; clever people are often arrogant, and arrogant people never look at the ground beneath their feet. She was never flawless; love simply painted a filter over her.
"So when I attempted to write her into an algorithm based purely on my memories, I quickly realized that the fictional persona I created wasn't her at all... Do you understand what I mean?"
Fang Chang nodded in silence, but then shook his head.
"I grasp the concept you're describing... but I still don't quite get it. Couldn't you just program those flaws into it as well?"
Ai Chen smiled faintly. "That's precisely where the problem lies. Are you certain you completely understand another person? Or even yourself?"
The question left Fang Chang stumped, unable to muster an answer.
Looking at the young man lost in thought, Professor Ai Chen leaned back against the sofa, slowing his speech to give him ample time to reflect.
"Uploading thoughts to the cloud isn't impossible. As long as someone hasn't lived in complete isolation from society, there will always be several brains holding backups of their memories. By converting those third-person memories into a first-person perspective, then synthesizing those gathered fragments into an intelligent algorithm, you can create someone virtually identical to them... Even if they aren't objectively the same person, she would broadly match your expectations of her.
"However, a copy is ultimately just a copy, not the person herself. It's nothing more than an articulate, well-spoken doll that happens to look the part. If that is what you desire, I can certainly assist you. All it takes is filling out a very lengthy set of forms. But based on your description, let me ask you once more: is that truly what you want?"
Staring at the middle-aged man reclining on the couch, Fang Chang remained silent for a long time, his thoughts tangling into a chaotic knot.
In the real world, this logic would make complete sense. But inside a video game, it sounded utterly ridiculous.
How could a block of data copied from one hard drive to another not be the same data?
Besides, didn't Shelter 101 have a successful precedent? Not only had they collapsed their consciousnesses down into a virtual world, they had even produced offspring in that perpetual virtual space!
This was clearly possible!
Fang Chang felt his request wasn't the least bit unreasonable. He merely wanted to keep a backup of Dolly's data, only to have the game operator use an NPC's mouth to preach that "even if you remake an NPC from backup data, it isn't the same NPC anymore."
*Then what does that make me?!*
*A completely realistic VR game, and it has to simulate realism down to this kind of unnecessary philosophical nuance...*
Fang Chang felt a dull ache throbbing behind his temples.
He suddenly regretted not choosing an Intelligence-type build from the start.
"I just want to preserve a chance of revival for someone important to me. Please, even just once..."
His voice carried a faint trace of pleading.
Those words weren't directed at the NPC sitting before him.
They were aimed at Ah Guang, who was watching over them from somewhere unknown at all times.
Professor Ai Chen stared at the young man for a moment, then his gaze drifted slowly toward the kaleidoscopic neon lights outside the window.
The dazzling interplay of light and shadow pulled observers in, mesmerizing them; every human longing seemed capable of fulfillment amid this palpable prosperity.
It seemed to have everything.
Yet it was entirely empty.
It was just like a hologram from that golden era—impeccably real, but ultimately an illusion.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he let out a soft sigh, uncharacteristically dropping the trendy slang he usually adopted around young people.
"...Many have said those exact words to me, but very few realize that life is precious precisely because we only have one.
"If that person truly matters to you, treat her well while you still have time left. Don't let her slip away from your side, don't let her come to harm, and don't wait until things are irreparable before drowning in regret... And above all, don't try to seek solace in memories like I did.
"That is the right thing to do."
...
His hopes dashed,
Ideal City gained another heartbroken soul tonight.
However, Fang Chang's gloom was an isolated case; the vast majority of the city was thoroughly enjoying itself, especially now that the nightlife was kicking into gear.
Inside an office building on the outer edge of Ideal City.
In a cramped, windowless studio, a few cheap sofas, desks, chairs, and basic office supplies were scattered about.
Bathed in the glare of inexpensive incandescent bulbs, a certain Brother Mole and several employees of the newly established Skeleton Studio were dancing and cheering with excitement.
"Holy crap... this game is so damn fun!"
Tearing off his VR goggles, Brother Mole's face was flushed with exhilaration.
A while back, the guys on the forum had joked about making a game in Ideal City, but he was the only one who actually acted on it and pushed a finished product out the door.
The studio used the Skeleton Corps insignia directly, and the game was titled *Battle Royale*. The gameplay wasn't just similar to PUBG; it was practically identical.
It had simply been ported to a VR platform.
While it didn't boast the hyper-realistic immersion of *Wasteland OL*, its level of polish was remarkably high!
If this didn't blow up, he'd treat Fang Chang to a steaming bowl of shit!
As someone who had seen the world, Xue Hongliang, the technical director and CEO he had hired, didn't react quite so wildly. Pulling off his goggles, he merely sighed with mild regret.
"...The only pity is that you only get one life. Once you die, you're out."
In that previous match,
not long after dropping in, he had been wiped out by an AI bot he personally coded.
Brother Mole chuckled. "That's where you're wrong! That's the very soul of this game! Sure, when you die, all the loot you scavenged goes down the drain. But look at it from another angle—wouldn't the guy you just took out be just as tilted?"
The employees seated around the room exchanged glances, pondering the thought before nodding in agreement.
Brother Mole paused, then continued at a deliberate pace.
"Especially when you fight your way into the final circle, lying prone in the grass waiting for the ultimate showdown. The thought that half an hour of hard work could vanish into thin air from a single tiny mistake will send your adrenaline skyrocketing and make your palms sweat! And if you manage to grab that chicken dinner, all those stress hormones transform into pure dopamine in an instant—"
"Hold on, there's a problem," the programmer responsible for the code raised his hand.
Though annoyed by the interruption, Brother Mole magnanimously granted him the floor.
"Speak."
The programmer said with complete seriousness, "The virtual reality system censors extreme stimuli that could pose health risks. Adrenaline spikes and sweaty palms are physically impossible..."
Brother Mole rolled his eyes. "It's a metaphor! Don't be so pedantic. You still feel the tension, don't you?"
The programmer scratched the back of his head. "Uh, well, that part is true..."
Brother Mole swept his gaze across the dozen or so employees, passionately pumping them full of motivation.
"In short, that is our unique selling point!
"You only live once, and you only get one shot! Whether our studio can carve out a foothold in Ideal City all hinges on this launch!"
After a solid week of development, the trial version of *Battle Royale* was complete and had just been uploaded to Endpoint Cloud's gaming platform. It was open for free download and play, charging a buyout fee of 20 Cr once playtime exceeded two hours.
Future updates would introduce loot boxes, limited-edition skins, and other monetization schemes. Brother Mole hadn't just copied the gameplay; he had imported the entire playbook of predatory live-service practices.
Thanks to readily available development engines and pre-built virtual assets on Endpoint Cloud—and outsourcing for whatever couldn't be bought off the shelf—the development hurdle hadn't been terribly high.
As for the office rent, 1,200 Cr a month wasn't particularly expensive. Labor was slightly pricier; skilled technical staff couldn't be paid the minimum wage of 1 Cr an hour, so a monthly salary of 8,000 to 10,000 Cr was mandatory.
The bulk of the expenditure, however, wasn't rent or wages, but licensing the development tools, purchasing technical services and 3D assets, and renting cloud computing power from Endpoint Cloud.
Tallying up all the expenses, the bill reached a staggering 1,000,000 Cr!
That was enough to purchase a Cerberus unmanned vehicle and an airborne missile!
And where did the money come from?
Exchanged from silver coins, of course.
A few days earlier, through the efforts of the Administrator and Ambassador Shu Yu, the Alliance and the Enterprise had reached two crucial, historic agreements.
One was a currency swap agreement.
Under this accord, the two parties swapped a total value of 300 million Cr at a fixed exchange rate of 3:1.
Namely, 1 Cr for 3 silver coins.
Lacking a fixed, stable open market, calculating purchasing power directly was notoriously difficult; after all, the price of the exact same commodity in River Valley Province versus Yunjian Province could differ by night and day.
This exchange rate effectively baked in a degree of subsidy, with the subsidy taking the form of "added technological value" provided to the Alliance by the Enterprise.
Moreover, a currency swap alone was clearly insufficient. The two sides also established regulations governing how that capital could be deployed.
This led into the second trade agreement.
In principle, only registered residents of Ideal City were permitted to incorporate companies or trade equity, meaning Alliance residents were barred from working in the Enterprise or operating businesses there.
Yet this rule wasn't without room for flexibility.
The newly inked trade accord provided precisely that workaround.
As a permanent partner of the Enterprise, companies incorporated in the Alliance and endorsed by the Alliance government could be placed on the Enterprise's whitelist.
Once on the whitelist, they were authorized to establish branch offices in Ideal City and invest in non-core industries outside of electric power, transportation, energy, and the like.
Because the Alliance's sovereign credit served as the backing, gaining access to the whitelist required governmental approval.
Thankfully, the review process was straightforward.
Entities that had rendered outstanding contributions to the Alliance, or collectively owned enterprises held by the shelter, secured approval rapidly, obtaining exchange quotas and tickets to invest in Ideal City.
The former included Goblin Technology and Lister Factory; the latter included Niuma Brick Factory, Factory 81, Bucky Aluminum Plant, and their peers.
One million Cr translated to three million silver coins at the fixed exchange rate.
Brother Mole certainly didn't have that kind of wealth lying around.
Not to mention that this was merely the upfront investment; the actual capital required down the line would far exceed it.
However, as the server's "second smartest" heavyweight player, he put his brain to work and swiftly found a solution.
Following the rules of the Alpha build, he pooled his entire net worth alongside his brothers to scrape together 1.5 million silver coins, registering a company called Skeleton Group.
Then, armed with a slick business proposal and the sacrifice of an 80 percent equity stake, he successfully raised 12 million silver coins in seed funding.
Four million Cr.
More than enough to keep them afloat for a while.
The remaining 20 percent of shares were split among himself, Elaina, Elven King Fugui, and several other initial backers.
Even though the shelter held the lion's share, the residual stake was nothing to sneeze at.
He held an 8 percent cut. If this game racked up a hundred million in revenue, that would be eight million!
Deducting costs and taxes, he'd still walk away with at least six to seven million Cr!
If converted back into silver coins...
Brother Mole didn't dare let his imagination run any further.
Just fantasizing about it for a few seconds had him drooling, terrified that further daydreaming would push him straight into an ecstasy-induced stupor.
And so, carrying everyone's hard-earned savings and shouldering their collective hopes, he launched Skeleton Studio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Skeleton Group.
Under his relentless whipping, the team had finally recreated a VR battle royale blockbuster right inside *Wasteland OL*.
He really had to hand it to Ah Guang.
Not only could you play video games inside *Wasteland OL*, you could even develop games inside it.
The concept was mind-blowing!
Although the trial map for *Battle Royale* was only the size of a single island—a bit modest compared to the sprawling, world-scale AAA blockbusters popular in Ideal City—he firmly believed that core gameplay and fun were the true heart of any title.
In this blue ocean market, there was bound to be a place for him!
However—
Harsh reality soon dealt him a crushing blow.
The freshly launched *Battle Royale* did not blow up across the network as he had anticipated. Instead, it was as unnoticed as a speck of dust falling into a pond, failing to produce even the slightest ripple.
So far, the server's only visits had been contributed by the studio's own employees.
Staring at the stubbornly motionless download counter, Brother Mole—who had been dancing with joy tens of minutes earlier—was now sweating with anxiety.
The sole scrap of comfort was that the poor sales had little to do with the game itself; it simply lacked exposure.
Maybe once it got some visibility,
it would suddenly go viral out of nowhere...
Standing beside their boss and staring at the metrics on screen, the studio employees wore equally downcast expressions.
"What a shame... such a fun game, and nobody knows it exists."
"Yeah... it really is pretty good."
"We'd better not drag this out too long... Even the best broth spoils if left out for too long."
Endpoint Cloud's development tools were highly sophisticated, meaning game production cycles were remarkably short. Yet precisely because of this, cutthroat competition led to massive homogenization and severely shortened product life cycles.
Aside from massive open-world titles focusing on virtual communities with sprawling, non-repetitive content, most games lasted barely a month, and the average player's total playtime rarely exceeded twenty-four hours.
Xue Hongliang, the studio's CEO and technical director, frowned and pondered for a moment before speaking.
"We need to increase our marketing budget.
"There's a wildly popular gaming showcase on Endpoint Cloud right now. The placement fee is a bit steep, but I think it's worth a shot."
Hearing that the cost was steep, Brother Mole's eyebrow twitched violently.
"How much?"
"Around 1.2 million Cr?"
Hearing that number, he nearly spat blood.
1.2 million?!
That could buy six missiles!
"Our entire development budget was under a million... Isn't that a little excessive?" Brother Mole couldn't help but complain.
Xue Hongliang blinked. "Isn't it common knowledge that marketing costs more than development?"
Brother Mole froze in turn.
Looking around at the other employees, they all wore nodding expressions of agreement; clearly, nobody was pulling his leg just because he was new to the industry.
Taking a deep breath, Brother Mole reeled in his emotions and said, "Anyway... let me see what that show looks like first."
Xue Hongliang nodded, walked over to another desk, and switched on the holographic television sitting on it.
A pale blue glow materialized. The current channel was broadcasting a news bulletin.
Just as he reached out to switch channels, his boss suddenly stopped him.
"Wait... let me watch this news segment."
Xue Hongliang paused, retracted his finger, and stepped aside.
The holographic projection continued to play. The report was an interview covering the escalating situation on the western front.
"...In an effort to reverse its setbacks on the front lines, the Legion is deploying megaton-class nuclear warheads to Sunset Province.
"Yue Qian, Head of the Enterprise's Department of General Administration, emphasized that nuclear weapons exceeding one hundred kilotons should be strictly restricted. If mutant species are allowed to mutate further, pushing fragile ecosystems into extreme evolutionary paths, this planet will become completely uninhabitable in the future!
"The Administrator of the Alliance also delivered a public address, strongly condemning the Legion's deployment of nuclear weapons to the theater and declaring that the residents of the Alliance will never yield to nuclear intimidation.
"The Supreme Council is currently in session to deliberate concrete countermeasures. According to knowledgeable sources, if the reports are verified, the Enterprise's Supreme Council will authorize the release of sealed strategic stockpiles..."
Inside the projection,
a Council representative, encircled by swarming interview drones, spoke with firm resolve.
"...Without question, those weapons were prepared for precisely this moment!"
Watching the broadcast, the employees in the studio exchanged uneasy glances, collective gasps of cold air filling the room.
"Hiss... A megaton nuke!"
One employee asked curiously, "What does that even mean in practical terms?"
Another employee thought it over and replied, "If dropped on Ideal City, it would average out to ten to a hundred kilograms of yield per person. But for the Alliance, with a population hovering around a hundred thousand, that amounts to roughly ten tons of TNT yield per person."
A chorus of sharp gasps hissed in unison.
Every scrap of warm air seemed sucked straight out of the room.
Everyone couldn't help but steal glances at their boss.
They all knew that this man named Brother Mole, who spoke halting Human Alliance language, hailed directly from the Alliance in the southern reaches of River Valley Province.
Yet to their surprise, they saw no fear on his face.
His expression looked like nothing more than raw bewilderment.
And that was indeed the case. Staring blankly at the holographic broadcast, Brother Mole's mind was reeling.
He had seen announcements on the official website about the Legion deploying nuclear weapons to Sunset Province; the post had even explicitly stated that the Legion intended to use them against the City of Abundance in the Lion Kingdom.
Yet listening to the Administrator's grave tone and rhetoric on the news...
Why did it sound like that nuke was about to be dropped straight onto the Alliance's heads?
*Are they bluffing?*
Noticing that everyone in the room was staring at him, Brother Mole cleared his throat softly and spoke in a solemn tone.
"Your boss's home is on fire... I'll probably have to head back in a couple of days to check on things."
If the news was true, a mobilization order would likely drop before long. As commander of the Skeleton Corps, he couldn't sit in the rear while his brothers took the heat for him.
Xue Hongliang was taken aback. "You're... heading to the front lines?"
*Holy smokes.*
*Here we are chasing chicken dinners in a video game,*
*and our boss is out there playing battle royale for real on the front line.*
*No wonder he came up with such an engaging concept—it's all based on personal experience!*
"Of course! To tell you the truth, driving tanks is my real day job. Running a company is just my side hustle as a casual player."
Brother Mole smiled sheepishly, coughing before continuing, "Don't worry about me, though. Doing your jobs well is the greatest support you can give me! Honestly, I haven't told you this yet, but the lion's share of revenue from this game will go directly toward funding the Alliance's war effort against the Legion. For every ten thousand copies you sell, that's one more missile fired at the Legion.
"Once this war is won, I'll be back to fight side by side with you all!"
Listening to this speech, almost every employee in the office looked at him with sheer admiration.
Xue Hongliang stepped forward with deep emotion and gripped his right hand tightly.
"Boss, go with peace of mind. Leave the company to me... We will not let you down! We will turn your dream of a million copies sold into reality!"
Brother Mole grinned, patting his hand. "Good! With your word, my mind is at ease!"
Chapter 433