The Boss Behind The Game

Chapter 9: Buying At A High Price

Chapter 9: Buying At A High Price

Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio

Wu Guoyi hung up immediately at Mu Qingshui’s unreasonable request.

Turning off the table lamp, Wu Guoyi wanted to continue sleeping at first, but Mu Qingshui’s words were repeating themselves in his mind.

As he couldn’t fall asleep, Wu Guoyi finally turned on the lamp and walked into the reading room.

He rubbed his eyes and turned his computer on. When the machine was booted up, he logged into the admin page of Platform173, and clicked on the list of games pending verification.

Among the hundred plus games, it took him quite a while to find the one named Battle Online mentioned by Mu Qingshui.

Just like what Mu Qingshui said, the game was surprisingly small, only 800 megabytes. Wu Guoyi was still for a moment, before he took down the VR headset, connected it to the PC, and downloaded the game into it.

With an intention of testing the waters, Wu Guoyi entered the game.

When the game booted up, Wu Guoyi’s eyes were wide open. The graphics were perfect, just like what Mu Qingshui said.

Wu Guoyi, still doubtful, continued to search far and wide in the game for bugs like invisible walls and such.

He spent the whole night playing, until he entered the Ghost Mountains and met a netherworld creature. He was knocked out with one hit and it was game over.

After quitting the game, he was still quite excited. A moment of contemplation passed before he fished out his phone from his pocket and called the platform’s manager.

The manager of Platform173, who picked up the phone freaked out. Usually, Wu Guoyi would not call him.

"Sun Chi, find out who developed Battle Online right now, immediately, at this instant! Then, send me their contact information."

Manager Sun was a little puzzled, but he immediately received the task.

He did not dare delay his boss’s order, so he quickly logged into the backend portal of the website.

But when he found the game, he noticed that only the developer’s website was noted down, with no mention of their telephone numbers. This made him anxious.

Thankfully, they had a verification mailbox. He quickly typed a short paragraph

After that, he waited for the reply.

At the same time, Lu Wu was having a meal with Bei Li at a store by the road. His phone vibrated.

When he took out his phone, he realized that he had received an email from Platform173.

Feeling excited, Lu Wu opened the email.

Sadly it wasn’t to notify that his game had been verified. It was an email asking for his contact number.

While he wasn’t sure why they needed it, he still sent his number over.

Looking at Bei Li who was chowing down her food voraciously, Lu Wu smiled gently and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He rubbed her head, suddenly feeling sorry for Bei Li because she had to follow him through the many difficult days.

Pacing around the room anxiously, Sun Chi finally saw the notification of the long awaited reply, and he quickly clicked on it.

He saw the numbers that his boss wanted. He immediately exhaled in relief, and forwarded the number to his boss, Wu Guoyi.

Just like Sun Chi, Wu Guoyi was sitting in his reading room, smoking. The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts to the brim. His red eyes were a sign of a sleepless night.

But Wu Guoyi was still very excited, because he knew that this was a chance for the platform to rise.

After reading Sun Chi’s message, he immediately called Lu Wu without any hesitation.

"Hello, may I know who this is?" a young voice answered.

Wu Guoyi inhaled deeply, and said, "Hello, are you the owner of Battle Online? I am in charge of Platform173, and I have something to discuss with you. Are you available?"

Lu Wu was surprised, but thought that there were some issues with his game that the platform wanted to talk about. "Alright, no problem, I will be there soon!" he replied.

"It’s alright, I can come to you. Where are you?" Wu Guoyi asked quickly.

From these words, Lu Wu realized that his game was being recognized, and was subtly expecting more. He then sent his location to Wu Guoyi.

Wu Guoyi was still excited after he hung up the phone. He was going to arrange a flight, but he realized that Lu Wu was also in Indigo City.

He quickly contacted his driver to pick him up. He changed his clothes, tidied himself up, and left his home hurriedly.

Within twenty minutes, he arrived at the place shown on the navigation app.

There was an old restaurant in the distance. Confirming that the location coordinates on his phone were correct, he left the car and walked toward the restaurant.

It was noon, so there was quite a number of patrons. Looking around, Wu Guoyi couldn’t tell which one was Lu Wu, so he took out his phone to make a call.

Then, he saw Lu Wu who was picking up the phone.

Wu Guoyi took a step forward, "Nice to meet you… I’m Wu Guoyi… we talked on the phone!"

Lu Wu was shocked. He did not expect Wu Guoyi to arrive so soon. He stood up and shook Wu Guoyi’s hand.

"Hello, how may I help you?"



Next chapters

Chapter 14: The Launch Of The Game</h3><p><strong>Translator: </strong>Larbre Studio <strong>Editor: </strong>Larbre Studio</p><p>This day was undoubtedly a difficult day for Li Tianxia. He was still at the studio even though it was already eleven o’clock at night, smoking while waiting for the online promotion event of the new games on Platform173.</p><p>Unlike Li Tianxia, many players on Platform173 were keeping an eye on the changes of the website at the same time.</p><p>Two big games would be officially released to the public today, which was a joyous event for the players. They were ready to enter into the games and experience it as soon as the games were released.</p><p>But apparently they were only anticipating the two games with good potential, which were Natural Evolution and The Rise of Protoss. They had no feelings toward Battle Online as it was just a random unknown game.</p><p>When the sound of the clock striking midnight echoed throughout the city, Li Tianxia and all the hopeful players clicked the button to refresh the webpage.</p><p>[First day of the Battle of New Games, today’s recommended games are as follows:]</p><p>Battle Online (10)</p><p>Natural Evolution (9.2)</p><p>The Rise of Protoss (9.1)</p><p>Big red words appeared on the homepage of the website, but everyone was surprised to see the ratings.</p><p>In their opinion, this event of the battle of new games is supposed to be the contest between Natural Evolution and The Rise of Protoss, what the hell is this Battle Online that received a perfect score?</p><p>Driven by curiosity, they clicked on the game as they wanted to see the brief introduction and evaluation of the game.</p><p>100% similar to reality? Is this real?</p><p>Everyone was baffled upon seeing the introduction, they quickly scrolled down the page to see the comments of the evaluators on this game.</p><p>Seeing these game evaluators were very famous influencers in the gaming community. Their highly complementary remarks had certainly incited the curiosity of the players.</p><p>As a result, many players clicked to download the game out of a strong desire to know more about it.</p><p>Meanwhile, Li Tianxia was browsing through the comments from the game evaluators right now with an uncertain expression on his face. How could he believe that a game with a total size of 800MB was able to achieve the dreadful 100% real virtual reality? This truly was a complete joke in his eyes.</p><p>Then, he chose to download the game. He put on his headset and began his experience in the game.</p><p>The CG scene that was implanted at the beginning of the game appeared before him in an instant. Numerous ferocious skulls of monsters could be seen among the swirling clouds in the gloomy sky.</p><p>All the players who entered the game were undoubtedly amazed by the realism of the scene.</p><p>As the story developed, 10,000 Yin soldiers appeared, their feet stomping in unison. When the players witnessed this, their enthusiasm was ignited.</p><p>An epic battle began at this moment.</p><p>When the CG ended with the world looking as though it had turned into a sea of fire, the game officially began and the panel to choose their character class appeared before them.</p><p>Li Tianxia was just like all the other players, being in a state of astonishment at this point in time.</p><p>In the opinion of Li Tianxia, the making of the trailer was more than 800MB! What kind of crazy company is this? How exactly did they manage to compress it to a size of 800MB? This is totally against common sense.</p><p>In order to take a closer look at it, Li Tianxia chose to be a Berserker and officially began the game.</p><p>After entering the game, he noticed that he was surrounded by a swarm of players who just got into the game as well. Right now, they were standing around and pointing fingers at the Mansion of the Dead that had been burned and fallen into ruin.</p><p>"The great King of Beiqi, let me carry on your unfulfilled wish and recreate the glory of your past!" shouted a youth who was standing beside Li Tianxia right now. He was staring at the Mansion of the Dead that had fallen into ruin, his face full of grief and indignation.</p><p>"Seven, cut it off, let’s go and find the boss quickly. This game is so freaking amazing, I’m afraid that we won’t be able to kill and steal later when the number of people increases," the youth with the middle-school syndrome still wanted to express his speech but was pulled away by his teammate. They hurriedly ran out.</p><p>Li Tianxia looked around and fell into silence. Now only he understood the reason of Wu Guoyi saying those words back then. Although he was a professional, he still found this game unbelievable.</p><p>He would not dare to even think about achieving 100% realism in a game with the current capability of technology.</p><p>However, he had to believe it as such a game really existed before him now.</p><p>At this moment, Li Tianxia’s mentality had changed from feeling unfair to exploring and learning in the game.</p><p>Following the instructions of the quest, he followed behind the large number of players and started running toward the direction of the Ghost Mountains according to the map.</p><p>However, the popularity of the game was obviously way beyond his imagination. He could not even complete the initial quest of hunting and killing ten Wandering Souls as the place was filled with people roaming around looking for Wandering Souls.</p><p>More than a dozen people would surge forward whenever they found a Wandering Soul. Li Tianxia was dumbfounded at the sight of this as he was totally unable to kill or steal anything.</p><p>Unlike Wang Damang and his team, many new players were as good as dead when they were facing the Wandering Souls alone. Such a creature like a Wandering Soul was in fact stronger than using Yin energy to cohere into a player. If you did not have a robust physique and were simply fighting hand to hand, even a Berserker who was initially quite powerful, would not be a match for the Wandering Soul.</p><p>A ray of white light kept appearing from time to time, indicating that the players were killed by the Wandering Soul and exited the game.</p><p>In spite of that, there were still a large number of players entering the game.</p><p>Li Tianxia had to find another way to complete the beginner’s quest. He broke away from the crowd and walked to the side.</p><p>His thought was certainly correct as he found a Wandering Soul that was alone in no time. A feeling of excitement filled his heart, he raised his sword and charged toward the Wandering Soul.</p><p>Although Li Tianxia was not as strong as those professional players in terms of combat skills, he was fully able to dodge the attacks from the Wandering Soul as it was not agile enough.</p><p>Looking at the Wandering Soul turning more and more transparent and going to disappear soon, a sense of satisfaction rose inside him. He had completely forgotten his true purpose of entering the game.</p><p>Just when he wanted to strike heavily with the sword in his hand and reap the life of the Wandering Soul, a silhouette suddenly emerged on the other side and knocked him so brutally that he fell down on the floor. A bloody number of -5 appeared on his head.</p><p>Right when Li Tianxia was confused about what actually was going on, another two silhouettes appeared behind him. They took out a dagger at the same time and stabbed him mercilessly in the neck.</p><p>-8</p><p>-9</p><p>[You have been killed by player Ye Xue’er!]</p><p>The screen gradually darkened, the dying Wandering Soul was reaped by the sword of a Berserker who knocked him into the air.</p><p>The two female assassins turned around and made faces at his dead body.</p><p>My kill was stolen! And I’m dead!</p><p>Li Tianxia was dumbfounded at this moment.</p><p>After logging out of the game, Li Tianxia still remained in a state of disbelief.</p><p>I was a victim of a kill and steal, and not only that, I myself was killed in the process?</p><p>A gush of rage burst out from the bottom of his heart as he tried to log into the game once more.</p><p>[Player, you have died in the game and entered the three-hour respawning period!]</p><p>"Damn, the creator of this game must have been insane to make such a setting!" Li Tianxia was dumbfounded.</p><p>As he was recollecting his thoughts, he suddenly remembered the reason he played, and how he had gotten himself into the game.</p><p>Li Tianxi took a deep breath. He realized that the game itself was quite menacing. It had made an experienced game developer like himself be so caught up in the game without him even realizing it.</p><p>He pulled up the main page of Platform173 and pressed on Battle Online once more. This time, he found that several new blurbs of feedback from other players had appeared below the page of the game.</p><p>Li Tianxia fell silent as he read the many messages that flooded the page.</p><p>He sighed as he moved his mouse to the top right corner of the page, where the voting area was, then placed his vote under Battle Online.</p><p>This time he was thoroughly satisfied. Initially, he felt so confident in his game Natural Evolution that he and his team spent so many years creating. But after having a go at Battle Online, it was nothing compared to his own game.</p><p>He exited the page twice and returned to the main list, then pulled up the page for Natural Evolution. Li Tianxia realized that just like the previous one, this game was crammed with good reviews at the bottom of the page. However, this was not enough to cheer him up, because deep down he knew that if these loyal players of his ever tried out the game Battle Online, they would immediately pack up and leave without ever looking back.</p><p>There was no doubt he was feeling miserable for he had come across an outstanding opponent. Li Tianxia felt his shoulders sink, as if a large boulder of stress was pinning him down, making him feel helpless.</p><p>……</p><p>At this moment, Lu Wu and Bei Li’s eyes were dead set on the main page of Platform173, their hearts hammering against </p><p>Meanwhile, the artifact was sending notifications about players registering into the game relentlessly. As the number of messages were overloading, Lu Wu immediately created a screening system so that only the number of online players were displayed.</p><p>Their game had been on Platform173 for less than two hours, but the number of players who logged into the game had reached 30,213, including 29,864 online players. According to the statistics from the artifact, the fraction of offline players were mostly logged out of the game after dying.</p><p>In other words, the players who stayed after their first go at the game had terrifyingly reached 100%.</p><p>This clearly had caused Lu Wu and Bei Li to weep tears of joy.</p><p>Lu Wu could not imagine the terrifying undead army that he was going to have from the hundreds and thousands of people playing his game. When the time comes, he would take back the whole of Beiqi without so much as lifting a finger.</p><p>However, his phone started ringing, breaking his train of thought. He picked it up and saw that the number belonged to Wu Guoyi.</p><p>"Brother Wu, what’s up?" Lu Wu asked curiously.</p><p>"My dear brother, you’ve got to help me this time!"</p><p>When he heard such a serious tone coming from him, Lu Wu instantly thought that something must have gone wrong with the game, and so he asked hastily, "What happened?"</p><p>"Sigh, I’ll only get worked up if I talk about it. At the beginning, there were only a few players around, and I could still freely go online and battle the Wandering Souls. However, there were a whole bunch of players in the game today, and when I was killing a Wandering Soul, someone killed me and stole it, tell me, how can I not be upset about that?"</p><p>Upon hearing this, Lu Wu could not help but crack up, and here he was worrying that it was some important matter, but it was only Wu Guoyi being a victim of player killing and stealing, and had even died in the process.</p><p>"Brother Wu, what are you trying to say?"</p><p>"Soul coins. I need soul coins. Brother, can you please give me some to upgrade my outfit? I’m going to seek vengeance! This isn’t hard for you, right!?"</p><p>Lu Wu was stunned by his request, he never planned on giving away free soul coins in the game, as the coins benefited him greatly as well. However he owed Wu Guoyi a huge favor for helping him, so he did not have the heart to turn him down, "Brother Wu, to be honest, the development of the game is now on the right track, so the only way soul coins can be harvested is from killing creatures. My hands are tied, and so are my team’s. Luckily, before the game was set on this track, I had personally left behind 100 soul coins. I’m giving these to you, but in the future there won’t be any more!"</p><p>When Wu Guoyi heard this, he agreed without hesitation, and his mood immediately lightened.</p><p>"But brother, are you saying that your team is no longer calling the shots after the game is already developing on the right track?"</p><h3>Chapter 14: The Launch Of The Game

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