Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Obviously, this was temporary. There was no such arena when Wu Di was exploring Chang’an.

But in the future [Virtual Chang’an], there will definitely be PVP gameplay, and we have to prepare fighting places for the players sooner or later.

This arena was one of the ideas.

When Lincoln arrived, Xu Chun was already waiting here.

The experts from the [Cold Weapons Combat R&D Group] had almost finished researching the fundamental cold weapon combat in the virtual world.

They would be busy again once the game’s combat system development started officially, working with the developers to make modifications, adjustments, and tests to the combat system.

In the meantime, they were —— bored to death.

Not only did Xu Chun giddy up and arrive early, standing in the ring to get pumped up, but several idle experts also came. They were sitting in the tea house by the ring, drinking tea while enjoying the show.

The reason Xu Chun got pumped up wasn’t that Lincoln put too much pressure on him. Instead, he was worried he might fail to control his force and accidentally kill Lincoln with one swing of his blade.

If that happened, there would be no training effect at all…

Lincoln didn’t feel overly nervous, though. He warmed up his muscles, Jesus-excitedly pulled out his ringheaded saber hanging on his waist, and asked Xu Chun, “Are you ready?”

He didn’t think he had the upper hand — he had always lost more than he won in sparring before, yet he didn’t feel much about losing or winning back then.

Now, under the completely realistic conditions combined with the stake of “pain”, his mindset was totally different.

To put it simply — each win would bring him a long-lasting satisfaction!

Xu Chun nodded, pulling out his own weapon — a slightly modified goose quill saber. Lincoln couldn’t figure out its uniqueness, but he heard that it was the weapon used in the secret family blade technique passed down in Xu Chun’s family for over two hundred years.

Seeing Xu Chun unsheath his blade, Lincoln didn’t follow the martial ethics and launched the first attack!

Xu Chun blocked, retreated, and launched a side attack.

Lincoln kept moving, blocking, stepping forward and throwing a side kick!

Xu Chun went with the flow and pulled downward!

Lincoln’s calf immediately burst with blood!

“Ahh! Motherfucker!”

Intense pain exploded from his calf. Lincoln screamed in pain and cursed involuntarily. He reflexively let go of his blade, fell to the ground, and both hands were holding onto his bleeding calf immediately.

But this was only a momentary loss of control. He soon regained his composure and reason prevailed.

After taking a deep breath, he reached out to his calf and healed the wound.

Having stood up again and tried the calf, feeling everything was back to normal, he took his stance again.

“I underestimated you. Let’s go again.”

Xu Chun nodded, raising his blade once more.

This time Lincoln was much more careful, tentatively attacking.

In the meantime, Xu Chun tried hard to control himself not to strike Lincoln’s exposed weak point but instead let Lincoln take the initiative, patiently waiting for his first strike.

Without achieving anything in his tentative attacks, Lincoln no longer dallied and launched a downward strike with his blade.

Xu Chun blocked, pushed his blade downward to slash at Lincoln’s hand.

Lincoln decisively retreated to avoid the blade and stabbed forward, hitting the target!

A splash of blood spurted from Xu Chun’s shoulder!

But before Lincoln had the chance to rejoice, he saw Xu Chun’s motion was unchanged, as he slashed his blade diagonally from Lincoln’s left abdomen to his right shoulder!

A splash of blood that was several dozens of times larger than the one from Xu Chun’s shoulder burst out of Lincoln!

With such a fatal wound, the pain was actually not that severe. Lincoln just felt he had lost all of his strength in an instant and fell onto the ring.

At this moment, he felt as if all the foul language in his stomach was spilling out from the wound, covering the whole arena floor.

After taking a moment to gather himself, Lincoln healed himself and Xu Chun’s wounds, cleaned up the arena, and once again stubbornly took his stance.

…

…

…

The duel between Lincoln and Xu Chun continued until it was time for the lunch break.

The process was extremely torturous — Lincoln didn’t win a single match.

“In our previous practice, I was able to beat you. Was that because you let me win?” Lincoln asked speechlessly.

“Well, not really…” Xu Chun attempted to quibble, “It’s just we were more concerned about the effectiveness of the practice back then. In the current situation, the mind and the subconscious are highly focused, with not much room for thought…”

“Oh.” Lincoln understood.

Your instinctive reaction was too fast, it was hard for you to hold back, huh?

“Should we not…” Xu Chun hesitated and said, “do this in reality, it’s too dangerous.”

Lincoln shook his head, “Towards the end, didn’t you manage to control yourself? The injuries that I got were getting less and less serious. With more training and time, we’ll definitely be able to overcome this.”

“At most, we just need more practice and take more time,” he added.

Xu Chun opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say.

Towards the end, Lincoln’s injuries were indeed getting lighter, but his own injuries were getting worse!

As the cold weapon confrontation became more and more realistic, it became harder and harder to go easy on each other.

The blade was only inches away, victory or defeat was determined in an instant. If you wanted to go easy, you would hesitate, and hesitation would lead to failure!

Yes, he was stronger than Lincoln, but Lincoln was outpacing him dramatically at getting better. The gap between them wasn’t large enough for him to easily go easy — his instinct would also resist this restraint that could cause physical “injuries”.

When the training was over and Lincoln dragged him to log out and have lunch together, Xu Chun was looking miserable.

This was much more difficult than he had imagined!

‘Perhaps… I should go back to my hometown.’ Xu Chun couldn’t help but think.

*

Just after one o’clock in the afternoon, Camille Victoria logged into the Cloud Dream Virtual Office in a hurry, looking for Lincoln.

Lincoln, who was just about to go to sleep, was interrupted by her.

There were only two options in front of Lincoln: either start working with Little Princess or invite Little Princess to sleep with him.

When these two options were put together, did he have to choose?

Of course he was going to work with her!

Camille Victoria hadn’t come of age yet!

Reluctantly, Lincoln came to a newly developed Dinosaur Island in the air. He opened the plan, handed it to Camille Victoria, and talked about what they had to do.

After she understood, the three of them, with Xiaomeng included, started module making.

Because there were already abundant materials and technical reserves, and a clear plan, the production process proceeded very quickly.

It was like a handful of players used existing mods to create a popular [Harem Hunting Battle] game in just a few days. What Lincoln and his team were doing was not essentially different from that.

The only original part was the [Quick Construction] feature, which consumed a bit more time.

But there was already a plan: use hand gestures.

Considering that players would still need to hold guns, constructing and shooting at the same time using one hand would be best:

A vertical gesture with five fingers together would open the creation page, where players can select “Wood, Stone, Metal” as the needed materials, and form the initial “panels”.

By controlling the wood, stone, or metal panels to different angles, the players can create a[wall], [floor], [roof], or[steps].

For finer construction like doors and windows, players could simply draw on the construction page with their index finger.

The speed of development by Lincoln and Xiaomeng left Camille Victoria dumbstruck.

She watched, astonished, as a new game was born out of an afternoon’s work… ok, right under her eyelid.

The only thing left was player testing, followed by minor adjustments.

Camille Victoria stood above Dinosaur Island, her eyes full of envy.

She was envious of Lincoln’s astonishing skills, and also of this extraordinary gift.

*

Half an hour before the end of work hours, Randall successfully flaunted his marriage certificate.

Everything went extraordinarily smoothly for them today.

The traffic wasn’t bad on the way, and when they got to Little Chun’s house in Tianjinwei, her parents had no demands at all.

Bridal gifts, a house, the wedding, nothing was mentioned. They just said: “Just have a happy life together.”

They got the household registration book.

The visit to the Civil Affairs Bureau also went smoothly, with no hiccups throughout the registration.

They were now a married couple.

The company group chat once again became lively as everyone sent them their blessings.

Lincoln straightforwardly announced:

“To celebrate the union of two of our company’s veterans, we’ll finish work early today!”

As everyone cheered and prepared to wrap up, Lincoln added another announcement:

“Also! @Randall, @Little Chun, do you have any honeymoon plans yet?”

Randall was unsure: “We do… I guess?”

They planned a trip to Hangzhou this weekend, to reminisce about their previous trip.

Although they had not planned to get married at that time, but now that they’ve gotten the marriage certificate, it could still count as a honeymoon, right?

But Little Chun clearly had a different opinion. She replied decisively: “No.”

“Huh?” Randall turned to look at Little Chun beside him.

Seeing her expression, he tactfully withdrew his previous message, and replied again: “No!”

“Would you be interested in Chang’an?” asked Lincoln. “I plan to arrange a large-scale team building event in Chang’an. If you’re interested, you could join in.”

“You’ll have complete freedom. Well, to be precise, everyone will have complete freedom. You can tour Chang’an as you please, and the company will reimburse all costs!”

“Of course, I mean travel expenses. If you’re going to buy a building in Chang’an, that won’t be reimbursed.”

“Boss! Is this a project investigation?” Clark immediately jumped in.

Palace Poem soon followed: “I’m going! I’m signing up! Take me along!”

The staff members eagerly registered.

The Chang’an project had never been a secret within the company, many were looking forward to it.

Newcomer Jason, who had only been there for two days, excitedly exclaimed, “Me too! Take me along!”

No one believed this was just a simple trip!

Why should they suddenly go to Chang’an? It’s obvious that the [Virtual Chang’an] project team is about to be formed!

Among this enthusiasm, Randall and Little Chun agreed to come along.

*

While the Cloud Dream staff were excited, they did not neglect their official work.

At 5:00 PM, it was time to leave work.

The second major update of Battlefield, with a total of 8 issue corrections and 30 detailed adjustments, was pushed out to all Battlefield players.

In a familiar Paris hotel room, the American anchor Turner was in the middle of a live stream.

“Great! I finally got my compensation!”

“Even though 800 bonds now can’t compare to the 1000 bonds from when the server first opened 4 days ago, at least—I got them!”

Turner was ecstatic.

“Do you know what’s even better?”

“Just today, one hour ago, France surpassed Germany, charging up to 3rd place in the National War points rankings!”

“Although they were soon overtaken by Germany again, the trend is clear! As long as we hold steady, France will definitely make it into the T1 War Zone next time we’re ranked!”

“At the same time, I log on for over 8 hours every day! My winning rate is also very high, far exceeding the average of French players. Do you know what this means?”

“This means!” Turner slowed down his speech, excitedly adding, “I may very likely have the chance, to represent France in the ‘World War’ in two weeks’ time!”

His audience in the live stream was infected by his excitement, quickly sending comments and gifts.

However, some fans expressed their dissatisfaction: “Are you just going to betray your motherland like this?”

“?” Turner, in his excitement, was momentarily confused by the question.

But immediately afterwards, he responded even more passionately: “Betray what?! It’s those bureaucrats who did me wrong first! If they lift the restrictions today, I’ll check out and fly back tomorrow to serve my motherland!”

“But do they allow it? They won’t!”

“And besides, my great-grandmother was French! Not just me, everyone else here—if you trace a few generations back in your family tree, who can guarantee that there aren’t any other nationalities?”

Finally, Turner stated righteously:

“So, as long as France enters T1, from then on, I will proudly be a Frenchman in the virtual world!”

…

As everyone knows, joy in the world is always balanced.

When one person is joyful, another might feel disturbed.

Just as Turner was celebrating France surpassing Germany, the German players were about to go mad with anger!