Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 701: Chapter 666: Interview Invitation from Lincoln!

The top 10 works are all fantastic.

The Western-style fantasy themed [World Tree] and [Sky City] are not only astonishing in scale, but also show a highly consistent aesthetic style in their creations, exuding a sense of harmonious beauty.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

[Tower Kingdom], [Ice Crystal Ball], and [Moon Palace] demonstrate ingenious design.

The Tower Kingdom is a nation built upon a giant tower where different functions and social classes reside within different floors.

However, the implications of the different social classes are rather subtle and do not seize the limelight.

Ignoring these implications and just appreciating the architecture or lively life of the NPCs is already a feast for the eyes.

The [Ice Crystal Ball] is essentially an enormous amplified version of a crystal ball, with the once-tiny city within it magnified into a real winter town.

There are houses, shops, streets, hospitals, ski resorts, and more…

And there are indeed many NPCs living here.

This work perfectly epitomizes the saying “small but complete.”

The [Moon Palace], though not massive in scale, creates a dreamy atmosphere using a wonderful combination of a full moon, cassia trees, lanterns, and Chinese-style architecture.

[Dracula Castle], [Chang’an Academy], and [Gusu] incorporate many real-life sceneries into their respective designs.

Although some of the references are from modern times and some from ancient times, the approach is similar —

They are all based on real-existing sceneries while rearranging their compositions according to the creators’ imagination. Some even go a step further to artistically process the sceneries to fit into their desired temperament.

Indeed, these three works have achieved the creators’ purposes: Dracula Castle is gloomy, Chang’an Academy is grand and serious, and Gusu is gentle like water.

However, there are variances in their aesthetics and atmospheric crafting, which is also reflected in their ranking and the number of votes they received.

…

But all of these buildings, without exception, are built on the surface of a planet.

Even [Sky City] isn’t that high, almost on the same level as [Whale Group].

Only the champion broke through the atmosphere and reached space!

— In creative mode, such a step indeed can be taken, and some have done it before.

However, for all the players who had been in space before, they only saw empty darkness.

The Earth-like planet beneath their feet is predominantly blue, with only slightly different surface outlines.

But players also knew that when looking back at the planet from space, the distance was already too far, and they could only see an ordinary texture—the planet’s landscape contours didn’t hold much meaning anymore.

Yet, in the work [Lagrange: Beacon of Hope Space Station], not only was the planet beneath transformed into a “sun” with rolling lava, but the once-empty space was also adorned with many distant and close stars.

While making the universe livelier, it also filled the background of the work with substance.

As good-looking as it is, but how… ?

Super Tomato clicked through to the main work page to view more detailed information.

Then, he was awestruck when he saw that the creators who called themselves the [Digital Reserve Team] were actually flooding lava onto the world in creative mode!

Theoretically, using this method could turn the entire world into a lava world in a short time.

But in practice, it wouldn’t work.

The Mirage Console’s function wasn’t that powerful, and there was a limit to the number of blocks that could be simultaneously created and used. The purported “planet” in the design was extraordinarily huge, even leading players to think of it as “infinitely large.”

But this time, by painstakingly “infinitely” pouring lava onto the planet—

These people successfully proved one thing—

“My World” is limited.

That’s because their world was indeed filled with lava!

The “sun” that Super Tomato saw was, in fact, the original water-blue planet! Beneath the flowing lava lies an endless expanse of obsidian, and beneath the obsidian is the ocean!

The ocean beneath the lava!

Just this one step alone is enough to stun Super Tomato — who would have thought that to build a structure, one would need to transform an entire planet??!

But there are even more astonishing things to come:

The stars in space — those seemingly close planets and distant suns — are man-made!

Of course, they didn’t create that many planets. That would be too preposterous.

They only used illusions created by distance and lighting to make them look like stars. In reality, one doesn’t need to fly far to get a closer look.

However, behind the space station, there are several dozen densely-packed interstellar battleships!

The engines of the battleships are already glowing, seemingly about to set off for war.

Moving further, the camera finally enters the space station, introducing the various areas:

[Residential Area], [Breeding Area], [Decision-making Area], [Power Area], [Energy Area], [Preparation for War Area], [Industrial Area], [Interstellar Shipyard]… Everything is available.

Although some areas inside are sparse due to time constraints, drawing some people to rant: “If they didn’t waste time turning planets into molten glass, they probably would have finished by now.”

But this didn’t dampen the players’ crazy love for the work, feverishly sending it to the champion’s throne.

Not only that.

In the comment section, countless people urged them to hurry up and launch it as a mod, even if it’s charged, as their wallets were already parched.

There were also many people who directly left comments recommending themselves, hoping to join the project and continue to improve the space station after the competition ended.

“Amazing, I don’t think this team is just ordinary science fiction enthusiasts, ordinary people can’t achieve such realism and detail.”

Super Tomato was in awe when he suddenly saw the submission ID [Digital Reserve Team] jump out and reply to the question about the mod:

“It will be made into a mod and launched, but it won’t be charged. The prize money for the first place is already enough for us to improve it. However, we can’t be certain about the time.”

“Because just three minutes ago, we received an interview invitation from Cloud Dream!”

“From Lincoln himself!”

“Brothers! Think about why that might be!”

“I can’t say more, but – our journey is to the stars and the sea!”

“I…!” Seeing the author’s words, Super Tomato almost blurted out a dirty word, barely managing to swallow it down.

He managed to hold back, but other players couldn’t –

“What the hell! Do champions get this special treatment?”

“I hate it! Why didn’t I sign up because it’s too much trouble! If I had known, I would have participated even if I had to lose sleep!”

“It’s not the treatment of champions, is it? The champion on Redstone’s side didn’t get an invitation. It seems their work fits Cloud Dream’s needs.”

“!!! Cloud Dream’s needs? Sci-fi? Space? F*ck!!”

…

Beneath the [Digital Reserve Team]’s reply, there is a flood of excessive words, fully expressing the players’ astonishment.

‘Is Cloud Dream going to make a space-themed science fiction game?’

The thought emerged involuntarily in the minds of everyone.

Otherwise, why would they recruit the [Digital Reserve Team]? And it’s an invitation from Lincoln himself!

This is big news!

Almost within half an hour, the “big news” spread throughout the entire player circle.

As if responding to this speculation, another piece of news also emerged –

Multiple media outlets broke the news simultaneously: They received an official invitation from Cloud Dream to attend the press conference the next morning.

Upon hearing this news, netizens became even more excited.

In their view, this almost confirmed it!

Otherwise, what are the chances of such a coincidence?

And what else could it be that would make Lincoln, the salty fish, so serious?

*

Of course, there was one exception among the players.

Lincoln’s “No.1 follower”, Thomas.

When he saw Lincoln that day, he was preoccupied with excitement and, out of politeness, didn’t look closely at the girl next to him.

– No matter if the girl is Lincoln’s girlfriend or not, it’s not appropriate for him, an outsider, to stare at someone else’s female companion.

So at that moment, he didn’t think anything was wrong.

But when he got home and the excitement subsided, Thomas thought more and more about how familiar the girl seemed.

But he couldn’t tell exactly where he had seen her before.

However, when he was lying in bed at night playing with his mobile phone, he suddenly saw Princess Camille Victoria in a piece of news, and a flash of lightning crossed his mind –

“Bang!”

The mobile phone slipped from his hand and heavily hit his face.

“F*ck!” Thomas suddenly sat up from the bed, both shocked and angry: “That was the f*cking princess?!”

This big secret had been tormenting him for several days.

He couldn’t be sure, but after searching some information, he thought it was very likely – the two were even university classmates!

Recently, he had been agonizing over this matter, so when he suddenly saw Lincoln being so serious and holding a press conference, he instinctively thought it was because of this.

After all, he hadn’t seen him hold a press conference before when he made “Battlefield” or now when he’s making “Chang’an”, right?

So-

“Could they be planning to make it official?!”