Rebirth of the Godly Prodigal

Tianjing City, southern city area, in the Qian Family’s secret villa.

Sitting on the sofa drinking tea, Shiroishi Kazuma insipidly asked, “How’s our progress? Is everything still going smoothly?”

“Currently, they’re all still going fine.” Qian Youjin held a thick document in his hand, looking through it as he said, “According to your instructions, Mr. Shi, we’ve put up advertisements on all the various websites, and they were all put up at very striking positions. The website has been created such that it looks very pretty, and the speed is fast as well. Now, there are already approximately eighty to ninety thousand players who have expressed keen interest. As long as the advertisements go on for two more days, the game can officially undergo open beta testing.”

“Mm, almost the same as what I’d predicted.” Shiroishi Kazuma closed his eyes slightly and, after thinking for a while, insipidly said, “Any reaction from Liu Mingxin’s side? This young man is still very adept with the online gaming aspect.”

“At the moment, we haven’t heard any response from him. He’s probably investigating into our background.” Qian Youjin smiled. “Mr. Shi, do we need to do anything?”

“There’s no need to at the moment.” Shiroishi Kazuma shook his head. “Now, the most important thing we need to do is to attract their attention, especially Hong Dali. This young man is quite lucky, we have to guard against this. These few days, the more I investigated into his background, the more shocked I became. He earns money in literally everything he does. Though the effects of many things might not be able to be seen in the short run, in the long run almost all of them earn money. Oh right, you’ve previously sold him two projects, one a smartphone company and the other a basketball team. Is that true?”

“Yes.” Qian Youjin was rather stunned. “Mr. Shi, you’re not thinking that Hong Dali can make those two properties that I’ve sold to him earn money as well, are you?” He thought for a while, then laughed and said, “This is impossible, right? Apart from a large number of stocks in that smartphone factory, I’ve already transferred all the technical personnel away. There isn’t anything apart from the equipment factory workshop. How can he earn money without technical personnel?”

“Mm, OK.” Shiroishi Kazuma touched his chin, then suddenly asked, “Oh right, how are things going on regarding the basketball team’s side?”

“They’re all old and weak people.” Qian Youjin grinned. “Moreover, I’ve disallowed them from change teams, or else, we’d still need to pay compensation for the breach of contract. It just happened that not long later, there will be a few rounds of competition. By then, we can make them participate in it. It’ll be so fun to watch.”

“This is quite good.” Shiroishi Kazuma nodded and said, “Remember to divert their focus and ask them to concentrate on the basketball match. You can find a dependable person to go and inform them.”

After the two of them had discussed the upcoming plans, Qian Youjin cautiously said, “Mr. Shi, regarding the resource chamber of commerce…”

Heavenly State’s Resource Chamber of Commerce held a meeting once every three years, which would decide the dividing of the resources in Heavenly State for the next three years. It was extremely important. As the energy tycoon, the Qian Family naturally placed great emphasis on this. The main reason for Qian Youjin work so hard for Shiroishi Kazuma, who represented Toyoda Conglomerate, was exactly because of this.

“Rest assured.” Shiroishi Kazuma insipidly said, “As a member of the big East Asia shared-glory circle, your Qian Family will not lack in the benefits that you would get.”

…

As a hardcore online gamer, Han Chengwen was quite bored in the recent few days.

He had already reached the top level in Draconic Continent, and he had all the godly equipment. It wasn’t an overstatement to say that Han Chengwen was already so formidable in Draconic Continent that he had no opponents left. Even if he continued to play it, there was already not anything that would be able to attract him.

Thus, now he really needed a brand new type of game to satisfy his desire to conquer and dominate, to let him have a fresh feeling and let him once again rise up the ranks from a newcomer, to eventually stand on the peak of the entire server.

The process was the most attractive one.

Thus, on one particular morning, he groggily got out of bed. Out of boredom, Han Chengwen clicked onto the largest game publishing website in Heavenly State, Play Together website, to see whether there were any newly released games that attracted him. Very soon, he found a new target—Spiritual Sword!

“What the heck, new game?!” Once he entered the main page of Play Together website, Han Chengwen saw a huge special zone right in the middle of the main page—The Spiritual Sword special zone!

“What kind of game is so impressive? This advertisement is really breaking new grounds. It looks quite good!” Once Han Chengwen saw that pretty and cute girl on the Spiritual Sword special zone, he was instantly attracted to it. “This is the character style? Quite good, quite good looking. This small little waist, these thighs, this black silk…”

As an online gaming lover, Han Chengwen, thus, was a geek as well. To a geek, it was undoubtedly a pretty second dimension face, and a small and slim waist as well as long legs with black stockings, which attracted him to a whole new level. Thus, Han Chengwen, without any hesitation, clicked into it. And then, he was very satisfied.

“The speed of this website is quite fast, and the webpage is done very prettily.” Han Chengwen clicked and browsed around on the Spiritual Sword website, and the more he looked at it, the more he liked it. “This game looks quite good. There are many professions, and the characterizations are rather good-looking, and there is very substantial depth in the equipment as well. I’m just not sure how the gameplay is like. Let me see whether open beta testing has started.”

He searched for a short while, and very soon, he found the timing of the open beta testing somewhere in the middle towards the right of the website. “Huh? The open beta testing will start from 2:00 PM tomorrow? This is good. I’ve got to hurry up and download the game, then I’ll give it a try!”

While the game was being downloaded, he naturally had to go and take a look at the game introduction, the game strategies and so on. Once Han Chengwen clicked into the Play Together forum, the first thing that was displayed was the overall popularity of the forum—Today: 140,077. Yesterday: 4,562,260. Posts: 44,2701,552. Members: 53,056,442.

A special zone for Spiritual Sword, as expected, had already been opened in the forum. Alas, once Han Chengwen saw the number of posts in the Spiritual Sword zone, he was instantly stunned!

Behind the Spiritual Sword zone, it impressively displayed a huge figure—57,340!

What this figure represented was the number of posts in the Spiritual Sword zone today! Just such a figure alone might not be very obvious, but if a comparison was made, currently, the most popular Draconic Continent among the online games only had 73,658 posts!

That meant that within a short few days’ time, the popularity of Spiritual Sword had already reached two-thirds that of Draconic Continent’s! It had even occupied almost one-third of the popularity in the online gaming forums in Heavenly State!

“What the heck. This isn’t true, right? By right, this game has only been newly launched, right? I’ve only just gotten to know about it, and it’s already so popular?!” Han Chengwen stared in bewilderment. “Looks like this game is indeed very awesome! I’d better hurry and go look at the news!”

After entering the Spiritual Sword zone, the figures of the various sub-zones at the back almost blinded Han Chengwen’s eyes!

Integrated discussion zone of Spiritual Sword(22103) Theme: 202,962, Number of posts: 10,715,161, three-item Brilliance Set, Master Bei’s ring enhanced by +4… Posted by Elevencxy 3 seconds ago.

Spiritual Sword popular patch zone(8987) Theme: 50,227, Number of posts: 7,708,379, So cool~ Muramasa has awoken~ Super cool, isn’t it… Posted by Twi_Light 10 seconds ago.

Spiritual Sword zone nosy rantings(7308) Theme: 46,560, Number of posts: 1,508,230…

Spiritual Sword sword lovers personal exposure zone(3024) Theme: 13,963, Number of posts: 688,605…

“What the heck! This is good! This is too impressive!” Han Chengwen liked it the more he looked at it! What was most important in online gaming? The popularity, of course! An online game that didn’t have popularity would definitely be unable to ignite the interest in hardcore gamers! After all, the players had sharp eyes. They could perceive a rough idea of whether the game was fun or not just by looking at the number of players!

Very soon, Han Chengwen logged into his own account and entered the Spiritual Sword integrated discussion zone and started searching for the information that he needed, as well as occasionally waiting for other players to start up some things: “Brothers, I want to play as a mage, anyone wants to join me?”

More than ten replies appeared below very soon. “I’ll play as a warrior. Brother, which zone are you in?” “I’ll play as a hunter, we’re together in the same zone!” “I’ll play as a priest, able to warm the bed and ask someone to provide for me, sufficient milk!”

…

Tianjing City, Mingxin Network.

Liu Mingxin sat in front of his office desk, looking at the various statistical data of this new online game, “Spiritual Sword,” and frowned seriously.

The statistics of this online game had been increasing during the recent few days, completely exceeding Liu Mingxin’s imagination. As the largest online gaming company currently in Heavenly State, Liu Mingxin had to pay serious attention to this type of opponent that was about to rise!

After all, people had a limited amount of time. If the players went to play “Spiritual Sword,” they’d naturally not have time to play Draconic Continent.

“The increase in popularity is indeed impressive.” Liu Mingxin looked at the number of posts of Play Together forum and was extremely shocked. “It has reached this extent within just a few days. The game is indeed quite good, and most importantly, their advertising methods are extremely apt. Such a big special zone on the main page of Play Together would probably cost a million and above every day!”

The investments were definitely horrifying for such a large-scale website with tens of millions of users like Play Together to use such a large advertisement special topic!

It had to be known for games, advertising had an extremely big difference.

Just a small link attached to the main page would cost an advertisement fee of approximately fifty to a hundred thousand or so, which could be done by the usual online game.

If there were special zones on the main page for recommendations and introductions, then it would cost around 200,000 or so of advertisement fees every day. Only large-scale online games would be able to do that. As for the small-scale online games… they didn’t even need to think of it. The amount of money they earned would probably not even be able to cover the advertisement fees.

Meanwhile, an online game like Spiritual Sword which had separately opened up a special zone in the most central part of the main page… it would definitely cost at least one million and above daily! It could be said that just the advertisements put up one month before this game was launched would cost at least 30 million and above!

“Looks like this company is filthy rich.” Liu Mingxin slightly squinted his eyes. “I wonder what is their background. But nevertheless, they’ll definitely be our biggest competitor!”

Thinking up to this point, the secretary knocked on the door and walked into the room, saying in a soft voice, “Young Master Liu, this company has a very substantial background. With our ability, we won’t be able to investigate on who exactly is backing them up.”

“Mm.” Liu Mingxin took in a deep breath. “Looks like this opponent is very powerful. We can’t even find out his background… Impressive!”

He looked at the statistics again for a while more, then slowly said, “Go and inform the technical department to hold some activities to increase popularity. For instance, giving gifts online and rewarding some supplementary props or so on when fighting against monsters.”

“Yes.” The secretary said, “Director Liu, do we need to start carrying out advertisements at Dream Dota League side?”

“Mm, OK.” Liu Mingxin nodded. “Increase the advertising power. At least, it can’t be lacking compared to this Spiritual Sword!”

“Understood.”