Gabe wasn't on the livestream long - just a few minutes while he got some responses, opinions, and some ideas for things to add to the game. Although he could read the viewers' comments and watch the streamers' reactions secretly, being able to directly ask some questions such as the Player's impressions of the monster and what he felt when fighting the monster was much better than just hoping that at some time he would mention those things.
Within minutes he had already gotten the answers he wanted and he disconnected from the livestream. When Gabe left, the livestream had 12,000 viewers and the number kept increasing. Martian had intended to stop playing after this battle, but when he saw the amount of people watching his livestream, he soon changed his mind and decided to play some more to retain part of the public that came to see EA.
While Martian was trying to build audience loyalty, Gabe had already finished taking his notes and went to the park to practice some exercises while thinking about the things he saw on the livestream. The things that Martian and his viewers had said that surprised them the most was how Gabe had managed to create such a powerful monster as Dimitrescu, which Gabe obviously didn't go on to explain the secret. He had done it just as he had told Mr. Brown and Director Carter, leaving Dimitrescu's resistance stat much stronger than a normal Rank F monster, but its Strength stat was greatly diminished.
What gave the players a sense of oppression the most was thinking that such a huge monster could eat them at any moment, but Gabe knew that the damage that Dimitrescu could deal to a Player in the game was not as high as they imagined, down even farther from the damage done by some of the other monsters in the game. But her large size, intimidating appearance, her strange abilities, and her screaming all the time, affected the psychology of the players until she really was an extremely dangerous monster.
Of course, because of how much life she had, the chance for the Player to miss their attacks on her weak spot and die before being able to kill her was much higher than when dealing with a weaker monster, which made fighting her much more complicated than when dealing with an elite monster, but considering that her attack was low, as long as the Player maintained constancy, in the end the victory would be theirs.
This was also good for training players' mindsets to calm down in future battles while dealing with real monsters in real life quests, as a calm mind could save many lives.
…
While he was thinking about these things, Gabe was at the park working out after doing a few miles of jogging.
As much as the same thing had happened the day before, Gabe still couldn't get used to the rapid improvement his body was experiencing. The Mana nourishing his muscles made him also able to rest faster, increasing the intensity of the exercises and the repetitions he could do in a day.
'This is really addictive…' Gabe thought excitedly, as he analyzed his progress compared to how much he had managed to do yesterday.
He wasn't the only one training in the park, as there were thousands of Players in the city. Even though most Players had gyms where they'd go to train, it was still very common to see other Players training in the park too - mainly calisthenics training groups, which were even more useful for some fighting styles than strength-focused training. And considering that Players didn't have fixed hours to work, it was quite common to see groups of Players gathered talking in the park.
After finishing his training, Gabe was walking towards the park exit and saw a group of three people talking. There was nothing special about this group other than two men in suits talking to a young man Gabe's age, but what caught Gabe's attention was the young man, as he remembered, despite never having talked to that young man, he was part of the same Developers class as him at Harrington University.
'If I'm not mistaken, his name is Jacob something…' Gabe thought as he looked at Jacob curiously for a few seconds before leaving.
But he didn't imagine that the subject they were talking about was himself!
"Are you sure you can do this?" one of the men asked suspiciously.
Jacob looked at the man and replied with arrogance, "Of course! I just hadn't thought of something like that, but now that I've played his game, it's no problem to repeat what he did. You know my game was the top game in the contest before this EA came out. If he hadn't shown up I would be the champion. He was just luckier than me to think of something like that."
"Ok, we'll need to test you. Take this Rank F Seed and develop at least the Demo part of Residual Devil. If it is at least close to the result the EA produced, we'll take you on."
One of the men in suits handed the boy a Seed before turning and leaving.
Before leaving, the other man looked at Jacob and said, "Don't try anything cute. If you manage to do this task with the Seed, we'll take you to Rosewood so you can copy Residual Devil completely. With that, all the Mana Units that the game yields can be yours to keep."
After the man said that, he turned and left, leaving Jacob with bright eyes staring at the man's back.
Jacob had felt very wronged. He was supposed to be the Top Developer in the city this year, but who would have thought that this EA, whichever one of his classmates that was, would emerge and steal all the attention and Players for him?!
The last time Jacob had looked at the Rankings, Residual Devil had over 12,000 downloads, while his game, Spear Throwing Training, had only 3,150 downloads! Jacob felt that since he was at the top before Residual Devil came along, he was the best Developer in Sandstone Bay, but since EA managed to come up with the idea of making a game that way, he stole all the attention for himself.
'If I had just come up with that idea first, I too could have made just as successful of a game,' Jacob thought in frustration.
Fortunately, agents from Rosewood City had recently contacted him, giving him an opportunity to make a copy of Residual Devil in Rosewood City, thus dominating the market there as much as the EA was doing in Sandstone Bay.
For these agents, the development of Rosewood City was much more important than reaching out to and pleasing this EA, especially after they tried to discover the identity of this Developer and got no response. It was already clear that Sandstone Bay was treating EA very well, completely hiding the whereabouts of this young Developer. Most likely, they had already invested in them, so smuggling this elusive EA out of Sandstone Bay would be much more difficult than hiring a Developer who had already played Residual Devil and taking him to Rosewood, letting him make this game available to Players there as well.
They knew that with the growth of Residual Devil it would only be a matter of time before Sandstone Bay invested in getting the game to other cities, and they knew that when that happened, EA would completely dominate the development of Rank F Players.
But not Rosewood, as they would already have their version of Residual Devil dominating the market there with a Developer from their city! That way, not only would they have a powerful and talented Developer in town, they would also make the Players stronger and prevent the genius Developer from Sandstone Bay from getting even more Mana from their town. Who knew? Perhaps their version of the game would be able to edge out the market from under this EA character in other cities as well.
If Gabe knew about this plan, he would probably laugh at these people thinking they could copy Residual Devil in such a simple way. The game might have at first glance seemed simple enough to copy, but the whole level design, monster power balancing, even the monster skills, was extremely difficult for Developers in this world to copy.
While creating the monsters was extremely difficult and tiring for others, Gabe just had to let the System simulate the creation of those monsters and that was it! As for Level Design, Gabe had played hundreds, if not thousands, of triple A games in his previous world, which gave him a much greater knowledge in this regard than the Developers of this world, who often did not even know how to develop worlds, just leaving the Player in a random forest and having them fight monsters in a small area.
And finally, the biggest highlight of the game currently was the ability to upgrade weapons, which would be extremely difficult for Jacob to copy, since not only would he have to play Residual Devil for dozens of hours to learn how to do it, but he would also have to spend many hundreds of Mana Units to finally be able to make a character like Duke who could teach Players how to perform this Upgrade.
Even if this copy managed to dominate Rosewood, it would only be a matter of days after the real Residual Devil arrived in Rosewood for Players to be able to distinguish between which game was good and which game was just a cheap and flimsy copy.
But Gabe didn't even know this was happening, so it would just be something for future Gabe to deal with. The present Gabe was currently getting out of the shower and changing his clothes. Today he was going to sign the agreement with Sandstone Bay Television for the right to broadcast Residual Devil and sign the 1 month exclusivity agreement with the government of Sandstone Bay.
Glancing at his wardrobe, Gabe was a little disappointed to see that he didn't have any smart looking clothes to wear in this situation. He had just earned money, but didn't have the time to go to the mall to buy some suits and clothes with better fabrics, so he was a little uncomfortable going to the meeting with clothes that simple.
When he finally got tired of looking through the wardrobe for something good, Gabe finally had an idea.
'If I can make weapons and bring them to real life, while high Rank Developers can even develop armor for Players to bring to real life, why shouldn't I be able to bring clothes into reality?' Gabe thought as his mind exploded.
'A virtual clothing store would be extremely useful…' Gabe thought about how much Mana and money he could earn with this, but he quickly dismissed the idea, thinking that the government would probably ban something like that, since a Developer with ideas like that could easily wipe out a city's industry.
'But even if the government doesn't like Developers doing this to sell and make money, it's okay if I only do this for personal use, right?'
Thinking on that point, Gabe quickly logged onto his Seed and used just 10 Mana Units to make an exquisite set of navy blue suits tailored to his current body. To hide this suit, Gabe simply placed it in Ethan's closet and left it locked so that Players wouldn't be able to interact with the suit or even know it was there in the first place.
When leaving the game, Gabe felt that he only needed 15 Mana Units to make a suit like that appear in real life, which he did without thinking twice. Those 15 Mana Units would probably already be recovered when he returned.
With a navy blue suit and a black dress shirt underneath, Gabe just had to put on a thin gold-plated necklace, which wasn't very expensive for Gabe even before he had money, to contrast with the dress shirt and the rest of the outfit perfectly. Coupling that with the golden hair and eyes he had, Gabe was finally ready to sign these agreements and finally start earning money and power in this world.
For the time being he was just focused on making a name for himself, but now that he would finally come into contact with figures like the Governor of Sandstone Bay, Gabe knew that with the potential he demonstrated, he would play an important role in the development of the city, which which not only bring responsibilities, but also many opportunities for him!
//NunuNote//
[Bonus Chapter 3/6]
(I've added one chapter of yesterday, as I was travelling back to my city and couldn't write.)
Mass Release Target XD:
Based on weekly powerstone rankings!
Top10 = 3 Bonus Chapter
Top5 = 5 Bonus Chapter
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Bonus Chapters will be released on Sunday, based on preceding performance of the novel. Don't forget to vote for more chapters!
Current Rank: 4!!
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