Chapter 126: White Star Studio
Less than half an hour until the Treasure Hunt event.
Leicester’s sky was as gloomy as ever, with rain drizzling, washing every corner of the city. The Old Town was indeed enveloped by a strange mist, just as Moria had said.
Li Wen and the other walked through the streets in the fog. There were traces of Aether lingering in the mist, proving it wasn’t ordinary fog.
There were hardly any people on the streets. One reason was that it was night in the Old Town. As for the other reason, Li Wen only learned about it after asking Moria.
It turned out that yesterday at noon, the City Hall, in conjunction with the Disciplinary Bureau, had issued a notice to all residents that a major storm would pass through Leicester, warning citizens not to go out easily and temporarily closing most taverns, public facilities, and entertainment venues.
This was clearly a measure to cope with Transcendent individuals, and Li Wen was surprised by the Disciplinary Bureau’s efficiency, as if they had been prepared long in advance.
Moria cast a spell on the mist, Mana Tracking.
This was a spell researched by some combat mages to search for other enemy mages. Regardless of its effectiveness, it was almost effortless to cast and applicable to most mages of different paths.
After passing the Spellbreaker trial of the Holy See, a Holy See Knight could gain the right to cast spells, able to cast up to six spells below their own stage.
As long as no corresponding protection was in place, Mana Tracking could easily find the location of spellcasters within range.
However, a moment later, Moria shook his head. The mist was not created by mages, and his spell had no effect.
Li Wen took out the Magic Map. Since most ordinary people were hiding in their homes now, could it be assumed that those acting outside were mostly Players or Transcendent individuals?
She zoomed in on the Old Town area of the map and, after a few glances, made a discovery.
“Two blocks ahead, that seems to be the location of the Old Town’s local Security Bureau. There are quite a few people there, and it looks like there’s even a conflict,” Li Wen said, looking at the dense light spots on the map. The spots were close to each other, and they were decreasing one by one. This meant that they either voluntarily stopped their activities or were forced to stop.
“Then let’s go take a look.”
Moria didn’t ask any further questions. He nodded slightly and walked forward.
*
Meanwhile, chaos had erupted in the Old Town Security Bureau.
White Star Fangs considered himself the top strategist of the top White Star Studio, believing the team couldn’t survive without him. He was among the first batch of people who followed the Guild Leader, the founder of the studio, to build up the team.
White Star Fangs greatly admired this Guild Leader. He was formerly a professional player of a popular game. After retiring, he used his previous connections to establish White Star Studio, and White Star Fangs joined at that time as the operations manager.
Initially, the studio relied on scripts to do gold farming and power leveling. Later, with good team operations and the reputation of professional players, they began to transition towards boss first kills, dungeon guides, guild, and PvP rankings. After a few popular games, they had achieved some success and earned a name as one of the top 100+ studios on a website that ranked online game studios.
That’s how the “top” prefix came to be in the studio’s name.
After that, the Guild Leader received an invitation to the internal beta test of “World Tree: Origin.” Initially, no one took it seriously, as this game had no promotion, no funding, and the production team was an unknown company with no previous work. It was highly likely to be a flop that would die as soon as it launched, so they set it aside.
However, White Star Fangs felt that this was not quite right, as the studio was in a period of growth, and their team’s operating strategy had always revolved around the Guild Leader, a professional player, with considerable expenditure on packaging, persona building, and hype.
If, because of this, the production team of “World Tree: Origin” were to write a scathing review of their studio, accusing famous professional players of looking down on small companies, etc… While it wouldn’t deal a severe blow to their studio, they would lose fans, and other manufacturers and production teams would likely hesitate to cooperate with them for advertising in the future.
Therefore, White Star Fangs advised the Guild Leader to at least try it out, and more importantly, not to offend anyone. Since he had always been advising the team, the Guild Leader readily agreed.
As a result, the very next morning, White Star Fangs received a call from the Guild Leader, who excitedly stated that the studio’s entire operational direction would henceforth be concentrated on “World Tree: Origin.”
To this day, White Star Fangs still doesn’t think this is a wise idea.
It wasn’t that “World Tree: Origin” wouldn’t become popular; quite the opposite, this game had reached a level of popularity that no game before it could match. However, as an old-school online game player and studio supervisor, White Star Fangs didn’t believe that “World Tree: Origin” could bring them, or the studio, what they desired.
This game was too hardcore, too realistic. It had no guild wars, no PvP rankings, no server-wide announcements, no dungeon first kills, and even no in-game long-distance communication, no friend system, and no main storyline… The production team presented a game that was extremely close to the real world, but they hadn’t added any gameplay elements that could stimulate players’ desire for competition or comparison.
For studios like theirs, investing all their energy into it without figuring out how to develop, operate, and achieve results in such a game, and without leaving any room for maneuver, was a major pitfall that could lead to the studio’s dissolution.
This was also the Guild Leader’s weakness. He was too young and had played professionally, with ability, but lacked consideration for the future and had never thought about what would happen if they failed.
Even now, a few words from an NPC had made him overly excited.
The NPCs in this game were incredibly cunning. Although the Lagovin Family hadn’t said anything, they had only vaguely mentioned what was about to happen at Black Raven Port, even clearing themselves of any responsibility in their words. Yet, he immediately got excited and insisted on obtaining that Divine Artifact, completely falling into their rhythm.
Was it that easy to get a Divine Artifact in this game?
White Star Fangs didn’t try to persuade his Guild Leader. He knew his place; some things were not for him, a subordinate, to say.
Since the leader liked to get carried away and leave no room for retreat, all he could do was to try his best to avoid accidents.
But some things were bound to happen, no matter how hard one tried to avoid them.
Just as the three of them were setting up a ritual at the Security Bureau, the guys from the Disciplinary Bureau came barging in.
