To ascend, I had no choice but to create games

Despite being a hotshot producer of late, the owner of Fang Cheng Studio didn’t seem to enjoy making public appearances.

Now it looked like he wasn’t trying to create a sense of mystery; he simply wasn’t interested in that sort of thing.

After watching for a while, Fang Cheng walked directly to a broadcaster with thick eyebrows and a righteous face, and asked in a friendly manner, “You must be Wang Say Games, right? I’m Fang Cheng. It’s great to meet you.”

Wang’s eyes lit up, and he felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

He had been anxious and unsure about how to break the ice with Fang Cheng.

After all, they had known each other virtually for a long time, and Fang Cheng’s first game, “The Forest’s Second Son,” was unearthed by him.

The subsequent games had been mutually beneficial, but today was their first face-to-face meeting.

Now, while Fang Cheng had soared to great heights, he was just a guest invited by Fang Cheng, which left Wang unsure of what facial expression to use when meeting him.

Fortunately, Fang Cheng recognized him straight away.

This act immediately bridged their relationship, also livening up the atmosphere between them.

Using Wang Say Games as a stepping stone, the other invited broadcasters introduced themselves one by one, and with Monkey making the introductions on the players’ side, everyone finally established a preliminary emotional foundation.

Seeing this scene, the head coach breathed a sigh of relief.

Fang Cheng wasn’t a stern person; his amiable and approachable demeanor was very affable, and he quickly became one with everyone.

That way, he thought, when the time came for them to pick on him, they might go easy on him.

After all, his club was dependent on Fang Cheng, and he hoped his players wouldn’t go too far and upset the benefactor.

When it was about time, the head coach clapped his hands and then said, “All right, we’re ready. Today’s match is just for fun, no points will be counted. The cameras are all set up, and everyone is free to play and form teams as they wish. Our event today will be determined by the roulette wheel. If no one minds, I’ll get it started.”

With that, he spun the wheel, and it began to oscillate before finally coming to a stop at one position.

Seeing the pointer land on the spot, the head coach’s heart skipped a beat.

It was “Helping the Evil”!

In the Helping the Evil mode, four players will act as “Tiger Demons,” having the option to kill a player outright or turn them into a ghost minion after defeating them.

The performance of a ghost minion appears the same as a regular player; they can also meditate to cultivate, but most of their cultivation progress feeds back to the Tiger Demon.

At the same time, by fooling two players into getting killed by the Tiger Demon, a ghost minion can gain freedom and break free from the Tiger Demon’s control.

This mode has a bit of a “Werewolf” feel to it, with lots of deceit, backstabbing, and retaliation happening one after another, making for explosively good entertainment.

But for players trying this mode for the first time, it’s an absolute nightmare.

First they’re deceived by a ghost minion, and after the ghost minion, the Tiger Demon deceives them, and then they’re fooled by the regular players until they can’t even remember who they are.

However, as the owner of the studio, Fang Cheng should have played this mode before.

The head coach glanced at Fang Cheng and noticed his brow was slightly furrowed, boding ill.

He hadn’t played it!

That made sense, after all, a game producer of his caliber was busy creating new games every day, so how could he have possibly had the time to play through all of his old games.

The coach wanted to switch to another mode, but the others were already geared up and entering the VR machines to start the game.

The VR machines were donated by Kirin Industry as a form of advertising, in exchange for a sponsorship credit.

By now, everyone knew that Gao Tianyun, the owner of Kirin Industry, was keen on getting to know Fang Cheng. His club was just collateral damage, which made the head coach even more concerned that the youngsters might overwhelm Fang Cheng and break his defenses.

He approached Chen Liang, intending to remind him to protect the boss, only to find him looking very serious.

Normally, even when faced with the other club players ganging up on him, Monkey would keep his humor, occasionally even catching a slip and counterattacking to achieve impressive results.

But now, Monkey’s expression was extremely solemn, and his muscles were tensed.

“Monkey?”

The head coach called out softly, but the player beside Monkey said helplessly, “Coach, don’t bother; he’s been like this since a while ago, completely unresponsive.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know, he seems really tense; maybe because the studio owner’s here, and he wants to put on a good show?”

Looking at the monkey with bulging eyes, the head coach felt something was off.

It was as if he had seen his lifelong nemesis, his entire being involuntarily tensed, ready for battle with his opponent.

Glancing at Fang Cheng not far away, the head coach thought to himself, “That can’t be right.”

Meanwhile, Fang Cheng put on the VR headset, slipped on the VR gloves, and fastened the safety belt.

This batch of all-in-one VR machines was the latest model. He had even given some feedback on the underlying software and increased the degree of realism by 5 percentage points.

After all, effort determined outcome. Gao Tianyun had indeed done a good job, and Fang Cheng was happy to offer some help by optimizing some of the content.

Compared to Immortal Spells, programming was a bit simpler, and he could easily come up with decent optimization solutions.

And although it was only a 5 percent increase, it was already close to the VR limit, just waiting for a technological breakthrough to blow the virtual reality technology wide open.

After familiarizing himself with the VR hardware, Fang Cheng’s vision went dark as the game officially started.

“You are an ordinary Cultivator who has rushed here to exorcise demons after hearing that a small fishing village has been troubled by monsters.

But you don’t know what awaits you.”

The weathered voice sounded, immediately immersing the player in the setting.

The opening narration hinted at Fang Cheng’s current identity as an ordinary player, with the goal of exterminating all the Tiger Demons.

The death of a Tiger Demon also meant the death of its thrall ghosts, inherently pitting them against each other.

If one were a Tiger Demon, the narration would take a different tone, suggesting what the Tiger Demon player could do.

As the voiceover ended, the game also finished loading.

The surrounding environment was presumably a new addition by Huang Ping for this competition. At that time, Fang Cheng had casually created some buildings to meet his requirements, but he didn’t expect Huang Ping to do such an impressive job.

Under the overcast sky and howling Gang Wind, this place wouldn’t be destroyed, but there were scattered meditation spots for players to improve their Cultivation.

He stood in a corner of the small fishing village, where all players were evenly distributed across various spawn points, beginning to explore and form alliances.

The fishing village had been celebrating a festival, but all the villagers had vanished, leaving only a half-prepared scene and lanterns all over the village.

In the gloomy night, the red lanterns swayed with the wind, illuminating some areas as bright as day, while others, without lanterns, were too dark to see anything.

The superb environmental effects put non-Tiger Demon players on high alert, also making the game atmosphere incredibly spooky.

Having produced such great effects with limited resources, Huang Ping was indeed talented.

Sighing in admiration, Fang Cheng was about to move when he heard a scream piercing through the sky.

It was a player who had just entered the game and encountered a Tiger Demon.

The Tiger Demon’s initial strength was equivalent to two rounds of meditation, an insurmountable force for new players. An encounter meant certain death.

And the first player to be killed was usually transformed into a thrall ghost.

To ensure their own revival and for showmanship, these thrall ghosts would try to trap players, leading them into Tiger Demon pitfalls.

After the scream, the surroundings became even quieter, but the tension was palpable.

Thrall ghosts appeared identical to ordinary players, indistinguishable without special Cultivation Techniques.

Now, all players who had not yet met each other were potential thrall ghosts, making cooperation suspicious and tentative from the start.

However, this didn’t matter much to Fang Cheng.

Just as he was about to find a place to meditate, he heard someone excitedly shout, “Fang Cheng!”

Turning his head, Sword Immortal Fang Cheng saw an Ape Demon running toward him from afar, carrying an ID above its head: “Wang Say Games.”

The ID was a result of the official release; players could choose to show or hide their IDs now.

Seeing Wang approaching, Fang Cheng, without a word, sent a streak of sword light flying past, eliminating Wang.

With eyes widened in shock, Wang’s body pierced through the chest, began to fade, revealing the true nature of the thrall ghost.

Lying on the ground, still with a breath left, Wang asked, “How did you know I was a thrall ghost?”

“I didn’t know,” Fang Cheng replied, “But my game’s goal is to eliminate the Tiger Demons, so if I kill everyone, can’t I achieve the goal just the same?”

In that moment, Wang felt Fang Cheng’s words made a lot of sense.