Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 1351: Chapter 1213 “Mecha Invades Washington!

Chapter 1351: Chapter 1213 “Mecha Invades Washington!

The next day, following custom, game media outlets started to hype “Cyber Chang’an: 2077”.

Players who had played all evening were enthusiastic, but on a workday, they couldn’t play the game and could only eagerly read everything related to the game.

It was a good time to read the various media analyses and discussions about the game.

Players with a strong desire to share also began to post about fun things they’d found in the game.

Particularly good-looking NPCs, or those with unusual skeletons, rewarding tasks, eye-opening locations, techniques for quickly navigating the city using the air rails, powerful and handy equipment…

There was just too much of such stuff to go through.

Comparatively, discussions about the storyline were more scattered.

After all, not everyone’s storylines were the same, especially with so many side quests, and many NPCs were involved in more than one event.

Cloud Dream didn’t restrict players to only pick up one task from an NPC at a time, so many found themselves veering miles off the main storyline while in the middle of quests.

Plus, with just one evening’s playtime, the main storyline was barely budding.

Indeed, it wasn’t easy to find common ground to discuss.

As a result, the hottest topic ended up being—

Source: AllNovelFull.com, updated on Ɲονǥο.сᴑ

Everyone summarized what they knew and guessed about the storyline, with elements like “brainwashing in the virtual world”, “cloning + digital backups for cyber immortality”, and even “stealing users’ thought data to create artificial intelligence”, eventually leading to decadence and corruption…

In the side tasks, there were also many cases of NPCs ruining their lives by becoming addicted to the virtual world and experiences.

This kind of stuff…

No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like a dig at Cloud Dream, didn’t it!?

But why would Cloud Dream’s development team be so passive-aggressive towards their own company?

And with such force!

That’s just unreasonable, isn’t it?!

But if the game was outsourced, it would make sense.

Under the joking of netizens, the keyword #CloudDreamGamesOutsource even made it onto the hot topics list for a while.

However, the fervor only lasted briefly and subsided by noon.

— Everyone knew very well that Cloud Dream wouldn’t and had no reason to outsource.

With the volume, scale, and technical power of “Cyber Chang’an: 2077”, no other team but Cloud Dream could have pulled it off.

But this way, the various dangers of the virtual world discussed in the storyline became something to ponder even more seriously.

“If they’re not being self-deprecating, then…

could it be they are giving us a warning?”

“Is Cloud Dream really ‘playing God’?

Can they truly create digital backups of living people, combined with cloning technology, to achieve immortality?”

“So is this game actually a way to test the public’s reaction to such new technology?”

“What reaction can there be?

Of course, it’s to sit back and watch the drama unfold!

I completely trust Boss Lin’s character in this aspect.”

“I trust him too, but we’re talking about immortality here.”

“Stop talking nonsense, you’re talking about immortality when you don’t even have a shadow of proof…”

…

Players discussed back and forth.

It was also thanks to Lincoln and Cloud Dream’s consistently good reputation that players—especially those from Daxia—had a lot of trust in them, leaving little room for conspiracy theories to take root.

However, in America, it was another story.

That’s a place already rife with conspiracy theories, and with the government’s previous ban on information dissemination about Cloud Dream, those unable to buy smuggled consoles could barely access objective and fair information about Cloud Dream, leading to inevitable prejudices.

The topic sparked immediate heated debate in America.

They even worked out the logical chain—the technology Cloud Dream held, which allowed people to “quasi-immortalize” themselves, was precisely why conglomerate leaders and government officials who longed for eternal life rushed to lift all bans on Cloud Dream.

Because they wanted to live forever!

Plenty of people bought into this narrative.

In fact, quite a few people in Europe, America, and Daxia believed it…

Which made Lincoln completely baffled.

Then, what added even more question marks over his head was that he actually received quite a few emails from overseas politicians and wealthy individuals.

When the Little Princess showed him the emails and asked how he wanted to reply, Lincoln waved his hand and said, “I can’t be bothered with them, don’t reply.”

With a resigned smile, the Little Princess still went ahead and wrote a polite but non-substantive response.

…

This bizarre trend continued into the afternoon.

Then, a sensational piece of news that shocked the eyes of the entire world surged through the global Internet, eclipsing the tide of conspiracy theories—

The homepage of “The Washington Post”, top headliner, featured a photo of a giant mech taller than a 30-story building!

And it was in Washington!

Right in the capital of America!

In a city like Washington that lacks tall buildings, where the general architecture does not exceed 15 floors, the oppressive presence of this mech was all the more astonishing!

[Titan Mech, invading Washington!]

This sensational headline instantly swept across the global Internet!

It is well known that only Titan Manufacturing in Daxia can create mechs, and such gigantic mechs several dozen floors high had only one precedent prior to this.

But now, a gigantic mech appeared in Washington.

If this wasn’t an invasion, what was it?!

Not to mention, local netizens in Washington had already uploaded short videos and photos, and it was clear that a violent explosion had occurred at the Washington port!

A small cargo ship was broken in half right down the middle, with several containers being crushed to pieces like bricks.

Most astonishing of all, the port featured a massive mech footprint that had crushed the concrete ground!

Without a doubt, a battle took place in Washington Port, and it involved “Beyond Limit Warfare”—with mechs entering the fray, who would dare say it wasn’t beyond the limits?

Unfortunately, the battle ended far too quickly.

—By the time the outside world noticed, it was already over.

All anyone saw was the aftermath: this giant mech, taking step by step into the heart of the city, its thunderous footsteps awakened countless residents from their sleep.

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This was no mere 6-meter-tall medium mecha; this wasn’t Kinshasa.

This was a colossal mech over 80 meters tall, and here lay one of the world’s three superpowers—America’s capital!

If this behemoth went berserk, the resulting damage was simply immeasurable!

Netizens all over the world were stupefied.

And so was Lincoln.

It wasn’t that he was surprised by the appearance of the mech—it was a mech ordered by the Army Department that he had had someone make, and he even personally inspected it before it was shipped, arriving in America even before his realistic robots.

What truly surprised him was: why on earth would this thing appear on the streets of Washington?!?

“I don’t have that much influence to bring [Crimson Storm] into Xiajing City!”

“Have you lost your minds?!”