Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

Chapter 32.1: Mutual Probing

After reading about the background information of the NeuroTech Center, Yang Qiu fell into deep contemplation.

He never imagined that the ones eyeing his game weren't some governmental organization, or even the police, but rather the top scientists in the field of neurology, neuroscience, and AI intelligence technology in China…

If it had been another governmental body, Yang Qiu could simply shut down the official website and stop publicly distributing "beta accounts."

Even though he hadn't obtained any licensing, he also had no intention to make a profit. This was just a LAN multiplayer game for his own amusement and not some private server for an existing game where there was a risk of being sued by the original game company.

No one could interfere with him, and if things didn't work out, he could simply pack up and move the "server" to Southeast Asia. After all, his server didn't require much bandwidth to begin with…

By incorporating the helmet as a prize of the game, he could continue to drive players to keep grinding. Without sufficient incentives, players wouldn't be willing to toil away and build in-game structures, even if their characters didn't get tired or hungry.

But now that it was a group of scientists that had set their sights on him, this revelation made Yang Qiu hesitant.

While he had transmigrated to the other world when he had just been a 16-year-old kid and had spent 80% of his life there, he still respected knowledge and the fundamental logic of sciences, even if his knowledge and sense of the other world's common sense were greater than Earth's.

After some thought, Yang Qiu opened the forum's backend management processes.

The player forum had no moderators, only one administrator with the ID "Developer Team." Since the forum's registration was opened, the administrator's backend had been flooded with all kinds of emails requesting accounts in various creative ways. Initially, Yang Qiu had glanced at a few but hadn't paid much attention to them.

This time, when Yang Qiu opened the backend, the emails weren't just about account requests. There were also various business emails, some of which seemed legitimate, while others dubious, requesting cooperation or partnerships.

Some boasted about how they could secure multiple rounds of investment and financing for the game "OtherWorld," while others explicitly or implicitly hinted at strong capital support that could take the game to new heights and even go public. There were even audacious proposals for acquiring and merging "OtherWorld."

Yang Qiu disregarded all such business emails, regardless of whether they were from legitimate companies or scammers.

It was true that he was penniless, but he didn't care about money in the first place. As long as his material needs were met, he had no interest in the fame and status that excessive wealth could bring. The satisfaction and vanity derived from exploiting, bullying, and manipulating others of his kind held no appeal to him. He had never pursued such primitive instincts; spellcasters who did were far beneath his level.

Even more so, he had no interest in indulging in pursuits that were beneath him, such as chasing after models. If he couldn't even transcend basic instincts like material desires and sexual urges, what kind of pathetic spellcaster would he be?

Let alone spellcasters; how many truly mentally powerful individuals on Earth chased after money or ran after the opposite sex?

More importantly… on Earth, having flaws in one's character didn't pose much of a problem. At most, one's moral standards would be criticized, but it wouldn't affect other aspects of life. Even if a renowned actor revealed a scandal about a love child, a simple statement of "men make mistakes" would win mainstream society's approval, and he would still thrive.

But in the magic plane, having flaws in one's character meant that the higher one climbed, there would be a greater possibility of being contaminated, going insane, losing control, crumbling to pieces, or turning into a walking corpse…

In short, Yang Qiu couldn't be swayed by so-called benefits. He wouldn't spare them a second glance regardless of whether it was genuine investment interest or fake scammers.

Yang Qiu skipped past these business emails and spent quite a while going through the many pages of account requests before he came across an email requesting cooperation sent by Director Lu Yiyun from the Center for Neuroscience and Intelligent Technology Innovation.

Compared to the flowery "business emails," Director Lu's email was much more practical and rigorous. She sincerely expressed a desire to communicate with the developers of the game "OtherWorld" and promised to keep the game's core technologies strictly confidential, including but not limited to elevating them to the level of national secrets.

On top of that, she also guaranteed that the core technologies of "OtherWorld" would have patent rights protected by Chinese law and so on.

Basically, what the email implied was that if the "OtherWorld" development team was willing to "exchange" technology with the NeuroTech Center, the scientific community of China would definitely respond with corresponding treatment.

Yang Qiu: "…"

For a moment, he imagined a scene of himself personally appearing before scientists to teach them the basics of magic, meditation, and spellcasting… He even nearly had to shout in his mind to stop imagining such things.

Yang Qiu couldn't accept this olive branch.

It was best if Earthlings couldn't transmigrate to the magic plane in person—if only to avoid the uncertainty of whether the elder god that dragged him to the parallel world would also target other Earthlings who crossed over.

While elder gods could only project mental influences onto the material plane, so far, these projections had only been at a "tentacle" level and not yet truly attracted the attention of an elder god. However, even for Yang Qiu, a high-level black mage who had spent three hundred years honing his skills in the other world, this "tentacle" posed quite a considerable risk to him, much less what it could do to ordinary people.

If the "core technology" of traversing over to the other world couldn't be presented for an "exchange," then all talk of cooperation would be nothing but drivel.

"There's no way of cooperating, but there's no need to completely sever ties. At the end of the day, I'm also a fellow Chinese after all."

After some thought, Yang Qiu drew a line for himself. A safety line for when dealing with these scientists.

He still rather respected scientists; after all, he grew up seeing names like Sanqiang, Hua Luogeng, Zhan Tianyou, and Yuan Longping, whom everyone worshiped online. [TL note: names of great Chinese scientists of the modern age.]

Thus, Yang Qiu selected and added Director Lu's ID to "approved," then sent the rest of the emails in his inbox to "rejected."

After he was done with that, Yang Qiu then created a post and pinned it to the player forum: "Notice Regarding Release of Closed Beta Accounts."

"Dear players,

Due to technical limitations of server capacity and financial constraints, the development team is currently unable to release a large number of test accounts for this game.

However, in response to the players' enthusiasm, after careful consideration, we have decided to increase the number of closed beta accounts to a maximum of 10.

The distribution method for these closed beta accounts will be announced soon. Please stay tuned.

Please refrain from repeatedly posting threads related to account requests on the forum. Once found, the posts will be deleted, and the user will be banned from posting for three days.

.

—OtherWorld Development Team."

After pinning the post, Yang Qiu changed into a fresh set of clothes and went out for a meal.

When he first rented this suburban house, besides the fact that it was a single-occupancy dwelling with a small courtyard, another reason for choosing the place was because there was a delicious braised noodle shop nearby. Yang Qiu felt that life lacked excitement if he didn't have a bowl of braised sweet potato noodles with various toppings every day.