Chapter 543: The New Project

Chapter 543: The New Project

Work… Well, what Zheng Yichen planned to do was move ahead with some of his projects. Specifically, the plan for Nightmare Magic. This plan was something he weighed heavily… Hmm, while earning money was important, doing certain things well not only sped up the money-making process but could also accomplish an even more crucial project alongside it: collecting Mana!

Currently, the Mana accumulated in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book was enormous, enough to make any faction find it unbelievable. After all, the Magic Weapon Summoning Book collected Mana continuously, without a single day’s break. Yet even so, this Mana still fell far short of Zheng Yichen’s needs. At least… when directly compared, it simply wasn’t enough.

Though the Mana stored within the book was vast, the gap compared to an Element Heart was immense. So immense that Zheng Yichen had long ceased feeling any satisfaction about it. Perhaps after accumulating for decades, even centuries, it might meet his demand. But now?

It was nowhere near enough!

If Zheng Yichen wanted to shorten this time frame, he could only find solutions from other angles. And this matter needed to be kept a secret. There were too many clever people out there. Revealing any of his future plans now would be extremely unwise. What he aimed for was a way to collect Mana through layers of methods, something that wouldn’t make anyone feel anything was amiss.

“Oh, designing this sort of thing… I really can’t help you much.” Looking at the plan Zheng Yichen had spent hours drafting, Annie said after flipping through it. Matters involving souls and mental planes were not her specialty. Not to mention, there was a strong element of storytelling mixed in.

“Just taking a look is fine; most of it was done by me anyway?” Zheng Yichen shook his head. He hadn’t intended to let others participate too deeply in this. While an extra person could bring a fresh perspective, what Zheng Yichen aimed to do leaned heavily towards the designs found in those Earth Online Game novels.

Forget infinite streams; first, he needed a usable framework. Although the Nightmare Realm within Nightmare Magic offered freedom in construction, it also presented numerous technical problems. While Magic allowed for nearly infinite possibilities, enabling many things to be achieved in unique forms, that didn’t mean Magic was truly omnipotent, capable of anything…

Magic, after all, was a power that deeply valued ‘technique’.

Therefore, building a Nightmare Realm exactly suited to his needs couldn’t be perfected through mere thought. It was like a certain sandbox game on Earth. There, you could just download map resources, but in this world, such resources didn’t exist. If Zheng Yichen wanted large-scale, story-driven maps, he had to essentially build and design them pixel block by pixel block, slowly assembling them himself.

Originally, Zheng Yichen had wanted to try breaking through technical barriers to create something like an Online Game. But before he could implement that plan, he obtained Nightmare Magic from Irene, making him rethink. Developing an Online Game? Yeah, that obviously came with a mountain of technical hurdles. Now that he had a simpler method at hand, he could shelve the difficult one.

As for the plans he already had? Archive them, file them away. With Virtual Online Gaming a thing now, regular Online Games could wait on the sidelines. Not that he intended to abandon that development entirely, as succeeding there would still bring its own rewards.

The possibilities Magic brought from the Otherworld were just too numerous. Giving up on regular Online Games just because Virtual ones existed was practically unthinkable. Different strokes for different folks. Besides, Nightmare Magic had its drawbacks, didn’t it? In Zheng Yichen’s design, that thing was a greedy trick for Mana!

For example, souls could also be a major source of Mana, with a high conversion rate! Anyone willing to risk soul weakness could produce a surge of Mana through overdraft. Though the consequence of such an act was often that once you started, you couldn’t stop. However, with Nightmare Magic’s interference, it could allow a tiny bit to be siphoned off… on the pre-condition of death. Since it involved death, a little soul weakness seemed normal, right?

As long as the siphoning ratio was carefully calculated, leaving the weakened state to recover in a few days, the Mana obtained would far exceed the cost from normal Magic Weapon Summoning Book usage or magic weapon summoning, even with that short period of weakness. Besides, a few days of weakness wouldn’t severely affect a Magic Weapon Summoner. At worst, it might lower their 100% state to around 95%.

Their Mana recovery rate would be slower, and they might feel a bit more sluggish, but the spells they cast would still hit with the same force.

So, in Zheng Yichen’s design, the Virtual Online Game was a tool for extracting Mana. It would be incredibly fun, but under such mechanics, a regular Online Game could still play a significant role. As for this… Zheng Yichen didn’t plan on going overboard with in-game purchases. After all, he was the sole developer! Related tech? Due to Otherworld Magic technology limitations, widespread adoption might take forever. Mild monetization was enough. The main prize Zheng Yichen needed was Mana, Mana! His most vital resource.

“This pixel people style… your thoughts really scatter.” Annie commented, looking at the crude Nightmare Realm Zheng Yichen had created. The longer she stared at those blocky figures, the more strangely captivating they became.

“No, no, this is just a preliminary art style. I haven’t done any refinement yet.” Zheng Yichen scratched his head. His powerful Spiritual Power allowed him to recreate imagined scenes. But reconstructing scenes from novels demanded extra mental effort in design, which was very time-consuming.

He felt it wise to recruit some graphic designers…

“Alright, you keep building for now.” Zheng Yichen tossed the rudimentary sandbox Nightmare Realm over to Annie. This Magic was linked to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. As long as the book remained, the Mana flow wouldn’t cease. Theoretically, this connection could be maintained permanently.

“…Fine, I’ll give it a shot.” Annie nodded. Understanding the rules of this sandbox game he’d jammed into the Nightmare Realm was easy. All she had to do was break blocks of something and collect them. Then she could reorganize them to build whatever took her fancy. All in all, it was a remarkably mundane operation… almost un-Magical.

But treating it as a game and ignoring those quirks? It was actually quite enjoyable. If the block colors matched, she could build nearly anything she wanted. She could even construct a pixel-blocky image of Irene herself.

Zheng Yichen, meanwhile, sat down elsewhere and contacted Qin.

“Yes? What is it?” After a short wait, Qin’s reply came.

“Video call?”

“Alright.” Qin agreed.

Her projection materialized directly in front of Zheng Yichen. Conversely, Zheng Yichen’s projection appeared there with her. This wasn’t Projection Magic per se, but rather an illusion magic effect akin to a projector. It shared little with Projection Spell, as the communication channel itself was enabled by the Magic Weapon Summoning Book – a new feature recently added that had proven wildly popular.

In fact, thanks to this video calling function, many highly mana-intensive remote communication spells were being shelved. Compared to those expensive spells, the Mana cost for a Magic Weapon Summoning Book video call was negligible, not to mention distance posed absolutely no problem. Those other spells? The farther they traveled, the more Mana they devoured!

“I intend to hire a team of graphic designers.”

“Graphic designers?” Qin sounded puzzled.

“Hmm, meaning skilled illustrators. I need painters I can trust to design scenes for me. Small ones, medium ones, large ones… even colossal ones.”

“That sounds straightforward enough. We can treat it as a standard transaction? The costs will be deducted from your profits, sound decent?” Qin nodded. Finding painters to design scenes, rather than to create specific artworks, presented no issue. A large number of artists could be hired purely with money.

Zheng Yichen nodded. He selected several knight-themed novels and handed them over. “Use these. Tell the painters to recreate the environmental scenes within them. I want every single one depicted.”

“That is rather ambitious.”

“Yet you won’t be breaking a sweat doing it.” Zheng Yichen shrugged. The gesture looked slightly Aberration when performed by his dragon body, but Qin paid it no mind. She nodded, accepting the task. Besides being a Sorceress, she was also a merchant. Opportunities to make money were hardly to be refused.

Though her relationship with Zheng Yichen was good, business was strictly kept business.

The scenes depicted were purely for reference. With enough references collected, they could be directly deployed as blueprints wherever needed afterwards. Details like art style? Zheng Yichen would adjust everything later according to his specifications. The original painters likely wouldn’t recognize their work once he was finished.

Moreover… illustrated drafts differed significantly from fully realized 3D scenes. Unless viewed from a bird’s eye perspective, who could recognize them? He certainly wasn’t planning blatant copying. They were just references!

Ultimately, the painters he hired wouldn’t be the sole source he’d rely on. He needed those genuinely trustworthy, the ones he could count on personally. Wrapping things up with Qin, Zheng Yichen leisurely left the Laboratory. He found several Ghost Maids walking down a corridor.

“Uh… Yisha, right? Think you could ask among your sisters? Anyone particularly skilled at drawing?”

The Ghost Maid named Yisha found the request odd but nodded. She hadn’t yet received her Alchemical Body, so she couldn’t speak directly. Zheng Yichen had indeed been producing them, but the output wasn’t high, and she simply hadn’t received hers yet.

The Ghost Maids of Loris had their unique methods of communication. Information passed between them incredibly fast. Soon, several other Ghost Maids appeared. To Zheng Yichen’s surprise, among them was one of the Ghostly Little Maids… Oh! The eldest, most silent Ghost Maid among them all, someone who definitely couldn’t be viewed as just another Ghostly Little Maid.

“Four of you?… That’s plenty. Are any of you busy?”

The Ghost Maids shook their heads. The maintenance within the Underground Base was handled mostly by Alchemical Puppets now, freeing them from many mundane chores. They were only needed for critical oversight tasks. Even after relocating everything from the Castle, their workload was lighter than before.

Since they weren’t busy, Zheng Yichen handed each of the Ghost Maids some Otherworld novels he possessed. He asked them to try sketching some of the scenes described within. “No urgent deadline. Just do however much you feel like over the next three days.”

This was primarily to assess their skill level. If they proved up to the task, there’d be no need to hire outsiders. In-house operations would suffice. Self-sufficiency here was paramount; using his own people was infinitely safer than relying on outsiders.

At least these Ghost Maids were utterly beyond betrayal.

With the graphic designer issue tentatively solved, Zheng Yichen returned to the Laboratory. He found Annie and Irene seated by the orb…

What was happening?

Zheng Yichen focused his consciousness on the orb created by the Nightmare Magic. Due to the magic’s interference, all appearances within were blocky. It looked strange yet engaging. Irene was inside, tossing a block up and catching it. The Magic itself had originated from Zheng Yichen, carrying traits of his powers. Any factor touching its core would be assimilated by it.

Though Irene possessed means to resist the assimilation and exert temporary influence, she deemed it unnecessary. Moreover, this Magic was linked to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Attempting such resistance meant opposing the book’s colossal Mana reserves.

While this would be troublesome even for a Sorceress, for anyone else? It would be like throwing a drop of ink into a river, hoping to change its color. Impossible. The ink would merely be diluted beyond recognition.

Irene wasn’t fighting the assimilation. She was instead sensing the rules Zheng Yichen had built into the fabric of this Nightmare Realm. A Nightmare Realm, by its essence, pertained to Dreaming – and within Dreams, lay vast possibility. With sufficient imagination, snapping one’s fingers and obliterating half the Universe… entirely feasible within the Dream.

The block in her hand shattered into finer fragments, reassembling into a pixelated statue bearing Annie’s likeness. Why? In the time Zheng Yichen was away, Annie had diligently harvested numerous blocks to construct a self-portrait.

Though the blocky figure looked bizarre, Annie – true to her nature as the Witch of Life – possessed knowledge that transcended just the living. Her expertise bled powerfully into other fields. Her block-built ‘Irene’ perfectly captured her essence.

“This is far too crude.” Irene commented without turning towards Zheng Yichen, her gaze lingering on the orb. She had already largely grasped the rules governing this Nightmare Realm. They were remarkably basic, filled with unconventional breaks from established norms.

“It’s just a temporary build; it should look crude. Still, you get used to the style quickly enough, and it becomes quite evocative.”

Irene nodded faintly, not disputing his point. Though the Nightmare Realm felt rough, it granted unparalleled freedom. Beyond lacking special forces, one could build anything imaginable using the various blocks (granted the needed blocks existed first). Harvest enough ‘cloud’ blocks, and you could float an entire city in the sky… wasn’t that freedom?

In essence… an exceptionally suited playground for ordinary folk. For Professionals, however? It appeared far too mundane for their taste.

“Alright. Disperse this construct.” Irene concluded, withdrawing her consciousness from the Nightmare Realm. Annie glanced over at Zheng Yichen.

“Don’t dispel it just yet! Lend me this for some fun…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be solving your problem?”

“Ah?” She frowned, conflict evident. “Fine, fine. Solving the problem it is. I need to return home for a while. Coming along?”

Zheng Yichen shook his head. He had his new project to develop; tagging along with Ann now felt inconvenient. “If needed, just contact me through the Magic Weapon Summoning Book… though I doubt much assistance lies here.”

“I expect to be back within a week. During that time,” her voice carried a playful edge, “…spend well with Irene.” Naturally, this bore no untoward implications… simply a tease.