Chapter 4: Sea Domain Is Now Live

In an apartment in City A, Huaxia, Earth.

“Old Li, have you heard? Sea Realm posted on Weibo today saying they’re starting a closed beta!” a friend yelled loudly over the phone.

The young man called Old Li helplessly rubbed the space between his eyebrows and replied perfunctorily, “You’re the eleventh person to call and tell me. How could I not know? Don’t worry, I’ve already filled out the application form. I won’t go back on my word.”

After hanging up, the young man face-planted onto his bed, collapsing like a salted fish.

‘Sea Realm, huh…’

He fell into recollection.

…

Sea Realm was a game that had suddenly appeared on the Cloud Weibo gaming forums three years ago.
Unlike other games that were secretive and unwilling to reveal information, it immediately posted dozens of magnificent underwater photos.
Each one was crystal clear, with every detail being perfect, as if they had actually gone to an otherworldly seabed to take pictures and come back.

This exquisite CG attracted many holographic game enthusiasts to gather under its Cloud Weibo.
Enthusiastic players even prematurely hailed it as a masterpiece, eagerly awaiting the officials to release more progress.

But for three years, not only did the officials not mention a single word about the game’s specific content, payment methods, or rating, they didn’t even report on the game’s progress.

When a well-known player @-ed the officials to ask about the closed beta time, the officials only replied with four words: All to be determined.

They couldn’t even be bothered to add a punctuation mark.

This attitude made everyone suspect that it was just a shell company.
Some people, because the CG released by the officials was too beautiful, speculated that they might not be making a game at all, but were simply showing off their modeling skills.

The disappointment that followed was as great as the initial anticipation.
Fans turned from supporters to haters, sending “kind regards” and “congratulations,” followed by a one-stop service of threatening to unfollow and switch to another game.

But even though Sea Realm‘s Cloud Weibo follower count dropped by more than half, the officials remained indifferent, continuing to release new CG on a schedule, which was truly a unique marvel in the gaming world.

In any case, this bizarre operation caused most of the players who had initially followed the game to lose interest in Sea Realm.
Only a group of people who simply liked the CG remained, clamoring under the official Weibo every day, banging their bowls and waiting for updates.

The young man was also one of the disappointed players who had unfollowed.

He himself was an UP Master on Cloud Video with tens of millions of fans, under the name “Old Li’s Gaming Diary.”

This account regularly shared recommended new games and objectively evaluated their pros and cons, making it one of the well-known trendsetters in the industry.

Old Li was also among the first batch of players to discover the game Sea Realm.
He was extremely surprised by this holographic game with a realism rating definitely above A-grade, because the holographic game currently on the market claiming to be the closest to reality only had a B-grade realism rating.

Isn’t “realism” what players of holographic games look forward to the most?

One must know that the leap from B to A was not just a difference of one letter.

This huge surprise even led Old Li to passionately make a video for the first time before the officials had released any progress, lavishing praise on Sea Realm and attracting many fans to fall into the pit with him.

And then… came the aftermath that everyone knew about.

He waited for this game for a whole year, but the longer he waited, the more disappointed he became.
The more he urged, the more anxious he grew.
Until the official’s perfunctory reply appeared, he finally exploded.
All his expectations turned into anger.
Not only did he lead the charge to unfollow, but before unfollowing, he wrote a sprawling ten-thousand-word comment—

The gist of it was, “If you have the guts, keep dragging it out and never release it. The day it launches, I’ll definitely write a dedicated ten-thousand-word negative review for you, guaranteed to be well-reasoned and well-founded.”

If someone else had said this, it might have been dismissed.
But Old Li, this UP Master, was known for his courage to speak his mind, never changing his tune because of bribes from game companies.

Every game review he published was sharp and to the point.
When he encountered a good game, he didn’t hesitate to praise it a few times.
This led his audience to trust him completely.
The purchase volume of games he praised soared, while the games he satirized had mediocre traffic and were ignored.

In short, once his long comment was posted, it was reposted over a million times within a day by people in the circle, all chuckling and joking around waiting to see him, or Sea Realm, become a laughingstock.

And today, on March 18, 2221 of the Earth calendar, the official Sea Realm Weibo straightforwardly posted a message—

[The holographic game Sea Realm will officially begin its closed beta tomorrow, with a total of fifty slots. [Application Link]]

This Weibo post was reposted ten times, then a hundred, and like a deep-sea bomb, it detonated the entire gaming circle.

So much so that when the young man went on Cloud Weibo today, he received over 999+ @ notifications.
Clicking on them revealed largely similar content:

[Old Li, stop sleeping, get up and apply for a slot!]

[Old Li, Old Li, the game company your grandpa followed is starting its closed beta!]

[Remember the review you promised, bro. I’m waiting for your guide.]

‘How could it be that easy?’ Old Li thought.

‘There are only fifty slots in total, and if I were the game company, I wouldn’t want to let a guy who’s clearly coming to nitpick into the game…’

“Beep beep beep!”

A new email appeared in his inbox.

Old Li sat up with a flip and saw that the sender of the email was precisely Sea Realm‘s official account, “S.”

He couldn’t help but hold his breath as he clicked open the email.

[Congratulations on becoming a Sea Realm closed beta player. The closed beta invitation code is 4NOH9Q81HANICP0.]

He had… made it?

Yan Shuangwen was a doctoral student in the Marine Biology Protection department at A University.
At this moment, he was in front of his computer, scrolling through new emails—it was a special email from the officials of Sea Realm, with a closed beta invitation code attached.

“Hey! Bookworm, you got an email too?”
A red-haired head suddenly appeared beside him, looking at the invitation with great interest.

“None of your business.”
Yan Shuangwen closed his laptop and started to walk out.

“How is it none of my business!”
The red-haired youth had a baby face, and he now stood in his way, his eyebrows dancing with excitement.
“We’re about to become fellow players in the same batch, after all!”

“Think about it, only fifty slots were given out in all of Huaxia, and there are two of us in this apartment, and we both got in! What do you think the odds of that are?”

“Yan Shuangwen, are you even listening! If we team up after we get into the game, we’ll definitely be able to…”

Yan Shuangwen directly interrupted him, his dark eyes looking straight at the redhead.
“Hua Yibing, I will not team up with you. I have other purposes for entering Sea Realm, and it has nothing to do with your childish live streams.”

“Now, get out of my way.”

The red-haired youth called Hua Yibing opened his mouth, and just as he was about to say something, he saw the obvious impatience on his roommate’s face and finally moved out of the way sullenly.

“What’s with that,” he muttered.
“What’s so childish about my live streams? Besides, you’re a marine biology researcher going into a game. You don’t know anything, you’d be better off teaming up with me. And you talk about other purposes, you can’t be planning to study the creatures in Sea Realm, can you?”

With that, he lay down in the holographic game cabin, first starting a live stream on the holographic community platform, planning to kill time with his audience while waiting for the server to open.

It turned out that the red-haired youth named Hua Yibing was a streamer in the holographic game section of a cloud live streaming platform.

When holographic games first emerged, all sorts of holographic equipment were expensive, and only a rich second-generation kid like him could afford it.
There was little competition and a large audience.
Coupled with his easy-going personality and ability to take a joke, as well as his humorous and interesting streaming style, he quickly attracted a large number of fans and became the “top brother” of this section.

Because his registered ID was “Hua Hua Shijie Miren Yan” (The Flowery World is Dazzling), his fans also affectionately called him “Huahua.”

As soon as he started streaming, a large number of fans received notifications and flooded into the stream room.

[Huahua, why are you streaming so early today? What are you planning to do today~]

[Person above, didn’t you see the stream title? Huahua got a Sea Realm closed beta slot, so of course he’s waiting for the server to open!]

[Sea Realm? Isn’t there some dirt about the officials personally discouraging players?]

[Shh, person above, don’t say that. Our Huahua can’t stand to hear that.]

Of course, Hua Yibing couldn’t stand to hear that.

As a die-hard fan of holographic games, from the moment he saw Sea Realm‘s CG, he had revered it as the NO.1 masterpiece in his heart.

Even after the official discouragement incident, young Hua insisted on checking in at the Sea Realm Super Topic every day, showing his support through his actions.

‘Make it!’

‘Take your sweet time making it!’

‘Slow work yields fine results. The officials will definitely make a top-tier game that will shock the world and show those guys!’

Not only did he check in himself, but he also called on his fans to check in with him, vowing to sell the recommendation of Sea Realm to everyone around him.

“Hey, the one called [Chestnuts Without Shells], what do you mean by ‘the officials personally discouraging players’?”

Hua Yibing’s smile vanished on the spot.
He poked the light screen in front of him with his finger in disappointment, making the screen flash on and off.

“This is clearly the craftsman’s spirit of honing a blade for ten years, ignoring the outside clamor to focus on making the game!”
He spoke with great emotion, and the red hair on his head trembled along.
“What do you guys know about Sea Realm!”

[Yes, yes, we don’t understand Sea Realm, Huahua is the NO.1 die-hard fan of Sea Realm!]

[Anyway, I won’t play this game unless the officials apologize. The customer is god, he’s being too arrogant.]

[Person above, you want to play? Try getting a slot first, will you?]

[Popping in, first time in this stream room, can the streamer’s ahoge actually move on its own??]

[Person above, you’re making a fuss over nothing. Our Huahua’s ahoge can move on its own, cool right!]

“Alright, alright, where has this topic derailed to?”
Hua Yibing ruffled his hair, forcibly pressing down the controversial ahoge, ignoring the wails from the bullet comments.

“Sea Realm is about to launch. All of you, keep your eyes wide open and see what a god-tier masterpiece with S-grade realism is!”

[Huahua is so confident now, isn’t he afraid of getting slapped in the face by the officials later?]

[What garbage streamer? Stop the hard-selling, please. S-grade realism, do you even know what realism rating is to dare to boast about S-grade? The real world is SS-grade, and you, a holographic game, dare to make such an absurd claim?]

[Hater above, if you don’t like it, get out.]

[Emmm, I’m not a hater, but I also think Huahua is hyping Sea Realm a bit too much. This game has only released CG, could it be a ‘sticker game’¹?]

(TL Note: “sticker game” or “film game,” is a slang term for a game that looks great on the surface (like a beautiful sticker or film) but lacks substantive gameplay or content underneath. It implies the developers focused all their effort on graphics and trailers but the actual game is shallow or poorly made.)

[I’m putting it out there today, if Sea Realm‘s realism can exceed S-grade, I’ll eat my holographic game cabin at home.]

[Screenshot taken, waiting for the face-slap.]

[+1]

[+10086]

Hua Yibing didn’t get involved in their rhythm.
Instead, with his clear puppy-dog eyes, he looked expectantly at the unremarkable stone door before him.

Behind the door was the Sea Realm game world he had always longed for.

The time on the virtual electronic watch beside him showed 7:59:30, and the game’s server would open at eight o’clock sharp.

He took a deep breath and placed his hand on the stone door.
The audience in the stream room seemed to be infected by his nervousness, and they all stopped spamming the screen, waiting together for that moment to arrive.

Time was up.

The door opened.