Chapter 3  : Chapter 2 Can Money Change Fate?

Translated by Coldtaco

 Edited by Aelryinth

 After finishing his meal, Chen Mo looked through his laptop in a dissatisfied manner while sipping on his milk tea. His heart was racing, and his breath was heavy.

 Chen Mo felt frustrated. He almost choked on a pearl from his milk tea as soon as he got angry.

 Why was he angry? Because when Chen Mo turned on his laptop, he grew happier and happier after he confirmed the games in this world.

 VR games dominated the scene.

 PC gaming was pathetic, simply dismal, as the main purpose of PC’s was for work.

 The mobile games market was filled with casual games. Not a single one of them was targeted at hardcore gamers. Moreover, most of them were made by C or D-grade designers as practice, resulting in few being profitable.

 There weren’t any browser games, nor console games.

It was obvious that video game companies had rushed towards developing VR games. Nobody cared about the PC side of things, and there was a complete lack of people for consoles.

 Thinking it was a great opportunity for him to show his abilities, Chen Mo was quite happy.

 But when he saw his personal savings account, his happiness had turned into anger. At that moment, Chen Mo almost choked on the pearls in the milk tea.

 Chen Mo realized that the game engine he was currently using was called “Illusion Game Engine”, an invention from mainland China. There was also another engine from outside China called “Reality Game Engine”. They were mostly similar, although Reality had a slight edge in VR games.

However, video game designers in China usually preferred Illusion Game Engine in order to access publicly available resources and upload their games. The information of the designers was also stored here, therefore Chen Mo had also chosen to use Illusion.

 Opening the editor had revealed a number of statistics to him.

 Chen Mo: Video Game Designer (Entry Level)

 Creativity: 7

 System: 8

 Coding: 3

Level Design: 4

 Story Design: 10

 Concept Art: 7

D Art: 1

 Monthly Quota: 294MB/300MB

 The numbers in his account must’ve been the overall score the system had given Chen Mo for his previous games.

Storyboarding was rated the highest, probably due to his major in literature.

 As for the pathetic 3D arts, it’s because Chen Mo had never touched any games related to 3D.

 -Oh, right. All the statistics are rated out of 100…-

What angered him weren’t the tragic statistics, but the “Monthly Quota” at the bottom.

 This suggested that every designer could use the free resources online for their games, but the quota would differ according to their levels.

 For a video game designer like Chen Mo who doesn’t even have his foot in the door, 300MB could be considered quite a bit. But the real problem lay in the fact that he had used 294MB, with only 6MB left!

This was only the middle of the month. It wasn’t realistic to wait until the next month, as the due date for the competition’s final submission was in two days!

 -Even the gods are tormenting me!-

 After a big gulp of milk tea, Chen Mo opened his save file in the video game engine. “There’s nothing I can do other than take a look at this save file and see if it’s possible to salvage it…”

 —

 After one minute and forty-three seconds, Chen Mo silently pressed the ‘X’ on the top right.

 -Man, that was unsightly.-

 It was a 2D martial arts game. It had basic combat and some simple moves, along with dozens of lines of dialogue.

As to the resources used… it was probably spent on the ten backgrounds and the seven or eight bosses…

 In Chen Mo’s opinion, this game had no potential at all.

 The mechanics, combat, graphics, scenes, all of them were beyond saving.

 But… restarting?

 What could he possibly make with 6MB of resources? Minesweeper?

Sure, he could. But even if something of decent quality was made with the 6MB, it would be impossible for it to win a prize in the competition!

 -Pain in the ass!

 -How could I get myself caught up in this sort of problem?- Chen Mo felt like he had swallowed a big chunk of ice. Not only did it feel terrible, but he also felt a cold spot in his heart.

 He extended his hand and shut the lid of his laptop.

 -It’s hopeless!-

 At that moment, Chen Mo noticed the bracelet he had on his wrist wasn’t quite normal.

 The bracelet was bought by the original Chen Mo. Its effects were similar to the fitness tracker of his previous world, heart rate tracking, sleep quality, etc. He hadn’t noticed it before, but could now see that the bracelet was in fact extraordinary.

 Chen Mo tapped the bracelet, invoking a virtual display.

 “What the… what is this?”

 Chen Mo was shocked. Initially, he had thought that it was some sort of black technology[1]’ from this world. But after scouring through his memory from this world, he realized that bracelets weren’t supposed to have this feature.

 Chen Mo examined the simple virtual display, only displaying 2 messages. A string of numbers and a virtual wheel.

 The string of numbers: 597,340.

 Almost sixty thousand credits…

The virtual wheel had three distinct areas. The green one had ‘Designer Skill Book’ written on it, the blue had ‘Rare Skill Book’ written on it, whereas the purple had ‘Special Equipment’ written on it.

 The green area was the largest, and the purple the smallest.

 The wheel also had a big “Spin to Win” button in the middle.

Underneath the text was a small row of text, 100,000/spin.

 Seeing this string of numbers made Chen Mo enter deep into thought.

 After giving it some thought, Chen Mo finally understood. As a transmigrator, this was probably his artifact from the previous world. It appeared that it was an artifact that he had gotten through lucky draws.

 However… what did the 597,340 mean? Why was there a zero at the end?

 Like performing an autopsy, Chen Mo dissected his memory for numbers, remembering all the way from when he was young to now, before he finally slapped his forehead and figured it out.

 This number was the amount he had spent on video games in his previous life, multiplied by ten. Approximately sixty-thousand RMB.

This included money spent on RPGs, original AAA titles, and a bunch of equipment in some crappy Chinese game. Thinking back, he had indeed spent no less than sixty-four thousand four hundred eighty RMB!

“Damn, I should’ve spent more, had I known!”

 Chen Mo felt some regret. Had he known earlier, he would’ve dumped his hundreds of thousands of life savings into games when in his previous world.

 Although, it still hurt to look at the 100,000/spin.

 That’s really expensive. This would be 10,000 RMB cash per spin!

 However, since he couldn’t cash it out, Chen Mo decided to just spin and see what happened.

 Chen Mo pressed the button as he muttered. “According to the usual plot logic, shouldn’t I be receiving some unique item plus some resources in order to create a new game?”

 Swish, swish, swish… The wheel had started spinning.

 Special equipment! Special equipment! Special equipment! Chen Mo was hoping loudly to himself.

Although Chen Mo didn’t ‘know’ which prize was the best, it was obvious that it was purple. Its area was the smallest, it must mean that it must be the rarest prize!

 With a clacking, the wheel had finally stopped. The pointer landed on the green area: Designer’s Skill Book!

“It’s fine, it was unlikely to land on the purple first time around. It’s perfectly normal! Relax, relax…”

Chen Mo discovered that a book had appeared on the virtual display, with a notification saying: “Designer Skill Book: Coding +1”

Chen Mo tried tapping it with his finger. The book turned into sparkles, flowing into his fingertip!

 ================

 [1] As in illegal technology, banned by the government