For the next period, miHoYo temporarily entered a phase of steady development.
Aside from rushing to produce the main storyline for Honkai Impact 3rd, Su Luo also carved out time to co-author the Anti-Entropy novel with the two 'Doctors' on one hand, and to draw manga with Mei on the other.
Both of these were critically acclaimed on miHoYo's official website.
Seele, the 'ordinary' young girl who knew Bronya back when she was still the Silver Wolf of the Urals, also entered the players' field of vision ahead of schedule.
Therefore, as soon as miHoYo announced that Seele would enter the gacha pool with the next main story update, players showered it with praise.
Su Luo, of course, accepted this with a clear conscience; after all, the subsequent plot was indeed very "healing."
Although, the process was a bit tortuous.
Naturally, during this time, he also discovered some problems at miHoYo.
Namely, the studio was severely understaffed.
The current ability to maintain Honkai Impact 3rd's development progress was due to Su Luo's capacity to juggle multiple roles and the use of outsourcing.
If he were to "draw" a new game in the future, miHoYo, with its current handful of people, would definitely be unable to complete the development work.
But casually recruiting people into the studio didn't seem very appropriate either.
It wasn't about gender issues like the studio being all girls, but a deeper concern: he felt that ordinary people working alongside them would definitely experience skyrocketing blood pressure.
It would greatly impact work efficiency.
As for a solution...
After discussing it with everyone, Su Luo had a general idea: he could open a 'sub-base.'
However, to implement this, there was clearly another problem to solve.
With him unable to be in multiple places at once, he needed a professional and trustworthy person in charge to organize the 'sub-base's' work and regularly report its progress, to prevent issues from arising at the 'sub-base.'
And as for this person in charge, he hadn't found a suitable candidate yet.
The above was Su Luo's brief summary of miHoYo's recent situation.
Currently, he was in the miHoYo studio, waiting for Honkai Impact 3rd's new version to update, and then to co-stream with Miss Elf as arranged a few days ago.
Yes, this time it was his (Otto's) turn to watch Miss Elf play Honkai Impact 3rd.
And he naturally didn't oppose this kind of activity that could increase Honkai Impact 3rd's popularity.
After all...
[Honkai Impact 3rd Current User Statistics: 5,056,123.]
Meanwhile, at Penguin Games.
Secretary Zhang, who had previously hinted to Li Yue that he could learn from Honkai Impact 3rd, once again came to the game development department.
The programmers were engrossed in front of their computers, occasionally opening a web page to search for something and copy a snippet of code.
"How are you guys doing?" Secretary Zhang asked, coming up behind a programmer.
"It's no good. The 3D engine you gave us is completely incomparable to Honkai Impact 3rd's. The gap is too big; it's completely unusable," the programmer with a full head of hair said, shaking his head.
Secretary Zhang frowned. "Aren't they both 3D engines? Even if it really doesn't work, can't you just tweak it a bit?"
Programmer: "..."
Hearing this made the programmer's blood pressure rise a bit. Tweak it a bit? Was he serious?
Could you tweak a stone tool into an iron one?
"What? Is there a problem somewhere? Tell me, we can discuss and solve it."
"This..." What's the damn use of telling you? Do you even understand?
The programmer looked helpless, but he still had some emotional intelligence and began to change the subject. "Our boss hasn't come to work for several days. Do you know what's going on? Maybe if the boss were here, he'd have some ideas."
"Your boss... hasn't been to the company these past few days?" Secretary Zhang looked very surprised. He had many things to attend to and neither the means nor the ability to constantly monitor such matters.
"You didn't know?" the programmer asked back.
"I really didn't."
Secretary Zhang was no longer in the mood to deal with the programmer. He fumbled in his pocket, took out his phone, and started walking out of the office.
Click~~
Just as he reached the office door.
Someone pushed the door open from the outside. It was precisely Li Yue, whom Secretary Zhang had been planning to contact.
"Old Li! I was just about to contact you."
Secretary Zhang paused, then asked tentatively, "What's wrong? Urgent family matters recently?"
"Regarding my absence from work these past few days, I am willing to accept the company's disciplinary action," Li Yue replied calmly.
"Hey~ If you really had an urgent matter that caused this, I can help smooth things over with the higher-ups. It's not a big deal," Secretary Zhang said, clearly skilled in social graces.
"Well, if I have to say, I do indeed have an urgent matter."
Li Yue glanced around the office and, in a very casual tone, stated something very important: "I plan to submit my resignation to the higher-ups."
"Hah~ I was wondering what you were going to say. Isn't it just you saying you want to resi... Huh?!! What did you say?! You want to resign!?"
Secretary Zhang couldn't quite control his emotions and cried out.
His eyes widened like copper bells.
Li Yue faced him calmly and then slowly nodded.
"That's right."
"This..."
Secretary Zhang was dumbfounded.
After a moment.
He slowly came back to his senses. "Why do you suddenly want to resign?"
"Hmm... it's complicated to explain in detail. You can just understand it as my brain twitched," Li Yue said self-deprecatingly.
"I don't quite understand," Secretary Zhang frowned.
Li Yue patted Secretary Zhang's shoulder. "Well, I'll handle what comes next myself. It has nothing to do with you, Old Zhang, so you don't need to worry about it."
"...Alright then, take care."
Since Li Yue had said so, Secretary Zhang naturally had nothing more to say.
He stayed for a little while longer then left the game department.
After he left, Li Yue showed concern for the programmers in the department, reminding them of some important points, and incidentally solved a few programming problems.
Finally, he had intended to go and speak to the higher-ups about his resignation, but seeing that it was almost lunchtime, he decided to wait.
So, while waiting for the break, he opened a certain pink app to check out the hottest game recently.
He wanted to see what new tricks Honkai Impact 3rd had come up with.
...
...
Right on schedule.
Honkai Impact 3rd's servers opened right after maintenance finished.
Times had changed. With the immense popularity of Honkai Impact 3rd, more and more streamers began to stream themselves playing the game.
Titles like 'Newbie diving in: Today we play Honkai Impact 3rd,' 'Helping viewers pull cards/level accounts/clear Abyss'... such things were endless.
But this didn't affect Miss Elf's popularity.
If anything, as the first person to eat crab, Miss Elf's popularity had recently increased quite a bit.
Right now, Elysia's stream chat was bustling with excitement.
"My dear Chickadees~♪"
As the familiar, gentle voice sounded.
The stream displayed a vast azure sky. A streak of pink light traced an arc across the sky, slowly descending towards lush green mountains.
A beautiful garden nestled among the mountains, like a fairy's haven, gradually came into focus on the screen.
"Please take my arrow, my flower, and my love~~"
The pink light approached the beautiful garden, petals beginning to swirl with the gentle breeze.
"To that solitary traveler~♪"
The pink light bloomed, and the swirling petals scattered.
Just as she first appeared, forever that pure and flawless Miss Elf, floated gracefully in the center of the screen.
"Hey~~ Did you miss me?"
"Whenever, wherever, Elysia will answer your expectations~♪"
Author's note:
PS: Slightly modified the system's main quest, changed it to user numbers.