Chapter 240 - Old Summer Palace

The character was transported to another world after stepping through the portal.

There was a massive fountain in front of him in a garden filled with blooming flowers. There was a beautiful palace in the background as well. The whole scene looked heavenly combined with the blue skies and clouds.

Soon, the buildings in Yuanmingyuan Park appeared one after another.

Dagongmen, Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Supreme Harmony, Ruyi Pavilion, Ru Gu Hanjin, Natural Drawing, Bitong Academy, Zuishi Linliu, Yuetan Yunju, Wuling Spring Scenery, Wenyuan Pavilion, Xifeng Beauty, Pinghu Autumn Moon, Pengdao Yaotai, Guanlan Hall, Unique Cave, Western Building, Lion Grove Garden, Yulinglong Pavilion…[1]

Classic buildings in the park appeared one after another.

Clear water of the lake, well maintained garden, Chinese style buildings, Western style buildings. Everything had their own unique features even the trees were different.

Moreover, there was a character exploring the park where there wasn’t one for the Forbidden City. The audience had a better sense of scale with a little man for scale.

The day slowly turned into night and the lights in various buildings lit up harmoniously as their beauty complemented one another.

And when dawn came along, everything looked heavenly under the yellow glow of the sun.

Finally, the background music faded out before the character woke up in a shock from their sleep.

He was still in the ruins of Yuanmingyuan Park.

A melancholic background music started playing as the character looked at the ruins in front of him in dismay, before an abrupt end to the video.

—

Yuanmingyuan Park piqued the interest of the players once again before the buzz from Forbidden City faded again.

“The second video is out, this time is The Summer Palace! Chen Mo showed us that not only can you make real life buildings in game, but ones that don’t exist too!”

“That was so quick! It’s only been two weeks since Forbidden City’s release, how did he release Yuanmingyuan Park so soon?”

“Building the entire park in two weeks? It’d be tough even if you worked day in day out! There must be an easier way to build these things, maybe there’s a generation algorithm or something.”

“Makes sense. But the game does seem really fun!”

“And this video was much better than Forbidden City. The introduction of the character showed us that the buildings are on the same scale as real life, and the addition of a story helped with the imagination!”

“That’s incredible! It’d have to support him on the basis of these two builds!”

Not only did the videogame media hop on it the second it was released, even some traditional media did the same.

There was even a news channel that took a few minutes during their off-peak times to showcase the two videos and Minecraft.

The Game Committee in particular were really happy with these videos as it promoted Chinese culture. No matter recreating the Forbidden City or The Summer Palace, both were entirely positive things to have happened. The officials even decided to reserve a promotional space on the official app store and on the Illusion Game Editor.

Minecraft gained immense popularity after the release of these two videos and even looked like it could overtake Thousand Hells.

Moreover, more and more players wanted to know more about its sales date and price.

—

Chen Mo was still working hard in the office.

He used an Efficiency Adjuster and was building various buildings in Minecraft in what could be described as a demonic speed.

It didn’t look as good or was as immersive on PC, but at least it wasn’t as tiring. Chen Mo spared no time in creating various incredible looking buildings as he spent twelve to thirteen hours a day doing just that. There was no way he could sustain that in VR.

Chen Mo’s reaction speed and hand speed was incredible after all the potions. His efficiency was even more incredible with his rich newfound knowledge in architecture and the help of the Efficiency Adjuster.

Of course, Chen Mo was lazy whenever he could afford it.

There was a mod called WorldEdit in his previous life that dramatically reduced the building time. Chen Mo added these features during Minecraft’s development phase so he could build these complicated structures as the developer of the game.

Some of the more laborious parts of building were done using programs and fixed using some editing magic, allowing Chen Mo to work faster.

He had been working hard for a long time, with many buildings that were completed during the development process, he just didn’t release it.

He released these two amazing builds intentionally to attract some attention to Minecraft.

But he wasn’t done yet. Chen Mo planned to add a mode called ‘Chen Mo’s World’ after its release which would contain even more incredible buildings which he would have to update.

Therefore, Chen Mo had to keep working hard until release so he could build as many incredible builds as possible to showcase how rich the gameplay was.

The worst part was that only he could do this as there wasn’t much the other could do to help. It was insane to recreate the entire Forbidden City, and Chen Mo was probably the only one in the world capable of doing that thus far.

But this wasn’t a boring task as half his staff would be watching him build.

“Manager you’re incredible. I’m thoroughly impressed.”

“I’m getting nauseous from how fast he’s moving. I don’t understand how the manager manages that.”

“I feel like I’m playing a different game than the manager…”

Chen Mo worked even faster under the praises from everyone else as real life and fantasy buildings appeared one after another.

—

Many video game designers were also discussing the matter between Minecraft and Thousand Hells.

“Chen Mo’s incredible. How did he manage to develop a building game like Minecraft? The two clips of the Forbidden City and The Old Summer Palace was incredible!”

“Yeah, and the videos only contained actual gameplay. That means the players could do the same too, that’s incredible!”

“Yeah, I was so confused when I heard Chen Mo was making a building game. I thought that wasn’t his style? Especially when he was completely overwhelmed by Emperor Dynasty’s promotions at the start. I thought Chen Mo was going out of style already, but it seems like the tides are turning with these two videos!”

“And he probably got the people at the Game Committee so happy by spreading Chinese culture! That’s what they like! Chen Mo must be getting a promotional spot on the official app store.”

“But it feels like only Chen Mo could do that. I haven’t understood how CHen Mo was able to build the entire Forbidden City? How many tools does he need to assist him?”

“Didn’t he say that it’s all built by hand, block by block?”

“You believe that? He’s probably just saying that. It’d take more than a year to build something like that by hand without any assistance. It’d take more effort than developing the game itself!”

“Maybe… Chen Mo is super human?”

“He has to be using some tools. We’ll know when the game is released!”

TL note: [1] These are all names of places in the garden. Some of these are poetic, others are literal. There aren’t proper translations for most of them either, so these weren’t translated so well.