Chapter 0: Please Call Me a Game Designer

As a game designer, Adam Brooks felt his life was perfect.

Every game he developed was recorded in the annals of gaming history.

"Journey" won seven awards at the World Game Developers Conference, including "Best Visual Art," "Best Game Design," "Best Sound," and "Most Innovative Game of the Year."

"League of Legends" had reached its seventh year, still firmly holding the top spot among PC online games, and the S Series World Championship continued to break new records in popularity and viewership.

"The Last of Us," "Uncharted," and "GTA5" took the world by storm, selling tens of millions of copies and breaking multiple records.

VR games "Outlast," "Glory," and "Thriller Paradise" revolutionized the VR gaming industry, hailed as classics by countless game designers and studied repeatedly.

Even the casually developed "Honor of Kings" and "Onmyoji" dominated the mobile game market for years, seemingly unbeatable in his lifetime.

Not to mention the card and board game platform he made in just two months, which made him money hand over fist while he practically lay down.

And then there was "Train of..."—well, that just slipped out; he really never developed that one.

If there was any regret in his life, it was that he never managed to kick the habit of daydreaming while working overtime.

That's right, all of the above was just Adam Brooks's fantasy. In reality, he was the lead planner at a domestic mobile game startup, and after more than two months of relentless overtime, he inevitably started having some daydreaming symptoms.

Like other game planners, he entered the industry full of dreams, but after years of overtime, any dreams he once had had long since been worn away by reality.

Still, to this day, Adam Brooks insisted on calling himself a "game designer" rather than a "game planner"—perhaps his last stand.

Adam Brooks glanced at the programmer sitting at the desk next to him. There was still last night's instant noodle cup on the table, his hair was a mess, and he had huge dark circles under his eyes.

No helping it—the programmer had stayed up even later than he did.

He really didn't know what kind of creatures programmers were. Adam Brooks felt like if he stayed up five more minutes, he'd drop dead on the spot, but the programmers could maintain a near-death state for months, and even after declaring, "Once I fix this bug, we can go live," they'd still be bouncing around full of energy.

Sigh, they're all suffering souls.

"I'm so tired, I can't take it, I need to lay down for a bit."

Adam Brooks wasn't sure if he lay down or just passed out, but he felt everything go black and lost consciousness.

He didn't know if it was an auditory hallucination, but in his dream, Adam Brooks heard a voice.

"Game loading..."

"Main objective: Become the greatest game designer in the parallel world."

"Side objective one: Achieve over 2 billion monthly revenue from a single game."

"Side objective two: Achieve over 100 million monthly active players for a single game."

"Side objective three: Develop games for PC, mobile, and VR platforms, and have a classic title on each."

"Side objective four: Enter the World Hall of Fame and reach top-tier celebrity popularity."

"Newbie reward: None."

"Game difficulty: Highest."

"Game guidance: Disabled."

"Parallel world switch countdown..."

"Three..."

"Two..."

"One..."

"Game start!"

Chapter 1: A World with a Twisted Technology Tree

Imperial Capital.

Adam Brooks woke up.

"Feels like I'm about to drop dead..."

"No, I have to go to bed early tomorrow..."

Holding his throbbing head, Adam Brooks sat up in bed.

"Staying up late is giving me hallucinations. Daydreaming during the day is one thing, but now I'm dreaming at night too. This is really messing with my sleep quality, you know?"

Adam Brooks was still complaining about last night's sleep, but the next second, he froze, unable to recover for a long time.

"Damn, where am I? Did I transmigrate?!"

Adam Brooks looked around.

He was in an unfamiliar room, which looked like a standard hotel room. But it was clearly not high-end—other than being barely clean and tidy, there was nothing praiseworthy about it.

Next to the desk was a large suitcase, and on the desk was a rather unusual laptop, as thick as a brick, with a large screen. It looked heavy, but well-made.

Adam Brooks had never seen this kind of laptop in his previous life, but just imagining it, he figured it must be expensive.

He went to the bathroom to wash his face and looked in the mirror. Adam Brooks found that his appearance hadn't changed much, except he looked a bit younger, as if he was back to four or five years ago, just after graduating from college.

Gradually, Adam Brooks began to acquire memories of the parallel world.