(Brain Storage Area)
(If any part of the story accidentally offends any of you handsome bros, the author hereby sacrifices his own gacha luck—may every one of my pulls lose the 50/50 so that all of your ten-pulls hit the rate-up!)
(This novel contains a large amount of male-oriented webnovel content. Female readers may find certain parts uncomfortable. The author apologizes in advance and leaves this warning here.)
Countless fragments of memory flashed past like a revolving lantern, bringing with them nothing but clutter and exhaustion.
Stars glittered in the distance.
Lingzhou had seen this sight more times than he could count.
“System. If you’re not dead, squeak.”
“Squeak.”
“…You seriously only squeaked once?”
The confusion in Lingzhou’s eyes disappeared, replaced by numbness and irritation.
“You think playing dead is going to help? I’m such a handsome, reliable, upstanding young man. How the hell did I end up stuck with a defective scam product like you?”
“So tell me. How many Amber Eras has it been?”
“Two thousand? Nineteen hundred and something?”
“Even if we were talking about some untouchable goddess, a simp licking her boots for that many years would’ve filled the affection bar by now!”
“But you?”
“Where’s your progress bar?”
“Don’t tell me Oroboros ate it as a midnight snack ages ago.”
“I’d even accept a fake 99.99% at this point. At least give me some motivation instead of making me become a great man over and over again, only to leave behind a few handfuls of yellow dirt beneath some memorial inscription.”
[Stop yelling, stop yelling! This really should be the last time! Just grit your teeth and hang on a little longer…]
“Last time?”
“Should?”
Lingzhou’s gaze turned eerie.
His expression grew downright sinister.
[A-Absolutely! One hundred percent! Definitely the last time!]
Every syllable radiated a complete lack of confidence.
“You’ve said that at least twenty times.”
“I’d sooner trust Aha.”
“I’m done.”
“I quit.”
“Time to lie flat.”
[NOOOO—Host… Dad! Dear Dad! Please trust your son one more time! Pretty please!]
[Just collect one more lifetime’s worth of faith! I promise it’ll fill me all the way up like an hourglass!]
“Faith, faith, faith. I swear to—”
Lingzhou swallowed the colorful vocabulary already sitting on the tip of his tongue.
Then, all of a sudden, he smiled in resignation.
What was the point of getting angry at the System?
In the end, he would still have to become the next version of himself and begin another completely different, completely real life.
“So.”
“What am I this time?”
[A game character.]
[Short version: Host will become a playable character in a game belonging to a parallel universe, while continuing to participate in the events currently unfolding in this universe.]
[As long as Host causes emotional fluctuations among the players through the story—such as making them like you—the resulting emotions can be counted as a form of faith.]
Lingzhou thought for a moment before lazily replying.
“Remember the pie you promised me all those years ago.”
“Once I finish collecting enough faith, even Aeons will be nothing more than ants.”
[Your son would never dare deceive his dear father!]
“You’d better not.”
“Enough nonsense. Give me the game data.”
Lingzhou crooked a finger.
“If I’m becoming a game character, then I should at least get to decide what kind of character I am, right?”
[Dad is so smart! You can freely determine your character background, abilities, personality, and so on. There are very few restrictions. Allow your son to explain them quickly.]
[1. You may have multiple playable versions, but their backgrounds must be connected.]
[2. Your strength may be high, but it cannot exceed the standards of the current era to the point of severely disrupting balance…]
[That’s all~ Here is the game information. Please take a look, Host~]
“Fine.”
“You’re not even willing to call me Dad anymore…”
[DAD! DEAR DAD! My tongue slipped just now! I’m sorry! Your son will slap himself immediately!]
“I was going to say ‘Master Designer of Meta-Defining Units.'”
Lingzhou curled his lips in disdain.
He neither had nor wanted a stupid son like this.
After living through countless lives, what profession or identity had he not experienced?
Designing himself into a game character?
Easy.
[It’s okay, dear Dad. Your son is more than willing to fulfill his filial duties.]
Using quantum speed-reading, Lingzhou finished going through all the material the System had sent him.
Then he immediately cursed it out again.
Anime aesthetics.
Turn-based combat.
World setting.
None of those were particularly important right now.
What mattered was—
The game officially launched in two hours.
And there was even a possibility of the servers opening early.
All that pre-launch promotional material had gone completely to waste.
Just how unreliable could this System possibly be?
For an anime-style character, first impressions were extremely important.
Sometimes, a single breathtaking shot or glance in a promotional trailer was enough to attract an army of devoted fans.
Of course, there was one prerequisite.
You had to be good-looking enough.
In game terminology—
Your model had to be cracked.
Lingzhou had absolutely no concerns about his looks.
Nor was he worried about his in-game model.
From face to physique, he was a solid 99 points.
The only thing separating him from perfection was the additional four points automatically granted to webnovel readers.
One point for raw difference in hardware.
One point for temperament.
One point for luck.
And one point for pride.
Since pre-launch marketing was no longer an option, he could only focus on making an impact in the launch storyline.
After studying the available launch information, Lingzhou gained an extremely deep understanding of the game’s combat design.
A turn-based game had no mechanical-skill multiplier.
Only brainpower and numerical multipliers.
That meant a character’s baseline strength was especially important.
It directly affected usage rate.
Usage rate affected fan creations.
Fan creations affected popularity.
For a game built around numbers, no matter how good the story was or how attractive the character design and model might be—
None of it mattered more than strength.
In plain English:
Meta strength was the best aphrodisiac.
First, his playable version had to be strong.
It needed some kind of unique, irreplaceable mechanic.
Second, as everyone knew, characters in numerical gacha games became stronger the later they released.
Therefore—
There was no need to release his five-star version too early.
Starting as a four-star might actually be the smarter move.
Just looking at the available data for the Astral Express crew, every single one of them had the words I WILL GET AN SP VERSION EVENTUALLY stamped across their faces.
And if he wanted guaranteed story relevance, there was no wiser choice than joining the protagonist faction.
Lingzhou snapped his fingers lightly and began creating his unit.
Excluding the protagonist, the Astral Express currently covered Erudition, The Hunt, Preservation, and Nihility.
What they lacked were Harmony and Abundance.
One was support.
The other was sustain.
Both were foundational pillars of any turn-based game.
After some consideration, the average player during the early game would probably need a reliable free sustain more than another support.
As for Harmony?
That could become a limited version later.
Abundance it was.
Using the launch four-stars as a benchmark, Lingzhou tinkered left and right until he quickly finished designing everything from skills to Eidolons.
His backstory required no thought whatsoever.
His actual past experiences were more than enough.
There was comedy when comedy was needed.
And knives when knives were needed.
Whether those knives would ever be pulled out depended on future story development.
No reason to worry about it now.
Next came his Light Cone, base stats, and all related art assets.
Character model.
Skill animations.
Combat portraits.
Splash art.
Profile image.
Eidolon artwork.
And so on.
Then came the most important feature—
As everyone knew, four-star characters were never perfect.
They always had at least one flaw.
A glass cannon with high Attack and paper-thin Defense.
Or an incredible support who felt like constipation incarnate whenever their rotation broke.
Lingzhou found a loophole in the review system and gave himself a completely irrelevant “poison pill.”
If anything, it could even count as a funny little bit of contrast.
[Host, Eidolon artwork failed review.]
“Which one?”
[E6. You need to remove your shirt…]
Lingzhou ripped off his upper garment on the spot, revealing a well-built body designed for maximum player self-insertion.
He closed his eyes.
One hand hovered beneath his chin, catching a single tear as it slid down his face.
A fragile, heartbreakingly beautiful atmosphere immediately formed around him.
Might as well hide the first knife in E6.
[Review passed.]
[The game has opened early. Please select an appropriate opportunity to enter the storyline.]
[Have fun~~]
Lingzhou’s smile froze.
Good.
Very good.
So that was how they wanted to play this.