“Upload complete.”
The holographic projection in midair trembled slightly as the green progress bar finally hit one hundred percent.
On the pinned header of the “Fourth Cataclysm” section—the largest gaming forum on Blue Star—a banner ad popped up with a stark black-and-red palette, exuding a stern, icy edge.
In the pitch-black void of space, the mottled hull of a frigate hung silently, like the carcass of a primordial titan.
Immediately after, twin 380mm Gravedigger magrail cannons began to charge.
Blue and purple arcs of electricity crackled wildly along the rails, and the heavy-industrial mechanical roar—boosted through audio enhancement—rumbled through the eardrums of every viewer, making their very hearts vibrate in rhythm.
*BOOM!*
A tungsten-alloy projectile launched at speeds invisible to the naked eye.
A second later, an asteroid over two hundred meters in diameter disintegrated at the far end of the frame.
The trajectories of flying debris, the Tyndall effect of cosmic dust illuminated by starlight, and the heavy shudder of the frigate under the terrifying recoil…
It was so realistic that it made viewers’ scalps go numb.
Yao Qian leaned back in his command chair, his fingertips tapping rhythmically against the armrest.
Even across the divide of dimensions, he could almost smell the gunpowder waiting to detonate across the forum.
Sure enough, less than two minutes after the post went live, the comment section exploded.
The very first comment, from user Keyboard Warrior No. 1, came instantly: “Another one? Which cheap indie shop produced this reskinned web game? Claiming 100% realism right out of the gate—do CG scammers not even respect basic logic anymore? And *Stars Online*? Why don’t you just call it *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*?”
Replies flooded in right behind it in orderly formation.
“TBH, the lighting looks like Unreal Engine 5 renders. It only fools amateurs. If a commercial GPU could run physical destruction effects like this, I’ll eat my monitor on the spot—no sauce needed!”
“OP sure knows how to dream. Disperse, folks! Just another crowdfunding scam trying to harvest suckers. Confirmed trash.”
“If this game is actually playable, I’ll stream myself washing my hair doing a handstand—with boiling water!”
The screen was packed with mockery and sarcastic cynicism.
A few bloggers who made a living “debunking fake news” smelled blood like sharks, quickly churning out lengthy analysis threads confidently declaring it a high-end pre-rendered CG trailer with zero actual gameplay.
“Flame on. The harder you flame, the more traffic we get.”
Right when the internet-wide mockery reached its peak, an out-of-place reply was bumped up by a few tech nerds.
The username was Hardcore Lao Wang, a notorious stickler on the forum and a veteran in post-production VFX.
“Wait… hold your horses before you start flaming. Look at the 14-second mark: the spinning trajectory of the ejected shell casing, and the diffuse light reflections off the metal surface in a vacuum.”
“I just ran this scene’s particle effects through my company’s supercomputer. Guys, if this is CG, calculating that single second of flying debris alone would melt the servers at a top Hollywood VFX studio! The physical parameters are too random—so random that… it feels like a documentary. This doesn’t look CGI’d; it looks fucking shot on location!”
“Lao Wang, did you take a bribe? Why are you shilling so hard?”
“But Lao Wang usually tears big studios apart harder than anyone. Was his account hacked?”
A minority of tech-savvy users began to hesitate.
They reopened the video, no longer looking at it with cynical eyes, but scrutinizing the details with growing bewilderment.
The tiny scratches on the hull metal, the heat-shimmer around the engine thrusters—it was far too detailed.
So detailed that it gave them an illusion: *this thing actually exists somewhere in the universe.*
Just as this undercurrent was rising, a heavyweight figure entered the scene, completely igniting the public discourse.
Username: Chu He.
A former FPS world champion turned hardcore gaming reviewer with tens of millions of followers, he was a massive influencer.
He didn’t post an essay—he simply retweeted the pinned post with a cryptic note:
“Whether it’s a scam or not, you’ll know once you fill out the form. But this application… is a bit nuts. Anyone wanting to play should think twice; the dev might have a hole in his brain.”
Fueled by Chu He’s endorsement, onlookers who had just come to watch the drama flooded the official site’s sign-up page.
However, when they clicked the “Apply for Closed Beta” button, what popped up wasn’t a familiar “Enter Phone Number” or “Link Steam Account,” but a dense, ten-page survey enough to trigger anyone’s trypophobia.
“What the hell is this?”
A college student preparing to fill out the form stared at the screen, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
Question 1: [Please detail your geological prospecting experience. Can you identify mineral composition through rock textures? (Note: If you possess relevant certifications, please upload scanned copies. P.S. This is extremely important.)]
Question 2: [What is your time for a 5 km cross-country run carrying 30 kg? Do you have free-solo rock climbing experience?]
Question 3: [Do you possess industrial skills such as lathing, milling, planing, grinding, or fitting? Please briefly explain your understanding of heavy machinery maintenance.]
Question 4: [When facing a two-meter-tall arthropod creature charging at you, you would choose: A. Scream and run away B. Smash its exoskeleton with your wrench C. Attempt to build an interspecies friendship]
The forum completely went wild.
“Is this game planner crazy? Are they recruiting players or special forces? I just want to hack monsters and level up, why are you asking if I can drive an excavator?”
“Taking an all-around engineer certification just to play a game? Isn’t the barrier to entry a bit absurd? Looks to me like they just want free labor!”
Main control hall, Ember Space Station.
Yao Qian looked at the rapidly increasing number of applicants on the holographic screen.
Far from feeling thrilled by the massive numbers, his eyes were as cold and calculating as an AI evaluating commodities.
“System, initiate screening process.”
He only had 100 energy points.
That meant he could produce at most 100 basic clone bodies.
Factoring in margin for error and spare bodies later on, the first beta batch could not exceed 50 players.
This meant every single slot was precious beyond measure.
A cascade of red data streams washed down the screen, dumping vast numbers of applications straight into the trash bin.
“Keyword parsing: prioritize IP addresses associated with military networks, research institutes, geological survey bureaus, or extreme sports clubs. Focus on military veterans, mechanical engineers, civil engineering guys, and emergency doctors.”
Yao Qian blew out a ring of smoke, his gaze dark and deep.
In this perilous rim sector, he had no time to teach a bunch of greenhorns how to fire guns, let alone how to turn screws.
He needed ruthless survivors who didn’t even require a beginner tutorial—people who could stay alive when dropped into danger and get to work as soon as they survived.
As layers of filtering criteria locked in, a glittering shortlist of candidates gradually floated to the surface.
[ID: My Broadsword Is Thirsting (IP Origin: A certain military compound)]
[ID: Construction Site Palu (IP Origin: A mega-bridge construction headquarters)]
[ID: Breaking Bad (IP Origin: A chemical research institute)]
…
Meanwhile, across Earth’s internet, the first wave of players receiving “Screening Failed” emails began to wail.
“On what basis did you reject me?! Saying ‘this game isn’t suitable for you’! I’ve spent eighty grand on games without blinking, I’ve never been humiliated like this!”
“Stop whining, bro! I’m an auto mechanic and even I got rejected! Their reason? ‘Can only repair gas vehicles, lacks knowledge of nuclear fusion engines.’ Thanks for nothing, dev!”
This aloof stance—that money couldn’t buy you access—completely ignited the competitive spirit of core gaming communities.
Within an hour, registrations breached one hundred thousand, but the acceptance rate stayed below 0.05%.
Top players, tech nerds, and real-life industry elites who had previously stayed on the sidelines were all intrigued by these bizarre criteria, diligently filling out the outrageous survey.
Such was human nature: the harder something was to obtain, the more everyone craved it.
Yao Qian inspected the finalized list of 50 closed-beta players and closed the screening interface with satisfaction.
“Good enough.”
He glanced at the energy gauge; the balance showed a deduction of 50 points.
In the cloning lab below the main control hall, fifty transparent cylindrical cultivation pods lit up red simultaneously.
Light green biomass solution flowed inside, as human-genetically matched skeletons grew rapidly within the liquid.
Muscle fibers layered over them, and nerve bundles spread across their bodies like intricate circuit boards.
The scene possessed both biological eeriness and the icy beauty of industrial technology.
Yao Qian stood up and walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling viewport.
Outside lay a brilliant yet treacherous galaxy; in the distance, a red giant radiated destructive heat and light, stretching his shadow long across the deck.
“System, send the login keys to the first beta players.”