122: Chapter 122 Underlying Engine Update

This version update preview from Chaldea Studio was like a depth charge, instantly setting off a colossal wave.

The player forums, which had been in a state of collective depression and mourning due to the Final Singularity, saw post counts skyrocket vertically like a rocket within just ten minutes, directly causing several large community servers to experience brief lag.

In the live rooms of major game streamers, this announcement was being parsed word by word, as everyone vowed to dig out some deep meaning from Old Thief Gu.

In the live room of the famous lore-diver Chu He, a crowd of homeless players in the 'dead week' period were currently gathering.

“Brothers, forget about the lobby meet-ups and the roguelike mode for a second. Look at this third item! [The Holy Grail War of Fuyuki]!”

Chu He sat before his computer and pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Although he was a PhD student who usually broadcast with a reputation for being calm and rigorous, seeing this line of text now made him incredibly excited, his eyes shining with pure player fanaticism.

“Gu Yi is finally going to fill in the holes!”

He skillfully pulled up a drawing tool and quickly circled several key terms on the screen, his speaking speed unconsciously accelerating due to excitement:

“Think back, everyone. In the Prologue, the first Singularity we entered was the burning Fuyuki City. Whether it was Artoria, Archer EMIYA, or that Caster-class Cu Chulainn, they all bore the brand of that great fire. But these Heroic Spirits have been tight-lipped about what exactly happened back then!”

“Then there's Professor Lev's mockery before his betrayal, and the so-called 'Holy Grail'—that omnipotent wish-granting machine. How does it actually work? We've played for a whole year, and the story has actually been deliberately avoiding this core issue!”

Under Chu He's clear-headed guidance, the live room's bullet chat also reacted one after another, instantly boiling over:

“Holy crap, now that Big Chu mentions it, it's true! We've been playing for a year, but we actually have no idea how that first Holy Grail War was fought!”

“Seven Masters, seven Servants, killing each other... this setting sounds even more brutal than fighting the Demon God King!”

“So is Old Thief Gu making a massive DLC? Or is he releasing a prequel game directly?”

“The release date is actually Unknown! That damn riddler Old Thief Gu, kill me to celebrate for the Doctor!”

“Whether it's a DLC or a new game, one thing is certain: Gu Yi is going to take us back to the true origin of the entire Type-Moon worldview.”

Chu He took a deep breath, his tone full of anticipation. “This is definitely a heavyweight project with a massive volume. We're in for a wait.”

While players across the internet were dizzy from this sudden 'pie in the sky' and wildly imagining what kind of gameplay the 'Holy Grail War' would entail...

The FGO servers officially entered a 24-hour maintenance period for the underlying architecture update of the 'akashic engine'.

These 24 hours felt longer than a century for the players of Blue Star, who had just lost Doctor Roman and were now having their appetites teased by the new announcement.

Countless people wailed frantically in the forums:

“Open the door! Let me in! I want to go back to Chaldea! I want to see the lobby!”

“My liver is so itchy! Old Thief Gu, finish the maintenance quickly! I'm going to die without FGO to play!”

“Brothers, although it's hard to endure, according to Old Thief Gu's tradition, for such a long downtime and major update, can we look forward to a wave of...”

Finally, on the evening of the second day, the FGO server icon lit up again with the green light representing a clear connection.

In almost the same second, tens of millions of players, like zombies released from their cages, frantically put on their VR headsets and crammed into the server's login gateway!

Chu He also put on his equipment and rushed into the game at the first opportunity.

The moment Chu He's vision fell into darkness, a dull, distant sound of a giant gear turning—as if spanning countless centuries—exploded in his mind.

Immediately after, in the pitch-black field of vision, a golden band of light as brilliant as a galaxy slowly unfurled—it represented the [Main Story Timeline] he had experienced over the past year.

As Chu He watched with bated breath, countless dazzling blue magic circuits suddenly burst out around that lonely golden band of light!

Thousands of 'parallel plane Timelines' representing other real players converged like rivers into the sea, frantically intertwining and overlapping, finally merging into a magnificent Quantum Time Tree hanging upside down in the depths of the universe!

Several lines of cold, profound crimson text, exuding an aesthetic of extreme sci-fi and mysticism, appeared one by one against the cosmic background:

[Warning: Extreme energy interference caused by the collapse of the Grand Temple of Time detected.]

[Large-scale quantum overlap occurring in the Timelines...]

[Dimensional barriers have been lifted.]

[Omni-dimensional connection, initiating—]

Accompanied by the system's emotionless yet incredibly high-status synthesized electronic voice, the cosmic sea of stars before him instantly turned into a sky full of flowing light, slamming into the space between Chu He's eyebrows.

When the intense white light dissipated, Chu He opened his eyes and found himself standing breathlessly in that familiar 'Master's Personal Room (My Room)' that belonged to him.

“Whew... my god...”

Chu He wiped the fine sweat from his forehead caused by the shock, his heart still pounding wildly in his chest.

He marveled sincerely in the live room: “Brothers, Gu Yi really knows how to handle settings. Just with this 'Convergence of the Quantum Time Tree' opening CG, he forcefully packaged the basic online game operation of 'opening a multiplayer server' into a hardcore Type-Moon worldview event! The immersion is just off the charts!”

The bullet chat also reached a climax because of this cool opening, with the screen filled with 'God Gu is awesome'.

However, after marveling at the CG, Chu He looked around: “Eh? But why am I still in the single-player room? What about the seamless lobby we were promised?”

Just as he was wondering if the so-called 'seamless interactive lobby' had some kind of bug, the mailbox icon in the lower right corner of his vision suddenly began to flash frantically.

Chu He habitually clicked on the mailbox, and a system mail popped up.

[System Mail: akashic engine Update Maintenance Compensation]

[Respected Master, this underlying reconstruction maintenance has concluded successfully. To compensate for the inconvenience caused by the long downtime, we offer the following compensation. Thank you for your perseverance in Chaldea.]

[Attachments: saint quartz × 30, golden fruit × 10]

The moment he saw the mail attachments, Chu He was instantly delighted.

“It's the same old recipe, the same old thirty stones! A full ten-pull!”

While happily claiming all the compensation, Chu He complained to the bullet chat, “Even though I'm already used to God Gu's traditional skill of handing out ten-pulls at every turn, I still can't help but want to call him 'Godfather' every time I claim them.”

The bullet chat of the entire live room was instantly flooded with the eight characters: 'Getting rich depends entirely on maintenance!'

“Praise God Gu! I knew it, as long as the downtime is long enough, Old Thief Gu will one day maintain me into the richest man!”

“Isn't it great to take these stones and pull from the daily rate-up pool! Brothers, charge!”

“Forget the gacha for a second, Big Chu, go outside and look! Didn't the announcement say the outside of the personal rooms is now connected?”