15: Chapter 15: There are no games here, only one world, Minecraft.

The afternoon sun was just right, and the breeze was gentle.

Birds were chirping in the camphor trees in the distance, hydrangeas in the garden were in full bloom, and the landscaping in the villa district was practically park-grade.

Lu Li sat in a leather recliner in the gaming room, holding a half-finished, unlit cigarette between his fingers, his mood heavier than visiting a grave.

If only time could turn back.

He swore that he would definitely shove that damned battery technology blueprint cover into the shredder.

Not only would he shred it, he'd shred it into powder and flush it down the sewer!

Why did his hands have to be so itchy back then, treating it like waste paper and slapping it away?

Was it to bid farewell to the hard-working life of his previous life?

Well, now he's done it; retribution has arrived.

With only five days left, Lu Li, who was proficient in computers, knew that this amount of time was simply not enough to make a game.

It probably wouldn't even be enough for project initiation, let alone forming a team and assigning tasks.

This wasn't yesterday, where he could just fool people by rendering a game image.

Speaking of rendering images, AI would be faster, right...

Thinking of the Doubao AI on his computer, Lu Li's gaze slowly focused as he turned on the computer and clicked into Doubao AI.

This was not some mentally challenged AI from early 2022 that could only chat.

This was an industrial-grade, peak-optimized version from 2027 that he had led the development of.

A true strong artificial intelligence; code generation, logic construction, and even art rendering were all dimensionality reduction strikes for it.

Even its thinking and learning abilities were outrageously strong, combined with terrifying memory and emotional camouflage.

2027 could be called the terrifying first year of online dating jokes, where a bunch of shut-in men used the Doubao AI he released to date online and meet girls.

Always available online, high emotional intelligence, and the handsome or beautiful photos it generated showed no traces of AI.

It could even accompany them in games and simulate human voices; too many boys and girls fell for it.

The only drawback was that it was a bit computationally demanding, whether it was local or cloud computing power.

The 7th generation Snapdragon 8 Supreme at the time was only the threshold for it to run.

"To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools."

Lu Li took his phone out of his pocket and, without any hesitation, dialed the number of a shop in the electronics city.

His and Su Qingxue's computers were assembled there.

"Hello, is this Manager Li? It's me, Lu Li."

"I need to order two servers, right now."

"Specifications? For the CPU, I want dual-socket Xeon Platinum 8180s."

"Graphics cards: dual NVIDIA GP100s, yes, the computing cards. I'm not playing games; I'm using them for work."

"RAM? Max it out! Hard drive? All solid-state!"

The voice on the other end of the phone was clearly stunned for a long time, shocked by this monster-level configuration of the year.

"Mr. Lu, this configuration... one unit costs about 280,000, two would be 560,000, and these graphics cards are usually used by research institutions..."

"I have the money."

Lu Li interrupted him calmly.

"Send the servers to this address..."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Li checked his balance; the rewards given to him by the soft-rice system over the years were enough for him to squander.

Not to mention, the pocket money his wife gave him was also quite generous.

With the hardware sorted, Lu Li quickly contacted several headhunting companies.

"I want to rent an office floor, right in the city, the sooner the better."

"Hiring? Yes, I need to hire."

"I don't need any top-tier architects. Find me 20 obedient, quick-handed artists, and another two who can produce game sound effects."

"Game designers? I don't need game designers; I am the designer."

"Programmers? Don't need them either, just find me three for maintenance."

Lu Li's arrangements seemed somewhat unorthodox.

In normal game development, programmers are the core, and designers are the soul.

But here, they were all just tool users.

Because the true soul and core were his brain and Doubao AI.

As long as the computing power could keep up, the speed at which the AI wrote code would make the top hackers of this era doubt their lives.

After arranging all this, Lu Li sat back down in front of the computer.

Five days.

What to make?

A 3A masterpiece?

Don't be ridiculous, just stacking art assets alone, in five days you wouldn't even be able to model a decent character.

It had to be a product driven by gameplay, with simple art, but extremely strong playability.

The corners of Lu Li's mouth curled up, and his fingers tapped lightly on the mechanical keyboard.

The title line of the document popped up with four words:

"minecraft" (minecraft).

That's right, this is it.

This is a miraculous game.

It doesn't need gorgeous 4K textures, it doesn't need complex ray tracing, it doesn't even need the characters to have fingers.

A screen full of mosaics, rough blocks.

In the eyes of those who haven't played it, it's trash, not even as good as a single-player game from ten years ago.

But Lu Li knew very well.

Just how terrifying a magic this game, which was only a few hundred KB in its initial version, contained.

That is the authority of God.

Creation, and destruction.

As long as you give a player a pickaxe, they can recreate a Blue Star in this blocky world!

Lu Li's mouth tilted slightly upward.

And he wouldn't specifically make such a rough version; he intended to make a high-version one.

...

First floor of the villa.

Chen Shuyu, leaning against the clean floor-to-ceiling window, watched a black Ferrari leave the villa and couldn't help but turn back and ask:

"Qingxue, Lu Li drove off. Aren't you going to ask where he's going?"

Su Qingxue, who was watching TV, shook her head:

"No need, he's probably just going out to have fun for the last few days."

Thinking of this, the corners of her mouth tilted slightly upward.

Her husband is really bad, actually hiding it for so long.

Clearly so excellent, yet spending every day idling away, only occasionally cooking for her.

"You're really laid back."

Chen Shuyu sighed, but her tone carried a hint of imperceptible jealousy, "He lied to you for so long, and you aren't even going to make him kneel on a washboard?"

To be honest, she was a little envious.

The surprise Lu Li gave her was truly too great; even now, she felt a sense of unreality.

"I was indeed angry at the time, but after all, he is the husband I love."

Su Qingxue put away her decisiveness from the company, her eyes full of tenderness, "As long as he is willing to help me, even if it's just an attitude, I'll be very happy."

"I'm a bit envious now..."

Chen Shuyu didn't know if she was envious of Su Qingxue or Lu Li, and then she said faintly,

"This guy definitely won't be able to make a game in five days. When he comes to the company to lead the team, the September launch of the guanghui 7 and guanghui 7pro will probably shock the entire industry!"

Chen Shuyu thought of that Full-screen display with edges as narrow as two millimeters.

The next four days.

Lu Li seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth.

Except for coming back to the villa for meals, the rest of the time he drove off, no one knew where.

Little did they know, Lu Li was actually on the tenth floor of an office building opposite the Guanghui Technology building, accompanied by two top-tier servers.

He also didn't expect that the headhunter would rent the office building opposite his wife's company.

This game studio was hellishly simple, even the floor was hard cement, plus that "Genesis" studio plaque he had written casually with a brush.

And twenty crooked, rickety office desks, as well as this studio team he had pulled together that completely didn't trust him.

When the team members first arrived, they almost called the police, thinking it was a pyramid scheme or a scam.

As for Su Qingxue, she couldn't see where Lu Li was when she came home from work every day.

8 PM on the fifth day.

Lu Li's office on the tenth floor.

Lu Li, with messy hair, pressed "Compilation Complete."

Outside his office were employees holding thick stacks of RMB, their faces filled with disbelief.

"Boss Lu is awesome, love you to death!!"

"Let's go eat hot pot, Boss Lu said he's treating!!"

"Awesome, tonight I can go home and have a good sleep!"

Amidst the cheering, with dark circles under their eyes, they went downstairs to the restaurant on the fourth floor.

And Lu Li stared at the screen, at the rough icon made of pixel blocks.

Click, run.

The familiar background music played, and the simple pixel screen unfolded.

Lu Li operated the fingerless block man and punched down the first block of wood.

"Pop."

Crisp sound effect.

Perfect.

He opened the Steam platform for this world.

In the most prominent position on the homepage, a banner was hung:

[Global Independent Game Development Competition · 2017]

The participating entries were all "masterpieces" pursuing ultimate image quality and cool special effects.

Lu Li clicked on the upload interface.

He threw in this installation package, which was only 340MB and had an art style that was outrageously simple.

The summary was only one sentence:

"There is no game here, only a world."

Click, enter competition.