CHAPTER 66: OASIS PLAN

The man before her, calling himself Admiral Ghostly Retribution, radiated a crushing, almost suffocating aura, like he could swallow mountains and rivers whole.

"What the hell...?!" Natalie froze on the spot, her scalp tingling. He’s riding the waves?!

As the figure drew closer, she could finally make out the details. The admiral was clad head to toe in pitch black heavy armor, a nearly three meter halberd gripped in his gauntlets. Even from a distance, the weapon looked like it could split a boulder in half.

Her jaw dropped. "Bro... you’re not telling me... you want me to fight that?!"

"Of course," Tony’s calm voice came through. "Draw your blade, sis. It’s time for a one on one duel."

"One on one duel?!" she repeated, nearly laughing from disbelief.

Still, she gritted her teeth and reached for the katana at her waist. The blade sang as it left the scabbard, gleaming under the sunlight. Sharp? Yes. But compared to the admiral’s monstrous halberd, her meter long sword felt like a toothpick.

"This is insane! How am I supposed to win?!"

But the Admiral wasn’t giving her any time to think.

"Forward, Guilty!" he roared.

His warhorse, four hooves pounding over the waves as if the ocean were solid ground, answered with a deafening neigh, and the next moment, man and beast surged toward her like an unstoppable tide.

Faced with the incoming strike, Natalie reacted instantly. Not by fighting, oh no. She yanked off her helmet, cut the VR feed, and bolted straight off the gaming platform.

She didn’t dare fight that... THING! But she sure as hell was willing to fight the man who spawned him.

In the living room, Tony heard Cortana’s warning.

"Master, Natalie is approaching with hostile intent."

"What-?" He tore off his headset just in time to see her charging at him.

"You bastard! I’m done with you!"

She tackled him onto the sofa, straddling him and raining harmless punches down on his chest.

"I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I swear I didn’t trick you!" Tony flinched, throwing his arms up in mock defense. "You said you could handle it as long as there were no monsters, and I didn’t spawn any monsters!"

"That thing was no different from a monster!" she shouted. "A giant man in armor riding a horse with a three-meter blade, are you normal?!"

"It’s just a test model! If it got close to you, it would’ve deactivated automatically, no damage, no pain, just a scare!"

"I don’t care! I’m not listening!"

They scuffled for a bit longer, like two kids bickering, until the energy burned out of both of them.

Natalie finally leaned back, panting slightly. "Tony, seriously... why are you cranking out so many games at once? Aren’t games supposed to be developed one at a time?"

Good question. She’d just experienced three wildly different games in ten minutes, each more intense than the last.

"I’m not making full games yet," Tony explained. "These are just test modules, for my new game platform."

"Game platform?" she blinked.

"Yeah. That’s my next big project."

He’d already bought the garage. Now it was time to lay the foundation for something bigger.

Sure, he could keep publishing on Steam and let them take a cut... but why? As long as someone else owned the servers, even the smoothness of an online game would be at their mercy. He hated that.

Better to control everything himself.

And with the money and the system he had now... there was nothing he couldn’t build.

His idea was different from any current platform. It wouldn’t just be a store or a launcher, it would be like a fully immersive ’Oasis’, a virtual world where anything thats possible in reality could be done inside VR... and plenty of things impossible in reality as well.

In fact, an idea had already taken shape in his mind.

GTA.

The legendary Grand Theft Auto was known for its near limitless freedom in a modern city sandbox. Players could live an entire virtual life however they wanted.

Now imagine taking that, expanding it, adding maps, and embedding countless other games inside it, just like how Dinosaur Kombat existed as a game within a game.

That would be the true New World.

In this case, even card games like Yu-Gi-Oh wouldn’t need to exist as standalone titles, they could be seamlessly integrated into the game platform itself.

Just imagine it. A card duelist who loves nothing more than playing his deck is roaming freely through a GTA-like city. Suddenly, he bumps into another duelist on the street. Without missing a beat, the two of them open their decks and battle right there on the spot. No limitations, no special arena required.

It’s almost exactly like the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, where duelists could clash anywhere in the city, anytime they wanted.

With a platform like this, Tony believed there wouldn’t be a single player who could resist trying it out. Even people who had never played games before might find themselves pulled into its world.

And when that time came, he would truly be the ’God of Creation’ to every player in the world. The thought alone made Tony’s blood stir.

Of course, grand ideas were one thing, reality was another. To fully realize this dream, the platform’s storage capacity might easily reach several hundred terabytes, and even with all the incredible resources Tony had gathered so far, it still wouldn’t be enough.

He would have to take it one step at a time. For now, starting with a simpler game platform was the best choice.

"By the way, Tony, where exactly is this platform you’re building?" Natalie asked curiously.

"The one you just logged into is New World’s game platform," Tony replied. "Cortana’s AI manages the entire system. Any game that’s listed here can be sampled exactly like you did just now, play a few minutes for free, then decide whether to buy it or not."

He added, "And just like Steam, if you’ve played less than two hours, you can get a refund. No questions asked."

"That’s actually... pretty nice." Natalie nodded thoughtfully. "But setting the game platform as VR software, that’s completely unheard of."

"Heh. This is just the surface," Tony said with a grin. "Other platforms are just storefronts. Mine is a real world."

The Bank President had even helped him secure a batch of high grade servers.

After all, if you wanted your own platform, you needed your own network infrastructure. Normally, to support players worldwide, you’d have to deploy countless servers across multiple countries, investing huge sums in both hardware and land.

But Tony didn’t need to do things the normal way. With his system’s blueprints, he could buy ordinary servers, run them through his simulator, and upgrade them into cutting-edge machines capable of supporting players around the globe without a hitch.

It would cost him a ton of his points , but for the sake of his grand vision, it was worth it.

And so, step by step, Tony began to move forward with his plan.

---BREAK---

Meanwhile, thanks to the efforts of the player base, Subnautica’s exploration was advancing at a rapid pace. The once mysterious waters were slowly being charted.

The Seaweed Forest... the Great Barrier Reef... the Blood Algae Plateau... one by one, players uncovered breathtaking new areas, each with its own unique beauty.

Among them, the player known as PureWhite stood out the most. A professional content creator, he had abandoned his livestream schedule entirely to dive into the game full time.

His goal? To become the first player in the world to fully clear Deep Sea Trek.

No one had managed to do it yet. As the very first player to enter the game, and already a world first champion with Silent Hill PT, PureWhite knew this was his chance to claim two back to back titles.

Two consecutive crowns.

Fueled by this ambition, he immersed himself in the game, playing day and night. And in the end... he did it.

PureWhite became the first player in the world to clear Subnautica.

Naturally, he wasted no time editing his gameplay footage and uploading it across every major video site.

[First ever clear: Complete Subnautica Strategy Guide!]

The moment it went live, the internet exploded.

"Holy crap, it’s PureWhite again!"

"He got the first clear for Silent Hill PT, and now Subnautica?!"

"Does this guy have a personal life at all?"

The title alone drew in hordes of curious viewers.

"Well, after nearly a week of grinding, I finally did it," PureWhite’s voice rang out in the video. "The ending was really touching... Anyway, let’s get started."

The first scene showed a vast expanse of shimmering blue water.

"Right now, I’m in a minefield, about nine hundred meters underwater," he explained. "This place is lit by glowing plants called ’mines,’ so even at this depth, visibility is great. It’s also close to the Disease Research Center and has plenty of resources. That’s why I built my sanctuary here."

He added, "If you’re aiming for a clear, I recommend this location. I’ll include the coordinates at the end of the video."

Then his tone shifted, almost smug. "Oh, and... I also finished building the Cyclops."

The camera swung around to reveal a massive, gleaming submarine, pure white metal, over sixty meters long, shaped like a colossal cylinder.

The Cyclops.

The chat exploded.

"Holy crap, he actually built it?!"

"It looks like a Leviathan!"

"This guy’s insane. I haven’t even started building mine, and he’s already cleared the game!"

Until that moment, no one had even heard of a player successfully constructing the Cyclops, let alone seeing it in action. But PureWhite had done both, and finished the entire game on top of it.

It was the result of relentless grinding, paired with his constant lead over the rest of the player base. And now, the world knew it.

1654 Words.