Because everyone had to work the next day, Evan organized the dinner but explicitly stipulated absolutely no alcohol, and there would be no related entertainment activities afterward either. The dinner was truly just a simple, straightforward meal—a group of people ate, drank, chatted casually, and then went their separate ways home.
After the meal wrapped up, his team members also began leaving in small groups of twos and threes. Although he and Emily weren't exactly on the best terms at the moment, Evan still maintained his gentlemanly demeanor and politely saw Emily off to her car, handing her over safely to Emily's mother who was waiting to pick her up.
Emily's Mother's approval rating: +1!
After firmly declining Emily's mother's enthusiastic invitation to come upstairs for tea and a longer visit, Evan quickly rushed back to his own empty apartment.
Ever since Frank had been discharged from the hospital, he'd swiftly wrapped up all his remaining company responsibilities, dumped absolutely everything onto Evan's plate, and then just as quickly convinced Kelly to join him. The two of them had immediately jetted off abroad to travel together.
For the entire past month, Evan—who had been following his father's social media posts religiously—had been filled with pure envy, jealousy, and bitter resentment. His parents had traveled all over Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the entire Indonesian island loop. The retired couple was constantly on the road every single day, seeing brand new scenery daily, living absolutely fulfilling and vibrant lives.
Meanwhile, Evan looked at his own situation: office, home, office, home, office... an endless, monotonous loop. He couldn't help but feel a wave of profound sadness wash over him. What happened to being a powerful CEO with an exciting lifestyle? Why did it feel like he was actually living the exact same routine as a high school student? He'd even felt a genuine twinge of guilt when he'd first taken over his father's company, thinking he might be forcing Frank out too early. But now he realized with bitter clarity that he'd been far too naive and idealistic back then!
Shaking his head and closing out the browser tab displaying his dad's latest scuba diving photos from Bali, Evan took a quick shower, threw on just a pair of shorts, and climbed straight into bed. Tonight was his important moment—he had something crucial to check.
Lying flat on his back on the bed, with the Reaper Server interface materializing in his mental space, Evan took a deep breath to calm his mind and fully entered the Reaper Server's internal dimension.
The familiar dim starry sky greeted him, and the vibrant red glow of Killing Planet was still shining brightly in the void. Right next to Killing Planet, the celestial body representing Swallowing Heaven and Earth had begun slowly emitting its own distinct light, growing brighter and more defined. Evan raised his hand up toward it, made a grasping motion in the air, and pulled open the Swallowing Heaven and Earth data interface.
At the very top of the display page, exactly as he'd expected, the progress bar representing the game's development stage was already well over halfway complete.
Swallowing Heaven and Earth: Completion (53%)
(50% completion reward unlocked—please check.)
With just a quick glance, Evan immediately spotted a small gift-box-shaped button icon flashing insistently behind the progress bar display, and he clicked on it without any hesitation whatsoever.
"Based on the player's game development progress, the reward has been automatically selected as the Swallowing Heaven and Earth viral promotional video. Please review."
Evan was momentarily startled, his brain briefly processing this as 'Making a game comes with a computer virus?' before he actually clicked on the detailed explanation tab and realized it was referring to a short video specifically designed for viral marketing campaigns. Evan couldn't help but breathe an enormous sigh of relief at that clarification.
Speaking of Evan's previous life back on Earth, one of the major contributing factors to the massive success of browser-based web games had probably been the somewhat lax copyright enforcement in certain markets, where countless shady web game advertisements would directly rip off and use footage from major foreign sci-fi films or AAA blockbuster games without any permission whatsoever.
For example, the promotional footage from the famous Japanese action game Drakengard 3, which featured incredibly exciting combat sequences of the protagonist Zero in action, had been pirated and reused dozens of times by sketchy browser game companies. Many players, completely captivated by Zero's striking character design and fluid combat, would eagerly click into these advertised games, only to tragically discover that there was no actual game resembling what they'd seen, no cool character like in the video—just a completely different game that was pure bait-and-switch deception.
Besides that specific example, games like Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry, The Elder Scrolls series, and even the relatively recent Red Dead Redemption 2 had all fallen victim to this same predatory practice. In addition to stealing game footage, movie clips were also a primary target for this kind of advertising piracy. For instance, one of the most famous examples had been those viral creature-raising game advertisements, which featured a massive beast emerging dramatically from a sea of clouds and biting clean through a battleship. That particular footage had actually come from the 2011 film Leviathan directed by a filmmaker named Andrey Zvyagintsev. The movie itself had received a pretty lukewarm response even among hardcore monster movie enthusiasts in most markets, yet it had unexpectedly achieved viral sensation status through these game ads in a completely different context—something the director himself had probably never anticipated in his wildest dreams.
A significant portion of the massive success those creature-raising game advertisements had achieved in his previous life could genuinely be attributed to that stolen Leviathan footage, because the underlying player psychology was actually remarkably simple and predictable:
First, these game ads kept popping up absolutely everywhere across web pages. After seeing the same ad appear dozens of times, players would start thinking 'Hmm, this actually seems kind of interesting?' Second, the promotional video footage looked genuinely impressive and high-quality. If they'd invested enough to create such polished marketing material, surely the actual game itself wouldn't be completely terrible, right?
But then curious players would click through and discover: Surprise! Didn't expect that twist, did you? The slick promotional short film had absolutely zero relation whatsoever to the actual gameplay. It was purely designed to trick you into clicking through and downloading a completely different game!
So in this world, Evan was absolutely determined to replicate the core success formula of those creature-raising games while actually making a legitimately good creature-raising game that delivered on its promises—not just another cynical bait-and-switch operation. A high-quality promotional short film was definitely something he'd known he needed to figure out somehow. However, when he'd initially contacted several professional CG production studios to get quotes, Evan had immediately gotten cold feet at the pricing. Professional CG animation, priced on a per-frame basis, was quoted at $600,000 for just a ten-second sequence. That was practically highway robbery! He absolutely couldn't afford something like that with their current budget constraints. So Evan had reluctantly abandoned the promotional video idea at that time, which was precisely why he'd been so diligently cultivating and relying on Logan's marketing expertise instead, thinking: 'Logan, you're going to have to make up for all the promotional impact we're losing by not having a cinematic CG trailer!'
But what Evan absolutely hadn't expected was this incredible twist of fate and fortune. Something he couldn't possibly achieve with the company's limited resources, the Reaper Server had somehow accomplished for him automatically. Right now, Evan honestly wanted to hug the Reaper Server's core processor unit and kiss it twice out of pure gratitude. With this promotional video in hand, the game's success was truly and completely guaranteed now!
He opened up and played the short film that had been rewarded by the Reaper Server system. The overall theme and visual style were still quite similar to that Leviathan movie footage—featuring absolutely massive mythological beasts soaring dramatically above the clouds! And compared to the original Leviathan film clip, this new segment that had been generated by the Reaper Server featured three distinct Kun Beasts with completely different visual designs and characteristics, engaged in an epic battle with each other. They were overturning mountains and churning seas, creating absolute chaos and devastation on a scale that was easily more than ten times more impressive and spectacular than anything Evan had originally imagined or hoped for! At this exact moment, with this footage in hand, Evan declared with complete confidence that Swallowing Heaven and Earth's success was now absolutely, completely guaranteed and locked in!
The next morning, Evan dragged himself into work sporting two absolutely massive dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
The moment he walked through the company's front entrance doors, he immediately bumped into Lana, who had just returned from the break room after refilling her water bottle. Taking one look at Evan's prominent panda eyes, Lana let out an exaggerated gasp of surprise.
"Evan! Did you not sleep at all last night? Oh wait, oh my god, I remember you personally saw Emily home last night after dinner. Oh, oh, ohhh—good morning, Evan! I definitely didn't say anything just now, nope, nothing at all."
Evan rolled his eyes directly at her obvious implications. "What are you thinking, you ridiculous person? Last night I took Emily home, came back here, and then stayed up all night working on game development."
Lana drew out her response in the most skeptical, sing-song voice imaginable: "Okaaaay, I totally believe you~" Then she muttered just loud enough to be heard: "Only an idiot would actually believe that excuse."
Evan felt an immediate headache coming on at this exchange. "You fool—who exactly are you calling an idiot here?"
Lana shot back without missing a beat: "An idiot is calling you an idiot, obviously."
Evan couldn't help but chuckle slightly despite his exhaustion, then turned around and started walking toward his office down the hallway. Behind him, Lana's exasperated and slightly flustered voice rang out in protest at his departure.
The truth was that last night, after watching the incredible promotional video that had been gifted to him by the Reaper Server, Evan had been absolutely itching with motivation to keep working. He'd immediately pulled an all-nighter coding session inside the Reaper Server's internal space, managing to push Swallowing Heaven and Earth's overall completion percentage from 53% all the way up to 55%. Having gone completely without sleep for the entire night, he was definitely feeling more than a bit mentally dazed and out of it this morning.
About halfway down the corridor to his office, Evan suddenly realized something important and immediately spun back around, shouting back toward the reception area: "Hey Lana! When Logan arrives later this morning, tell him to come see me directly in my office right away!"
300 Powerstones for extra chapter .