"By the way, Coach, this game can be a bit intense at the start. It might be better if you choose to close your eyes temporarily and just push through the initial cutscene," Katie kindly advised.
"Right, right, right!" Diane echoed from the side.
"How bad could it possibly be! Push through it? You're making me sound way too timid, aren't you?" Karen smiled and waved her hand. "You're underestimating your coach too much. Back in the day, I stood on world-class podiums. Could a mere game really scare me?!"
As someone completely clueless about the gaming industry, the most Karen had ever seen was her son flailing his arms and legs around on the VR platform. Therefore, she completely underestimated the severity of the situation.
"Come on, come on, let's start!" Karen said as she put on the VR helmet.
Then, a moment later, the VR experience area echoed with Karen's continuous screams.
It wasn't because she encountered a Leviathan. Just the opening sequence of falling from a high altitude was enough to scare the living daylights out of Karen.
Seeing this scene, Katie was a bit speechless. 'if you don't listen to a young girl's advice, you'll suffer the consequences right before your eyes.'
However, after enduring the initial fright, things got much better. Once Karen successfully landed on the planet's surface, she was almost identical to Katie, equally shocked by the in-game Aurora and the surrounding beautiful ocean scenery!
This briefly made the middle-aged woman reluctant to leave, and she even rediscovered some of her youthful fantasies about future world.
Was this really just a game and not another world? She suddenly understood a little bit why her son was so addicted.
With great difficulty, under Katie's reminders, Karen finally refocused her attention on swimming.
She began to swim freely in the water. Then, Karen indeed discovered that Katie was absolutely right. Swimming here was no different from swimming in the real ocean!
In every single aspect!
"This game can actually simulate swimming this realistically..." Faced with such powerful facts, Karen had no choice but to be convinced.
Indeed, training here was far more interesting and motivating than training in a monotonous swimming pool.
"That's not all, Coach Karen. This game also has an AI called Gaia who can guide us in learning how to swim. You just need to call her directly!!" At this moment, Karen heard Diane's prompt from beside her.
Karen hurriedly did as she was told. Then, Gaia's voice suddenly rang out, giving her a jump scare.
As a middle-aged woman, Karen truly hadn't experienced this kind of futuristic high-tech style. She didn't even really know what an AI was. It took her quite a while to adapt to Gaia presence. After that, Karen began to learn swimming under Gaia's guidance.
However, while learning, Karen decided to play some tricks. She deliberately messed up some postures to see if Gaia would notice.
Yet, almost the instant she made a wrong move, she immediately heard Gaia notification tone, pointing out the problem with her movement and instructing her on how to correct it.
Amidst her surprise, Karen continued to make deliberate mistakes. She went through all the common, hard-to-notice pitfalls in swimming one by one. However, not a single error escaped Gaia eyes. They were pointed out one by one, and Gaia used a combination of video and verbal guidance to make her correct them.
This time, Karen was thoroughly astounded.
Karen's trial run ended up lasting for a full half hour.
After swimming in the ocean for half an hour, she stepped down from the VR platform drenched in sweat.
She was genuinely won over by Gaia in this game! The level of precision was off the charts. The arc of the arm swings, the intervals between breaths, everything, Gaia could meticulously guide you through it all.
Moreover, in the eyes of an experienced coach like Gaia, the points she corrected were absolutely spot-on!
Tsk tsk, even she wasn't this meticulous when teaching the team members!
Perhaps the only issue was that you didn't actually need to breathe in the game. But it didn't matter. Gaia would still teach you the breathing methods. If you strictly followed her instructions, learning to swim really wasn't hard.
With Gaia's level of professionalism, Karen felt that she could already rival a national-level coach. And in certain invisible, minute details, Gaia was even more outstanding!
If a swimming genius was actually trained by Gaiain the game, who knows, they might really be molded into a world swimming champion.
Thinking of this, Karen couldn't help but sigh in amazement. Had modern gaming technology actually reached such terrifying heights?
While Karen was playing the game, several other female athletes also successively stepped onto the other VR platforms with half-believing, half-doubting attitudes to experience the game.
After playing for a while, they expressed the exact same sentiments as Karen!
The visual realism was top-notch!
Coach Gaia was tough!
The game Subnautica was both top-notch and tough!
"Alright, Diane, Katie I have to say, your idea was indeed right." After finishing the trial, Karen spoke up. "I'll go discuss it with Coach right now and see if we can submit a joint application to our superiors."
Karen had a sharp eye. In just half an hour of playing, she had already deduced that this game would genuinely bring massive help to their training. Especially in guiding the details of swimming, Gaia could play a huge role. For the sake of the team's interests, she couldn't let personal emotions get in the way.
Not to mention, even on a personal level, she had been completely won over by this game. She had been wondering why her son was getting stronger, more robust, and braver after playing this game.
So it turned out this game was actually this good of a workout!
If she had known this game was so incredible, she would have just let her son play to his heart's content!
"Thank you, Coach!!!"
"Haha, training is going to be fun from now on!!"
Hearing these words, all the athletes present immediately cheered. In just the few short minutes they had played, they had already experienced the joy of Subnautica. Hearing the coach say this naturally made them extremely happy.
Saying this, Karen pulled out her phone, just about to dial the number of the national men's swimming team coach.
But before she could even make the call, Allan call actually came in first.
Karen hurriedly answered. "Hello, Allan, what's up?"
"It's like this, Karen. My team members just brought something up to me. They said they could use a VR game to train for swimming!" Allan voice came through.
"You might think it sounds like a fantasy, but I actually tried the game myself and felt it was genuinely quite useful. I think we can consider this suggestion. If you don't believe me, you can go try it out too."
"I've already played it. The game you're talking about is called Subnautica, right?" Karen said with a smile. "That game is indeed helpful for training. I was just about to call you to talk about this!"
"Is that so? Then let's file a report together and see if we can incorporate this game into our daily training regimen?"
"Deal!"
The two quickly reached a consensus.
"It's a done deal!" On the men's swimming team side, after hanging up the phone, Allan smiled and spoke to the expectant male athletes.
"Yeah, Coach Allan is awesome!"
Hearing this, the group of boys instantly cheered together, bouncing up and down on the spot in joy!
Their expressions and postures were simply as happy and excited as when they won a championship!
After all, compared to girls, boys' obsession with video games was vastly greater!
It was something that might just stay with them for their entire lives. After all, men were boys until death!
And so, a little later, the official X account of the national swimming team posted a message. [Following the suggestions of numerous swimming athletes, the national team plans to incorporate the game Subnautica into our training content.]
This single sentence instantly sparked heated discussions among netizens.
[Holy crap, it actually happened, HAHAHAHA!]
[The dream collaboration between Subnautica and the national swimming team is simply a path I never even imagined. Did Katie Ledecky talk them into it?!]
[Badass! Katie Ledecky is a real one, she does what she says!]
↳ [Hello handsome, do you want to see me naked?]
↳ [Yes mommy!]
↳ [OnlyFans .com/Sophieralln!!! Enjoy!]
↳ [Omfg, ngga just said "Yes mommy" I'm scared huhu someone breastfed me pls!]
[It wasn't just Katie Ledecky. Look at the X post, it says 'suggestions of numerous swimming athletes,' which means a lot of people proposed it!]
[Subnautica is probably the first game ever to be used to train professional athletes. Tsk tsk, the devs is way too powerful!]
"Holy crap, Luc, look at X quickly! Subnautica is trending again!" At home, Jenny Sinclair also yelled out loudly.
"Hasn't it been trending constantly lately? What's there to fuss about." Lucien, however, had a calm expression.
"But this is special! It's the national swimming team! They plan to add your game to their daily training program!" Jenny explained.
"Oh, that is quite novel!" Lucien interest was piqued. He pulled out his phone, glanced at the swimming team's Twitter, and then nodded. "Mm, I have to say, this is a very wise decision. I reckon it won't just be our country's swimming team. Other countries will probably do the same."
"Ah?" Jenny instantly panicked. "Then what should we do?"
"What the fuck do you mean what should we do?"
"Other countries! Are you really going to let them use your game for training!"
"What else? They paid for it," Lucien replied. "This is just a game of mine, not some classified secret weapon. Besides, swimming relies on talent and perseverance, everything else is just external. Those destined to win championships will win them."
"..."
That logic actually seemed flawless.
"But I guess this counts as one of the few pieces of good news," Lucien added. "Lately, the players have reached the Fireworks ship storyline, and they're all super restless. There's probably a whole bunch of people on the internet looking to cause trouble for me. Sigh, I don't even dare to look at X anymore."
"Tell me about it. I just wanted to honestly make a game to make players happy. Why do these players have to be so crazy!" At this point, Lucien shook his head.
"Tsk, you're playing the victim now!" Hearing Lucien bring this up, Jenny immediately gritted her teeth in anger. "It's one thing to trick other players, but you actually tricked your own sister. What hidden storyline? What triggering it by sleeping on the island? And I actually believed you! I only just realized now that this is simply the game's normal story progression!"
"Even the normal progression is fine, but you also lied to me saying the Fireworks ship would come pick me up and I could clear the game right away... And the result? The result was me waiting full of anticipation, only to be greeted by an explosion!"
The more Jenny spoke, the angrier she got. The angrier she got, the more she couldn't hold back. She directly charged over and started pummeling Lucien with her little fists.
Jenny little fists hitting Lucien felt like nothing more than a light tickle. He continued to reply calmly, "I call that a white lie. If I told you the truth directly, wouldn't I be afraid of crushing you?"
"Cut the crap, you just wanted to crush me on purpose!" Jenny rebutted loudly. "Also, the Reaper Leviathan near the Aurora, couldn't you have designed it to be less terrifying? You really don't know, when that thing got right in my face, it almost scared the hell out of me..."
Reaching this point, Jenny's face flushed red, and she smartly cut her sentence short.
"Cough, cough, I've already been good enough to the players." Lucien let out a cough and spread his hands. "I only arranged for the Reaper Leviathan to roam near the deck to give players a chance to escape onto it. You didn't get bitten to death by the Reaper Leviathan, did you?"
"Having that thing shoved in my face, I almost got scared half to death even if I didn't die!!"
Jenny loudly retorted, her anger making her bare her fangs and brandish her claws. "Ahhh, I don't care anymore! I'm going to expose you. I'm going to let players all over the world know that the guy who loves messing with them is my younger brother!"
Saying that, Jenny pulled out her phone, adopting a posture as if she were about to post.
Yet Lucien didn't panic in the slightest. He simply wore a malicious smile and whispered into Jenny's ear, "Hehehe, Sister, you wouldn't want the vast netizens to know about that incident of yours, right?"
Hearing these words, Jenny's delicate body suddenly trembled. She glared at Lucien in shame and anger, then silently put down her phone.
Now her weakness had been grasped. Jenny had a premonition that she was going to be completely at her younger brother's mercy from now on.
"No matter what you say, Luc, I feel like you definitely have some M... no, S tendencies deep down!" Jenny stared at Lucien with a look of deep resentment.
"Now you're just wronging me." Lucien helplessly defended himself. "If you want to play a relaxing game, then just hang around near the sea level, look at the beautiful scenery, catch some small fish or something. How relaxing is that? If you want to play a horror game, then go to the Aurora, go to the deep sea hundreds or thousands of meters down. I've already categorized it all for you guys. How you want to play is entirely up to the player. I've already been very merciful, okay!"
"..."
She genuinely didn't know how to refute those words. It was just that no matter how you listened to it, Lucien behavior had absolutely nothing to do with mercy!
Just as the two were talking, Luycien suddenly received a phone call. After answering it, he said to Jenny, "Alright, let's stop chatting about this. The moving company I contacted is here. Sister, pack your things now, we're getting ready to move."
"Ah, move where?" Jenny was stunned.
"I bought a house in Bel-Air a few days ago," Lucien replied.
"Really? How come I didn't know about this?!" Jenny looked shocked. "And I remember that's a wealthy neighborhood, a villa district, right?"
"You've been too busy playing games these past few days, how could you possibly know." Lucien revealed a helpless expression. "Also, your perspective is too outdated. We're considered rich people now!"
"Oh, right!" Lucien indeed hadn't adapted to this status as a rich person yet. She instantly panicked. "But there's no need to move in such a rush, is there? I have a lot of things to pack, I won't be able to finish packing on such short notice!"
"Just take what you need for your daily life," Lucien said. "It's not like we're selling this house. If you forget anything, you can just come back and get it, or just buy a new one."
"Oh, alright then..." Jenny started rushing about frantically. "Oh, right, do we move the VR platform or not?"
"Are you stupid? Just buy a new one!"
"Owkay!"
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[The point is, power point. 30 advanced chapter on patreon.com/EdgyReader]