Chapter 536: Chapter 516: NetDragon Reverse Completion!
Caught in an inner conflict, Hankâs thoughts raced:
Compared to the weekly racing competition, would the possible daily appearance of giant dinosaurs be less important?
However, compared to the uncertain prospect of winning the championship, wouldnât securing a dinosaur pet be a better value?
âPah!â He shook his head fiercely, âWhat am I thinking! If I participate, Iâll definitely win the championship!â
âYes! Thatâs right! The championship is mine! I will be the winner!â
âI am the King of the Track! The king on the track!â
Noticing his hesitation, Hank quickly did some mental pep talking.
[00:59]
In the final minute of the countdown, âKing of the Trackâ gave up the tempting virtual pet, collected his thoughts, and focused on the track.
He still chose the racing competition.
Not that the virtual pet wasnât enticing, but according to the personal sponsorship contract âFierce Horseâ gave him, there was extra prize money for winning the âIndiscriminate Death Raceâ championship!
Moreover, this prize money was quite substantial!
Based on Hankâs life experience: when youâre hesitating between two choices, in most cases, you can directly choose the one with more money.
Last three seconds of the countdown â
Everyone madly revved their engines, the furious roar of the engines mixed together, ears trembled, and hearts pounded!
â3, 2⊠1, start!â
âBoom~ Boom~ Boom~~~â
An array of uniquely designed cars rushed off the starting line, marking the official start of the fourth âIndiscriminate Death Racing.â
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Forty minutes later, at the awards podium.
The awards ceremony for the fourth âIndiscriminate Death Racing.â
This was the third time âKing of the Trackâ stepped onto the awards podium.
Last time, the race involved a truck that would actually explode!
When he saw a Mud Truck from a distance, he couldnât help but wonder, âRacing with an off-road truck? Is this how wild itâs done?â
As he tried to overtake the truck, he suddenly faced a brutal explosion: The truck, 6.8 meters long, instantly erupted in a massive explosion!
It wasnât just a simple explosion; as it blew up, the truck sprayed fuel around. Cars within 10 meters were all unlucky.
Not just âKing of the Trackâ Hank, but his old rival âSwinging Trainâ and a close-by unknown player, all met Yama together.
Hank couldnât figure it out. Why did that guy collect so many explosives just for that one momentary explosion? What was he aiming to achieve?
Youâre exploding to death with your opponents, whatâs the point? Are you trying to retaliate against society?
In any case, that was the only time Hank didnât make it to the awards podium.
Unfortunately, he still wasnât the champion this time, and when he stepped onto the runner-up podium, he felt no joy, only frustration.
âSigh, I should have gone and fought the dinosaur if I knew itâd end up like this.â
At this point, the third-place winner walked onto the podium. Players didnât care much about order.
The third-place winner removed his hood and struck up a cheerful conversation, âWhat dinosaur?â
âOf course, the giant dinosaur on Dinosaur Island! Donât youâŠ?â Hank turned his head to look at the third-place winner, but his expression froze when he saw his face.
âCody?! What are you doing here?!â
âItâs not just me, I just saw Edward too.â Cody helplessly shrugged.
âEdward?!!â Hankâs voice spiked even higher.
A man with ordinary features but an inexplicably comical vibe walked up and stepped onto the championship spot, casually chiming in, âWhatâs up? Why are you calling me?â
No wonder Hank was shocked. These two happened to be the two higher-ranking professional racers in the domestic league!
âDidnât you two say you donât play Cloud Dream games? During the offseason, you should be training non-stop and getting ahead, right?!!â Hank was astonished, âAre you two teaming up to trick me?!â
âNo.â Cody quickly explained, âI really didnât play when you asked. But you specifically called to ask, right? I got curious why youâd ask, so I bought the equipment and came in to have a look.â
âYes.â Edward chimed in, âYou actually called to ask, so it canât be a simple matter. Donât we have to investigate?â
âSmack!â Hank slapped himself in the face, feeling only one word could describe his state of mind at the momentâ
Regret!
Why did he run his mouth off for no reason?!
âSo, you guys decided to surprise me by joining together today?â
âNo, today is actually my second time participating. However, I didnât know what I was doing the first time and got squashed by a huge iron ball.â Cody still gets a little scared when he reminisces about that enormous iron ball falling out of the sky.
Edward wasnât a first-timer either, âThis is my third time participating. The first time, I just couldnât outrun others, and last time I got confounded by an exploding Mud Truck.â
âHold onâŠyou guys have raced here before?â
âYeah.â The two answered simultaneously.
At this point, Hank wasnât concerned with the two anymore, as he immediately thought of another terrifying thing, âI heard that Cloud Dreamâs consoles have been sold to Europe alreadyâŠâ
After all, Europe is the home of the world-class Formula One championship!
Although top-tier Formula One drivers may not be able to unleash their full potential in a chaotic, violent virtual world, such top-tier players cannot be ignored!
Could it be that these masters will join the competition in the future?
Or is it possible that someone is already hiding in the crowd, adapting to this chaotic competition, just like Cody and Edward before?
Thinking further: Will Cloud Dream launch a standard car racing game in the future and then hold related global competitions?
If Cloud Dream really does this, how much money would Lincoln, who always likes grand scenes, be willing to spend on organizing such an event?
So, going one step further: Is it possible for Cloud Dream to organize an event in the virtual world that rivals Formula One, becoming another racing holy land outside of Europe?
Cody and Edward looked at each other, obviously thinking of similar questions.
This made them feel tremendous pressure, but at the same time⊠extremely excited!
After all, it seems that Cloud Dream is fully capable of doing this, it just depends on whether Lincoln wants to do it or not!
As they were daydreaming, the awards ceremony began, and the host started announcing the resultsâ
âIn this Indiscriminate Death Race, the third-place racerâ[Hitchhiker]!â
âRunner-upâ[King of the Track]!â
âAnd our championâ[See-saw Car]!â
Hank looked at the two of them with an open mouth: âYou guys!â
Are you here to mock me?!
*
This night, another important thing happened quietlyâ
In NetDragonâs R&D center, the reverse engineering of Cloud Dreamâs Mirage Console was finally completed.
After repeated confirmations, Wesley immediately informed his boss, Zack.
The two rushed to the core laboratory of the R&D center overnightâthese past few months, the lights were always on every night, and the engineers who signed the confidentiality agreement were also working in shifts.
Wesley originally planned to work in three shifts, not to consider the engineersâ endurance, but to maximize their focus and efficiency.
However, considering the confidentiality requirements, they eventually compressed the number of people as much as possible and extended individual working hours.
Of course, this does not mean that only the engineers who signed the confidentiality agreement are involved in reverse engineering, but they are the only ones who can access the machine and understand where the core technology and codes come from.
Even so, except for the core team of five, the remaining engineers were not explicitly told that the machine is from Cloud Dream.
âAlthough this is an open secret: Is there a second company in the world that has virtual reality technology?
Getting the core code without authorization, there must be a catch!
But if the company doesnât say anything, just assume you donât know.
I am just an ordinary screw. The company gives me the code to study, and I donât know anything else other than work.
As for their peripheral engineers, they were really not informed about anything and were simply organized to study the distributed code.
But by now, they have begun to have a vague idea of what the code is, and have started to get excited.
However, none of that matters now that the most critical work has been completed.
âSo, we can build our own virtual world now, right?â David asked the five engineers at the meeting.
âStrictly speaking, itâs a replica. We can only develop and build along the existing technology line,â replied an engineer cautiously.
âCanât you use different programming languages to rebuild it?â David, a business major who didnât understand the technology very well, tried to ask based on his own understanding.
âNo, we canât. We havenât fully understood every line of code. In fact, many of the code structures here are still black boxes to us. However, these black boxes are separate modular units, and weâve figured out the functions of each module. We can use the code for now, but we canât rebuild the underlying structure yetâat least not now.â
David frowned. This was quite a ways from the ideal outcome.
âBut it wasnât unacceptable.
Reskinning and rehousing is nothing unusual in the industry. Not to mention in the gaming industry, itâs also common in the mobile phone industry.
Itâs just that Cloud Dream hasnât gone open-source, so they might cause trouble later on.
But with good software confidentiality, it wonât be easy to catch them off-guard, and then they can stall for time, all while building an engineering team to rewrite the code.
By the time theyâve stalled for a few years, reached a settlement, and paid some compensation, they can seamlessly switch to their own copyrighted code. Job done.
As for the potentially high compensation?
Creating a virtual reality game now is minting money!
Just look at how Cloud Dream is making money!
What might seem like astronomical compensation now may just be a drop in the bucket later on.
Besides, NetDragon doesnât have much time to wasteâ
The previous expansion of âBlaze 3â did bring them back some blood, alleviating some pressure, but December is approaching, and the end of the year is near.
The loans they took out before are about to be due.
The tide of employee resignations has slowed down, but it hasnât stopped.
Under such circumstances, NetDragon⊠no longer has much time to wait.
So David decidedâletâs gamble!!