EWN CH1

Grand Summer Federation.

Donghai City.

On the top floor of a skyscraper in the city center, Zhao Ming stood by the window, his eyes filled with shock as he looked at the various transport drones flying outside and the towering energy towers hundreds of meters tall in the city center.

Anti-war slogans were hanging everywhere, along with various game advertisements.

A cool breeze blew in from the window.

Zhao Ming slowly returned to his senses from the shock and couldn’t help but take a sharp breath.

“Hiss—”

“Damn… there really is a parallel world?”

Zhao Ming turned his head to look at the reflection on the window glass. The person in the reflection not only looked exactly like him but even had the exact same name. What was even more absurd… this guy had also almost jumped off a building.

Why “also”?

Because this version of himself in the parallel world hesitated at the moment of jumping.

While on Earth, he had already hit the ground.

Looks like he was just a bit quicker…

Zhao Ming recalled the memories of the original “him” in this parallel world and couldn’t help but feel a toothache.

Unlike himself.

On Earth, he had bet everything on a film and lost it all.

In this world, however, he had bet everything on making a game to participate in the six federations’ jointly held [Anti-War Competition].

From what Zhao Ming gathered from the memories, this world is called Blue Star.

Besides the Grand Summer Federation, there were also the Free Star Cluster Federation, Golden Moon Federation, Antarctic Star Federation, Slavic Energy Federation, and the Asian Eastern Union Federation. This world had never experienced a world war.

Four hundred years ago, a meteor shower struck Blue Star.

It left the planet in ruins.

But after the meteor shower, humans on Blue Star seemed to have suddenly become enlightened — creating and inventing at a breakneck pace. They leapt from the agricultural age to the industrial age in record time.

Then they discovered countless new energy sources underground and stepped into a technological age.

By now—

Maglev trains, drones — these were nothing new. Virtual reality headsets and sensory pods, which Earth hadn’t even fully developed or popularized, were already widespread here.

This world’s technology was extremely advanced.

Just the photonic supercomputing cluster in Donghai City had a per-cabinet computing power of 380 ZFLOPS, over 300 times the total annual computing power of Earth in 2024.

It was enough for most people to independently design and render movies, games, etc.

And this was only a city-level supercomputing cluster.

The original owner of the body had bet all of his parents’ inheritance—roughly 30 million Federation Coins after liquidating it. He also secured another 30 million from a partner, investing everything into developing a game for the anti-war competition.

Although it was called a competition, it was actually a project launched by the six major federations to pacify the people.

Because this world advanced through eras too quickly — from agriculture to industry, from industry to discovering new energy and reaching the tech age — all in very little time.

So the federations had been too focused on researching new tech to wage wars.

And with nearly infinite new energy resources, why go to war?

It made more sense to pour effort into advancing tech.

Once the tech explosion stabilized, decades had passed.

Though life was now affluent, and food was no longer an issue thanks to new energy-based photosynthetic factories, people suddenly had too much free time and nothing to do.

Crime rates in all federations skyrocketed.

Some even started chanting for war and world unification.

At one point—

The people across all six federations were so stirred up by war rhetoric that mass protests broke out, demanding their governments go to war. It was quite a mess for a while.

Eventually, to pacify the masses—

After research, the six federations jointly launched the [Anti-War Competition].

The competition was split into categories like Movies, Games, Novels, Plays, Short Dramas, and more — a dozen different types.

As long as you had brilliant creativity and a genius idea—

You could use the cheap computing power of the federal photonic clusters to produce your entry — solo or with a team.

Entries were ranked based on public votes. If you won first place, you’d gain unmatched honor and support.

The Anti-War Competition had already been running for over 300 years.

Every year, someone or some company became famous overnight or grew even more powerful through it. Now, it was an essential event in Blue Star.

Most participants just aimed for the federal prize and support.

The top prize for big categories like Movies, Games, and Novels was 1 billion Federation Coins plus one year of federal promotion. Smaller categories like Short Dramas or Plays had much less — just a few tens of millions.

The original host entered the Game category, aiming for the prize and promotional year.

He was so confident in his creative idea that he went all-in with 60 million, or he wouldn’t have secured his partner’s investment. He even started a company.

Some funds were spent on servers, while the rest was used to rent photonic supercomputing time.

He hired a team, and after eight months, they built the game 《Cyber Blue Star: 2077》, which told the story of a terrorist group launching a massive attack that shattered the fragile peace of the six federations.

Society descended into chaos. Various factions rose, and war broke out continuously.

The wealth gap became enormous.

Players played as drifters, scavenging and trading for supplies in a devastated world — letting them experience the true hardship after war, and reducing their glorification of warfare.

The idea was great, and the game was well-made.

But then…

It got copied.

He found out yesterday.

Today, he wanted to jump.

Why?

Because even suing was pointless — his small startup was copied by a top 500 federation enterprise.

They replicated both the investment scale and game content—

And then expanded on it tenfold.

In comparison, if the two games were launched side by side—

Every player would say the original was a cheap knock-off.

Even if he had the copyright, it wouldn’t matter.

On Earth, there were stories of low-budget films or games becoming surprise hits thanks to unique special effects or narrative.

But on Blue Star—where computing power overflowed—any effect you could imagine, others could recreate better, with money.

When someone copies your game and throws ten times the budget at it—

The original will be dead on arrival.

No wonder he wanted to jump…

Zhao Ming walked back to the desk and slumped in the boss chair, staring at the computer clock.

Only nine days left until the Anti-War Competition opens.

Switching to the Movie category was impossible now — registration had closed, and all his staff were game developers, not filmmakers.

To make a comeback—

He had to create a completely new game within these nine days to replace 《Cyber Blue Star: 2077》.

But the original game took eight months and 60 million coins to build, including world-building and online servers.

Now the funds were nearly drained. The computing power he paid for was almost gone too.

Creating a new game was practically impossible.

Plus…

He was a filmmaker, not a game developer.

In his previous life, his college roommates talked about games like Battlefield, Black Myth, Pay-to-Win Slashers…

But he never played any of them — just heard people mention them.

He didn’t even know what genre those games were.

How the hell was he supposed to make a game?

Zhao Ming sighed and leaned back in the chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Anti-war… anti-war…

He did know plenty of anti-war movies, though.

If he wanted the public to feel the horror of war and reject it—

Then the best examples were Earth’s WWII movies.

But he couldn’t just turn those into a game, right?

…

…

Hmm?

Turn WWII films into games?!

Holy sh*t?!

That… might actually work?!