02 - Starting Development

Sitting on the floor on the porch of a small apartment was a 22-year-old young man. The young man's appearance was somewhat attractive, though not due to his grooming. Despite having long blond hair, it had not been well taken care of and the ends were very dry and brittle. His body was very thin, which showed traces of malnutrition, and the expression on his face was even more disturbing, as he appeared lifeless, like a zombie staring into space.

After 30 minutes the young man finally reacted. Despite appearing to be lost, he was using 95% of his current thought processes just to organize the memories that popped into his mind. Currently he was in a lot of doubt.

Gabe Howard was his name. Both the name of the former life he had and the name he had in this life. His mind was in a mess as he lost a bit of the sense of self he had. He didn't know which of the two Gabes he was, until he finally started to relate the experience that just happened to something he saw in novels and anime from his previous world; he had transmigrated.

The two personalities were slowly merging. Young Gabe Howard was changing a lot of thought processes he had, a lot of his precepts and prejudices, but luckily he felt that this change wasn't bad. It wasn't like the other life he had either of his lives was one of a psychopath.

With his memories finally sorted, Gabe understood both sides. While other world Gabe was a fanatical gamer, this world's Gabe was a Game Developer in training, currently attending the University for Developers, and right now in the final days of developing work for his training in one of his core courses.

"Should I go with the idea I had for Residual Devil Village?" Gabe wondered as he continued to stare into space.

With this world's Gabe's memories, he had no problem accepting that this was a true reality and that he would have to continue living in it, as things began to feel more like he was this world's Gabe and that he only received his past life memories now.

"Maybe that's what really happened to me?" Gabe wondered, still unable to understand what had happened to him.

Knowing he was due to play a game within the next 14 days, Gabe finally made up his mind. He would use the memories he received from his past life, or wherever these memories came from, and make a game as good as that other version of himself knew.

So excited, Gabe took his Seed in hand and decided to inject his Mana into it again.

He was scared, as the last time he'd done this had been a bit traumatic, but shaking his head, Gabe finally let go of that thought and started injecting the Seed with Mana.

Slowly, as the Mana was injected into the Seed, Gabe felt his surroundings changing. He still felt like he was sitting on his living room floor, but at the same time, his consciousness had entered the world of the Seed, which was a completely blank world.

Using the knowledge he learned at the University, Gabe used his Mana to perform a small test. With a single thought, Mana flowed through his body and formed a basketball.

Squeezing this ball with a projection of his hand, Gabe felt that it was actually filled with air, to the point that when he dropped it on the gymnasium floor he had just rendered, it bounced perfectly, as the best ball should.

"I really can do whatever I imagine here…" Gabe thought excitedly as he imagined the possibilities of things he could do. Of course, he had to take into account his own knowledge.

The process of doing something in the Seed using Mana was that the Developer needed to have detailed knowledge about the substance and parameters of what he was going to create, as a small mistake in conceptualization could completely destroy the structure of things.

Thus, genius Developers would often take somewhere around a few days to make a monster, while mediocre Developers would take at least 15 days, and Talentless Developers would take more than 30 days.

The previous Gabe had already been tested on controlling Mana and creating Mana structures. Fortunately, he was considered a genius, taking only 4 days once to make a dog to use in a game. Ordinary students in the class took roughly 16 days to make the same dog, and the worst students took an average of 33 days.

Four days might have been fast, but thinking that he wanted to develop a game in just 14 days, and that game should be as good as RE: Village, time was too short for Gabe. That's why he was so doubtful.

"I probably won't be able to make the full game in such a short time, so ideally I'll develop the game divided into chapters. To start with, I can make a demo of the game first, thus trying to get the public's attention and use the Mana that I will get from players to keep expanding this world and developing it until it becomes the full game."

This was one of the features of Seeds: Developers would receive Mana from Players and could use it to develop their game or use it to improve themselves and make a better game with another Seed. The two were equally useful in the past, but in recent years, developers have realized that it was more profitable to make multiple games while absorbing mana, rather than using the mana they receive from the game to develop it.

The proportion of Mana that a Player generated when playing a Rank F game was normally 1 Mana Unit every 1 game hour. This Mana could be reinvested in the game in full, or the Developer could spend 100 Mana Units to receive 1 Unit of maximum mana. So, thinking that every 100 Units of Mana reinvested in the game would be the same as decreasing their maximum Mana by 1 Unit, 99% of current Developers prefered to absorb the Mana that players generated and use it to improve themselves.

Even at the University of Developers it was taught that the best way to develop was to absorb Mana from the game directly. Thinking about how boring and simple today's games were, Gabe understood part of the reason when he thought about it.

"I think this idea is stupid. Just like the skills they receive is proportional to the emotion they feel, the amount of Mana generated is proportional to the emotion players receive. If I use the Mana generated in the game to enhance the player's experience, player will inevitably generate more emotion. Making a player give me 2 Mana Units every hour would be more economical than making another game. Not to mention that if the game is good, I will have more players giving me 2 Mana Units per hour than I would get if I split my audience across multiple 1 Mana Unit games," Gabe said in frustration.

With his idea even more consolidated, Gabe finally started to develop the game. Of course, the demo game was going to need an antagonist, the player's first enemy and the main focus for the player to deal with. The first thing Gabe set out to develop, therefore, was the Zombie Lycan.

Unlike other games in the franchise, RE: Village had Zombies mixed in with Werewolves, so that was the foundation Gabe was using to make his game. Plus, he could use the references from his memory from when he had played the game.

"First I'm going to make the common Lycan Zombie." Gabe thought as he started to shape his Mana. But to Gabe's shock, his Mana was disappearing as it left his body.

Confused, Gabe looked at the basketball he made and made another ball like that, which was no problem, but when he tried to make the Zombie again, his Mana was dissipating once again.

"What is happening?" Gabe was confused as he looked at his hands closely. "What is that?"

He saw that there was something like a small black hole absorbing the Mana that came out of his hand.

Having never heard of something like this before, Gabe was confused and decided to put more Mana into it. But strangely the Mana just floated around his hand this time, without being absorbed by the black hole.

Thinking about doing the Zombie one more time, the black hole appeared to react again, making Gabe a little stressed.

"What the fuck?!" he yelled angrily.

Without canceling the Mana emission this time, Gabe decided to let more Mana be absorbed by this black hole and see what would happen. After 20 minutes of emitting Mana, Gabe had deposited 80 Mana Units and was already feeling weak. When he was about to cancel the Mana emission, something unusual happened.

In front of Gabe's eyes, a transparent screen appeared.

[80 Units of Mana Stored. Would you like to run a simulation?]

Gabe was confused by this screen. He had never heard of something like this at the University. Theoretically he would use approximately 50 Units of his Mana to try to mold a Zombie, and if he failed he could try one more time before running out of Mana and having to try the next day.

But why did that screen say he could do a simulation?

"Yes," Gabe answered.

[Which creature do you want to simulate?]

Thinking for a moment, Gabe replied, "A Lycan Zombie."

As soon as he said that, the window changed. A cloud of ethereal Mana began to float in the air before Gabe felt it enter his head. Soon a new memory surfaced in his mind. This memory was showing him the experience of creating a Zombie Lycan, as if he had done it hundreds of times before!

But to Gabe's disappointment, according to the memory he received, he would need 80 Mana Units to make the Lycan, exactly the same amount he injected into the black hole.

"I have 100 Mana Units in total, but now I only have 20 Mana Units left. I need 60 more Mana Units to test this…" Gabe thought in frustration. "I think I can save the Zombie for tomorrow and use 15 Mana Units to start building the game scenario."

Feeling that this memory wouldn't fade from his mind, Gabe decided to use 15 Mana Units to make the snowy village for his Game Demo. Unlike creatures, making backgrounds was much easier. Those 15 Mana Units were enough for him to already make 30% of the demo game's territory. Of course, this was still without the structures, but the demo's land was already 30% ready. He would just need to finish generating the land and then start building the houses, trees, and other details.

This was usually the part that differentiated geniuses from ordinary people. As Gabe had 100 Mana Units in total, he could try to make a 5 Mana Units monster 20x in the same day, and his control over his Mana was already much better. However, an ordinary person who only had 20 Mana Units in total could only try 4x, and because of the low Mana control, that person would need even more attempts than someone talented to succeed, thus increasing the development time of a game from the 4 days of a genius to more than 30 days for talentless persons.

If he didn't have so much Mana and such high control, those 15 Mana Units of his would probably make a maximum of 10% of the territory, 3x less than what he had done today. Not to mention that RE: Village was very ambitious. Even with his talent, Gabe thought that he would need at least 12 days to complete this Demo, but if the Lycan simulation was really functional, that time could decrease several times!

…

After only having 5 Mana Units, Gabe left the Seed and decided to wait for his Mana to recover before testing if the simulation would work as he imagined.