The Heavenly Gods Group had a seemingly absurd yet actually rational problem to solve before heading to Battleworld -- increasing the server capacity.
The approximately hundred players of the internal test version were all souls from different worlds, together they probably wouldn't amount to one Celestial's hair strand. Now, incorporating so many members of the Heavenly Gods Group at once required an upgrade to the server's capacity first.
When it was only Lucifer, Owen, and Shiller, the company was entirely a small workshop, a room was enough for an office. But to hire more staff, they at least had to have an office space.
However, as mentioned before, Battleworld Universe was created out of nothing by Lucifer and Owen. It wasn't technically a universe, but rather a peculiar space, much simpler in structure than any individual universe in the Marvel Universe.
This crude structure meant that it wouldn't work just to expand the capacity, neither would it become a normal universe if it was enlarged proportionally.
To use a straightforward analogy, making a hamster house of ice cream sticks and glue is simple, but if we expand this structure into a human-sized house, many issues will arise in terms of load-bearing, construction, strength, and space allocation.
So, the issue came full circle, they needed a powerful shareholder or an investor with their own capital to coordinate these employees in upgrading the whole universe's structure.
Consequently, Shiller didn't return to Battleworld immediately but went back to Disneyland to study Walt Disney's statue.
The statues in both Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studio, two of the four parks, had been illuminated, leaving Future World and Animal Kingdom.
Animal Kingdom isn't strictly an amusement park, it has various nature preserves, some even recreate African landscapes, along with hotels for close interactions with animals, it's very spacious with numerous activities.
Future world, in contrast, leans towards space and science technology themes, it's relatively small.
Since time was plentiful, they didn't stick together, but went to visit the different parks according to their preferences.
Shiller chose to go to Future World first because he heard that Disney had started constructing the Miniature Mercury Base around two years ago and incorporated exhibition halls of orbiter space shuttles and science popularization aerospace transportation systems.
The government of Orlando, aiming to develop local tourism, had already considered introducing tourist shuttles, enabling residents from the southern regions to also experience the benefits of scientific advances.
These weren't things Disney Land in Shiller's previous life had, so he was interested and visited Future World on the first day after the free time.
It indeed had some differences with ordinary Disney amusement parks, especially compared to the future-style park within Magic Kingdom.
The biggest difference lay in the future-style decorations in Magic Kingdom, every adult would know they're fake, many were metallic decorations for beauty only without any practicality, merely satisfying children's fantasies about future technology.
But once humans genuinely constructed the Mercury Base, possessed cleaner energy, and stepped into the cosmos, Disney seemingly made considerable effort in Future World, an independent park, replacing virtually all the buildings and decorations with authentic ones.
At the moment Shiller walked in, he even doubted whether Stark had let Disney's architects visit Mercury, if it weren't for the sun being too far, he would have thought he was actually on Mercury.
The city was filled with tall buildings standing shoulder to shoulder, their outer layer was covered with a layer of nanocrystals. Although there's no need to resist nearby solar radiations, the nanocrystal coating set up for resisting heat and blocking radiation made the entire city extraordinarily shiny.
The originally smaller park underwent further expansion and was divided into four areas; the original Future World was only one of them, the main themes of the other three areas were Future Flight, Touch of Sun Journey, and World Expo.
These were obviously responses to the solar system development plan. Future Flight was primarily demonstrating the aerospace transportation system, not only including models of the space shuttle and aerospace trains, stations of the circulator orbiter, but also upcoming designs of large aerospace buses, simple civil rockets, and so on, it was a complete indoor venue.
After Shiller toured some of the projects in Future Flight, he discovered that most were imparting the most fundamental aerospace transportation concepts to kids, besides getting to ride a real space shuttle, the only amusement project was an indoor 3D scene that simulated the experience of touring famous spots in America on an air bus, it was more educational than recreational, targeting younger children.
However, the Touch of Sun Journey was relatively more comprehensive, besides two indoor venues, there was a large outdoor project called Mercury Rescue.
As soon as Shiller arrived, he found it packed with people. After asking one of the staff, he learned that ever since the project started, even the super fast lanes were fully booked, with the longest queuing record reaching eight hours.
This further sparked Shiller's curiosity, so he bought a drink and started queuing.
The whole wait was a total of three hours, from morning to noon before he finally got in.
When he first went in, Shiller had thought he would see a row of track cars because most of Disney's tours were like that, either in a rail car or a boat, with many scenes arranged along the way for tourists.
The five members of the group, who were let in, began changing their clothes under the guidance of park staff. They were putting on heavily weighted astronaut suits. Shiller, once he was fully suited up, realized that these suits were the real deal, even bearing the mark of the Osborn Group on the back.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are now wearing the same type of protective suits as the first bunch of engineers who initially set foot on Mercury as part of 'the Solar System Development Program', all designed and provided by the Osborn Group."
"This company designed these protective suits with a special fiber structure in the early stages of the Solar System Development Program which can greatly reduce the heat and radiation hazards on Mercury's surface."
Around the time they put on their suits, they walked through a pitch-black space until they heard the sound of a door opening. After going in and allowing their eyes to adjust to the intense lighting, Shiller heard a familiar wind sound.
Opening his eyes, a huge fireball hung in the sky above them. It was the Sun, which humanity constantly dreams about.
All the tourists screamed. The oppressive feeling of the giant celestial body was too strong. Everyone but Shiller backed away and pressed against the door.
Shiller examined the Sun hanging in the sky and realized it was a real Sun, only a mini version. He then immediately thought of Otto's lifelong pursuit of creating an artificial Sun.
It seemed like he had succeeded, at least in part. The object in front of them was indeed an artificial Sun, but it didn't have the heat and radiation a real Sun should possess. It more so resembled a large Sun-shaped bulb.
Despite making everyone feel hot and illuminating everything brightly to the point of dazzling the eye, it paled in comparison to a real Sun.
While Shiller thought this way, the ordinary people who had never been so close to a star perceived this as a colossal calamity. One girl, hardly ten years old, broke into tears on the spot.
After all, the Sun is essentially a giant bomb, and the Disney staff kept everything a tight secret. Who would have expected such a shocking sight right upon entering, and who knew whether the thing hanging over their heads would explode suddenly?
Just then, a deep voice came through their protective suits: "Emergency repair team, emergency repair team! This is Hansen from the Mercury Base Monitoring Department, please immediately proceed to points A21 and B13 for emergency repairs! I repeat..."
Shiller looked down and was astounded. The communication equipment was also real, just like the equipment they used when they visited Mercury Base before.
The actor playing Commander Hansen had clearly undergone rigorous training. His tone was low and rhythmic; he managed to sound urgent yet calm, which compelled the bewildered crowd to follow his orders.
"Where are the points? Where are they? Here, there's a waypoint here, follow me!" A middle-aged man who seemed to have engineering experience waved to the others and said, "It appears we're playing emergency repair personnel. Some equipment at the Mercury Base has malfunctioned, and we need to rush over to fix it. Follow me quickly!"
The other clueless people had no other choice but to follow him all the while running against a strong wind and barely making it to the building ahead, soaked in sweat.
Then they started to look for issues amidst the narrow tunnels of the Mercury Base; discovering that the issue with point A was a liquid leak, which required a special crystal film to be re-coated.
The special crystal film required three types of material to be mixed, one of which had to be refined in a furnace nearby. Coincidentally the five of them could form an assembly line for refining, mixing and sealing.
Regardless of the scientific accuracy of these processes, the tense atmosphere of the team was palpable. Even while knowing it was fake, the object hanging overhead was nevertheless really hot.
The situation was worse at point B. A large-scale structural damage had caused serious temperature increase inside the building. The team simultaneously had to move materials, screw bolts, and finally, combine forces, pushing the repaired board into the damaged area, all while resisting the searing wind. Their mission was a success.
By this point, the ordinary people were virtually exhausted. But when they walked into the adjacent hall as instructed, the most shocking scene unfolded.
A bona fide spaceship landed in front of them.
Shiller recognized it as a construction craft belonging to the Stark Group, deployed to transport equipment to Mercury. In reality, it wasn't a true spaceship, but rather an intra-galactic flying craft.
But it was enough to shock the layperson. Its landing felt like a mountain collapse, and once it landed in front of the crowd, it felt like an insurmountable mountain.
Smooth surfaces, the exquisite mechanical structure, the engine flame that only appeared in sci-fi movies, all these instantly dispelled everyone's exhaustion. All the people cheered and rushed to board.
And when the hatch opened to reveal the meticulously designed cabin, they fell into silence once more, too astonished to withdraw from the spectacle.
In a single playthrough, Shiller realized why this project couldn't be pre-booked or have a super fast pass, causing a half-day wait, yet people still wanted to play.
Without question, it was time for another round.