Li Jing watched Gu Feng's genuine shock and arched an eyebrow.
"Why are you surprised? Isn't that plot something you designed?"
Gu Feng's expression stayed stiff for a long beat.
"If you don't believe me, open our forum and take a look," Li Jing said. She unlocked her phone, swiped twice, and set the screen in front of him.
Gu Feng leaned in. One look at that slash from Shanks—and he went completely blank.
"You… really didn't know?" Li Jing's tone turned serious. If Gu Feng had arranged this, fine. But if something that big happened beyond the owner's expectations, what did that mean for the game's stability?
She felt her stomach dip. Gu Feng quickly shook his head and smiled.
"A little accident, that's all. It won't be a problem. Don't worry, Sis Jing."
He hadn't scripted any plotlines. For three sleepless days he'd used the system to reconstruct the One Piece world lodged in his head. Because Popularity was still capped, only the East Blue region was open.
By rights, Red Hair shouldn't have been in East Blue.
He thought it through—and a possibility clicked. The Red Hair Pirates do swing through East Blue from time to time to drink and throw a feast. Later, before the Summit War, they rush back to the New World to meet Whitebeard.
Put that way, it… actually tracked.
As for that streamer Xiao Kaka—her luck was outrageous.
A max-level boss just happens to sweep the newbie zone, and she's the one who runs into him?
Even if he, the boss, logged in himself, he couldn't say he'd definitely bump into Red Hair. As far as he knew, they weren't in East Blue right now. He wouldn't go looking.
At most… he'd try to pick up Nico Robin early.
Oh—right. Robin isn't in East Blue.
Never mind, then.
But Kaka? She still "AFK-fortuned" her way into Red Hair. What can you even say?
A true, born-to-lie-flat physique.
Gu Feng shook his head, half amused. A Yonko flattening the starter island made for a spectacular flex—and it had sent the game through the roof.
It wasn't the rollout he'd planned, though.
In his blueprint, that ocean was meant to reveal itself bit by bit as players explored. He hadn't expected to blow the lid off the Yonko on day one.
Still—every downside has an upside.
Downside: the "Yonko threshold" would feel a little lower down the line.
Upside: Great Age of Sail had catapulted off the launchpad.
Hard to say which weighed more.
"I get it. Go ahead and agree to her terms," he said at last. "As for her asking to see the game's potential…"
His eyes slid to the system panel's Popularity number. One night of streaming had piled up over three million. Kaka's stream alone had contributed more than two million. The other four combined contributed about a million. Total—just under four million and ticking upward.
Three million meant he still couldn't unlock regions beyond East Blue—the Grand Line, the New World—but… it was enough to expand the closed beta.
They'd launched with five test slots. Besides Kaka, only four other anchors had gone live. With three million, he could redeem three more beta invitations.
"Put the word out: Great Age of Sail will open three additional closed-beta slots today. And burn the rest of the promo budget getting the news everywhere."
"Okay," Li Jing said, turning to go—then pausing at the door, curiosity pricking.
"Gu Feng… is Great Age of Sail still a fishing game?"
She already knew the answer in her heart. Gu Feng shot her a look and said, dead serious, "Of course it's a fishing game. How is it not? You sail—and you fish. Both are in there."
Li Jing blinked. "The ship is a pirate ship, and the fish are giant Sea Kings, is that it?"
She left without pressing further.
After the door clicked shut, Gu Feng focused on the rising Popularity. It was sitting at 3.9 million, climbing by the second. A long progress bar unfurled in front of him with several milestone nodes.
The first read: Grand Line — Unlock at 100,000,000.
In other words, he needed one hundred million Popularity to open the Grand Line and the other four seas.
The next node was New World — the number below it made his vision go dark for a second: 1,000,000,000.
Blue Star's population, in an age where the ocean had swallowed most land, lived packed into sky-high cities. In his city alone, he hadn't seen a building under a hundred floors; the tallest climbed past a thousand. Space was tight. Society, fiercely compressed. Even so, the Blue Star Federation boasted over ten billion people.
Beyond the New World node was an icon marked with a question mark. He didn't know what that milestone was, but the unlock condition sat below it:
10,000,000,000.
Ten. Billion.
Which meant… to unlock that node, he'd need basically everyone alive on Blue Star to know, play, and love Great Age of Sail.
A tall order. Also, one hell of a challenge.
He wasn't worried. He believed in this game.
Crucially, unlocks were cumulative. Once you hit a node, any remaining Popularity could be redeemed for things like beta slots, large raids, and more.
Those theatrical "movies" from his previous life's One Piece? Each was its own dungeon instance. Even canon mega-events like the Summit War would be super-massive war raids. Those, he didn't have to pay to open—hit the timeline, and they'd unlock automatically.
But if he wanted to farm more Popularity, he'd need to unlock certain special instances—or spend Popularity to do… fine-tuning. Nudge fate. Manufacture big events.
"This game is way too fun," Gu Feng murmured, a wicked grin creeping across his face.
From here on out, the players would play the game—
—and he, the boss, would play the players.
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