Federation Star City.
As the Federation's largest metropolis, Star City sprawled across what land remained, its skyline a thicket of towers. Buildings a hundred stories tall were everywhere; here and there, thousand–story spires stabbed the clouds like slumbering colossi.
Snowwind headquarters rose among them.
By Star City standards, a "mere" hundred floors was entry level. Height was status. On Blue Star people liked to quote an old saying: "Stand on the summit and all mountains look small." CEOs took it to heart—and built higher.
From the 90th floor up, Snowwind's tower belonged to Fishermen Era. The big boss worked out of 101, personally watching the metrics each day, but operations ran through several vice presidents.
The one in charge of Fishermen Era was Vice President Zhang Chi.
Zhang strode in at 8 a.m., thirty-five and in his prime, slicked-back hair immaculate. No wonder—his project was on fire, and so was his profile. Media interviews, company prestige; when the owner was away, he often ran the show. The game's ascent had carried him upward too.
He'd barely sat down when his assistant handed him a tablet with a clipped, "You'll want to see this."
Zhang frowned as he watched the video. "The simulation's pretty realistic. They must've spent a lot on modeling and rendering." A beat. "Still… compared to Fishermen Era, they're missing some of the finer touches."
He was watching last night's livestreams of Great Age of Sail. Cool appraisal gave way to a pause.
"…Since when do they have plot?"
Onscreen, pirate cannons thundered and a merchantman was boarded. Zhang blinked. Building a free, relaxing, hyper-real ocean was hard enough. And they'd layered a story on top?
"Probably noob bait," he said, steadying himself, and glanced at the assistant.
"Vice President Zhang," the assistant replied, "Great Age of Sail went offline recently. They collided with us on content and had no competitiveness. But they came back yesterday—and it's like a different game."
Zhang nodded and kept watching.
The longer he skimmed, the tighter his jaw set. Why was there so much to do? Open-sea fishing—fine. But hooking something that big? Was that even meant to be caught?
The more he saw, the less calm he felt.
Then he reached that scene—the red-haired swordsman's single slash.
Zhang went rigid.
It took a while to breathe again. "Full department meeting in ten minutes," he said at last, and walked straight to the 101st floor.
You only had to glance to see it: Great Age of Sail had legs. Not just sailing-and-fishing freedom—weighty narrative, with every person carrying a story. That was… a lot.
He knocked. "Come in," a cool voice said.
Behind the white desk sat the boss in a white suit: Qin Ruoxue. She motioned for silence; she was mid-call. Zhang sat and waited.
A minute later she hung up, her expression all ice. "Report."
Zhang summarized everything about Great Age of Sail.
"Great Age of Sail?" Qin searched on her phone, scanning quickly. The farther she read, the more her face tightened.
"Which company?"
"Sea Breeze," Zhang said. "They launched under the same title and crashed into us, then went dark for six days. They relaunched last night with a few Ocean-platform anchors for a closed test… and it turned into this."
It sounded absurd—a transformation in under a week—but the footage didn't lie.
Qin's fingers tapped the desk, slow and thoughtful. "Have Content and Ops analyze competitiveness against us. If they outstrip Fishermen Era, then—"
Her sentence died as Zhang glanced at his screen. "President Qin, the analysis just hit." He forwarded the report.
They read. Their faces sank in tandem.
Across departments, the verdict was consistent. Great Age of Sail didn't quite crushFishermen Era—but it outclassed it by a margin that mattered.
The killer line: everythingFishermen Era had, Great Age of Sail had too—sailing, fishing, species variety, high-fidelity simulation.
And the things Fishermen Eradidn't have? Great Age of Sail had those as well.
That was the nightmare scenario. Left unchecked, Great Age of Sail would squeeze Fishermen Era's oxygen away.
Qin's gaze hardened. She didn't care about winning or losing a single title—but Fishermen Era was Snowwind's flagship entry in the Sailing Games Competition. That did matter.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Decision: "Get the Ocean platform's top anchors. Increase budget. Sign exclusive deals—three months of the competition, they stream onlyFishermen Era."
"Also—have Engineering work overtime. I want a few giant fish of our own, and a set of high-AI NPCs. We'll push a 'tourism and photo-spot' angle inside the game."
Zhang nodded. No holes to poke; the plan was tight.
For the moment, Snowwind's one huge advantage over Sea Breeze was simple:
Deeper pockets. Stronger backing.
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