Chapter 120: Mission Accomplished
Just then, LaVelle Smith Jr. walked forward with a smile.
"It seems it's time for the true professionals to step in."
He took off his jacket and handed it to a young Sega employee nearby. Beneath the jacket was the honed physique of a dancer, every muscle filled with a sense of power.
Smith casually moved his wrists and ankles a few times, producing a series of subtle bone crackles. Then, he looked up and scanned the crowd, his gaze briefly lingering on Takuya Nakayama, a confident smile of a king playing on his lips.
As the choreographer for the song "Bad," he could perfectly envision every beat and pause in his mind, even with his eyes closed.
When Smith stepped onto the platform that carried countless expectations, the air in the entire laboratory seemed to instantly solidify, and even the previously noisy discussions due to excitement disappeared. Everyone's eyes were focused on him.
The music, once again, burst forth from the professional-grade speakers.
Smith's body moved almost the instant the drumbeat sounded. There was no hesitation; every turn, every pause, every iconic Michael Jackson-esque move was precise to the millisecond, perfectly aligning with the constantly falling directional arrows and bar charts on the screen.
His footwork was swift and light, yet possessed a shocking explosive power, as if every dance step was questioning the earth. The evaluation on the screen, from the very first arrow, was firmly locked onto the dazzling "Perfect!" text, forming a golden waterfall with nothing else.
The Sony sound engineer watched with his mouth agape, almost forgetting to breathe. Before, he had been smug about achieving "Great," but now he knew what a true world of difference was. This was no longer just playing a game; it was the perfect fusion of art and technology.
As Smith performed with divine skill, the platform and the overhead colored lights plunged into a frenzy. They were no longer simple alternations of light and dark or color changes, but erupted with unprecedented brilliant light—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple. Countless beams of light precisely chased, swept, burst, and rotated with Smith's every movement, enveloping him in a vortex of light and shadow, as if a true king of the stage had descended.
The mirrored walls infinitely reflected and superimposed this dazzling spectacle, transforming the entire laboratory into a bizarre, dizzying, otherworldly space where the air seemed to tremble with the extreme light and sound.
"My God—" a young Sony engineer involved in lighting programming murmured. The lighting effects he designed truly unleashed two hundred percent of their potential under Smith's performance.
The young development and testing personnel from Sega and Sony, who had been standing on the periphery watching, could no longer suppress their excitement.
What started as quiet gasps quickly turned into uncontrollable cheers and screams.
A few people even instinctively began to clumsily twist their bodies and wave their arms to the strong musical beat, celebrating the miracle they had jointly created.
A Sega programmer excitedly hugged a Sony tester next to him, and both laughed wholeheartedly. The entire laboratory completely transformed into a boiling ocean of joy.
The expressions on the faces of the executives in the bar area were even more spectacular.
Director Yoshikawa and Suzuki Masao initially maintained a scrutinizing gaze befitting their high positions, but as Smith danced, their bodies unconsciously leaned forward, their eyes moving from focused to engrossed, and now, to undisguised astonishment and ecstasy.
Director Yoshikawa even unconsciously tapped out the rhythm on the bar with his fingers. The development plan Takuya had submitted earlier seemed to them merely an interesting attempt, not something overly exaggerated, so who could have imagined that this thing would so precisely capture the pulse of young people and possess such magic?
Maruyama Shigeo, the President of Sony Records, could not contain himself. He suddenly stood up from his high stool and quickly walked to the edge of the venue, raising his hands above his head and vigorously applauding Smith, his smile as bright as a child's. "Fantastic! Nakayama-kun, you have done something truly incredible! Fantastic!" He excitedly turned back and shouted to Takuya Nakayama, his voice booming.
Excitement gleamed in the eyes behind Chuta Sanmi's lenses. He adjusted his glasses and nodded repeatedly, his fingers rapidly calculating something in the palm of his other hand. Clearly, he had already seen the immeasurable commercial value behind this project.
Ken Kutaragi slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on Takuya Nakayama's face beside him, revealing a rare and complex emotion—amazement at this young man's wild creativity, admiration for Sega's excellent execution, and even a barely perceptible hint of admiration. He was silent for a moment, then spoke in a volume only they could hear: "Nakayama-kun, you at Sega always manage to create unexpected things."
Takuya Nakayama met his gaze, a calm and confident smile on his face, a smile that carried a just-right touch of youthful spirit.
He knew it was a success.
The huge stone that had been weighing on his heart for months because of this project finally crashed to the ground, feeling incredibly solid.
This LD arcade project, which combined Sony's top audio-visual technology with Sega's groundbreaking game concepts, was, at this moment, largely successful.