Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 1161: Chapter 1059: The Consecutive Appearance of Easter Eggs!

_1 Chapter 1161: Chapter 1059: The Consecutive Appearance of Easter Eggs!

_1 An arrow once shot can’t be retrieved.

Even if you know you might be reduced to ashes, once you’ve jumped, it’s too late for regrets.

Just like Yi’s live streaming philosophy he always conveyed to his viewers – [You can die, but you can’t be inactive], William had to grit his teeth and continue to fly downward.

As he flew, some of his viewers who had a solid foundation in aerospace began to popularise some terrifying knowledge:

“Streamer, your trajectory isn’t the same as that Austrian parachutist’s.”

“He jumped from 40 kilometers high in the stratosphere, basically falling vertically, and landed in about four and a half minutes.”

“Your height is approximately 400 kilometers, ten times that of his.

At this height and speed, you won’t fall vertically to Earth, but will become a human satellite orbiting the Earth, gradually descending while circling.”

“Normally, the descent process would take several years, but you had already changed the orbital angle with the escape pod before you jumped out, so it will be much quicker.

But exactly how long you’ll float, without orbital data, I can’t really say.”

…

William’s face turned pale as he read the viewers’ explanations.

His spacesuit was filled with oxygen, enough for him to move in space for more than 6 hours.

According to the viewers, this time might not even be enough for him to enter the atmosphere!

It wasn’t that he feared death, but…

He was live streaming!

Was he supposed to spend the next 6 hours acting as a human satellite, just flying in space?

He attempted to negotiate: “It’ll be boring for you all to watch me just flying around like this.

How about we stop here, advance the progress and figure out the parachute thing later?”

“NONONO!”

“This is so much fun!

Aren’t you curious about how long it will take to enter the atmosphere?”

“Parachuting Marathon!

Sounds like fun just hearing it!”

“Spend crazy time to beat the parachute record!”

“It’s not boring at all, so fun!

Just looking at space is enough, consider it a sleep aid live stream!”

…

The viewers unanimously opposed.

William was left speechless.

He really couldn’t understand: Why would anyone need a sleep aid live stream in broad daylight?

*

Meanwhile, Shawn Xu, after leaving the Tiangong Space Station, encountered another problem –

The main engine of the escape capsule was actually out of fuel…

It was only because of a trivial dashboard malfunction that led to a misleading display, which he overlooked.

A malfunction of such a minor degree was negligible, not even listed as [Minor] in the repair list – after discovering the problem, he slapped the dashboard twice, and the malfunction was automatically fixed.

However, as a result, after he used the attitude adjustment engine to move away from the space station and was ready to rush towards the magnificent space station, he realized the plan had miscarried.

Forget about going to that distant space station, he couldn’t even reach the International Space Station 100 kilometers away!

What’s more frustrating is: after the second wave of debris completely shattered the Tiangong Space Station in front of his eyes, he couldn’t even reload the save file – his most recent progress had already been autosaved.

In other words: he was stuck.

But the good news is: As long as you’re not entirely stubborn as a game streamer, and don’t reject any spoilers, there’s no such thing as truly stuck progress.

Among millions of audience members in the live stream, at least hundreds of thousands love instructing the streamer on how to play the game…

As long as there are people whose progress is faster than the streamer’s, it’s the same as all of the audience being ahead of the streamer in progress!

So Shawn quickly understood: The key is the retro-thrust buffering engine during landing.

When the re-entry capsule lands, the retro-thrust buffering engine will automatically start to decelerate the re-entry capsule for the last time.

The only problem is: this engine only ignites automatically when it’s 1 meter above the ground.

To achieve this, a set of complicated operations must be carried out to fool the operating system of the escape pod.

As for the exact procedures, of course, they need to be found in various operation manuals.

Not only do they need to be found, but they also need to be thought through carefully!

Unsurprisingly, not long after, players in the community publicly explained the operation procedures.

For the sake of his gaming experience, Shawn didn’t directly copy them, but spent quite a bit of time thinking about and “solving the puzzle”.

By the time he had solved the puzzle, disconnected the docking module, disassembled the escape pod down to his own re-entry module, successfully ignited the retro-thrust buffering engine to propel him towards the International Space Station, William had already orbited the Earth a week and a half.

Super Tomato had been wiped out along with the space station 13 times and was beginning his 14th reload – he only had a little over 7 minutes to repair the key modules and push the Tiangong Space Station off its orbit.

If he failed, the entire Tiangong Space Station would be bombarded by debris raining down, exploding into massive amounts of space junk.

So he had to race against time!

The good news is: efficiency can be improved through optimizing the route and continuous practice.

Super Tomato also had enough patience to constantly enhance his proficiency and speed up the repair.

Could he do it?

He never worried about it from beginning to end.

Those speedrunners, in the blink of an eye, can complete games that usually takes ten or more hours in just two or three hours, there’s no reason he couldn’t optimize even a small part of the process!

During the earliest days of “Assassins’ Alliance”, everyone took a long time to complete the first clearance, with many taking one or two weeks.

Half a year later, the [any% (unrestricted)] speedrun world record has come to an outrageous 1 hour and 28 minutes, with many players tirelessly practicing to continue to reduce this time.

…

As Super Tomato tirelessly honed his space station repair techniques, Shawn Xu was being brought close to the International Space Station by his re-entry capsule.

—— He was eager to get to that distant space station, but the re-entry capsule could only be ignited once.

With his skills, it was impossible to guide the capsule onto the correct orbit with a single ignition, then slowly move it towards the space station.

His only option was to attempt to pilot the International Space Station there.

But the answer was ‘no’.

As soon as he got a close look at the International Space Station, he immediately knew the answer in his heart.

The reason was simple — he saw the wake created by the fast-moving spacecraft on the body of the International Space Station.

Theoretically, there is no atmosphere in space where the spacecraft is located, so it would be impossible to create a wake, let alone such a visible one — even the solar panels were violently shaking, ready to be torn off by the airstream at any moment.

This could only mean one thing: The orbit of the International Space Station had drastically dropped and had entered the range of the upper atmosphere!

Even though the atmosphere is extremely thin, at a speed of almost 8 kilometers per second, it would cause intense friction and drag on the spacecraft.

In other words: he must act quickly!

If he slowed down a bit, the International Space Station would plunge into the atmosphere and be turned into a fireball!

But by the time Shawn Xu realized what was happening, he had already brushed past the space station…

Reload the save file.

With the return capsule now out of control, he had no choice but to forcefully open the hatch at the critical moment, being swiftly “spewed” out by the return capsule along with the rush of air, flying towards the space station.

But such an operation was undoubtedly crude.

A small error in timing led to him brushing past the space station again.

Reload the game again.

The third time he crashed into the space station and was ricocheted away.

The fourth time, before opening the hatch, he finally noticed the fire extinguisher in the corner — the one he had carried into the return capsule when fleeing the Tiangong Space Station fire.

He decisively grabbed the fire extinguisher, and was “spewed” towards the International Space Station.

Drawing on the retro thrust provided by the fire extinguisher, he finally managed to adjust his trajectory.

ɴονǤ0.сօ

But even so, he failed another four times before finally managing to grasp a rung of the metal ladder outside the International Space Station.

Then, through the thick spacesuit, he felt the “strong wind”.

The space station was not designed to consider “wind resistance”, which meant that when it entered the atmosphere, it could not benefit from any aerodynamics at all.

Solar panels, signal towers, hatches, ladders, the edges of the outer shell…

all protruding objects pulled thin tails in the thin air, which looked very spectacular.

But moving in such conditions was a challenge!

Shawn Xu didn’t dare to delay for a second, he quickly found the valve to enter the space station and rushed to it at risk.

——If he was a little slower, he might have been unable to move forward.

After reloading the save file six more times, he successfully entered the International Space Station.

As soon as he got inside, he found that it was very different from the Tiangong Space Station — it was obviously messier, and all the signs and instructions weren’t in a single language.

As he moved through the orbital module, not only did he find different national flags in different cabin rooms, but he also found a bottle of vodka in the Russian cabin!

If he had more time, Shawn Xu would love to explore this space station.

But now, time was urgent!

He rushed into the Alliance Escape Capsule.

After this, things got simple and the same manipulation he had done once before in the Tiangong escape pod —

First step: fasten the safety belt!

Second step: separate the capsule from the International Space Station, which was glowing red and about to turn into a fireball, and get away from this looming disaster.

Third step: pray.

But Shawn Xu only got to ‘May the machine spirit protect us’, a prayer that came from Lincoln, before he leaned against the porthole, wanting to savor the sight of the International Space Station disintegrating in the stratosphere.

Indeed he saw —

The International Space Station was self-destructing with the rapid movement and quickly burning under intense friction in the atmosphere, turning into ball after ball of fire.

Even the landing cabin he was in started to rapidly heat up!

“At this time, people on the ground should be able to see a grand meteor shower, right?”

Shawn Xu thought out loud.

“Bang!”

The return capsule was hit by a piece of debris and shook violently, reminding him that things weren’t over yet.

But Shawn Xu didn’t react at all, he was just frozen in place.

Because after the return capsule was hit, the angle of the porthole changed, naturally changing the view outside the window.

Then, Shawn Xu saw something incredible —

A long and straight pillar, rising from the ground, piercing the clouds and reaching the skies with an unnaturally straight posture!

Shawn Xu approached the porthole, straining to look higher.

But before the edge of the porthole blocked his view, he still couldn’t see the end of this creation!

Could it be that this incredible construction stretched from the ground all the way up to space?!?

“What…

what is that?” Shawn Xu was dumbstruck.

But as incredible as it was, it seemed Cloud Dream still thought it was not enough —

A myriad of aircraft suddenly shot streaks of white trails, abruptly entering the Earth’s atmosphere!

While some of them plunged towards the Earth without slowing down, others changed their course all at once, rushing towards —

That miraculous, towering construct stretching from the Earth to the heavens!