The scale of Slay the Spire 2 wasn’t very large.
Even with the heavily optimized graphics of Slay the Immortal Spire, if Lu Ze went all out on production, he could finish it in just a day.
Lu Ze deliberately slowed down the pace of development, spending an extra two days refining the details. His main intention was to give Zhong Yi some experience and build his confidence.
Otherwise, if both of them released their games around the same time, Zhong Yi probably wouldn’t even get a share of the pie...
“Junior Brother Lu, your illusion realm hasn’t been released yet?”
Zhong Yi refreshed the illusion realm several times but still couldn’t find Lu Ze’s new creation, so he asked anxiously.
“Take it easy... It’s probably under ‘review.’”
Lu Ze cracked open one eye and answered calmly.
In Slay the Immortal Spire, he had reserved a spot for the remnant spirit of the Heavenly Dao. Usually, he would stop by the remnant spirit’s illusion realm world to notify it, but since he was using the Illusion Alliance’s illusion tower this time, he didn’t want to reveal too much about the Heaven Dao remnant spirit and chose not to proactively inform it.
Right now, the remnant spirit was probably examining its position in the illusion realm and weighing whether to take on a role.
“Junior Brother Lu, don’t underestimate Han Xian. His Linglong Tower Wonderland...”
Before Zhong Yi could finish, Lu Ze cut him off.
“Relax, that illusion realm is no match for yours... It’s just a patchwork of shoddy materials.”
Lu Ze said with a smile.
In just a few moments, he had already roughly analyzed Linglong Tower Wonderland.
His conclusion was: It was an ordinary action game stuffed with too much content.
It relied on lengthy storytelling and endless levels to stretch out players’ online time. He could already guess that later stages would be filled with boring repetition.
The ten thousand players claiming involvement probably had a fair amount of padding.
“Junior Brother Lu, your illusion realm is online!”
Zhong Yi exclaimed in delight and eagerly immersed himself into the realm.
“Let me give it a try!”
With that, Zhong Yi immediately entered Slay the Immortal Spire and turned on his livestream at the same time.
“...There’s a trick like this?”
Lu Ze blinked.
The Illusion Alliance forbade self-promotion, but it didn’t say you couldn’t promote others, right?
With that thought, he cheerfully started his own livestream as well. The content was Zhong Yi’s Boldly Charge the Demon-Sealing Tower.
......
......
Zhong Yi’s livestream room.
“Let me see how you climb a tower with board games...”
Zhong Yi eagerly entered Slay the Immortal Spire.
A sinister, eerie tower appeared before him.
“Single-player mode? Multiplayer mode?”
Zhong Yi stared at the two options on the screen, momentarily stunned.
Combining board games with tower climbing was one thing, but could you really have multiple people climbing the tower together while playing cards?
No matter how hard he tried, Zhong Yi couldn’t picture such a scene, and his anticipation only grew.
“Once I get the hang of it, I’ll call Lao Zhou and Junior Brother Mu to climb the tower together!”
After a moment’s thought, Zhong Yi selected [Single Player Mode] and entered the illusion realm.
With a flash of the screen, five character options appeared before him.
On the far left was a white-haired sword-wielding cultivator wearing a golden mask with blood-red eyes.
[Iron Armor Sect Cultivator]
[HP: 80/80]
[Spirit Stones: 99]
[The last disciple of the ancient sect, the Iron Armor Sect]
[Here not by his own will; skilled in the way of sword, blade, and fire spells.]
[Divine Power: Golden Crow Bloodline (Restores 6 HP at the end of battle.)]
The connection between character selection and card-playing was easy enough to grasp; Zhong Yi was a veteran of Three Kingdoms.
Besides the Iron Armor Sect Cultivator, the other four characters were darkened and still locked.
“Three Kingdoms is about multiple people playing cards together. How is this going to work here? I can’t wait to find out!”
Zhong Yi carefully studied the description of the Iron Armor Sect Cultivator, his excitement growing.
After selecting his character, a sheepskin scroll appeared in his hand.
Strictly speaking, it was a map.
A long map of a tower with three distinct paths.
[Tip: Choose a room to proceed]
[Once you complete a room's challenge, you may proceed to the adjacent room above and continue climbing!]
“Oh? What kind of design is this?”
Zhong Yi’s interest was immediately piqued.
Lu Ze’s illusion realm was always extraordinary—right from the start, he introduced a brand-new map concept: a tower with multiple independent routes to reach the top.
Each route had overlapping paths that players could choose between as they went.
The rooms on the paths included [Monster Room], [Elite Monster Room], [Shop Room], [Treasure Room], [Campfire], and [Random Room].
“What’s the campfire and random room for?”
Zhong Yi’s curiosity only intensified.
Unlike other players, he keenly sensed that each route had a deep significance—choosing a path was a skill in itself!
After a moment’s deliberation, he carefully examined the map.
“I definitely gotta take on more elite monsters... Surely I can beat them, right?”
“What can a campfire do? Roast meat? Skip it!”
“Random? Let’s try my luck, I guess? Not like I’m Lao Zhou, hahaha!”
“Alright, I’m taking the middle path!”
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
