Starting as a Manga Chapter 197: What's Done is Done

March 19th.

Dark Night Decree was about to launch.

Ji Fuliang looked at the final reservation count frozen at 400,000 and slowly let out a sigh of relief.

They had finally made it this far.

To be honest,

The pressure from Avalon had been imnse.

As they began their promotional campaigns, Ji Fuliang's initial joy over not having to share profits through co-publishing quickly evaporated.

There was no helping it.

ANF was simply too perfect for promoting ani-style gas! Just casually releasing a promotional video could easily rack up millions of views! The discussion volu was even more staggering.

And what about Dark Night Decree? Despite spending so much money and securing so many channels, their exposure barely matched one of ANF's casual videos.

Not to ntion the aftermath.

Their ga on ANF was showered with praise everywhere, with every little thing they posted receiving unanimous acclaim.

anwhile, his side faced skepticism after skepticism.

If it were just FGO players being skeptical, that would be one thing, but even uninford players were questioning, calling it so trash ga...

Ji Fuliang was fuming, yet he had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue promoting.

Season Technology wasn't large enough to have its own channels and had to rely on external ones. Currently, ANF seed to be the biggest external channel for ani-style gas.

But since they were practically rubbing FGO in ANF's face, that channel was obviously out of the question.

He could only turn to other channels where ANF had previously placed ads. In short... since they'd already copied the ga, copying the promotion wasn't a big deal either.

Back then, Fate/Zero had gathered a massive following.

They couldn't replicate that. Ani-related communities were full of FGO players, and Tang Yao's "damn competitors" remark plus that explosive promotional video had made many mobile gars wary, with most looking down on Dark Night Decree.

As for non-ani ga communities...

They were also pointing fingers, questioning what kind of ga this was supposed to be and where the fun was.

Ji Fuliang was so angry he could vomit blood.

Seriously,

How the hell did Avalon and FGO break through back then?

PC online gas weren't exactly declining yet, and there were still plenty of players. These players were used to better graphics and more convenient controls from PC gas. With the entire gaming industry currently hyping mobile gas, this "mobile gaming for everyone" trend had drawn resentnt from PC gars, many of whom even resisted mobile gas.

This wasn't anything new.

Tang Yao had seen it in her past life too.

But Tang Yao was ntally prepared.

Ji Fuliang wasn't.

He was getting roasted to the point of questioning his life choices, completely baffled about how FGO had managed to break through back then—especially since his ga had FGO paving the way first!

Yet when FGO first launched, it had nothing going for it!

But now, the promotional period was finally over.

Freedom.

When he saw the reservation count freeze,

Ji Fuliang truly let out a long sigh of relief—400,000!

That was no small number!

While no one in the mobile gaming space besides them had really done reservations before, based on his limited experience from the PC gaming side, Ji Fuliang felt this player count was quite substantial.

With such a large player base, the ga was bound to make money no matter what.

Even in the absolute worst-case scenario, if only half stuck around,

That would still be 200,000 players. As long as they didn't rush things and nurtured them steadily, profits would pour in.

As for FGO... Ji Fuliang seriously doubted they could lure away manga readers.

His side had been brainwashing everyone with the "authentic adaptation" angle for so long, and many of Rumi's readers had never even played FGO—so barely played gas at all.

They wouldn't abandon Dark Night Decree for so FGO, would they?

Add in so uninford players... tsk tsk tsk, even if these hundreds of thousands of "pigs" only spent a few hundred each, that would still be a massive payday.

Thinking this,

Perhaps because the ti to reap the rewards had finally co,

Ji Fuliang felt a surge of excitent.

Humans are like this—through constant self-persuasion, even lies can eventually feel true.

Back when he saw FGO's promotional video, he had been terrified, but with no way back, he barely scraped together a lie to convince himself.

Plus, throughout this period, he kept harping on about "authentic adaptation," riding FGO's coattails.

The more he said it, the more he started believing it himself.

He genuinely began thinking FGO and Dark Night Decree were on equal footing, two sides of the sa coin.

......

March 20th.

Noon.

Ji Fuliang rarely left his office, but today he appeared in the work area.

Arms crossed, he watched the busy staff with satisfaction, completely oblivious.

To the subtle despondency in their expressions.

In fact,

He even tried motivating them: "This is the final stretch! Don't slack off! We must ensure players can access Dark Night Decree—this authentic manga adaptation, this masterpiece—smoothly and on ti!"

"......"

Hearing this, the staff exchanged glances.

Authentic adaptation? Masterpiece?

Really?

They didn't even believe it themselves...

Still,

No one contradicted Ji Fuliang at this point, just silently working away.

Season Technology hadn't been around long.

And with Dark Night Decree being their first ga, many project team mbers were newly hired.

Were there no readers of Dark Night among them?

Of course there were.

So had even joined specifically because of the manga adaptation.

But during actual developnt... many staff realized the gap between expectation and reality was far too wide.

They knew all too well what Dark Night Decree's actual quality was like.

Yet now,

What's done is done, and nothing could be changed.

They could only leave it to fate.

11:58 AM.

Across the city,

Jian Yinghua had pre-installed Dark Night Decree long ago.

Now, he stared at the clock.

The mont it hit noon... he imdiately tapped into the ga.

Although,

After seeing FGO x Dark Night's promotional video, he'd begun doubting whether Dark Night Decree could really be as good as advertised compared to FGO's crossover event.

But when Dark Night Decree's launch day finally arrived, he couldn't resist downloading it.

After all, FGO was just doing a crossover event—this was a full-fledged original adaptation!

Surely it couldn't be that bad, right?

With this mindset,

He eagerly watched his phone screen, then... grew impatient.

Why was loading taking so long?

He'd opened the ga ages ago—why was there still no display?

Had it frozen?

Just as Jian Yinghua considered restarting the ga,

After an agonizing wait,

The screen finally appeared.

Season Technology's logo popped up.

Maybe it was his imagination... but the way this logo appeared felt eerily similar to the opening of FGO's promotional video?

The nas were different, but the presentation was strikingly alike.

Was this plagiarism?

They'd copy even this? Surely not...

He shook his head, chalking it up to coincidence.

Soon, he didn't have ti to dwell on it anyway, because after registering and logging in, the ga properly began.

The prologue started.

So Jian Yinghua brushed aside his stray thoughts and excitedly focused on his phone.

The prologue did indeed begin.

Given that Dark Night Decree was modeled after FGO, its overall gaplay structure was quite similar.

However, while FGO's prologue was standard fare focused on world-building,

Dark Night Decree's prologue...

"Huh?"

Jian Yinghua stared eagerly at his phone.

But as the prologue progressed, his excitent gradually faded, replaced by bewildernt.

Then,

He actually let out a confused "Huh?" out loud.