"I'm feeling a bit bored."
As the saying goes, I could have endured the darkness if I had never seen the light. This phrase perfectly describes Ye's current state.
Ever since returning from Inazuma, Ye suddenly felt like he had nothing to do, slipping back into his old, monotonous routine of a three-point life.
After all, there wasn't much left to participate in regarding the upcoming storylines, not even for his alternate accounts.
Thus, Ye naturally felt bored.
Every day, aside from working during the day and playing games in his dreams at night, there was basically nothing else to do.
The dream games at night were indeed quite fun. For example, last night he dreamed of Barbara again—those white stockings were truly an eternal love. The night before, he dreamed of Keqing—those black stockings were also an eternal love. The night before that, he dreamed of Fu Xuan—those white stockings were, again, an eternal love. The night before that, he dreamed of Lynette—those black stockings were, once more, an eternal love. And the night before that, he dreamed of Xueyi—those white stockings were, yet again, an eternal love. And the night before that, he dreamed of Clara—those bare feet were truly an eternal love… In short, while the nights were indeed interesting, returning to the same old routine during the day was simply unbearable!
The desire to stir up trouble couldn't be stopped, but now there was nothing to stir up, which was incredibly frustrating.
Of course, making Honkai Impact 3rd to torment players was also a good source of amusement. Not only on Earth, but Honkai Impact 3rd had also been officially launched in Teyvat, and Ye could see many interesting reactions.
But this was just a drop in the bucket, far from satisfying Ye's desire to cause trouble.
Causing trouble was just so stress-relieving!!
"Baoyu, do you have any good suggestions? Is your functionality really just this limited?"
Faced with Ye's question, Baoyu rested her chin on her hand, thought for a moment, and then smiled. "Master, if you're really bored, how about playing some cards?"
"Playing cards?"
"The Celestial Cup on Earth is about to end, and next up is Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Duel City. If you're feeling bored, why not go and participate?"
The Celestial Cup is the official name for the Genshin Impact Battle Royale tournament.
The Genshin Impact Battle Royale tournament is divided into three stages. The first is the Genshin Cup, which is the regional competition.
Based on cities, the champion of each region wins the Genshin Cup and also qualifies for the "National Championship."
The national championship, based on countries, is officially called the Archon Cup.
Finally, the Celestial Cup follows the same pattern. The top three teams from each country qualify for the Celestial Cup, which is essentially a global competition involving dozens of countries. The winning team will lift the Celestial Cup trophy.
When version 1.8 was released, the Genshin Cup officially began. Now, four versions later, it also means that nearly half a year has passed on Earth, and the Celestial Cup is about to determine its winner.
Following the Celestial Cup, the Duel City tournament will begin.
In other words, the card game tournament is coming.
miHoYo's plan is simple: to use these two tournaments to cover every year going forward, ensuring the Genshin Impact IP remains immortal.
Even if one day Kiana were to ruin Genshin Impact, these two tournaments would keep the game alive.
—And honestly, this isn't an exaggeration.
Just look at the Celestial Cup. Who would have thought that a game tournament could reach such an insane level of popularity?
It's truly a global-level event.
On one hand, this is because the Genshin Impact player base has grown to an unimaginable size. On the other hand, it's due to miHoYo's holographic projection technology, a complete black tech that even non-gamers find fascinating. Watching projections fight is like watching a movie, far more thrilling than seeing little characters brawl on a map. Even non-gamers can understand it.
The same goes for Yu-Gi-Oh!. After six months of development, Herta and Ruan Mei have upgraded the holographic projection technology, and now Yu-Gi-Oh! duels have reached the level of Duel Kingdom. The experience, which was once only possible in anime, is now a reality, completely different from just playing with cards.
This is miHoYo's unique technological advantage. With this technology, the potential for Genshin Impact Battle Royale and Yu-Gi-Oh! is unimaginable.
In this context, even if Genshin Impact were to collapse, as long as it continues to provide material for these two mini-games, it will survive.
Of course, for Ye, this is just a small tactic to maintain popularity.
Increasing the value of the Genshin Impact IP, making the game more visible, and attracting more players will generate more popularity—a win-win situation.
Focusing solely on how to gain popularity through the Genshin Impact storyline is foolish, and Ye naturally wouldn't do something so stupid.
Even if 100% of 10,000 people like you, that's still only 10,000 in popularity. But if 1% of 100 million people like you, that's 1 million in popularity. This is the core reason why Ye constantly seeks ways to elevate Genshin Impact.
Games come in many genres. Some people like competitive games, some prefer story-driven games, others enjoy action games, and some don't particularly care—they just play browser games to kill time during work… Different games cater to different audiences, and each player has their own gaming needs. It's in this context that the gaming industry has grown into a massive market worth nearly a trillion.
However, in the current market, thanks to Ye's continuous planning, Genshin Impact has become a behemoth.
At this point, the gaming market on this Earth still can't compare to the other Earth, barely surpassing 900 billion—but the astonishing part is that Genshin Impact accounts for over a third of that 900 billion.
A genuine case of dimensional dominance, Genshin Impact's revenue in its first year reached 380 billion.
Don't be surprised.
Genshin Impact has continuously attracted more and more players with its high quality, while Genshin Impact Battle Royale and Yu-Gi-Oh! have eliminated the game's biggest flaw—the heavy downtime—keeping over 200 million players active daily.
Yes, that's 200 million daily active players.
With the widespread adoption of the MiKe phone, developed by Clara, China alone now has 90 million daily active users.
Under these circumstances, such success is only natural.
And it's easy to imagine how grand the Genshin Impact Battle Royale and Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments must be with such a massive player base.
This, in turn, will further boost Genshin Impact's popularity, taking it to even greater heights—it's like a snowball effect.
"It does sound interesting, but… now's not the time."
One day, Ye will go to that world, but now is not the right moment.
Even if he were to break through the dimensional barrier, timing is crucial.
"But you've reminded me. Yu-Gi-Oh! shouldn't just exist on Earth. Teyvat should also have real cards, not just online play."
On Earth, with the Duel City tournament approaching, miHoYo's Yu-Gi-Oh! card packs have been selling like crazy. It's said that Venti and Zhongli's cards have reached a sky-high price of 30 million, and they're practically impossible to find—because only one card of each of The Seven Archons was made.
Raiden Shogun's card has already been set as the final prize for the first global Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament, Duel World. Venti and Zhongli's cards were previously included in card packs, and now no one knows which lucky player has pulled them—no one is selling them.
—Not selling means no one is foolish.
Setting aside the tournament's prize money, having an Archon's card would significantly increase one's chances of winning. These Archon cards are already collectible items.
Just like antique paintings, newspapers, or stamps, as long as miHoYo sticks to their word and only makes one card for each Archon, the value of these cards will skyrocket as Genshin Impact's influence grows… To be honest, when Ye found out that Fu Xuan was selling cards like this, he wanted to immediately travel to Earth and spend billions to buy Venti, Zhongli, and Raiden Shogun's cards. They're bound to appreciate in value.
Of course, he wouldn't sell them—keeping them as collectibles would be much better.
Never underestimate human collecting desires. As the embodiment of sin, Ye can attest that there's no upper limit to human greed for collectibles.
—So, how many Mora would these Archon cards sell for in Teyvat?
Curious, Ye finally found something new to do and immediately ordered the Fontaine Research Institute to start producing cards.
By this time, computers had gradually spread across Teyvat, though they were still mostly limited to bustling internet cafes. At least the people of Teyvat were no longer surprised by them.
Of course, while they were no longer surprised by computers, they were still amazed by the three games on them.
And it wasn't just the people—the gods were equally amazed.
"I feel like I'm pretty useful. Not bad, not bad."
In an internet cafe in Mondstadt, Venti couldn't help but smile with satisfaction after finishing a match.
As a bard who sings for wine instead of Mora, Venti was a bit late to the game.
In fact, he had known about the game for a while. After all, the wind is his eyes and ears. Wherever the wind blows, he knows everything happening there. So, rather than what he knows, what he doesn't know is more surprising.
Sitting in Mondstadt, he could know which adeptus in Liyue saved someone.
If you ask who among The Seven Archons of Teyvat seems the most "godly," Venti would definitely be at the top of the list. His omniscience is almost on par with the Heavenly Principles.
Thus, Venti had known about computers from the moment they appeared.
And he also knew about the interesting games on them.
But he hadn't paid much attention because it wasn't important.
Getting more wine was more practical.
No matter what Ye wanted to do or what his goals were, Venti knew he had his limits.
Maybe Ye himself didn't have limits, but Furina did. Whenever Ye wanted to do something extreme, Furina would step in to stop him. As long as Furina was there as a restraint, there was no need to worry about Ye going too far.
So, what was there to worry about?
—Until Venti noticed that everyone was starting to look at him differently.
Then Venti realized that this game called Genshin Impact Battle Royale seemed to have a hero character based on him.
This piqued Venti's curiosity, and after a few days, he couldn't hold back anymore. He finally stopped his usual "feeding" routine—because he looked like a minor, taverns refused to sell him alcohol, so after performing, he would have people who wanted to tip him buy wine instead—and took his Mora to an internet cafe, where he quickly got addicted.
Especially to his own character—it was so much fun.
In terms of strength, his character was on par with the old man (Zhongli), which made Venti very satisfied.
The old man was currently the strongest warrior, while he was the strongest archer.
Of course, "strongest" is relative. The gap between them and other heroes wasn't that large. It's more accurate to say that their power spikes were at different stages. Overall, Venti and Zhongli were heroes who dominated early game, maintained their strength mid-game, but fell off slightly late-game.
In contrast, Barbara, also from Mondstadt, was a character who was weak early, mid, and late game. If not built properly, she was completely useless—but if built well, she could literally become invincible, capable of 1v5ing with ease.
Other heroes also had their unique traits.
It has to be said, the game is really fun.
The same goes for Yu-Gi-Oh!. Using the effects on the cards to outwit your opponent, all while drawing inspiration from Teyvat, is especially interesting.
Venti quickly got hooked and started earning money to spend his days in internet cafes, even drinking less wine.
As expected of a game developed by Ye—impressive.
"Let's play another round of Yu-Gi-Oh!."
After logging into Yu-Gi-Oh!, Venti, as usual, bought today's card pack.
Each pack contains five cards, and a deck is built by selecting suitable cards from these packs. It's largely luck-based, but that's also what makes it exciting every day.
However, Venti's luck had never been great. According to the description, the highest card rarity is 10 stars, and Venti's strongest card was an 8-star Dvalin with 3000 attack points.
Today was no different—another five useless cards that couldn't be added to his deck.
Venti wasn't too disappointed; it was pretty normal.
—What wasn't normal was today's announcement.
Venti blinked.
"Offline card packs will soon be available. In this release, there will be only one 10-star card each for the Anemo Archon, Geo Archon, and Electro Archon. Lucky ones, take action—your Archon is waiting for you… Who will be the true child blessed by the gods?"
Venti suddenly had a bad feeling.
He immediately opened Dvalin's card.
He didn't look at anything else, just the picture of Dvalin, which looked like a photo, and the last line of text.
Description: The dragon of the wind born from the heavens, the Anemo Archon's familiar, the East Wind Guardian of Mondstadt, a legendary dragon whose power rivals that of the gods.
"Hey, you're not going to do this to me, are you?!"
Venti didn't mind his own card being released, but the problem was how the card would describe him. If it revealed his identity, how could he continue to live as a carefree bard?! Would he still be able to enjoy being a wandering bard?!
Although it might mean he could finally buy wine… Wait, no! Diluc already knows my identity, and he still refuses to sell me wine! So, this doesn't actually benefit me at all!!
"No, calm down. I should go to Fontaine immediately. According to Fontaine's laws, Ye used my likeness without my consent and is profiting off it. I can sue him. Let's go, right now. I'll stop by Liyue to pick up the old man (Zhongli), and we'll sue Ye until he's bankrupt!"
Hmm, preferably suing him for all the Mora he owes.