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Chapter 13: Dark Horse
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 10:24:08 +0000 UTC"Can anyone tell me where this 'Avatar' came from?" In the conference room, Brandon Sterling slammed the table and roared.
He never could have imagined that after fighting with ET Company until both sides were bleeding money, he'd discover that the real threat wasn't his established rival, but this dungeon called Avatar.
A dungeon that had been online for just ten days had suddenly jumped to third place. This upward momentum was simply shocking, and it made Marcus feel an enormous threat.
"Mr. Sterling, according to our research, this game was developed by a newly established studio. Because of its excellent quality, it's received significant official exposure and recommendations. Currently, its ratings and reputation are very high, and its upward momentum is extremely strong. This was something we hadn't anticipated!" his project manager reported.
"Deal with it immediately and suppress their ranking!" Brandon said coldly.
"Boss, I think we should hold back for a moment. It might be best if we let them reach second position, so that ET can sense the threat and take countermeasures.
We'll use this time to build up our strength and invest all our funds in expanding publicity and optimizing our dungeons. Once they've worn each other down for a while, we'll swiftly launch our attack and crush both of them!" suggested a sharp-looking middle-aged strategist.
Brandon frowned and pondered for a moment, then nodded. "Well, that's a good strategy. Come up with a detailed plan. And make sure to prepare contingencies for both scenarios!"
"Understood, Mr. Sterling!"
In ET Company's conference room.
"It's undeniable that Avatar's worldview and artistic expression are truly amazing—very creative and subversive. This is something we should all learn from. I really didn't expect a startup to be able to create such an excellent dungeon!"
"Objectively speaking, Avatar is qualified to win the championship, but we can't let this happen, otherwise all our investment in Planet Krall will be worthless!"
"We must take action. We can't let Avatar's popularity continue!"
"But if we want to suppress Avatar, I'm afraid our budget will have to double again!"
"Actually, I think the ones who are more anxious than us right now should be Titan Games. After all, they're currently ranked second. They definitely don't want to be squeezed out by Avatar. So I don't think we need to rush. Let Titan Games and Avatar fight it out for now, and we can sit back and watch the show!"
"I agree with John. We should be patient and use our funds strategically!"
"Well, this competition is really becoming more and more interesting!"
After being featured in the "Exceptional New Content" recommendation, Avatar received even better official recommendations, which further fueled its popularity. And Avatar's success also kept the gaming media incredibly busy.
In recent days, mainstream industry media had been competing to cover the phenomenon to grab attention and traffic, and Alex had even received interview invitations from many industry publications.
But he refused them all. First, he couldn't let his father know that he was developing game dungeons, at least not before he truly succeeded.
Second, he didn't want too many people to know him personally, and didn't want too many outside voices interfering with his life. Otherwise, it was very likely that the higher he was praised, the harder he would fall.
Additionally, major gaming content creators, streamers, and other media professionals had also competed to produce extensive video content about Avatar.
After all, popularity meant traffic, and traffic meant money.
How could they miss such a hot topic as Avatar? Therefore, Avatar-related videos had sprung up on major platforms like mushrooms after rain.
But most of the content focused on gameplay guides, with only a small portion being creative interpretations of the game and analysis of Pandora's worldview.
For example, there were two particularly popular analysis videos. The first was an analysis of Easter eggs in Avatar.
"There's a hidden Easter egg plot in the game. I don't know if you've noticed, but the heroine, Neytiri, once took the hero, Jake, to visit a place in their tribe that looked like an ancestral hall or altar.
There's an ancient mural on the wall there—right here. Everyone look carefully: if the protagonist finds clues in the mural, walks closer to examine it, and clicks on the mural, it will trigger the Easter egg plot.
The heroine will tell the hero the legend of the Tree Spirit on planet Pandora, which is the huge figure in this mural.
At first we all thought that the Tree Spirit referred to those trees that could spread beautiful seeds like jellyfish, but actually, the legend says that the Tree Spirit is a massive creature with infinite magical powers, capable of moving mountains and seas. It's as tall as a mountain.
Whenever the planet faces the threat of destruction, the Tree Spirit will appear to protect Pandora from disaster.
But this is just a legend. No one has actually seen it, at least not in recent years. However, this also shows that Pandora hasn't faced existential threats.
I suspect this so-called Tree Spirit is most likely the incarnation of Eywa. I've analyzed before that Pandora itself is an independent living organism with consciousness.
Some of you may ask why humans destroyed the Na'vi's Home Tree and the Tree Spirit didn't appear.
The answer is simple: because the few humans on Pandora can't pose a threat of complete destruction to Pandora, so the planetary consciousness simply dispatched the planet's animal army to resolve this threat.
As for why the designer added such an Easter egg here?
I suspect this is probably laying groundwork for subsequent plot developments. If I'm not mistaken, Pandora will definitely face a devastating threat, and then the Tree Spirit will definitely appear..."
Alex watched the video with a smile on his lips. Sure enough, someone had discovered the Easter egg he'd designed, and analyzed it very clearly. Alex had indeed left foreshadowing here, which wasn't in the game development documents provided by the system.
Alex had designed it this way for subsequent Avatar development, especially the official dungeon. He needed more exciting plots and thrills to stimulate players' desire to fight, and he also hoped that Avatar's worldview could interact and connect with other dungeons he envisioned.
After watching this video, Alex clicked on another very popular science video, which was a comprehensive listing of the animals and plants on planet Pandora!
"Hello everyone, I'm your old friend—GameWorld Explorer. A masterpiece has finally appeared in the New World Dungeon Competition these past few days—Avatar.
I believe many people are playing this dungeon, and I'm also deeply attracted by the novel worldview and beautiful scenes.
This is a dungeon with a very complete and rigorous worldview, with hundreds of new species of animals and plants created within it.
In this video, I'll give you a comprehensive overview of the strange animals on planet Pandora.
I'll make this into a series and update it continuously. Everyone remember to like, comment, and subscribe!
Quick reminder: the names of some animals and plants aren't specifically mentioned in the game, and the developers haven't provided official descriptions yet, so I've named them myself for now!
Well, let's begin. First, I'd like to introduce the Dire Horse.
Along with the narrator's voice, screenshots of dire horses and gameplay footage appeared in the video.
"It's the Na'vi's land mount, equivalent to a human horse, but much larger than earthly horses, with six legs, about 4 meters tall and 4.5 meters long, comparable to an elephant on Earth.
They have long necks, small heads, two antennae, and zebra-like stripes on their bodies, but no fur. They're omnivores with elongated mouths and long tongues that allow them to reach into tree holes and extract insects for protein.
But they seem to prefer a plant similar to a pitcher plant."
"The second animal, and the one that appears most frequently in the game, is the banshee. The Na'vi call it Ikran. It's the Na'vi's flying mount. It has brightly colored skin like a lizard, and its mouth can suddenly expand like a pelican. Its obsidian-like teeth can protrude outward like a great white shark. Its wingspan reaches 12 meters..."
Alex watched the entire video. The video introduced most of the animals that appeared in the game, and the introduction was very detailed, almost transcribing some of the settings from the game development documents.
However, there were still inaccuracies in some of the data and details.
"David, contact this content creator and tell him we can provide official information. Let him re-produce this video series, and we'll allow him to use our official materials on his platform!" Alex said.
Over the past few days, they had responded to players' requests by opening official accounts on major social platforms, and were also working hard to create an official website, along with images and text about the setting and background of the Avatar worldview.
This was a massive amount of work.
Although they had the game development documents, and producing graphic materials wasn't difficult, people nowadays were lazy and preferred video formats. The workload of producing videos was much greater than that of images and text, and they currently didn't have that much energy.
So Alex felt that instead of spending time and effort producing content themselves, it would be better to cooperate with this content creator, which would be mutually beneficial and win-win for everyone.
"Okay, boss, I'll send him a direct message right away!" David said.
Marcus Thompson never expected that he would receive a direct message from Avatar's developers asking to cooperate with him.
Being able to obtain official setting information for a game was like seizing the ultimate advantage for him, so he readily agreed without hesitation and promised to correct the inaccurate content in his previous video.
