Early the next morning, Arthur pushed open the door to Room 501 with a bundle tucked under his arm, today's task assignments ready to hand out.
He pulled the door shut behind him, turned around, and at almost the exact same moment, the door to Room 502 across the hall swung open.
Cyrene stood in the doorway, holding a plain canvas bag. It was stuffed full, with a neat stack of manuscript pages peeking out from one corner.
Their eyes met in the corridor.
"What a coincidence."
Cyrene blinked, then broke into a small smile. "Arthur, heading to work?"
"Yeah." He nodded, his gaze settling on the canvas bag and the sheaf of pages inside. "You're up early."
"I have a meeting with my editor to hand in a manuscript." Cyrene lifted the bag slightly, letting the corner of a densely handwritten stack of pages come into view. "The final section of the novel. It goes in today for the last review. The publisher has been calling for days."
As she said it, her voice carried a faint note of relief, threaded through with something else, a quiet, bittersweet reluctance. The feeling that probably comes for every writer when a work finally reaches its end.
They walked downstairs together. By the time they reached the building entrance, the city had fully woken. Steam rose from the breakfast stalls lining the street. The distant sound of traffic drifted through the morning air.
Cyrene stopped at the door and turned to face him.
Her expression was so earnest that Arthur found himself stopping too, without quite meaning to.
"Arthur," she began, her voice soft but clear. "After you left yesterday, I went back and watched your studio's comic and trailer again."
He said nothing, waiting.
"I don't really play games, and I don't know much about the industry." Cyrene lowered her eyes briefly, then looked back up at him directly. "But that story, those girls, and that line about fighting for everything beautiful in this world... it's genuinely good."
She paused, as if choosing her words carefully.
"I've written a lot of stories. Some found their audience, but more often than not, they passed by without anyone noticing." There was a stillness in her voice, the kind that comes from a long journey and everything it leaves behind. "So I think I have some sense of whether a story has a soul or not."
"Yours does."
A breeze moved through the corridor, lifting a loose strand of hair across her face.
"Even someone like me, who doesn't play games, already wants to know what happens next. I just wanted you to know that. You'll make it."
Arthur stood there. He wanted to say thank you. Wanted to say there were still so many problems left to solve. Wanted to say the pressure hadn't let up, and that he hoped her new book would go well too.
In the end, he simply nodded, met her eyes, and said, quietly but without hesitation: "Yeah. We will."
Cyrene smiled once more, and said nothing else.
She turned and walked toward the subway station, her figure gradually absorbed into the morning crowd, the manuscript pages in her canvas bag swaying gently with each step.
She had gone a few paces when she suddenly glanced back, and from across the distance, gave him a small wave.
Arthur raised a hand in return.
Then he turned the other way and walked toward the studio that belonged to Under the Stellar Sky, where the lights would already be on by now.
Her words echoed in his mind, turning over and over.
Even someone who doesn't play games was moved by it.
Then the story of fighting for everything beautiful in this world would find its way to more people. Many more.
Arthur quickened his pace and stepped through the studio door.
Kiana was slumped over her desk, fast asleep.
Mei was beside her, warming soy milk on a small portable stove.
Bronya had settled into work long ago, lines of code scrolling rapidly across her screen.
Dan Heng faced three monitors with coffee in his left hand and his other hand on the controls.
Stelle and March 7th were crammed together at one computer, a social media dashboard open on the screen. The data curves held steady at their elevated plateau.
"Morning."
Arthur set the breakfast bags down on the old coffee table that had been repurposed as a break table. The smell of food reached Kiana before anything else did.
"Captain, you're late today!" She snapped awake instantly and reached for his breakfast.
Mei calmly intercepted her hand, then looked at Arthur. "Captain, did you sleep alright last night?"
"Well enough."
Arthur answered briefly and pulled a stack of documents from his bag.
The movement brought everything to a halt. The papers spread out across the meeting table.
"I was thinking last night," Arthur said. His voice was quiet, but the room went still around it. "A full release of Honkai Impact 3rd in one month. That's not realistic."
Kiana hadn't even had time to arrange her face into an I told you so expression before Arthur turned to the first page.
"So we don't do it all at once."
"Wait, what?"
Kiana's hand froze in midair.
Arthur pinned the first sheet to the whiteboard. It showed a clean timeline, starting from today, ending at launch, with several version milestones marked along the way.
"Version 1.0." He tapped the first node. "Main storyline only. Core combat system. Starting characters, supply system, daily mission system. Everything else, the later chapters, additional characters, high-difficulty content, all of that goes into future updates."
A few seconds of silence settled over the room.
"Hold on," Stelle said, her gray-banged eyes going unusually sharp. "Captain, you mean... we release an unfinished version and then update it while we run it?"
"Not unfinished," Arthur corrected. "A work that keeps growing."
He pinned the second sheet beside the first. It showed a more granular version plan.
"Launch isn't the finish line. It's the starting line." Arthur turned to face everyone. "We build the most essential, the most enjoyable, the most representative parts of Honkai Impact 3rd first, and we get them into players' hands as soon as possible. Then we use their feedback and the data to keep adding content, refining the experience, and expanding the story."
Dan Heng adjusted his glasses, his gaze sharp behind the lenses. "So the development model shifts from a one-time delivery to long-term iteration."
"Exactly." Arthur nodded. "And that's not a technical burden. It's a competitive edge. Look at what's on the market right now, paid or free-to-play. What does almost every game do?"
He looked around the room. "They build it all at once, package it up, and ship it. Players finish it, then wait for a sequel or DLC that may or may not ever come. Developers get no ongoing feedback. Players have nothing to look forward to."
"We're doing something different."
His voice dropped. "We treat the game like it's alive. New story content every month. New events every two weeks. More characters over time, a bigger world over time. Players clear today's content and come back tomorrow for something new. Characters players love get more time in the story. Reasonable suggestions from players actually get considered and acted on."
He paused, looking at Kiana.
"Players aren't spending money to buy something they finish and shelve. They're witnesses, watching this world grow alongside us."
Kiana blinked her blue eyes. For once, she said nothing.
She was probably working through a game concept that didn't match anything she already knew.
Mei asked softly, "Captain, this model... no one in this market has done it before, have they?"
"No." Arthur didn't soften it. "Which is why when I said one month, you all thought I'd lost my mind."
His eyes moved across the stack of detailed planning documents, and then settled on the young, tired, still-focused faces around him.
"Everything we're doing right now, free to play, guaranteed pulls, continuous updates, none of it has a proven track record in this market. We have no playbook to copy."
His voice stayed level, but it carried a weight that landed in the room.
"But we also have no way back."
Bronya's voice came from the corner, as brief as always: "Captain, the data models need to be rebuilt around the iterative model you described."
Acknowledgment and commitment, in the same breath.
Dan Heng had already begun typing in a blank document. The words at the top read: Version iteration architecture requirements.
Kiana was quiet for a few seconds. Then she shot to her feet. "Oh, whatever, who cares about models and frameworks! Captain, you've sold us a dream so many times already. If this one falls apart too, then I'll... I'll..."
She thought hard, couldn't land on a threat with any real teeth, and finally collapsed back into her chair in defeat.
"Whatever," she muttered. "We do what we have to do."
Mei laughed softly, warmth filling her violet eyes.
Stelle and March 7th looked at each other, then spoke at the same time: "Does this mean we should start putting together templates for version update announcements?"
"First figure out how to explain to players that this isn't an unfinished product. It's a long-term service."
The corner of Arthur's mouth lifted slightly. "That's one of your main tasks for next week."
"Understood!"
This world did not yet know what continuous live service meant.
Did not yet know what it meant to grow alongside a player base.
Did not yet know that a story doesn't have to be told all at once, but can be told slowly, over many many years, until it becomes something epic.
But they were about to be the first.