A higher-dimensional incarnation, starting by leveraging the stars.

Chapter 133 Progress of the Research Project

Zhou Huanan called in the evening.

Hu Biao had just finished dinner and was lying on his dormitory bed, gazing at the stars.

My phone vibrated.

"teacher?"

"Have you read that report?" Zhou Huanan's voice carried a hint of weariness. "It was sent by the Second Institute of Botany; it's an analysis of laurel trees."

"I've seen it." Hu Biao sat up in bed and walked to the window. "Great stuff, really great stuff. It can photosynthesize on the moon, absorbing radiation and lunar soil components to release oxygen—if this can really be grown, it will solve a large part of the ecological cycle system of the lunar base."

"Yes," Zhou Huanan sighed, "Unfortunately, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst."

Hu Biao remained silent for a few seconds.

He understood what Zhou Huanan meant.

The laurel tree represents a beautiful wish, but unfortunately, it's almost impossible to realize in reality.

Because it was just a piece of dead branch.

Moreover, it has been dead for who knows how many years, and whether it can survive is a question. Most importantly, even if it can be planted, it will need to be planted on the moon, and we don’t know how long it will last.

Thirty years.

The manned lunar landing program is scheduled for six months from now.

The most optimistic estimate for the construction of a lunar base is that it will be twenty years from now.

Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.

"So the teacher means—"

"I didn't mean anything by it," Zhou Huanan said. "I just wanted you to know that this thing exists, and see if it can give you some inspiration."

"By the way, how's that game going? I heard from Cheng Jinsong that your research group's funding is burning through pretty quickly."

Hu Biao smiled and said, "This is just the beginning; the real money-burning days are yet to come."

"Okay, just keep that in mind." Zhou Huanan hung up the phone.

Hu Biao glanced at the backend data of "Alien Survival" again.

Downloads: 174,283.

Daily active users: 23,847.

New users: 12,431 in the past 24 hours.

3,872 new comments were added to the comment section.

It seems to be getting a little popular!

I am the dividing line. The next morning at eight o'clock, in the conference room on the seventh floor of the Robotics Academy.

When Hu Biao pushed open the door, all eleven people had already arrived, five minutes earlier than yesterday.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was completely different from the previous few days.

No one is playing on their phones anymore, and no one is whispering.

In front of each person was a stack of printed materials, a database of player creative ideas that they had collected and organized over the past few days.

Some people were making annotations, some were drawing sketches, and some were whispering about something.

As soon as Hu Biao entered, all eyes turned to him.

"morning."

Hu Biao sat down in the main seat, his gaze sweeping over everyone present before finally settling on Lu Yiran.

She sat in the corner, a thick notebook spread out in front of her, densely filled with writing. Her dark circles were too obvious, clearly indicating she had stayed up all night, but her mental state seemed good, even somewhat excited.

"Let's talk about the progress these past few days." Hu Biao turned his gaze back. "Zhao Qingyang, you go first."

Zhao Qingyang nodded, walked to the whiteboard at the front of the conference room, and picked up a marker.

"Over the past five days, we have invested a total of 3.72 million yuan in promotion." He wrote a few numbers on the whiteboard. "The main channels for promotion are Bilibili's gaming section, Langyin's gaming live stream, TapTap's homepage recommendation, and the top placement on three major gaming communities."

"And the results?"

"The results exceeded expectations." Zhao Qingyang's tone carried a hint of excitement that even he himself didn't realize. "As of midnight last night, 'Alien Survival' had surpassed 170,000 cumulative downloads and had over 23,000 daily active users. More importantly, the player retention rate was 47% on the second day and 21% on the seventh day, which are astonishing figures for a niche game of the same type."

He drew an upward-sloping line graph on the whiteboard.

"We analyzed the reasons. First, the game's 'realism' is truly unique. Many players have commented that they've never played a game with such a 'wild' feel; it's like—like you're really on an alien planet."

He paused, seemingly organizing his thoughts.

"Secondly, after the lunar environment module was released, a lot of discussion started in the player community. Many people downloaded the game specifically to design lunar survival gear and then shared their designs in the community. Although most of the designs were amateurish sketches, occasionally some interesting things would emerge."

As he spoke, he seemed to want to demonstrate something interesting, but Hu Biao waved his hand, "Next, Chen Rui, how's the database coming along?!"

Chen Rui stood up, walked to his workstation, turned on his computer, and projected the image onto the large screen.

A complex database interface appeared on the screen, with category navigation on the left and a dense list of entries on the right.

"Over the past five days, we have collected a total of 3,724 creative designs from players." Chen Rui operated the mouse, switching between different interfaces on the screen. "As required by Team Leader Hu, we have categorized and archived all the designs."

The screen switches to a pie chart.

"In terms of design type, structural design accounts for 43%, material application accounts for 28%, functional module accounts for 19%, and other types account for 10%."

Then it switched to a line chart.

"Based on the initial feasibility assessment, 67% of them have obvious flaws, 29% are partially feasible, and 4% have a sound approach and are worth further research."

"Four percent." Hu Biao nodded. "That's one hundred and forty-nine articles."

"Yes," Chen Rui said. "We've created a separate 'Key Focus' folder for these 149 items, and marked the core ideas and possible implementation paths for each design."

"Okay. Next, categorize these key designs, pick out the most representative ones, and send them to Lu Yiran."

Chen Rui was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously looked at Lu Yiran.

Lu Yiran was also taken aback.

"What's wrong?" Hu Biao asked.

"No, no." Chen Rui quickly shook his head.

Hu Biao then looked at the others, "Where are the others? Anything you want to say?"

The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.

Wang Meng hesitated for a moment before raising her hand.

"explain."

"Regarding social media operations, we posted 47 pieces of content in the past five days, mainly game screenshots, player creative displays, and popular science related to the lunar environment. The total interaction volume was 130,000." Wang Meng's tone carried a hint of excitement she herself was unaware of. "Our followers have grown from zero to over 8,000, and the comment section is very active. The most popular one is a fish scale joint..."

The design was rotated over three thousand times.

"Very good, it seems your work has yielded initial results." Hu Biao nodded in agreement.

The others also reported on their progress. Li Wei contacted seven promising players, three of whom have agreed to join the testing group. Although Sun Zhe is no longer there, the work he was originally in charge of has been taken over by another master's student, who is also doing a great job.

Forty minutes later, the meeting ended. Hu Biao stood up and looked at Lu Yiran. "Come with me for a moment."

After saying that, he turned and walked towards the door.

Lu Yiran took a deep breath, stood up, and followed.

Behind me, the conference room door closed gently.

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