Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 71: Demonstration

"…Wait, you’re telling me it’s just the two of you in this entire company?"
Back in front of the computer, Sun Gong glanced back at Tang Yao with a face full of disbelief.
"What else did you expect?"
Kang Ming shot him a look. "How many did you think there were?"
Shi Wanglin chimed in, "Shouldn’t you at least hire an artist? I mean, you don’t know how to do anything… and she’s handling both planning and art, plus a pile of daily tasks… One person can manage that? Even if she could, how slow would that be? Besides, now it's just us three programmers…"
"You’ll find out soon enough whether it’s doable."
Kang Ming chuckled, not bothering to explain. "Let’s just get to work."
With that,
he woke the screen from sleep.
Seeing Kang Ming looking so confident, Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin turned again to Tang Yao. Could she really handle it all by herself?
Didn’t seem likely.
They weren’t convinced, but decided to stay quiet and focus on their work—it was only the first day, and it didn’t feel right to question too much yet. They figured they’d bring it up again in a couple of days.
Soon enough,
the studio quieted down,
leaving only the sound of keyboards tapping away.
Tang Yao sat at her computer. After thinking for a moment, she picked up her pressure-sensitive pen and started drawing.
Since it was just a demo, she could pick any scene.
Hmm, how about the one where Rin Tohsaka summons Archer in the basement?
Having settled on the scene,
Tang Yao got to work quickly.
A cluttered basement began to take shape under her stylus.
That was the background, so she didn’t need to separate it into too many layers—it didn’t need to move. Just needed a few separate effects added later.
Of course, even though the background wouldn’t animate, it couldn’t be sloppy. To achieve a polished visual result, the entire art style—from backgrounds to characters to UI—had to stay consistent.
So while the background wasn’t that difficult to draw, Tang Yao still put in real effort.
The tricky part came next: Rin.
While planning out her movements, Tang Yao simultaneously worked on the layered illustration…
Time passed slowly.
Noon.
The four of them went out separately to grab lunch—no small talk.
Seemed like all four were the type to take work seriously.
Afternoon.
Everyone resumed working.
During that time, Kang Ming approached Tang Yao a few times to confirm how each element of the main interface would behave.
She explained briefly and even went over to check in with him once.
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin, meanwhile, kept hammering away at the code, apparently debugging something.
Tang Yao didn’t disturb them and quickly returned to her seat.
On her screen, a twin-tailed girl wearing a school uniform, black ribbons, and over-the-knee socks, with a composed, elegant look, was already fully drawn.
Tang Yao sat back down, opened the 2D animation software, and began adjusting the character’s movements.
This step was… annoying.
But not unmanageable.
Tang Yao focused, her beautiful eyes reflecting the softly glowing screen, her hands moving faster and faster.
The studio remained silent.
Soon, it was already 6 PM.
A whole day had passed.
"Finally done!"
Sun Gong suddenly exclaimed while holding his phone.
Shi Wanglin stretched his back with a groan. "Getting it to run on a phone was a pain, but the result looks decent."
"Yeah."
Sun Gong looked at the screen. It showed the main visual and the text box—the basic framework of a visual novel was already in place.
But there were no art assets yet, just the skeleton.
He tapped the screen and hesitated before glancing at Tang Yao in the distance. Then he turned to Shi Wanglin and asked, "What do we do without art? Should we just drop in a couple placeholder sprites for now…?"
Shi Wanglin looked at Tang Yao too, then replied, "Standard sprites won’t cut it, right? Weren’t we aiming for animated ones?"
"Yeah, but there’s no way those are done yet."
"How should I know…"
"You guys finished?"
Before they could continue,
Tang Yao looked up, pulled her chair back, and walked over to them.
"All set?"
"All set—well, except we haven’t added the art yet."
Sun Gong blinked, exchanged a look with Shi Wanglin, then said, "We were faster since we’re two people. No rush on the art—it takes longer."
He spoke while showing the phone screen to Tang Yao.
It showed an old-school GalGame interface.
"This won’t do. The whole layout needs to be redesigned."
Tang Yao examined it carefully, then said, "Open the shared folder. DEMO1.0, P1, 1-0.
All the essential art assets are in there—already done."
"...Huh?"
Sun Gong blinked and instinctively followed her instructions, opening the folder.
And then—
He saw a whole bunch of neatly categorized art resources.
“……”
He randomly opened one and stared at the lively, twin-tailed girl on the screen, completely dumbfounded.
What?
Shi Wanglin was in no better shape.
?
Didn’t she just say this morning it wasn’t ready? It’s done already???
"I think I wrote a design doc for this, give me a sec—"
Tang Yao didn’t seem to notice their expressions. She returned to her desk to grab something, came back, and handed a document to Sun Gong.
Still dazed, he took it and flipped through—
It was a design doc. The requirements were clearly stated, and the logic was solid.
Key points were even underlined in red squiggles.
Huh?
Tang Yao asked, "Any issues?"
"...No."
"Then just implement it based on the design. Let me know if anything comes up."
Leaving those words behind, Tang Yao returned to her desk and resumed drawing.
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin stared at each other, then both turned to look at Kang Ming across from them.
Kang Ming hadn’t noticed a thing.
They could only turn their eyes back to their own screens.
After a long silence—
"Should we test it?" Sun Gong asked uncertainly.
"Let’s test it," Shi Wanglin agreed.
The two began updating the framework based on the design doc.
Meanwhile, Tang Yao started working on the UI, scene illustrations, and other visual components.
Normally in large projects, the planning team would handle all resource requests.
But here, Tang Yao was the entire planning team… and the only artist.
So she could skip all that paperwork.
Though it meant the workload was heavy.
Because she had to fully understand the entire game’s architecture, core gameplay, system design—and keep the visuals on track.
Fortunately…
She had game references from her past life, and her time-travel had given her some edge.
Otherwise,
she wouldn’t dare pull this off.
After all, game development is inherently a multi-faceted, complex process.
Soon—
It was 8 PM.
But none of them had left. Not even for dinner.
Tang Yao finished the main menu scene and got up, about to find Kang Ming to confirm a few things.
"Whoa…"
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin suddenly gasped.
Tang Yao paused at the sound, turned around, and saw they had already imported the art assets.
She walked over and glanced at their screen. "Looks good… anything missing?"
"The text…"
Hearing her voice, Sun Gong whipped his head around, eyes lighting up. "I need a text sample to test the full effect!"
Tang Yao nodded, went back to her seat, pulled out the Rin Tohsaka summoning scene text, and sent it to Sun Gong.
"Got it!" he shouted excitedly.
Very quickly,
he added the text in, adjusted a few things, then re-sent the demo to his phone.
Then—
he and Shi Wanglin huddled together, heads touching, and opened the demo on the phone…
"Initialization complete."
"Time confirmed."
"Waveform optimal."
"As long as I perform the summoning at 2 AM when my mana is at its peak, I’ll summon Saber even without a catalyst!"
There was no voice yet.
The cluttered basement background appeared on screen, with a beautifully rendered, artistic UI positioned perfectly at the top.
The text box popped up.
Then—
A twin-tailed girl with black ribbons, a school uniform, and over-the-knee socks appeared on screen—animated!
Her ponytails swayed gently. She blinked occasionally, even had micro-expressions!
…It was stunning!
Sun Gong tapped the screen again.
"Let the four cardinal gates open… and be sealed—"
Rin Tohsaka in the center of the screen moved. She slowly raised her hand and began the summoning ritual.
As the chant finished—
The screen went dark.
The text box disappeared.
One second later, the screen lit up again.
A magic circle appeared in the center, dust drifting through the air above it.
Then,
through a blurred shimmer like squinting eyes, silver liquid began to drip onto the circle, gradually filling its intricate lines.
Suddenly—
Red light effects burst out!
Rin’s face filled the center of the screen, half bathed in red light. She stared wide-eyed at the magic circle, her ponytails swaying softly…
Then the sequence abruptly ended—it was just a demo.
But those few short scenes!
Were enough to leave Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin completely shocked…
Because it was so beautifully done!
"…This is f***ing amazing!"
Even though Sun Gong had already seen it on the computer earlier, watching it play out on a phone still made him shout.
This was a phone!
Since when did they see mobile games with this level of visual quality?
This was basically anime!
No—most anime don’t even look this good!
Shi Wanglin was no better—he stared blankly at the screen and muttered, "Hly sht… at this quality, this’ll sell like crazy on mobile!"
"…"
Their voices were a bit loud.
Kang Ming heard them and turned around, curious. "Is it done?"
Sun Gong handed him the phone and showed him the demo.
"…What the h*ll!? This is so cool!?"
Kang Ming’s reaction was just as blunt.
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin didn’t say anything. After a beat, they turned together to look at Tang Yao.
Truthfully, they hadn’t done much.
They’d just tweaked some code according to the requirements. The reason the demo looked this good was entirely because the art was incredible.
…So powerful.
Ridiculously powerful!
And she’d made all that in under a day?
What kind of monster speed was that!? Compared to her, they felt like absolute scrubs.
Their expressions were complicated—shocked, but also totally crushed.
Kang Ming glanced at their faces…
and seemed to realize something.
It felt good.
"Done?"
Across the room,
Tang Yao noticed Sun Gong looking at her, so she looked up.
He snapped out of it and nodded stiffly.
Tang Yao walked over and leaned down to look at the demo.
"Mm… not bad."
She blinked, watched the entire demo, then glanced at their expressions.
Straightening up, she finally felt reassured.
In her past life, the entire game industry—especially anime-style mobile games—was ridiculously competitive in visuals, music, and voice acting.
Any successful game had to have something special in its art.
The times had changed.
But here…
this world hadn’t even reached that era yet.
Tang Yao was now fairly confident—
her game would absolutely give these players a little shock.