Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 79: Where’s My Heroic Spirit? Where’s My Animated Heroic Spirit?

“…Tang Yao, did you upload that short video?”
At the same time—
Inside Avalon Studio.
Tang Yao had just uploaded the website’s promotional short and sat down to get back to work when Kang Ming suddenly called out to her.
Tang Yao looked up in confusion, glancing in his direction. “Yeah? What’s up?”
Kang Ming explained, “The site just had a huge traffic spike…”
“Huh?”
Tang Yao blinked. “That fast? Wait, did something go wrong?”
This was a first for everyone in the studio.
She was genuinely worried something might’ve broken.
“Shouldn’t be an issue,” Kang Ming answered instinctively. “We prepared in advan—”
“—Holy sh*t! The server’s gonna crash! What kind of manga is this?! How many people are even on here?!”
Before Kang Ming could finish, Sun Gong—who’d been monitoring the backend—suddenly shouted in panic and disbelief.
The entire studio turned to look.
“…Huh!?”
Kang Ming shot to his feet.
And in the next second, the whole studio erupted into chaos.
Elsewhere—
“Holy f**k…”
Su Deqiang, after rewatching the video seven or eight times, finally opened the website.
There was some initial lag that affected the experience a bit, but the site soon ran smoothly.
And as soon as he landed on the homepage—he was blown away.
Because right at the start, the logo floated into view again—that one that looked like both a tiny boat and a sword’s sheath.
Then the page loaded completely, and a half-body sprite of Saber in her battle armor appeared front and center. Her emerald-green eyes stared directly into the camera, as if gazing through the screen at the viewer—then, as if something crossed her mind, she lowered her gaze, looking away.
Lifelike.
Absolutely vivid.
Su Deqiang was amazed by this 2D character that was moving on screen!
In this world, the 2D gacha game era hadn’t yet exploded—animated 2D characters were still a rarity.
The software Tang Yao used was still in its infancy, mostly seen in a few dating sim visual novels… limited use, and most companies weren’t pulling it off well yet—everyone was still in the trial-and-error stage.
But thanks to her past-life experience and her sheer stubborn drive, Tang Yao had manually K-framed like a lunatic, forcibly pushing this tech to a level you’d only see in a fully mature industry.
Currently, the only mainstream methods for animating anime characters were either full 3D or traditional 2D animation.
So for Su Deqiang?
This was a revelation!!!
Seeing that gorgeous key art come alive—it was like he’d discovered a new continent!
Just in terms of bringing a character to life—
Su Deqiang honestly thought… this was better than most anime!
“Just who is this Third-Rate Artist?! This has to mean there’s going to be an anime adaptation, right?!”
He stared at the animated sprite on the site’s homepage, falling deeper and deeper in love with it. He even tried to figure out how to download the animated Saber for himself.
Naturally, he failed.
But that didn’t dampen his excitement—because just from this website alone, he could feel something big was coming.
Thinking of that, he eagerly explored the site.
The entire website had a strong sense of aesthetic design. Beyond the stunning animated art, the UI and layout were clearly well thought out—simple, clean, and beautiful.
“‘Lore’? ‘World’? ‘Characters’?”
Su Deqiang browsed through the homepage and quickly found four main sections. The first was the original manga—he already knew that Fate/Zero would be serialized here now. But the other three…
He thought for a moment, then clicked on the “Lore” tab.
It was packed with Fate universe content.
Holy Grail War, Heroic Spirits, Classes, Unique Skills, Noble Phantasms, Command Seals, Magi and Magecraft, Magic Families, the Church…
All sorts of worldbuilding content.
If you were a fan of Fate’s intricate lore, you could get lost here for an entire day and not get bored.
And it wasn’t just text—there were high-quality illustrations too. Like the Command Seal section—it showed off various types of seals, all with accompanying images!
It really felt like a whole world had come to life in front of him.
Su Deqiang skimmed through it with eyes wide open—it was an eye-opener.
Next, he clicked into the World section. This one outlined the timeline of the Holy Grail War, but to avoid spoilers, it had the least content for now.
Then he clicked on the final section: Characters…
And as soon as he did, he was stunned—
Because this section was on a whole other level!!!
It featured all the characters who had appeared in Fate/Zero so far—Emiya Kiritsugu, Irisviel von Einzbern, Tohsaka Tokiomi, Kotomine Kirei, Waver Velvet…
And not just the main Masters—even characters like young Rin Tohsaka, Illyasviel, and Sakura Matou were included.
Because of spoiler concerns, the descriptions were minimal…
But their portraits?
All animated.
While not as polished as Saber’s homepage sprite, they were still extremely well done.
“Holy sh*t… This has to be getting an anime, right?! It has to be!!!”
Su Deqiang scrolled through the character section, totally speechless.
It was too luxurious.
Too insane.
But then—he realized something was off.
There were Masters—even children.
But no Heroic Spirits.
None of the Heroic Spirits appeared in the character section.
“Wait… where are my Heroic Spirits? Where are my animated Heroic Spirits?!”
Su Deqiang scrolled up and down the page in disbelief—no matter how much he searched, there wasn’t a single sprite for a Heroic Spirit.
Panicking, he hit the refresh button—
And then… the site crashed.
“……?”
Tap tap tap—
He refreshed several more times, but the site stayed down.
He stared at the screen wide-eyed.
“I didn’t even get to read the manga yet… How many f***ing people just flooded this site???”
Truth was—
Way more than Su Deqiang could’ve imagined!
Of course, part of it was Sun Gong’s poor preparation—he didn’t read manga and underestimated the potential traffic.
But the bigger reason was…
That short film.
That website.
They were just too impressive.
Fate/Zero was already a fantastic manga, and then Tang Yao pulled out this bombshell? This wasn’t just a 1+1—it was a complete dimensional shift in impact!
Seriously—what other manga got this kind of treatment?
Before long, word spread across fan communities: Fate/Zero now had its own website, with jaw-dropping animated character sprites.
Even people who weren’t into anime were seeing Fate/Zero's animated characters pop up on social media—and were shocked that 2D characters could move like this.
On the country’s biggest anime-related forum, post after post started flooding in—
There were so many that moderators were nearly forced to make a dedicated section.
“No way—this isn’t 3D???”
“It looks so good! Who the hell is this Third-Rate Artist?! And what’s up with this series? It’s not even serialized in a magazine—so how does it have this much budget!?”
“Did you guys see that Fate/Zero short film? It was insanely cool!!!”
“This indie mangaka is on another level! The manga’s already great—and they even made a website!”
“Animated 2D characters… I know the tech exists, but is this really 2D? How is it this good?!”
“Is Fate/Zero getting an anime!? Is it?!”
“I haven’t even read the manga but the art alone is blowing my mind—it’s so vivid!”
“BREAKING: Fate/Zero official site crashes!”
“…”
That entire day, the forums were flooded with posts like this.
In fact, the site Tang Yao originally built to support the game hadn’t even generated game hype yet…
Instead, the manga was the first to benefit!
So many readers started talking about it that, as the buzz grew, more and more people discovered this free webcomic and learned about its unconventional decision to not serialize in any magazine.
Free to read. Online access.
And it just so happened that all the major magazines were now pushing digital manga too.
With Tang Yao’s meticulous prep work added on—
All buffs stacked to max.
Especially once the site came back online that afternoon—
More and more new readers flocked to it after hearing the buzz.
A lot of people came just to see the animations—
But ended up getting hooked on the manga itself.
Wenxin Press had poured endless effort into launching their Wenxin Online Reading—using the manga award, heavy promotion, and more—just to get some traction.
And Avalon, with only one comic, managed to catch up in a single day.
As time passed, the hype around Fate/Zero exploded.
The manga itself, the website and its short video, the animated 2D character technology—
In the 2D fandom space, everyone knew about it.
The entire anime/gaming/manga community was watching.
No one realized yet what this really meant…
No one had any idea just how massive this was going to become.