After a few days, posts about the MIT Simulator began flooding the community like mad.
[Went into this game and can’t get out]
-I’m an MIT student, and it feels like the character is me. Please, live the love life I never could. Dumped everything into appearance stats.
└Are you popular in the game?
└Yeah. Girls come up to me first just from walking around. Hoo—the life of a super-handsome guy...
└Glad you’re happy somewhere, at least.
But there was a problem.
The queue was exploding, yet the people who had logged in refused to leave.
[Hey! Clear out already. I’ve been waiting for 5 hours]
-Do you people not sleep? They said it auto-closes if you’re away for an hour, so why isn’t the queue going down?
└It’s queue hell. I’m never leaving.
└After waiting 10 hours, no way I’m leaving. This mode is insanely fun. I’m making a battle suit right now.
└Turns out a flamethrower is the best for beating down zombies. The thrill is insane.
└I’m dating multiple people lol. Living vicariously as a Casanova because I can’t do it in real life. But I got caught ㄷㄷㄷ It instantly turned into suspense.
The next morning, reviews from MIT students began appearing one by one.
[MIT Simulator vs. My Actual Day]
-I tried running auto-simulation, and my character’s actions are almost exactly like mine. It gave me chills.
└Set it as a math major and dumped everything into intelligence. But why can’t I become Yu Seoha? No matter what I try, there’s no event like solving an unsolved problem.
└Guess that much isn’t nearly enough lolol
└I tried local mode too, and it was pretty fun. A character packed full of my hopes. Is this what it feels like to live as the goddess of engineering?
And then the incident happened that afternoon.
A student from MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering left a shocking post.
[I tried making a streamer Nova tribute war hammer.]
-After watching Nova make a war hammer, I thought, “Ah! This is the destiny of our department.”
So I made one myself.
Using the exact recipe from the game lolol. Authenticity is key, after all.
High-carbon steel 60%, medium-carbon steel 40%, fine strengthening particles—the game calls it an “alloy catalyst.”
In the game, an NPC just whips it up, but obviously reality doesn’t work like that.
I used the excuse that I was writing a paper and worked in the casting lab. The problem was the materials, but I bought those myself.
I modeled the in-game hammer in CAD, then printed it with a 3D printer to make the mold.
And here’s the result.
(Photo)
└This is insane lolololololol
└Have you lost your mind, human?
└MIT Simulator was a hyper-realistic game all along. If mechanical engineering majors put their minds to it, couldn’t they make modern firearms too?
└I’m Nova... I’m honestly moved. Could you sell this to me? It’s not just a tribute in name only, right? I feel bad, so I’ll pay generously for the materials and labor.
└lolololololololololololol
└The man himself appears. At this rate, aren’t they going to make armor too?
└A limited edition made just for him. How could he resist that lolol
The buzz showed no signs of dying down.
A photo titled “A Game Made by Your Average MIT Student.jpg” set the community ablaze.
The next afternoon, the four of them sat on the floor of the clubhouse and celebrated the game’s success.
Each of them held up a glass.
Cypher, as the leader, gave the toast.
“Everyone’s worked hard until now. Cheers!”
““Cheers!””
On the floor lay not one but two enormous twenty-four-inch pizzas. Seoha’s eyes went wide.
“Wow! They’re really huge. I’ve never seen pizza this big before.”
It was a pizza truly worthy of the name monster, smothered in cheese and covered edge to edge with pepperoni.
Entropy already had a slice in her mouth.
“This feeling of carbs and fat punching my arteries. Is this the taste of success?”
“Ah, this is killer. Usually it’s too expensive to even think about ordering.”
Seoha carefully picked up a slice as well.
The cheese stretched out in a long strand. When he tried it, it was surprisingly good.
The sweet tomato sauce and salty, spicy pepperoni came together perfectly.
The savory richness of the warm, melted cheese delivered a violently satisfying pleasure.
“Wow! It’s way better than I expected.”
Cypher said with a triumphant expression.
“Right? This is the taste of American pizza. It’s not as fancy as Italian pizza, but it makes you happy in one hit.”
Everyone laughed and chatted.
Seoha was happy to be with them.
Thanks to the three of them, he had been able to develop the Synapse Engine in earnest. The engine he had made to earn his younger sibling’s tuition had brought joy to everyone, and that made him happy.
“What happens to us now?”
Entropy wiped her hands and sat in front of the keyboard.
“We’ll have to wait for investment offers. Once downloads hit a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, we should get some pretty decent offers.”
“I think we can go beyond that. The rate it’s increasing is no joke.”
Just as Root predicted, after a week, downloads surpassed three hundred thousand.
Investment offers poured in. Most of them, however, were modest offers of around one million dollars.
Then, while checking the inbox, Cypher discovered a name that made his eyes snap open.
“Guys! This is huge!”
Everyone gathered around Cypher’s seat.
“What is it?”
“Where, where?”
Cypher clicked the email.
[Partnership Proposal Regarding MIT Simulator and the Synapse Engine]
-From : Skyline
“Skyline? That Silicon Valley legend?”
“They’re famous for autonomous driving modules!”
“That’s not all. They build entire smart city infrastructures. I heard their investment capital is insane. They probably have a ton of affiliates too.”
A company with an absurdly massive market capitalization.
The three of them stared with their mouths hanging open.
* * *
The next day, Seoha and Spectra Works visited Skyline’s Cambridge branch with tense expressions.
In the sleek conference room, an ultra-high-resolution screen on one wall was displaying gameplay footage from MIT Simulator.
“Wow! So that’s possible too.”
Had they started as an architecture major?
The school looked very different from reality. It was like looking at a futuristic city.
Creak.
The conference room door opened, and a man in a neat suit entered.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Ethan Lowell, head of strategic technology at Skyline.”
He sat down and held out some documents.
“The image on the wall is the result of us playing around with it for about forty-eight hours as a test. We used the game map as is, but once we developed the architectural algorithms, it began evolving on its own. It was truly impressive.”
He turned his laptop screen toward them.
Records of population movement, routes by means of transportation, graphs showing energy usage. Everything was influencing everything else and evolving in real time.
Seoha looked at the screen with interest.
Ethan opened his briefcase and took out a contract prepared in advance.
“Our internal assessment is that the engine you possess could become a useful tool in carrying out our business. That’s why we’re making this offer despite not being a game company.”
Root asked in surprise.
“What? Then what about MIT Simulator?”
“Of course, we respect that as well. We’ll support your studio, so you can make your game.
The company has valued Spectra Works at ten million dollars. Including all rights to the Synapse Engine, of course.”
Everyone’s eyes widened at the number, which was larger than expected.
Entropy was the first to regain her senses. With trembling hands, she began flipping through the contract.
Skyline would pay 5.2 million dollars in exchange for a 51% stake.
Entropy muttered in a small voice.
“51%. That’s practically an acquisition.”
Ethan nodded.
“We need a majority stake for headquarters to shoulder the risk and push the project forward.”
The remaining 49% would be divided according to their own agreed ratios, and Seoha, as the engine’s developer, would receive an additional personal bonus of one million dollars.
However, the condition was that he work for at least three years after graduation as the engine’s chief supervisor.
Ethan smiled meaningfully.
‘There’s no way they can refuse.’
Someone on the AI team had started playing this game first. The next day, they had come to him with a face full of excitement.
Because it was far more advanced than the engine they were currently developing.
Skyline’s AI research team currently consisted of fifty people.
There was no guarantee they could produce something like this even if they spent five years on it. So five million dollars or so was no burden at all.
“You must secure the engine’s designer. An AI engine is structured in such a way that replicas cannot be produced. Tuning hundreds of algorithm parameters, behavior models, caching strategies, optimization tricks, methods for handling interference between algorithms... If even one of these changes, an engine with the same performance won’t be born.
You have to bring in the entire ecosystem of the engine, including the designer.”
‘They’ve already built what would take us more than five years.’
What Ethan paid particular attention to was the engine’s “military value.”
‘What would happen if we used that to control a swarm of drones?’
Each drone would think for itself and find the optimal attack route. It would be a game changer that would alter the very face of war.
Not only that, it could display specialized performance in battlefield simulations as well, such as predicting the behavior of enemy units or analyzing the behavioral patterns of civilians.
‘Now, come on, kids. Hurry up and sign.’
The most important thing in the AI industry was technological monopoly.
They did not want anyone but themselves to use the Synapse Engine.
‘Hm?’
The students’ expressions, which he had expected to be delighted, were dark.
Entropy, who had been reviewing the contract, folded her arms and glared at him.
“So this contract is a scouting offer aimed at Seoha, isn’t it? You don’t seem interested in the game we made at all.”
Ethan waved his hand.
“That’s not what it means. Skyline simply isn’t a game company.”
Root looked at Seoha.
“What do you think?”
Seoha shook his head.
“I have no intention of working at a company. My real job is being a mathematician, and I’ve never forgotten that once in my life.
While making this game, I realized the various possibilities the Synapse Engine has. And what could happen if it were misused...”
Perhaps sensing that the atmosphere had become dangerous, Ethan hurriedly cut him off.
“W-wait a moment. We are a company that aims to implement smart cities. Misused? That engine will be used for humanity.”
“But Skyline has a defense company among its affiliates.”
Ethan stared at Seoha. Then, as if making up his mind, he opened his mouth.
“...Ten million dollars. In cash. We don’t need anything else. Just give us 51% of the rights to the engine. With that money, you can freely set up a game company or whatever you like. Seoha doesn’t have to come to work here. He only needs to help with the setup in the initial stage.”
Seoha spoke slowly.
His gaze was calm beyond his years.
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
“Huh?”
It was a line that sounded as if it might come from a Shakespeare play.
Ethan looked puzzled.
“It’s what Oppenheimer said after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.
I don’t want to make the same mistake he did. What would be written later in the history of mathematics...”
If he became the person responsible for creating a horrific weapon of war, what kind of rebuke would he hear from the saints of mathematics after he died?
Just imagining it made him dizzy. Seoha wanted to stand proudly before them with his shoulders squared.
“That’s enough!”
Riiip—
Root sprang to his feet and tore up the contract.
Cypher and Entropy, seated beside him, also looked at Ethan with cold eyes.
“Haa...”
Ethan swept his hair back as if exhausted.
“You’re truly foolish. I guarantee it. An offer of this scale will never come to you again. If you walk out of here now, the day will surely come when you regret it.”
His voice was laced with anger.
His eyes seemed to say, “You brats don’t even know what you’re doing.”
But even after hearing those words, Spectra Works did not waver.
Instead, they snorted and walked out of the conference room.
Ethan wore a hollow expression.
There likely weren’t many people who properly understood the value of that engine.
“Damn it. I should have offered a hundred million from the start.”
He had thought ten million dollars would be enough to paralyze a few college students’ reason.
But the train had already left the station.
Now that they had seen through his true intention of using it for defense purposes, even if the contract were finalized, it would come saddled with all sorts of special clauses.
The four of them, now hungry, stopped by McDonald’s and ordered cheeseburgers.
“You must have been hungry.”
The three of them were shoveling burgers and fries into their mouths.
“Of course. I feel like all my energy got sucked out.”
“I can’t think straight either.”
“We were just extras anyway. That offer was basically sent to Seoha personally.”
Seoha burst into laughter.
“I was planning to divide the money according to our shares if I took it, you know?”
“That’s not happening. Like you said, I don’t think the Synapse Engine is something a corporation should own. We’ll just license it from you too.”
“Seeing how bloodshot their eyes were as they came after it, they definitely had some shady plan.”
“I thought it was an amazing engine, but I didn’t know it was to that extent.”
“What are you planning to do now?”
The companies that sent proposals would all want shares that included the Synapse Engine.
Cypher stuffed the half-remaining burger into his mouth in one bite.
“I thought about it, and the problem is that we were trying to rely on someone else’s money. We can just do it ourselves.”
“Do we have any money?”
At Entropy’s question, the two of them averted their eyes.
“Ten thousand dollars?”
“About the same for me.”
“...”
While eating fries, Seoha casually tossed out a remark.
“How about crowdfunding? With that many downloads, if we say we’ll distribute profits later, shouldn’t we be able to gather enough for the initial costs?”
Root nodded.
“That makes sense. There must be plenty of people willing to pay if it means getting rid of the queue.”
Entropy clutched her head.
“Ah... my dream of a unicorn.”
“Are we starting from a tiny room again?”
They were sighing, but the expressions on all three of their faces looked brighter than ever.
“Fine, when did we ever dream of getting rich overnight? Let’s just take it head-on!”
“Nope. I’m going to grow it into a unicorn.”
“Sure, sure.”
Seoha looked at them and smiled innocently.
Root looked at Seoha and asked,
“How does a cheeseburger taste after turning down ten million dollars?”
Seoha firmly raised his thumb.
“It’s incredible.
And I feel like all of you are going to make me even more money.”
Everyone burst into loud laughter.