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In April, Seattle was already alive with spring. The Infinite Realms North American Qualifiers officially kicked off.
The esports competition for Death Race—thanks to the game's massive popularity—had far surpassed Infinite Realms' previous racing events in influence and recognition. Its viewership also exceeded previous years by substantial margins.
Since launch, the competition had been highly anticipated by players. Viewership numbers for livestreams and VODs of related tournament matches had doubled compared to last season.
Now, at the qualifying stage, anticipation was even greater—unprecedented in scale and grandeur.
Over the past few months, major clubs and teams domestically and internationally had gradually accumulated popularity and fanbases through a series of competitions. Professional players who'd emerged from the casual player ranks had transformed from ordinary people into dazzling stars on the competitive stage, receiving tremendous expectations and hope from fans.
Over these months, events in the North American region had been running at full capacity. The strong commercial value demonstrated by Death Race tournaments had successfully attracted participation from various investment groups.
Moreover, with capital investment, the event's influence expanded further, giving major clubs and professional players stronger sustainability and growth potential.
In previous competitions, the North American region successfully selected ten teams and thirty excellent individual players. The team currently most favored and expected to enter the finals as the number one seed from North America was the HGY team from the Graves Gaming organization.
Kyle Harrison—a strong contender for the individual championship—also came from the Graves Gaming club.
Moreover, through analysis of international tournaments by countless fans and commentators, the strength shown by North American teams appeared stronger than other regions, which made fans even more excited—looking forward to American teams representing the region in the global finals and claiming the championship trophy.
Additionally, since the game itself was developed by an American company, American players had an even stronger desire to win the championship and bring it home.
April was also a momentous month for Stormwind Studios. On April 7th, Stormwind officially moved from its original office space to a luxurious office tower that Alex had purchased outright. Stormwind Interactive Entertainment Inc. was officially established.
The new corporation integrated the original studio's game development business, the StreamHub platform, and the comics division's operations. Building on this foundation, it perfected the entire company's business ecosystem—deeply exploring and developing the value of various IPs, closely integrating various business segments, forming a stable and continuously running commercial machine that perpetually created value.
Simultaneously, the company established a game engine development department focusing on developing a proprietary VR game engine. It even invested in Reed Group's semiconductor division, committed to game hardware development and design.
As the company grew, the team expanded rapidly.
Currently, Stormwind Interactive Entertainment had unknowingly reached over three thousand employees—and there was still a substantial talent gap, with continuous recruitment of professionals and college interns ongoing.
Today, Alex had become a young, promising entrepreneur—a rising industry titan and celebrity in business circles.
Danny's idol group had now become massively popular across North America and even internationally, gaining enormous fanbases across all social platforms. They'd clearly become the hottest girl group in the country.
Their grand finale selection ceremony last year—in conjunction with StreamHub and many other online media platforms—had sparked huge excitement across the entire internet.
Their successful business model had also been emulated by many industry peers, with numerous domestic entertainment companies establishing their own idol groups and adopting the training/fan-engagement model.
However, Danny's group had already established its own brand identity and influence, becoming an industry benchmark—and the biggest beneficiary of this business model.
This year, Titan Media—in conjunction with StreamHub—planned to create an idol talent competition show called "Produce Camp." This was another experimental venture. The program had recently officially begun filming, and promotional campaigns had also officially launched.
In mid-April, Isabella also embarked on a study-abroad journey, beginning a new chapter in her life.
Over the past two years, Isabella had experienced many emotions. She'd watched her brother Danny, Alex, and others all achieve tremendous success in their careers.
While genuinely happy for them, she couldn't help feeling she should work harder to make herself equally excellent.
Especially after seeing Emma and Sophia at the Infinite Realms Carnival last time, her determination became even stronger.
She was naturally strong-willed—with excellent academic performance since childhood and wide-ranging interests. She'd always grown up surrounded by praise and accomplishment.
But now she also recognized that many people in this world came from even better backgrounds than hers yet still worked harder.
Moreover, she didn't want to become increasingly self-conscious around Alex—feeling like she was drifting further from his world and the heights of his ambitions. If she didn't improve herself, even if they ended up together, they'd probably drift apart eventually.
In truth, Isabella had always harbored a dream of creating her own fast-fashion brand.
The success of Alex, Danny, and Tyler Graves reinforced Isabella's conviction: if you have a dream, you must work relentlessly to achieve it.
Alex and Tyler had both turned their passions into successful careers. Same with her brother.
To realize her dream, Isabella felt there was still much to learn. So she resolutely chose to study abroad, hoping to further broaden her horizons and perspective, enrich herself, equip herself with knowledge and skills, and transform her dream into actionable reality.
When she became a better version of herself—perhaps then she'd have the courage and confidence to stand beside Alex permanently, accompany him through challenges and triumphs, and accompany him to the pinnacle of the world.
With the expansion and refinement of the Stormwind Interactive Entertainment team, progress on various projects had greatly accelerated. More business ventures were also rapidly developing.
The new storyline content for Avatar had been completed and was now in final testing phases. The Avatar theatrical film had been scheduled for Memorial Day weekend release.
Film adaptation projects for the Fast & Furious and Death Race IPs had also officially begun production. Production of the Mobile Suit Gundam and Transformers animated series had also commenced.
Time thus slipped away quietly.
In the blink of an eye, the North American Interactive Entertainment Conference and the American VR Gaming Industry Summit were officially convened.
More than two hundred leaders from American online gaming, console gaming, arcade gaming, and VR entertainment enterprises—including Stormwind Interactive Entertainment, Horizon Technologies, Genesis Interactive, Titan Games, and others—attended the conference.
The main topic discussed at this year's gaming industry summit revolved around the market prospects of VR games with distinct cultural characteristics, exploring how to create more culturally-rooted games that could achieve global success in the current market environment.
In fact, this topic had been discussed before. But there was a significant reason for revisiting it this year.
This year, the American Interactive Entertainment Association and Infinite Realms officially collaborated to launch a competition for culturally-distinctive content designs. Exceptional works would be launched globally on the platform.
This was the first collaboration between the association and Infinite Realms—a groundbreaking attempt and historic partnership, hoping to allow unique regional cultural content to flourish on Infinite Realms' massive platform, enabling players worldwide to appreciate diverse civilizations and cultural characteristics.