Northstar Games' bold expansion hit the domestic novel and comic industry like a shockwave.
The moment Northstar Stories announced its generous author benefits, the two newly established departments inside Northstar were thrown into chaos—in the best way possible. From that very afternoon onward, the offices became a storm of movement. Contracts kept arriving. New accounts kept pouring in. Phones would not stop ringing. Editors barely had time to breathe before another applicant showed up with a manuscript, a portfolio, or a list of demands.
There were simply too many people.
Too many writers signing contracts.
Too many readers registering accounts.
Too many curious users rushing in just to see whether Northstar Games was serious or merely burning money for attention.
In the end, the traffic became so intense that Northstar Stories had to borrow several senior programmers from the game division just to stabilize the servers. No one wanted the new platform to crash on day one and ruin the user experience. Rachel Quinn Comics had it a little easier, since it could directly rely on the server infrastructure already used by Rachel Quinn Animation.
Even so, the whole company could feel the weight of the launch.
Northstar's benefits were simply too outrageous.
Since the new novel platform still had no paid books in its library, throwing around platform currency would have been meaningless. So Northstar took the simplest route possible. It directly purchased the rights to translated Japanese light novels and several physical literary works, then paid out of pocket so users could read them for free.
It was the kind of move only a truly rich company could make.
The words "rich and reckless" might as well have been stamped on Northstar's forehead.
For Hector Xin, this whole experience felt unreal.
He had worked in the industry for years. He had seen novel websites rise and fall, watched platforms brag about dreams they could not afford, and dealt with bosses who wanted full control while refusing to take real risks. So when he first arrived at Northstar Games, he assumed his "acting manager" title meant exactly what it sounded like: temporary authority, limited power, and constant oversight.
At best, he thought he would offer suggestions and wait to see whether Vivian Frost and Ethan Reed approved them.
Instead, what he received was something he had never expected.
They handed him real power.
Not symbolic power. Not a hollow title. Not a polished position with invisible chains attached.
Real power.
Northstar Stories was, for all practical purposes, now under Hector Xin's control.
That level of trust left him unsettled at first.
Was it because today's young bosses were too naive?
Or was it because Vivian Frost and Ethan Reed simply did not fear failure at all?
No matter which explanation he chose, the result was the same.
Something that had been quiet in him for years began to stir.
Hector was already past forty. At that age, most people learned how to compromise. To say it kindly, they matured. To say it plainly, they gave up on chasing too much. Family and career usually pulled in opposite directions, and most men his age no longer had the energy to win both.
Hector had accepted that truth long ago.
He valued his family. He had made peace with the idea that his career would remain steady, respectable, and ordinary.
But now, sitting inside Northstar Games, holding real authority over a newborn platform with absurd resources and limitless backing, he felt an old ambition come back to life.
It was not gratitude.
It was not emotional loyalty.
It was hunger.
A simple, dangerous question kept circling in his mind:
Could he actually make this website succeed?
If the bosses had truly entrusted it to him, could he turn Northstar Stories into something that mattered?
And so Hector Xin, a man who should have been past that stage of life, quietly decided that this time he wanted both.
Family.
Career.
Success.
Everything.
By four in the afternoon, he had compiled the first full set of numbers and sent them to Vivian Frost's email. The report included the platform's early operating costs, projected spending, and a list of well-known authors from major websites he had already begun contacting.
To outsiders, the online literature world looked huge and full of fresh talent.
But insiders knew the truth.
The same successful names kept appearing again and again. The same authors wrote under multiple accounts, shifted between genres, and quietly dominated the charts under different identities. In a circle like that, connections mattered almost as much as manuscripts.
Not long after sending the email, Hector received a reply.
Just one word.
"Read."
He sat there staring at the screen.
"Read?"
What did that mean?
Did President Frost dislike the proposal?
Did she approve it?
Was she saying she had seen it and accepted it, or just that she had opened the file?
For the first time in years, Hector felt old.
He genuinely could not follow the thinking pattern of younger bosses.
In the end, he chose to interpret it as support.
And once he made that choice, he went all in.
It had to be said that Northstar's culture was contagious. With bosses this wealthy and this fearless, how could employees afford to be timid? Hector himself played games. He was not a hardcore gamer, but he had seriously played Stardew Valley and Pokémon, and he understood what made Northstar different from other companies.
Northstar's entire rise could be summed up in one phrase:
They never left themselves a safe path backward.
Every step Ethan Reed took felt like setting fire to the bridge behind him.
That madness, combined with Vivian Frost's trust, had built the company into what it was now.
With leaders like that, what reason did the people below them have to be cowards?
By September, Hector had been at Northstar for nearly a month.
That morning, he brought a stack of documents to the top floor.
The entire top level belonged to Vivian Frost and Ethan Reed. Their offices were enormous, closer to open luxury suites than normal executive rooms. Someone could have hosted a private party in there without any problem.
Hector stopped at the door and knocked.
A voice came from inside.
"Come in."
He opened the door, stepped inside, and immediately understood more than he needed to.
Vivian Frost was sitting behind a computer, pretending to focus very seriously on the screen. Ethan Reed was sitting on the sofa with a laptop in front of him. On the surface, it looked like they had both been working hard.
But Hector Xin was an experienced middle-aged man.
Vivian's face was slightly red.
Ethan's lips were a little too bright.
He knew exactly what kind of atmosphere he had interrupted.
Naturally, he also knew better than to mention it.
Unlike Daniel Reed or Rachel Quinn, who might have laughed and openly teased them, Hector simply acted as though nothing was strange at all.
He stood there with complete seriousness and said, "Boss, after one week of signings, our daily user traffic has exceeded one hundred thousand. We've signed over three thousand authors. The site currently has more than six thousand new books, though many are still under review. Of those, more than a hundred are showing very strong data, and several have already attracted significant user attention."
Vivian swept her hair back and looked at him. "The books you sent me before?"
"Yes," Hector said. "After two rounds of recommendations, their collections have already passed thirty thousand."
Vivian nodded lightly. "Good. Very good. If you need anything, ask. If you want traffic support, apply for funding."
Hector smiled and shook his head. "Not yet. For a new site, our current results are already excellent."
And that was true.
A novel website did not cost much in the beginning. Northstar Games lacked many things, but programmers were never one of them. The technical foundation was already there. Right now the main cost of Northstar Stories was the purchase of domestic and international rights to create early traffic, along with staff salaries.
Compared to game development, it was almost cheap.
So what the platform needed most was not expansion.
It needed a face.
It needed a flagship title.
That was why Hector had come.
He placed the documents on the table and said, "Boss, I believe Northstar Stories doesn't need to waste money buying more traffic right now. What we need is a few truly popular books that can hold readers on the site. These are the titles I think deserve heavy promotion."
Vivian picked up the files and flipped through them.
There were six novels in total. Two historical farming-transmigration stories, one urban entertainment-transmigration story, one urban supernatural novel, one fantasy title, and one light novel.
None of them appealed to Vivian personally. Her taste leaned elsewhere, and Northstar Stories did not even have a female-focused section yet. So after a quick glance, she placed the files down and said calmly, "You don't need to ask my opinion every time. I'm an outsider to this industry. I don't understand it well enough to interfere."
Hector nodded.
Then Ethan, sitting behind him on the sofa, suddenly spoke.
"Hector, can I upload my own work to Northstar Stories?"
Hector froze.
Then he answered immediately, "Of course, President Ethan. Do you have a novel prepared?"
"Yes," Ethan said with a smile. "One reason I wanted Northstar Stories established was that I plan to write a novel as groundwork for the next Northstar game."
"A game prelude?"
"Yes. Western fantasy. Not too long."
Hector frowned slightly in thought. "A short story?"
Ethan thought for a moment. "Seven volumes. Around two hundred thousand words each."
Hector blinked.
That was not short.
That was roughly one and a half million words.
He considered it carefully, then asked, "Do you intend to hide the fact that you wrote it?"
"No," Ethan said. "Once the game comes out, anyone with a brain will connect the dots."
Hector understood the problem immediately.
If Ethan Reed published on Northstar Stories, everyone would suspect favoritism. If the book was bad and still got promoted, people would call it shameless internal bias. If the book was excellent and got promoted on merit, people would still call it bias because of who he was.
After all, Ethan was not just another author.
He was Ethan Reed.
Half the company would treat his work like holy scripture before even opening the file.
Hector hesitated, then asked carefully, "May I read it first?"
"Of course," Ethan said. "I've finished thirty thousand words."
He turned the laptop toward Hector.
Hector sat down, took the mouse, and began reading.
He read fast.
Then he started over and read it again more slowly.
A full twenty minutes passed over those thirty thousand words.
When he finally looked up, he drew in a sharp breath.
"President Ethan… did you really write this?"
Vivian leaned over and answered before Ethan could speak. "I watched him type every word."
Ethan gave a helpless shrug.
Hector stared at him as though he were seeing some kind of monster.
"This is your first novel?"
"I guess so," Ethan said, sounding embarrassingly casual.
The novel was presented as seven volumes. The first two stood more independently, while the next five formed a larger continuous arc. Even in this incomplete form, Hector could already see what it was.
This was not written like a normal web novel.
It had a different rhythm, a different weight, a different atmosphere. It was literary without being dull, vivid without becoming pretentious. The white-haired protagonist carried the lonely edge of a swordsman and the rough mystery of a wandering hunter. Despite the Western fantasy setting, there was something in the hero that felt strangely familiar to Eastern readers.
That mix was electric.
Hector almost shivered.
"This is incredible," he said honestly. "Can we serialize it immediately?"
Ethan smiled. "Sure. Also… how about you become my editor?"
"No problem, President Ethan," Hector said at once.
In that moment, he was not just head of Northstar Stories.
He had become Ethan Reed's personal editor.
He stood up, holding back his excitement, and said, "I'll prepare everything. We'll give it direct homepage promotion."
Ethan nodded.
Hector left the top floor wearing the smile of a man who had just found buried treasure.
No wonder people in the game department joked that Vivian Frost's office was a treasure vault.
Every visit really did seem to uncover something absurd.
That night, just after midnight, users opening the Northstar Stories app saw a new title appear on the homepage banner.
The Witcher
Author: Ethan Reed
The name alone was enough to grab attention.
And once readers opened it, they stayed.
Within minutes, comments, rewards, and recommendation votes shot upward.
The review section exploded.
"Not making games, not making animation, and now Ethan Reed is writing novels too?"
"I came because of the author name. Stayed because it's insanely good."
"What exactly can this man not do?"
"This is Northstar Games. Of course the boss personally comes down to steal resources from everyone."
"Forget that—can we talk about how good this book actually is?"
"This Western fantasy world feels incredible. Did Ethan study abroad or something?"
In an author chat group formed around Northstar Stories, reactions were even more chaotic.
One author typed first:
"Isn't this just open favoritism?"
Replies flooded in.
"The site belongs to him. At least he isn't hiding it."
"Have you actually read it? The book is amazing."
"This isn't normal web fiction pacing, but it's ridiculously satisfying."
"If this goes viral, it brings traffic to the whole site. We all benefit."
Half an hour later, the same author who accused Ethan of favoritism returned and wrote:
"I was wrong. Completely wrong. This isn't favoritism. Every paragraph is worth studying."
Then another added:
"Same. I was an idiot too."
Meanwhile, the man responsible for the uproar was already asleep.
But Hector Xin was not.
He sat in front of his screen while editors in the staff group went half-crazy.
Some begged for more chapters.
Some wanted to check the backend for draft stock.
Some argued about witcher weapons, sword oil, and why the protagonist was called the White Wolf.
Hector looked at the messages with a tired face.
Then he typed back:
"Are all of you very free? Have your statistics been completed? Have the chief editors' tasks been done? Do none of you care about performance anymore?"
The group instantly scattered.
Hector adjusted his reading glasses and sighed.
At his old companies, editors would never have talked so casually in the work group.
But this was Northstar Games.
The bosses themselves did not care about stiff hierarchy, so naturally the people below relaxed too.
And this…
This was where he would work from now on.
As he returned to his unfinished reports, one forbidden thought quietly rose in his mind again.
President Ethan was approachable.
So maybe…
Just maybe…
Would it really be so impossible to ask for another chapter?
Hector froze, horrified by himself.
"What exactly am I thinking?"
Then he lowered his head and kept working, while the question continued to burn in the back of his mind.
Because this was Northstar Games.
And this was Ethan Reed.
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