Starting as a Manga Editor

Chapter 165: This Manga...

Chu Yuxin saw that Tang Yao had already bent over her desk and started drawing, so she didn’t say anything more and just watched quietly.

Tang Yao’s pace was fast—as expected. She finished the lineart in no time.

After all, she had worked in the art field in her past life, and was plenty familiar with the techniques.

Standing to the side, Chu Yuxin quietly observed. It didn’t take her long to figure it out—

Was the boss drawing… a dragon girl?

On screen—

The concept art quickly took shape. Chu Yuxin blinked a few times.

When the character was finally done—

Tang Yao thought for a moment, then started sketching out a card frame. She mostly referenced Hearthstone’s layout: cost in the top-left, attack in the bottom-left, HP in the bottom-right, and a gem in the center to indicate rarity.

After that— She dropped the character art into the card frame, adjusted it slightly, let out a breath, then turned her head and asked, “What do you think?”

Chu Yuxin looked at the screen. At the center of the card was a beautiful girl with a strong exotic flair, clad in fierce red armor—mysterious and full of powerful elegance. She looked as if she were facing down an enemy, her expression solemn.

Overall, the light and shadow structure was far more detailed than flat coloring, with a much more dimensional and realistic contrast.

And yet it still had a clear anime aesthetic—especially in the facial features.

The best part?

When the illustration was combined with the card frame, it all meshed perfectly. None of that cheap-looking feel that flat coloring sometimes brought. It looked unexpectedly fitting.

Chu Yuxin’s eyes lit up. “It looks great! It really works! This fits way better than the ones I drew! This art style totally works. Which card is this?”

“Hmm… probably Red Dragon Queen Alexstrasza,” Tang Yao replied after a moment of hesitation.

Though she’d drawn inspiration from techniques in her past life—

This character was her own creation.

Mainly because there wasn’t anything to directly reference… the original red dragon was, after all, literally a dragon.

“I see, so this is the style you had in mind?”

Chu Yuxin looked excited, her thick brows arching slightly. “Got it. Can you send me a copy? I’ll talk with the rest of the art team and we’ll try drawing a few pieces in this style too, see how it looks and how hard it is.”

Tang Yao nodded without hesitation. “Sure.”

“But…”

Chu Yuxin hesitated briefly, then added, “Even though it’s pseudo-painting, I noticed while watching you that it’s still way more complicated than regular flat coloring. We definitely won’t be able to match your speed…”

No matter how many times she watched Tang Yao draw—

It always felt insane.

So even though she knew Tang Yao was a reasonable person, Chu Yuxin couldn’t help but say something. She was worried Tang Yao might expect the art team to keep up with her pace.

If that happened, Chu Yuxin would have no choice but to drop to her knees and beg for mercy.

“I get it. This is just a sample. You guys can discuss and see if it’s possible to streamline or simplify it a bit.”

Tang Yao acknowledged, then seemed to remember something and added, “Also, some cards can be simplified. I don’t mean slacking off on quality, but there’s no need for every card to use this exact style. For example, with item-type cards—remember Craft Essences from FGO? Not all of them feature characters. Some are just objects, and as long as the art style is consistent, that’s good enough.”

“Understood.”

Chu Yuxin nodded seriously. Once Tang Yao sent her the illustration, she immediately returned to the project group to discuss with the other artists.

And soon—

Perhaps because the first piece of card art had been finalized, Si Jinliang and others were drawn in too. Many people from the Dou Pai project team gathered around to take a look.

Seemed like they all thought it was great.

Seeing this, Tang Yao finally felt at ease. She glanced once more at the illustration on the screen and considered—

…Maybe she should draw a few more examples for Chu Yuxin to use as references.

After all, Hearthstone didn’t just have dragons. There were also all sorts of weird and wacky creatures.

Demons, orcs, Old Gods…

Now that they’d settled on a new art style, those designs would need a revamp too.

But just as she was thinking—

Li Xue walked in.

Tang Yao noticed and temporarily set aside the idea of continuing to draw. She turned and asked, “Thanks for the hard work. How did it go?”

“Not bad.”

Li Xue shook her head lightly. “But Miss Rumi’s mom… how do I say this—she was pretty unexpected.”

Tang Yao was curious. “She gave you a hard time?”

“Not really.”

Li Xue sat down. “She was very polite. There was nothing to criticize about her manners or professionalism. She clearly knows her stuff and didn’t make any unreasonable demands regarding profit splits. The only tricky part was that she insisted we specify—in detail—in the contract exactly what Miss Rumi is expected to do for the collab. She wanted each task listed individually, with estimated completion times for each item… She was really hung up on that, to the point of being totally unwilling to budge. It was like she was scared we’d waste Miss Rumi’s time.”

“I explained to her that when an author is involved in a game collab, it’s hard to define exactly how long anything will take. Like for writing the crossover story, we can’t predict how long Miss Rumi will need. All we can do is list the obligations in general terms.”

“But she still wouldn’t relent.”

“……”

Tang Yao remembered Rumi’s expression back at the café when she was on the phone.

She had a faint idea of what was going on.

Just as she suspected—Rumi had a very strong-willed mom…

Thinking of that—

Tang Yao shook her head with a small sigh. “Alright then, talk to Miss Rumi about it. Since her mom cares so much, let her give us a timeline she’s comfortable with. After all, most of our interactions will probably be online anyway.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same.”

Li Xue nodded. “I’ll reach out now.”

With that—

She picked up her phone.

Tang Yao didn’t say anything else. She didn’t think any further about Rumi either.

Thinking about it wouldn’t help. It was someone else’s mom, after all… and right now, she had no spare energy to worry about that kind of thing.

Avalon’s second game was in full production mode.

FGO’s first collab card pool was officially underway.

And she still had her manga to draw.

Where was the time?

But thankfully… even if there was a lot going on, everything was progressing smoothly!

The collab banner had a solid agreement in place.

The second game’s core structure—gameplay, art, and story—were all mostly finalized.

As for the manga, no problems there either.

As long as nothing major happened, if things kept moving steadily, they’d be able to deliver a big surprise to players in the spring—right after the Lunar New Year!

…

At least, that was what Tang Yao was hoping for.

But the first ones to sense that something big was coming—

Weren’t the gamers.

It was the readers of ANF’s manga section…

With ANF’s recent promotional events, their manga division had indeed started to show signs of life.

While many mangaka were still waiting and watching, some bold ones had taken the plunge—betting on ANF's manga platform and starting new serializations.

Most of those series were still too new to show anything just yet.

But the one that had started earliest, Chainsaw Man, was already hitting its stride.

And then—

Readers began to notice that, after a brief setup… Chainsaw Man’s story was starting to reveal its wild, absurd, borderline-deranged flavor!

And it wasn’t stopping there—it was pushing that energy all the way to the max!

This manga… was not normal.