Mingyan had just thanked the driver when he turned around and saw the students picking up the students. He couldn't help but smile and say, "It's me. Are you here to pick me up? Thank you."
The students were very lively, and on the way to the auditorium with Mingyan, they didn't forget to chat with him.
In the past, when Mingyan returned to school, he was always referred to as "senior."
Three years have passed in the blink of an eye.
When he returned this time, everyone called him "Chief Designer Ming".
The students seemed less affectionate and more respectful than before.
As the saying goes, "A person's name is like the shadow of a tree."
Perhaps it's because Blue Star Studio's status has suddenly risen, giving Mingyan a more unattainable and legendary aura.
Time flew by and it was already two o'clock when the graduation ceremony began smoothly.
The preceding process was also something Mingyan was very familiar with.
After the host announced the start of the ceremony, everyone stood up and played the national anthem.
Then, school leaders read out relevant documents and delivered speeches, which was also the first guest speaker's speech.
Next, the degree conferment ceremony will be held.
A group of outstanding student representatives went on stage to salute.
The leadership team distributed degree certificates to each person, then tugged at the tassels on their graduation caps and said a word of encouragement.
It was previously stated that he could also go on this stage and perform the same ceremony.
However, he was very busy at the time, so he declined... In the end, he didn't even have time to pick up his degree certificate until later, when he went directly to the dean of students' office.
Then it was the second guest's turn, Mingyan, to give a speech.
He stood on the podium, put down his notes, and adjusted the microphone.
There were more than two thousand people in the room, including students, mentors, and leaders, all looking at him with intense eyes.
Unlike the monotonous speeches given by leaders before, Mingyan is a true senior figure in the game academy.
His qualifications and achievements are evident to everyone.
Many students who haven't graduated yet or are currently pursuing graduate studies made a special trip to hear his speech live.
He finished his opening remarks in a formulaic way.
He smiled, with a hint of nostalgia, and said, "Three years ago, I had just graduated from my alma mater. Like you, I was standing at the tail end of my youth, feeling a little lost and a little fortunate."
He gestured on stage, drawing a line on his eyebrow, and said, "This is how tall I was back then."
Then he gestured again, pointing to the chandelier above, and said, "My luggage was this high up at the time."
A few soft laughs immediately rippled through the audience.
Mingyan slowly said, "I couldn't move my luggage, so I decided to use a hovercar to push it to a moving company to take it back to my hometown. When I got to the shipping counter, after saying a long speech, the staff member looked around and said, 'Where is he? Where is he?'—I had so many things piled up that he couldn't even see me."
An even louder burst of laughter erupted from below.
Mingyan smiled and said, "It cost me over a thousand yuan to ship that luggage because it was so heavy and all made of paper. These things are drafts I wrote during my four years of undergraduate studies, including all the design books for Minecraft. I've always preferred to write down physical notes myself."
"However, I personally discarded 80% of the drafts because I came up with some better ideas."
The laughter disappeared.
The audience was completely silent.
Mingyan paused briefly, then said, "A good game design is made up of 1% inspiration and 99% hard work. The 99% determines the lower limit of the design, but the 1% determines the upper limit of the game. Just like everyone here, I don't know how many of you will continue on the path of game development, and how many will give up halfway. But ultimately, 99% of those working in the industry will become the backbone; and only the remaining 1% will be able to create a new era of brilliance."
"This is the truth, a very harsh truth."
“I can see ambition in all of your eyes, because everyone thinks they will be in that 1%. Yes, if the world needs heroes, why can't I be a hero? If this industry needs geniuses, why shouldn't I be one?”
"You are still young, so you should have the passion and ambition of youth. Being able to graduate from the Royal Academy already makes you the cream of the crop among your peers, the top 10% of geniuses. But that's not enough, you need to go even further."
Mingyan stepped back, gestured again, and said, "When I was a freshman, I would wash my clothes myself once a week, and then I was ostracized."
"Because locals all use smart robotic butlers, they've never seen how clothes are washed and dried. I'm sure many of you don't even know how a washing machine works inside."
"Of course, that's not important. What's important is that I was ostracized."
After he finished speaking, some people below wanted to laugh again.
Mingyan breathed a sigh of relief and said, "God, I was so grateful to them at the time. Because I'm not good at socializing, I felt that socializing took up a lot of my time, and I didn't have time to continue writing my design sketches."
The audience fell silent again.
“I want to thank each of my classmates for saving me time from partying, chatting, playing cards, and dating,” Ming said. “I don’t know if you know that when people are listening to gossip or watching certain TV programs, their brain activity is even lower than when they are sleeping. In other words, you are not thinking at that time, and you are no different from a reed. Of course, the behaviors of the previous generation, such as playing mahjong, gambling, walking birds, and eating sunflower seeds, are essentially the same as the behaviors of this generation, such as browsing blogs, watching videos, and browsing forums. They are just different forms of expression according to the times.”
"In other words, when people do these things, it's equivalent to sleeping."
"For me, sleep is the same concept as death."
"So if someone invited me out for tea and a chat back then, and if you saw the terrified look in my eyes, please don't misunderstand—yes, I was afraid of dying."
At that time, Mingyan had just awakened from a frozen slumber spanning four thousand years.
He said, “I’m like a prisoner waiting to die every day, checking every night to make sure my last words are safely under my pillow. You might find this funny—anyway, all I have left are those manuscripts, and I think I have to leave something for this beautiful era, no matter how small or insignificant it may be.”