You said you were going to make games, how did you become the richest man without doing anything?

In the sixth week of Stargate's popularity, players were surprised to find that the store was updating more than just the Collector's Edition.

An announcement was quietly released online, with a concise and shocking title:
[Star Realm Peripheral Mall is now open]

The text is as follows:

"You've walked the land of dreams, slashed through the Rift to reshape your destiny. Now, you can take your share of the starlight."

There was no warm-up, no countdown, and dozens of peripheral products emerged in the official website mall overnight.

From clothing, accessories, badges, figures, picture albums, pillows, astral language notebooks, NPC voice sound cards, to "Traveler's Camp" replica scented candles, everything is available.

The player community exploded instantly.

If the rush to buy the collector's edition is a hardcore contest of "faith versus technology", then this time's rush to buy peripheral products is completely a "head-on confrontation between wallet and desire".

TapTap forum player "Salted Fish Under the Volcano" posted:
"I thought I was just going to buy a keychain, but now I've even bought two NPC voice cards, one for my office and one for my bedside."

"I'm not buying anything, I'm trying to live in the astral plane."

On the first day of the mall’s launch, the server crashed again and the official urgently expanded its capacity.

According to subsequent data:
Within 10 minutes of the sale, the limited edition "Star Walker Cape" was sold out; within 30 minutes, the pre-sale slogan of the "Splitter Launcher Figure" exceeded 8; within 2 hours, the cumulative sales volume of the entire network exceeded 5000 million yuan; after 24 hours, the total sales volume of peripherals exceeded one million pieces.

This is not a simple buying spree, but an unprecedented emotional consumption storm.

It is based on the "Key of Destiny" used by the protagonist in the game to activate the Rift Slash. It is made of silver-plated brass and weighs about 38 grams.

Hanging on my hand, it feels heavy.

Player "Chen Xingji" posted a picture:
“I hang it on my backpack, and every time I touch it, I know—I’m not commuting, I’m on a journey.”

Some people modified it into a car key chain, with the text:

"Every time I start the car, it's like opening a rift in the astral plane."

2. [Severance Slash Activation Figure]

Height 27cm, fully movable, with LED lights + battle sound effects + voice: "I'm not here to win, but to keep moving forward."

UP host "Soul Girl" live unboxing, said to the camera:
"I've been single for ten years, but today I finally met the first man in my life who can spend the holidays with me. His name is Alsarian."

During the live broadcast, she posed for the figurine in the classic Rift Slash pose, and the barrage of comments flooded the screen like crazy:

[This is not a figurine, this is a spiritual pillar]

I am willing to kill my life with him

[Please ask the official to release a proportional real-life version]

3. [Traveler Camp Aromatherapy Candle]

Recreate the scents of campsites in the game - dirt, rain, old firewood, and star mint.

After lighting it, many players said they could actually "smell" the Astral Realm.

A highly praised answer on Zhihu wrote:

"I was working overtime late at night, lit this candle, closed my eyes, and felt like I was back in the place where I could hear the NPC's whispers."

"Reality is crumbling, but the astral plane is holding me up."

—

With the popularity of the online mall, the official took advantage of the opportunity to open offline pop-up stores in ten cities across the country.

First stop: Shanghai Jing'an Joy City.

On the opening day, the longest queue recorded was 7.4 hours. The store entrance was crowded with people, and the queue circled the outer wall of the mall three times.

Some players lined up at three in the morning, holding folding chairs and a collection of Star Realm settings, and said with a smile:
"I'm not here to buy anything, I'm here on a pilgrimage."

Various peripherals are displayed together in the pop-up store, and players can try on cloaks on site, experience VR Rift Slash, and take photos with highly restored NPC models.

The most popular one is the "Astral Destiny Wall": it is covered with players' wishes and vows written in the astral language.

A young girl wrote in crooked handwriting:

"May I be able to cut through the insecurity of reality and become my own hero."

As the popularity of the surrounding products increases, some limited edition products are sold at high prices, and scalpers are trying to enter the market again.

But this time, players are no longer passive.

**"Rift Surrounding Mutual Aid Group"** was quickly launched on QQ, WeChat groups, Xiaohongshu, and Tieba, with a clear goal:

Fair group buying; voluntary sharing; opposition to speculation; encouragement of secondary creation.

In these groups, a new type of "Astral Mutual Aid Economy" is established between players:
Someone snagged two capes and posted, "I'm selling them at full price to friends who didn't get any. I'm not looking for profit, just for the sake of connection." Someone else shared a picture of their handmade Riftbreaker key pendant, offering to mail it free to anyone willing to write a story. Someone else even wrote, "I bought an extra NPC voice card. Anyone need it? As long as you can recite his quotes from Chapter 7."

As sales soared, the media also began to pay attention to this "peripheral miracle."

Southern Weekend commented:
"The sales of StarGate's peripherals are not a consumerist carnival, but a manifestation of cultural resonance."

"They give players a sense of 'holding' and 'continuation' in reality, not an end, but a connection."

China Daily reported:

"The merchandise of Stargate: Requiem is not just about business. It's a new way of storytelling—where beliefs are wearable, touchable, and shareable."

There are even cultural studies courses in universities that use the “rift boundary peripheral economy” as a case study.

Professor's comments:

"Why can a key chain make people cry? Because it's not a key, it's a form of 'identity confirmation'."

“You’re not buying something; you’re rediscovering the self who believes that you still have the power to change your destiny.”

—

A few months later, the official data was released:
Cumulative sales of peripheral products exceeded RMB 3 million; the number of secondary creations by players exceeded 40; the number of community mutual transfer records exceeded 15 times; and the usage of the Star Language online translator exceeded million.

In a developer interview, a member of the main creative team said:

"We were worried that no one would buy the peripherals."

"But we underestimated the players' love and the power of 'resonance'."

"They are not consuming Stargate; they are using their own way to continue this world."

—

In one player's home, a celestial cloak was hung on the balcony, fluttering in the wind.

He looked at it and murmured:
"I know it's just a piece of cloth, but it makes me feel like I'm the protagonist of a certain world."

"No matter how dark or anxious reality is, as long as I can still wear this cloak, I can move forward." "I got it!"

It was 3:13 in the morning when Lin Zhou spoke his first words on the WeChat voice call. His voice was low, but his excitement was unmistakable. His roommates, already deep in sleep, were awakened by the low roar. Some rolled over, some covered their ears, and still others sat up and asked, "Are you crazy?"

Lin Zhou ignored him. His hand still lingered on the mouse, the screen displaying the "Order Confirmed" page. The tiny line of text—"Stargate: Rift Slash Activation Figure (Limited Edition) has been added to your destiny"—made his heart nearly jump out of his throat.

He stared at the virtual key icon, as if it would pass through the screen and fall into his palm in the next second.

He did it. In a late-night rush involving hundreds of thousands of people, he successfully snatched up the limited-edition figurine known as "The Strongest Creation in the Star Realm." That was Alzarian's stance as he unleashed the Sundering Slash for the first time, his cape fluttering, his sword pointing skyward. The starlight behind him condensed into a massive Sundering Light Wheel, the LED lighting and voice module activated simultaneously, and even the tip of the sword vibrated slightly.

This figure is limited to 10,000 pieces, and the official even created a dedicated numbering system and an original voice line for it, which is only triggered when it is activated - "You don't fight to win, but to illuminate the world."

Lin Zhou grabbed number 7741.

He took a screenshot of the order and sent it to the "Gate of the Rift Ultimate Peripheral Group". Within seconds, his post was pushed to the top of the group with likes and comments.

[Fuck, brother, you got it?!]

[Did you use the Riftbreaker script?!]

[I'm really envious. I'm stuck on the payment screen, 0.5 seconds short. My destiny is not mine.]

[Looking for transfer, triple the price, the opening price is destiny. ]

Lin Zhou smiled. He wouldn't sell it, not because he didn't want to, but because he knew that this figurine was more than just a collectible.

This is the "Sword of the Star Realm" that he can hold in reality.

It's not like he hasn't experienced lows. He dropped out of college, his startup failed, and lived a life of wandering for long periods of time, his life akin to a torn map. He'd spent countless nights waking up to the soundtrack of "Stargate," and it was during that dialogue in "Traveler's Camp" that he found his first respite.

"You are not a forgotten person," said NPC Noren, "Your book of destiny has not yet been turned to that page."

Lin Zhou finally turned to a page in the book of fate in reality. That page read: "You got it."

He is not the only one.

That night, it was not just Lin Zhou. Hundreds of thousands of people were in front of their screens, performing a solemn ceremony - shaking the mouse, typing on the keyboard, entering verification codes, confirming payments, and waiting for their fate to be revealed.

Some succeeded, some failed, but everyone put in their full emotional effort.

While they were rushing to buy, a WeChat group of an underground scalper organization was also operating frantically late at night.

"The script successfully placed 112 orders."

"The key items to be controlled are NPC voice cards, the World Breaker figurine, the full-sized version of the cloak, and the Starlight Stone Lamp."

"It will be launched tomorrow morning, with a starting price of 2.5 times the price."

They cared nothing for fate, the astral realm, or resonance; they cared only for data, profit, and traffic. They were like the most real and cold existence in the astral rift—ruthless, precise, and devouring all emotion.

But they didn't expect that the players were not going to tolerate it this time.

The reporting buttons on major platforms were almost exploded, the "Rift Anti-Scalper Team" was established, and various anti-price speculation tools were quickly launched. Some programmers even developed a "Star Realm Price Monitoring Plug-in" to track sales price changes in real time. Players exchanged information with each other and marked malicious price speculators.

"We are not here to steal things, we are here to protect our beliefs," one player wrote in the post.

And faith can sometimes be worn on the body.

For example, the "Star Walker Cloak".

The official mall has launched two sizes: standard version and full-size version. The latter restores the game design in proportion. The shawl is 1.2 meters wide and weighs more than 5 kilograms. It even comes with astral language embroidery and reflective star totems.

It was sold out within three minutes of going online.

On the day the package arrived, social media was practically flooded with photos of the cape. Some stood on balconies, their capes fluttering in the wind, the blood-red sunset behind them; some wore them into the subway, becoming the center of attention on the entire train car; and some wore them in a company meeting, confidently declaring, "Severing the World is my goal today."

A netizen posted a photo of a couple wearing astral cloaks, standing on the beach, with their backs to the camera, holding hands. The caption for the photo was just one sentence:

"We are not together to win, but to move forward side by side."

This line originally belonged to an NPC in the game, but now it has become the most romantic oath in reality.

On the other hand, a long line has formed in front of the Star Realm pop-up store in a certain city.

At five o'clock in the morning, a girl wearing a "Soul of the Brave" T-shirt sat on a folding stool, holding a cup of hot coffee in her hand and a determined look in her eyes.

Her name is Su He, and she is an illustrator. She has hardly left the house in the past year and her life is a mess.

But she took a five-hour train ride for this pop-up store.

She just wanted to buy a set of Star Language notebooks. She heard that it was limited to 2,000 copies, and each cover had a different poem of destiny printed on it. When purchasing, one could draw lots to decide the verse.

She drew:
"If the starlight cannot illuminate you, then become the starlight."

She held a notebook, stood in front of the pop-up store's message wall, and wrote her name and a sentence:

"I'm on my way to stardom, thank you."

That day she took more than a dozen photos and posted them on social media. Soon after, she received a private message from a publishing house, inviting her to participate in a joint project for a Star Realm fan art book.

She cried for a long time.

It wasn't because of the opportunity, but because she finally felt that she was not forgotten.

And it is in such real moments one after another that players have redefined the word "peripheral" - it is no longer just a commodity, but a container of memory, the embodiment of faith, and physical evidence of fate.

They rush to buy it, not for consumption, but for pilgrimage.

It’s not about buying things, it’s about resonance.

Sales data around the server is still refreshing. The official store had to expand again. Sales data around the server is still refreshing. The official store had to expand again. The server team temporarily formed a "Rift Rush Emergency Response Team" and dispatched resources as if it were a war.

Among the players, a sentence was quietly spread:

"You're not buying a peripheral, you're buying a shadow you left in the astral world."

That was the posture you used when you swung your sword, the scene of you staring blankly in the traveler's camp, and the moment you quietly shed tears when the NPC left.

The game will be completed, the mission will be completed, and the main storyline will end.

But everything you leave behind will exist forever in some corner of reality in the form of cloaks, keys, figurines, poems, and fragrances.

You may no longer be online.

But you are still in the astral realm.

At six in the morning, Su He sat on the steps in front of the pop-up shop, draped in her astral cloak, clutching the book of fate in her hands. Her gaze fell on the line, "If the starlight can't illuminate you, then become the starlight." People gradually lined up around her, some greeting her, others offering her hot water. She smiled softly, feeling a warmth finally return to her heart.

At this moment, countless players like her, in different cities, on different mornings, in front of different screens, are putting on their battle uniforms, holding their keys tightly, and carrying the Sword of the Rift.

They are not about winning, but about moving forward.

To prove that I have walked through the astral world and am now on a journey in reality. (End of this chapter)