Chapter 71: A Brand New Streaming Studio

Independent media—don’t bother with all those convoluted explanations. Take it at face value: it’s about promoting yourself, drawing others’ attention.

Huang Yunshuo searched the keyword “moron.” To his satisfaction, there were no heavyweight IPs under that keyword, which was a good sign. Without hesitation, he registered “Moron” as his independent media channel ID.

If he wanted this IP to become popular, he’d have to invest heavily. No doubt, plenty of viewers would be looking for him after seeing his revised livestream title—there wasn’t a second to lose.

Steeling himself, Huang Yunshuo began to splurge.

A million credit points to keep “moron” pinned at the top of search results for twenty days.

A million credit points to buy a million searches for “moron drz02825” in the search bar.

Three million credit points to purchase three days of featured rotation for his channel’s image across the entire independent media platform.

Exhaling lightly, Huang Yunshuo opened the livestream room he’d just created.

He manually set the room ID to drz02825 and changed the title to “Hey brats, look over here”—those who’d watched his streams before would recognize this signature phrase of his, and Huang Yunshuo was curious to see how many would flock in on short notice.

On an impulse, he’d abandoned the starfield platform’s livestream room, but looking back, he had no regrets. Sometimes, you had to make a clean break. With his streaming style, he’d get banned eventually, so it was better to strike while his audience base was hot, carving out a bloody path on the independent media platform—mainly overseen by Skynet Intelligence.

Plenty of people streamed on independent media, and successful cases abounded—he could name several streamers with over a hundred million followers. The platform was akin to the Weibo and forums of humanity’s distant past, where people gossiped and idled away time—a force of terrifying influence.

But as far as he knew, no one had ever become a top-tier “Reforging Era” streamer on independent media. That was the opportunity: if he could seize the initiative and lure over the audience who watched “Reforging Era” streams, he’d be set.

Upon entering his stream room, Huang Yunshuo didn’t fixate on the chat; instead, he started setting up the gifts system.

“Small gifts at 0.1 and 0.2 credits—there are so many types it’s giving me a headache. I’ll leave the naming and images to Piaoxue and Yinjie; they can have fun with it.”

“Medium gifts at six credits—let’s keep it simple and call it ‘Poison.’ I hope everyone who watches my streams feels as if they’ve been poisoned, and my stream is the antidote—skip a day, and the poison kicks in!”

“High-tier gifts at 100 credits—let’s stick with ‘Plane.’”

“500 credits, ‘Mecha.’”

“1314 credits, ‘Assault Ship.’”

“3334 credits, ‘Escort Ship.’”

“8013 credits, ‘Destroyer.’”

“20184 credits, ‘Cruiser.’”

“59420 credits, ‘Battleship.’”

“177155 credits, ‘Mothership.’”

Having set up the gifts system, Huang Yunshuo let out a dry laugh, feeling a bit guilty.

On the starfield streaming platform, only when a streamer hit the million or ten million follower mark would they start adding pricier gifts beyond the 1314-credit yacht. But here he was, not even sure if he’d flop, yet his gifts started at several thousand or even tens of thousands of credits. Was this too greedy? The audience would probably call him a moron.

“Welcome, lv0 That Year, That Night, That Sea, to the stream.”

“Welcome, lv0 Cucumber with a Fishy Smell, to the stream.”

Turning his gaze to the chat, he caught these two welcome messages at the bottom of the scroll—both familiar names.

Since everyone was entering the stream room for the first time, all accounts were set to level 0, including Huang Yunshuo’s own.

Hundreds of welcome messages already filled the chat, and the room’s popularity had reached five hundred. Strangely, though, no one was saying anything.

“Whew.”

Watching viewers stream in, Huang Yunshuo breathed a little easier. Thankfully, his reckless move hadn’t crashed and burned on the spot. Judging by the momentum, the popularity would likely hit a thousand soon.

He just wondered how many of his 295,000 followers would actually make the jump and follow him again.

Another challenge: how to draw in new viewers?

Was he supposed to just milk his existing followers? That was out of the question.

He needed to find ways to attract new viewers by all means necessary, so more and more people would know his stream room number on the independent media channel and be drawn in.

If his stream ever caught fire, it would boost the “Moron” IP’s buzz and activity level, putting him on the trending and homepage lists for free—then his work drawing in viewers would be done. With untold numbers of users on the independent media channel every day, he believed everything would turn out well.

“It’s a pity—the homepage fixed image promotion is outrageously expensive, ten million credits a day. No way I can afford that. The rotating image promotion is cheaper, a million credits a day, but it’s nowhere near as effective.”

Rubbing his forehead, Huang Yunshuo cleared his throat.

“Back to mining. If you’re not interested, just get lost.”

He grabbed a new pickaxe and resumed his laborious mining, this time forgoing the usual catchy tunes—he just wasn’t in the mood.

“Damn, this guy’s insane—a 177,000-credit Mothership? That’s over a hundred yachts!”

“How come there aren’t basic gifts for 0.1 or 0.2 credits? Not even freebies?”

“Don’t you know? On independent media, you have to design everything yourself, even the streaming gifts. He probably just hasn’t gotten to it yet.”

“Doesn’t matter if the gifts are expensive—I’m not buying any anyway. Unless this damn streamer can make me money.”

“Making money isn’t impossible. If you get lucky and win a prize, you could score tens of thousands of credits.”

“True. I’ll just wait for my lucky break.”

As Huang Yunshuo resumed mining, the chat finally livened up.

Many of his viewers found him again through keyword searches and entered the stream room. Some players browsing the channel stumbled upon “Moron” in the trending topics or saw the rotating homepage promo, clicked in out of curiosity.

On the official “Reforging Era” forums, posts sprang up describing Huang Yunshuo’s dramatic confrontation with the super moderator and his abandonment of his old stream, detailing his first conquest of the Cataclysmic Giggler and his formidable streaming skills—each post attracted plenty of players to check him out.

In the “Nine Little Melons in Harmony” group, the chat was flying.

“Did you get into his stream?” Yu Shiyin asked.

Song Ting: “I’m in. I’m speechless at his gifts system… daylight robbery, he’s so shameless.”

Chen Juanfeng: “There are already two thousand viewers and rising—follower count is at 1,391. An excellent sign!”