Gamer Superstar - Chapter 17

[Bonus Chapter] 17 – New Mission
When I got home, my mom hadn’t arrived with Olivia yet, as they were still going to Ethan’s school to pick him up, so I quickly went to the computer in my room and used the phishing from Principal Adams’ email to Jackson’s email.

Unlike his dad, Jackson would probably take a while to reply, while I just minimized the tab and checked my MeTube video.

[56,523 views 1,813 subscribers].

Looking at these numbers, I had a big smile on my face because I was just over 23,000 views away from the 4,000 hours I needed to monetize my channel!

As far as I knew, the RPM I would receive per thousand views would be around $0.70, but even though it was a low number, it would still be good extra money to receive.

Thinking about money, I had another idea.

Opening my phone, I realized that this world actually had an app called Spokify, which as you can imagine is a music streaming app, but since it was focused on music, the amount this app paid was much more than what MeTube paid.

According to my research, every 1000 views on this app paid about $4, which was almost 6 times more than MeTube, but unlike MeTube, on Spokify I could only post the song once, maybe twice, singing in a different style.

On MeTube, on the other hand, I could post the song in an acoustic version, I could post a music video, I could post a collab, and of course I could also use the visibility of the channel to post vlogs and other things as the channel got bigger, generating a lot more potential revenue.

Not to mention that MeTube was much better for promoting my music and making a name for myself, while Spokify was better for those who already had a name and people were looking for them there.

At the moment, my music will probably get few views there, but over time, keeping my profile updated there might surprise me with some extra revenue from people who start looking for my music there to put on their playlists.

Just as I finished setting up my Spokify profile and posting the acoustic version of Numb, my mom arrived with Olivia and Ethan.

As expected, the first thing she did when she got home was come into my room and ask me.

“What happened, Noah? Why did you leave by yourself?” she asked, worried and suspicious.

Luckily, from the way she asked, she didn’t know that I had missed class.

This school really sucked, they didn’t even notify the parents when a student didn’t show up for school?

At least I could use this to my advantage.

“It’s okay, Mom. I felt a little bad in my last class and asked to leave early. Since I’ve always been a good student, they let me go.” I lied.

Still suspicious, my mother looked me up and down and asked. “Why did you feel sick? Why didn’t you call me to pick you up?”

“I was feeling a little claustrophobic at school, I needed some fresh air, so I went back and took the time to think about the next song I wanted to write.” I said.

As soon as I told her about the song, she became visibly depressed, which made me feel very bad.

“Ah… okay…” She replied sadly as she turned and left the room.

If it was Noah from my old world, I probably wouldn’t have cared, but with the memories of Noah from this world and the feelings I had for her, I felt like crap for saying that and making her feel bad again, so I couldn’t control myself and explained.

“This new song isn’t about you, Mom, don’t worry. When the song is done, can I show it to you?” I asked.

Hearing my request and the explanation that she wouldn’t be the subject of the next song, she became more excited, but still a little sad. “Sure, when you’re done call me and I’ll be the first to hear it.”

Seeing her leave the room still a little shaken made me feel bad.

Luckily, shortly after she left, Ethan came into the room with his little backpack and asked me to help him with his homework.

His happiness cheered me up, and seeing my Teach skill level rising gave me a small dose of dopamine to lift me up.

[Teach Lv 15 -> Lv 16

Effect: When teaching others, as long as you know what you’re teaching, they have a 16% greater chance of understanding what you’re explaining].

With this buff, Ethan’s improvement was clear as day. Content that he had struggled to learn in the past was now much easier for him!

This was good news for everyone, as Ethan was finally reaching the level of knowledge he should have for a child his age.

When I’d finished helping him with his homework, I decided to take advantage of the feeling I was getting and went to practice In The End some more.

Really, this feeling while practicing worked wonders with the speed of improvement I experienced.

[Singing Lv 22 -> Lv 23

Effect: +23% efficiency when practicing singing, +23% chance that whoever hears your voice when you sing will like what they hear].

[Guitar Lv 26 -> Lv 27

When you play guitar, you learn 27% faster and have a 27% greater chance that other people will enjoy listening to you play].

With the two skills increasing in level, I learned to play the song even faster, I might be able to record and post this song tomorrow.

[Ding! New mission!]

[Mission: Your first song was a success, now make a second song that will captivate the audience of the first song even more, to the point where they become your true fans.

Goal: Gain 5,000 loyal fans before releasing the third song].

[Reward: ???]

[Accept?]

Of course I would accept it! Even if I didn’t know what the reward would be, even if it was just 1 extra point in a statistic, what’s the harm in trying to get more fans and make my second song captivate the public? Haha.

It’s a good thing I decided to make the song In The End, because with this song, the chance of me capturing those fans is very high… now there’s only one question left… how do I know who my fan really is?

After accepting the mission, when I reopened the mission screen in System, I could see my completion rate.

[Current Loyal Fans: 91/5,000].

Damn, I’m only at 2%, and I don’t even know how I got those numbers…

Maybe I could try to develop my virtual personality more? Make myself more approachable and let people see me as a person and not just a voice singing a song?

I think that would be a good idea.

The ideal would be to just show myself in the videos, but with my current appearance, not only will it not help, but it will probably hinder the mission because people tend to like things that are more aesthetically pleasing, and as much as I am not aesthetically displeasing anymore since my charisma is already at 8, it would not be good if I just broke the expectation that the public has of me, so I can stay in the dark until my appearance looks really good.

As for how to stay in the dark and still have a persona worthy of the public’s admiration, the first thing that came to mind was the band Gojirraz from my old world, who used cartoon characters to sing their songs in music videos, and it was so unique that it became a whole symbolism for them.

For me, I didn’t want to do something as cartoonish as they did because they even had a character who was a zombie.

I sat down at the computer and opened the drawing program and started to put my ideas on paper.

One thing I really missed in this world was my bleached hair, so I decided to make my character with bleached hair on top, with a black base, and the hairstyle would be the same as my current hair, but in a more cartoonish way.

The character’s eyes would be blue like mine, and to give him more of a rock vibe, I gave him some tattoos.

For the art style, I obviously didn’t use the furry style, even though that’s the style I’m most used to at the moment.

The style I used was a mix of anime with a more cartoony style like the Gojirraz from my old world, which made it look like my character was between 13 and 17 years old.

It was a striking visual identity, but one that was still relatable, especially with the outfit I made, which looked like he was wearing a generic black band outfit, something I think the target audience for my songs would normally wear.

I know not everyone is like that, but forgive me for generalizing.

With the character finished, all that was left was to make some animations, and the idea I had could be very good.

I made BV, the nickname I gave him, hold an old guitar while practicing in a room similar to mine, but in a cartoon version.

To realize my idea, I had to take the guitar and record myself playing the chorus of this song so that I could synchronize the animation of the character with the actual movement I was making, and damn, it turned out better than I imagined!

[Digital Illustration Lv 30 -> Lv 31]

Hell, my Digital Illustration skill even went up a level! After it reached level 30, the difficulty of leveling up increased a lot.

Creating the animation was more time-consuming and complicated than I had imagined, so I had to take a lunch break before finishing it.

When I went downstairs for lunch, I ran into Olivia on the stairs, who stopped and stared at me.

“Are you okay?” she asked worriedly.

“I’m better, did you see the picture?” I asked.

“Yes… I was furious, but I didn’t know what to do… when I looked for you, you were nowhere to be found…” She said as she slumped her shoulders in frustration.

“I’m sorry, I could have talked to you before I left.” I said as I put a hand on her shoulder.

“All right… did you manage to find out who did it?” she asked as she looked at me expectantly.

“Yes, we probably won’t see him or his father again after today.” I said, smiling proudly.

“His father? Who was that?” She asked interestedly.

“Did you see Principal Adams’ FaceShoot?” I asked with a laugh.

“No? Does that have anything to do with this?” She asked as she picked up her phone and quickly searched for his FaceShoot page.

“He’s the father of the idiot who took that picture, I guess after what happened with his FaceShoot, neither of them will be showing up to school tomorrow.” I replied, laughing as I walked down the stairs, leaving Olivia staring at her phone screen in shock.