"Hm?"
Inside the office of a leather factory owner in Wenzhou, Huang Yi froze for a moment when he saw the notification on his phone.
[Dear Player, congratulations on reaching number one on the Golden Orchid Value Leaderboard!]
[You have received a special Defense Tower blueprint as a reward. Please log in to view it!]
Another new event?
As a leather factory owner, Huang Yi's way of relaxing was to play a game called Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms. He loved the scenes of monsters swarming in like a tide, only to be mowed down in droves by his Defense Towers.
For this reason, he had spent millions on this niche game, becoming number one on the in-game Combat Power leaderboard.
Because he liked traditional culture, his in-game name was "Taiyi Zhenren." Furthermore, all of his Ninth Tier MAX Defense Towers were of the Immortal style. The monsters in Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms were so varied that the game featured Defense Towers of every conceivable style, but Huang Yi only used Immortal-style ones.
He even had a dedicated VIP customer service representative. Whenever he had a spare moment, he would message them, asking them to develop more blueprints for Immortal-style Defense Towers. Unfortunately, the game wasn't very popular, and the company's updates were rather lackluster.
Looking at the notification on his phone, Huang Yi realized another new update had arrived. His eyes lit up, and he quickly logged into the game.
Then, he discovered that a new Golden Orchid Value Leaderboard for the sworn brotherhood had been added. Huang Yi also saw that a player named "Skyrocketing" had sent him ten thousand Golden Orchids, putting them in a tie for first place on the Golden Orchid List.
I don't like being in anyone's debt!
After adding Skyrocketing as a friend, Huang Yi sent his own 10,000 Golden Orchids to "Skyrocketing."
DING!
[You have gifted 10,000 Golden Orchids and gained 10,000 Golden Orchid Value!]
[Congratulations to you and your friend Skyrocketing. Your Golden Orchid Value has reached 20,000, and you remain tied for first place on the Golden Orchid List!]
[Reward...]
After Huang Yi sent the Golden Orchids, the same text notifications quickly appeared.
Have there been more events lately? And the Defense Tower cap has been raised to the Tenth Tier?
After checking the new sworn brotherhood event, Huang Yi quickly saw that the level cap for Defense Towers had also been raised to the Tenth Tier.
Upgrade!
He saw that his new friend, 'Skyrocketing', had already synthesized a Tenth Tier Defense Tower, taking first place on the Defense Tower Level Leaderboard.
Huang Yi immediately opened his inventory and got to work. Previously, the top five spots on the Defense Tower Level Leaderboard were all his towers. He also knew that the next five were shills. However, the shills were very polite, only occupying ranks 6 through 10 and leaving the top five to him, so he didn't say anything about it.
But now that first place had been taken, Huang Yi was not having it. To reclaim the top five spots, he opened his mobile banking app and quickly recharged his account to upgrade his towers.
. . .
"Holy crap! People are still spending money like this in this game?"
A discussion erupted on the Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms game forum. Seeing the notifications for several Tenth Tier Defense Tower syntheses scroll rapidly across the world channel, some veteran players were stunned.
A single Tenth Tier Defense Tower, if one didn't spend time doing daily quests or collecting login rewards and relied purely on Krypton Gold, would cost 500,000 RMB.
Everyone was dumbfounded seeing the notifications for Tenth Tier Defense Towers appear in an instant.
In Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms, most people's playstyle was to get one high-level Defense Tower as their main DPS, then add some support towers to help it farm mobs. No one would have a full set of high-level Defense Towers.
Unless that person was… the game's number one whale—Taiyi Zhenren.
"Looks like the great Taiyi Zhenren is putting on a show again..." a veteran player remarked sourly upon seeing Huang Yi's game account.
"Is that Skyrocketing a shill? I see he also has a Tenth Tier Defense Tower, and he was even the first one to create one. He has over a dozen Ninth Tier Defense Towers too!"
"Of course he's a shill. A single Ninth Tier Defense Tower costs seventy or eighty thousand! He's definitely a shill!"
"If he's not a shill, then he's an idiot. Spending so much on a three-year-old game is just plain stupid!"
On the Defense Tower Level Leaderboard, there were now six Tenth Tier Defense Towers. Aside from the universally known number one player of Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms, "Taiyi Zhenren," the other belonged to a player named "Skyrocketing."
Shen Fei's account was also being inspected by the players. However, most people thought Shen Fei was a shill.
"Great Taiyi, I found a new game recently. Want to take us all with you to go play it?"
The world channel was full of all sorts of people. Some were even trying to recruit players for other games.
. . .
"Boss! Taiyi Zhenren just topped up—two million!"
At the game company's headquarters, the operations manager once again found the boss. As a top Krypton Gold whale closely monitored by the game company, Huang Yi's recharge was spotted by a dedicated staff member not long after he made it.
"That's fantastic!" The game company's boss hadn't expected that his attempt to retain Shen Fei would also lure out their other major whale. It was a double blessing!
"Boss, should we set up a new game mode to pit the two against each other?" the operations manager asked quickly.
"No rush. First, let's make sure Skyrocketing is securely hooked! Also, go get the paid posters to stir things up on the game forum. Just say that this Skyrocketing is a shill. Don't let him get poached by other games!" The boss waved his hand, laying out his plan.
Two Krypton Gold whales in one game. This was the situation a game company loved to see most. As long as they could get the two whales to compete, they wouldn't have to worry about them not spending money. They wouldn't even need to launch new events; the two whales would automatically top up huge amounts on their own.
Although his was a special type of tower defense game, rules were made by people, after all. As long as they could make the whales fall in love with the game, then all sorts of rules and modes could be created.
"Boss, I think we should add some super Experience Pills to the shop, and also some nostalgic Defense Tower blueprints!" the operations manager offered his new idea.
"Tell me more." The boss, who had a similar idea in mind, nodded for the operations manager to continue.
"Since we have a second whale, and this Skyrocketing's current spending is no less than Huang Yi's! But this Skyrocketing has been playing for a very short time. His Crystals aren't even max level yet, so he can't experience many game modes. Plus, he's missing many of the old Defense Tower blueprints. We need to provide him with more channels for Krypton Gold spending!"
"Only when we've helped Skyrocketing quickly power up to a comparable level will he be able to compete with Huang Yi!" The operations manager proposed releasing more special items to speed up the formation of Shen Fei's game account.
"Makes sense!" The boss nodded in agreement; this was what he had been thinking as well. "You go arrange it. Have the development team get this stuff online overnight!"
"Okay!" The operations manager immediately agreed. He began to look forward to seeing how much the two whales would end up spending once they were pitted against each other. As long as the two of them spent a lot, his bonus would be incredibly large.
"Be careful. Don't let other 'human traffickers' lure this whale away..." the boss added a word of caution before the operations manager left.
The so-called 'human traffickers' were professionals who specialized in poaching players for other games, especially Krypton Gold whales. Countless people wanted to pull these types of players over to their own games.
"Got it!" Nodding, the operations manager hurried off to get busy...