[DING!]
[All Defense Towers have been detected to be fully socketed with Level 6 Gemstones!]
[Reward Trait: All Defense Towers' range increased by 25%.]
[DING!]
[All Defense Towers have been detected to be fully socketed with Level 7 Gemstones!]
[Reward Trait: All Defense Towers' Attack Speed increased by 35%.]
[DING!]
[All equipment has been detected to be fully socketed with Level 8 Gemstones!]
[Reward: Crystal Health increased by 30%, Tower Master skill effectiveness increased by 20%, Tower Master equipment trait granted—Unbreakable!]
System notifications flooded his screen. After fully socketing his Defense Towers with Level 5 Gemstones, he surprisingly received a new trait for every subsequent Gemstone level. The rewards included boosts to fundamental Defense Tower Attributes like range, Attack Power, and Attack Speed. Shen Fei had not expected this at all; it was a pleasant surprise.
With the combined buffs from various Enhancements, Bonds, skills, and Auras, the fundamental attributes of Shen Fei's Tenth Tier Defense Towers, such as range, had already increased by two to three times compared to their base versions. He hadn't expected another wave of new traits on top of that. This caused his Defense Towers' basic Attributes to skyrocket once again, granting them a massive boost. For example, after all the different buffs, the range attribute alone of his first Tenth Tier Defense Tower—the Lightning Ball Tower—had increased from the initial 5 km to the current 15 km. The improvements to its other Attributes were just as significant.
After socketing the Gemstones, it wasn't just the Defense Towers that were upgraded. His Tower Master set, which had thirty Gemstone sockets, also granted a large number of bonus traits after being filled with Level 8 Gemstones. Among them, the one that made Shen Fei happiest was the equipment trait he received—"Unbreakable."
Just like Defense Towers, Tower Master equipment also had Durability. Although his Auras and skills allowed Durability to regenerate automatically, no amount of regeneration could beat being unbreakable. This Unbreakable trait, granted for socketing Level 8 Gemstones, was a continuous source of delight for Shen Fei.
"Not bad, not bad at all!"
A wide smile spread across Shen Fei's face as he reviewed the huge wave of extra rewards. He had just been estimating that this round of Gemstone socketing would raise his Combat Power by thirty million. But looking at it now, with the buffs from the rewarded traits, it was clear the increase would blow past thirty million!
SWOOSH.
Opening the Combat Power rankings, Shen Fei saw that his own Combat Power had already exceeded 280 million! The recent Gemstone upgrades had given him a grand total of fifty million Combat Power. Even though it was late at night, Shen Fei saw that as his Combat Power rose again, the world channel exploded once more.
"Extra! Extra! Brother Chongtian's Combat Power just jumped by another 50 million!"
"Brother Chongtian's latest Krypton Gold project is Gemstones!"
"Based on estimates, Brother Chongtian spent at least 150 million!"
"Brother Chongtian is dominating the top 100 on the Gemstone Level leaderboard!"
On the game Forum, someone posted a screenshot of Shen Fei's latest Combat Power. Many of those who were constantly watching Shen Fei's profile instantly calculated the amount of his Krypton Gold spending. After nearly a month of this, Shen Fei's Krypton Gold spending was already supporting a number of independent content creators. These people made a living by analyzing Shen Fei's data, making predictions, offering explanations, and providing commentary to gain fans and popularity. It had basically become an entire industry.
Rumor had it that some of the top creators in this niche were living quite comfortably. These people would praise Shen Fei endlessly on the Forum. Their goal was to encourage Shen Fei to keep spending so they could continue to live off him.
"Help me!!"
"Help me, I can't take it anymore! Stop flexing!! Stop tormenting us single people!"
"Does your mom know you spend money like this?!"
Regular players, their defenses shattered once again, were ranting wildly in the thread.
"I thought Lu Bu... no, I mean, I thought the previous fifty-million-point increase was the limit. I never expected another fifty million on top of that!!"
"Brother Chongtian, have you lost your mind?!"
Someone lamented Shen Fei's back-to-back fifty-million Combat Power increases. Not only was the frequency high, but the magnitude of the increase was also enormous, surpassing everyone's expectations.
"What's wrong with it?!"
"Our Brother Chongtian was quietly grinding dungeons for a week. Now that he's done, what's wrong with a good round of upgrades?!"
"He's been busy for a week, can't he just upgrade his stuff and enjoy himself a little?!"
Where there were haters, there were, of course, fans. A steady stream of replies from people trying to stir the pot appeared on the Forum. As for who were the high-level trolls and who were the genuine fans, that was up for debate.
"Brother Kaipan! Get out here!"
"The whale's Combat Power went up by a hundred million today! What about the odds?! You didn't even set odds for a hundred-million-point increase!"
"FUCK! REFUND!!"
Players who had bet on Sun Yu were trying to find loopholes to get their wagers back.
"Matchmaking! Matchmaking!"
"Young lady here, own my own house and car, fair-skinned and beautiful. No dowry, no need for a house or car from you, buy one get one free. PM me if you're interested!"
All sorts of varied and colorful messages appeared on the Forum. The bustling game Forum attracted a huge number of people.
"Extra! Extra!"
"Brother Chongtian is out of money!!"
"Brother Chongtian chickened out!!"
"According to our investigation, the Gemstones Brother Chongtian socketed aren't max-level Level 9 Gemstones! He only used Level 8 and Level 7 Gemstones!"
A few minutes later, another thread on the Forum went viral. Someone had discovered that the Gemstones Shen Fei socketed were not the highest level. This was different from his usual style, where everything he got was always the highest level possible.
"Whoa! I went and checked, it's true!!"
"Brother Chongtian doesn't have a single Level 9 Gemstone this time!"
"He's dry! He's finally been squeezed dry!!!"
Someone immediately replied, even posting a screenshot from when they checked.
"Crowdfund! Crowdfund!"
"Let's crowdfund and gift Brother Chongtian a Level 9 Gemstone!"
Someone—it was hard to tell if they were a fan or a scammer—immediately started a crowdfunding campaign online. They wanted to crowdfund a Level 9 Gemstone for Shen Fei.
"You've gotta be some fucking broke-ass who's never bought a Gemstone before!"
"Do you know how much a single Level 9 Gemstone costs?!"
"Two million!!!"
"That's more expensive than your house!!" a player who knew the price of Gemstones retorted.
"Holy crap!"
"That expensive?!"
"I can't even imagine the joy of being rich..."
Hearing that a single Level 9 Gemstone was worth two million, many players who had never done the math were simply stunned.
"Greedy boss!"
"Greedy game company!"
"This shit is more expensive than a real-life gemstone of the same size. That's fucked up..."
Led by certain instigators, the players' attention shifted to complaining about the game company. This Gemstone system was, indeed, ridiculously expensive.
In the office of the company behind Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms, the boss, who hadn't been getting any rest, saw the complaints about him on the Forum and felt a mix of emotions. It had been almost a month, and the game company's boss couldn't sleep well at night. For the first half of the month, he was too excited to sleep because his game had attracted such a whale. But for the latter half, after he removed the spending limits and saw this whale mindlessly pouring money in—exceeding a billion in total—he was too worried to sleep.
I don't want to do this either! What can I do?! This is just my own little game, a tiny tower defense game. If I don't do this, there aren't enough things for people to spend money on! Even so, this billion-spending whale has almost exhausted all the Krypton Gold options!
At this point, the game company's boss felt a little numb. Ever since the disciplinary department had raided him in the middle of the night, he had raised the permissions for the "Skyrocketing" game account to the highest level. No one else had the authority to view this account's information anymore. However, what the boss didn't expect was that, a few days later, his company was hit by a hacker attack. But what surprised him even more was that another group of people suddenly emerged from the shadows to protect his game company. Additionally, he started receiving invitations to numerous industry conferences and circles he previously had no access to. This made the game company's boss feel like he was caught in a conspiracy.
For the past week, he had been holed up in his office every day, not daring to go anywhere. He was afraid of getting dragged into some major turmoil and being assassinated. After all, no one in human history had ever spent a billion on Krypton Gold in a game. Although he had hidden Skyrocketing's Krypton Gold information for a while, some data could still be reverse-engineered from the Combat Power increases in the game. The game company's boss felt like a storm was brewing. Because of this, he obediently refrained from making any more changes to Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms.
Taking a deep breath, the game company's boss turned his gaze to a screen beside him.
Is it really that fun?
The boss had secretly created an account and started playing himself. But after forcing himself to play for half a month, he didn't find the game fun at all.
When are these big shots finally going to leave? My little temple can't house such great deities! the game company's boss lamented inwardly.
There was the unprecedented Krypton Gold spending, the various hacker battles, and even people running betting pools on the Forum. The Forum threads were filled with supporters, opponents, flatterers, and slanderers. The game company's boss felt a sense of terror. He was worried that his little game was being used as a "gladiatorial arena" by certain people. After all, he had heard rumors of both "public markets" and "dark markets" for betting.