Chapter 99: Two Separate Millions

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

Although Xing Ta Ge didn’t care much for the publication of their manga—for he only wanted it as a starting portfolio piece—but seeing the successful review result of their first submission, he was still very excited.

Meng Fan was too.

So far, there had been several accomplishment tasks, fourteen in total. But To Meng Fan, there were only two tasks that he had genuinely wanted to complete. One is the illustrator task, and the other being the manga artist task.

Of course, he could not ignore the attribute rewards he’d gained from the other tasks.

Among these attribute rewards, Meng fan cared the most about the ones that could assist his drawing process, for example, hand speed.

He told himself it had been for finding love, but really, he was more concerned about his art.

If you asked Meng Fan what he spent most of his life’s time, then it would undoubtedly be… sleeping.

Of course, aside from sleeping, next would be drawing.

He could draw with a pen before he knew how to use chopsticks!

Although he had violated his mother’s original intention for him to become a famous traditional Chinese artist and became interested in manga, it was still relevant to art.

After passing the review, Meng Fan, like many newcomers, added his own publication to his collection. He changed the number of collections from 0 to 1. At this moment, an alert sounded in his head, signaling the unlocking of a new task.

“Ding! You’ve triggered the achievement task [Collector of Millions].”

“The task requires your online publication to be collected 1 million times.”

“Upon completion, you will receive the title [Collector of Millions] (Drawing skills +3, set design +3, screenwriting +3)”

There was only one task, with a +100 reward and no additional attributes.

Simply put, he’d have to complete the entire [Collector of Millions] task before he could receive any rewards. Moreover, the attributes were average and in small amounts. It was similar to the attributes of the manga artist task.

The [Manga artist] task was not hard, for it only required him to publish and produce a single volume, which could be done very simply.

But these one million collections were difficult to obtain. Even if you could count several mangas as points!

The rewards were the same though. Ridiculous.

In the system’s view, ‘difficulty’ was only incidental when it pertains to how much experience he can receive?

‘Hold on!’

Meng Fan thought. Since he had already triggered it by adding to a collection, could clicking also trigger it? It’s much easier to profit off clicks than for others to add the novel to a collection.

Each account could only add to their collection once, but if it was clicked, it could be repeatedly done according to the algorithms of the Penguin animation network.

Meng Fan had seen the rankings before. It was already terrifying and rare for someone to have a couple of million collectors, but as for clicks based on popularity, there were several in billions!

He swiftly refreshed the page.

He saw the popularity of his manga go from 0 to 1, but it did not trigger the task.

He gave up after trying several more times to no avail.

Achievement task unlocked. Heh. Let fate decide!

“Got it!”

Xing Ta Ge gave Meng Fan a high five, then chuckled. “Aside from the script, I’ll leave everything else to you!”

Meng Fan nodded. Based on Xing Ta Ge’s lazy tendencies, it was already a miracle for him to produce a script. He did not dream of asking for more.

Zhang Zhou Wei probed his head in. “You should refresh the interface and see your collections, I’ve advertised a lot for you guys.”

Meng Fan refreshed it and immediately saw over twenty or so collectors. Refreshing again, he’d received a dozen or so more. After three minutes, they had over 100 collectors.

Originally, he did not care much for the results, but thinking about it, who would oppose having a higher quality Manga? Although they were friendship ‘collectors’, it still counted!

In addition to the existence of the [Collector of Millions], Meng Fan couldn’t help but advertise it before the end of his stream.

If they watched Meng Fan’s stream, there was a ninety percent chance that his viewers were manga and anime enthusiasts. Coupled with seeing Meng Fan illustrate this manga previously on stream, they would be even more interested.

Most of the fickle netizens would have accounts already, and those who didn’t could just create one with QQ or Wechat. How convenient!

“This name is too badass!”

“Hahaha is this a real script?!”

“RoMANce? Is this Mr. Kato’s campus love story?”

“Are you sure it’s not about a juicy man?”

“Then the main female character would be the juice mixer!”

“Fatty you’re going to be 404’d like this!”

“I can tell it’s not a good thing based on seeing the name. I have to go report it!”

The extensive increase in collectors was incredible. After advertising it on stream, Meng Fan checked the interface. The collector count had gone from 100 or so to over 10,000.

Then… A ‘ding’ sounded in his head!

Didn’t the [Collector of Millions] task have phases? How come it rang after only 10,000 collectors?

Hearing it again, it had no relationship to the collections task.

“Ding! You’ve unlocked the task [One Million Merits].”

“Task requires your online manga publication to receive 1 million HXB worth of merit points.”

“Upon completion, you will receive the achievement title [One Million Merits] (Drawing skill +3, set design +3, screenwriting +3)”

The rewards were exactly the same as [Collector of Millions]. It also had the same process with only one task, rewarding +100 points and no other attributes.

Meng Fan looked at the task progress. 8/1,000,000.

Following after, it increased to 18,26,126… evidently, his fickle netizens had been giving his manga merit points.

So clicking based on popularity doesn’t trigger anything, but merit points will? This system really f*cking treats anyone with money as their father, doesn’t it?

The currency exchange ratio for Penguin animation’s merit points was 100:1. These merits were directly converted into HuaXia currency in the process of being gifted.

The animation and manga creations on Penguin’s platform could receive merit points without having a contract, but they would not be able to receive the monthly pass—for example, if they earned an honorary trophy worth 100,000 points, they could earn 5 monthly passes, but people without contracts wouldn’t be able to receive them. Of course, it’s even less likely to receive a recommendation by the platform if you are not signed to a contract.

It’s too hard to become famous without support from a platform.

When he logged off the stream, he had received over 60,000 collections, and several merit points as well, over two thousand HXB!

His popularity increased to over 1 million.

“Does popularity only increase by these merit points?”

Meng Fan was uncertain about how his popularity would be calculated. He searched the web but did not find an official explanation, nor an editor to ask.

Editor?

The editor probably would ask you which sky you fell from!

Once the campus editor Yi Xin saw the review for ‘Guide to Campus RoMANce’, they had directly added the manga to his list of concerning subjects. It wasn’t because of the inappropriate content he feared for the manga contained, but the art style, and the artist’s skill!

As a manga practitioner, and an editor for a manga platform, Yi Xin was very observative. Regardless, if the plot was good and the art style mattered a bit more. And this person’s drawing style was really up there!

Badass!

This was Yi Xin’s evaluation for the manga. Conservatively estimating, this manga could rival over 97% of the authors in this industry!

For a newcomer, this style of art was to his appetite. It was comfortable to look at!

As for the storyline, he was still inconclusive.

Better observe it for a while.

He did not expect that in such a short time period, the manga’s numbers began to soar. No matter how he looked at it, it was not a data anomaly.

And this author’s name, he couldn’t remember it for a long time. Could it be some god’s throwaway account?

After reading the comments under this manga, it wasn’t difficult to realize what was going on. Several people mentioned the name ‘Meng host’, which made Yi Xin more confused. Could it be a popular artist from the drawing category of a stream?

After searching “Meng Fatty’s Open Server”, eight links immediately popped up. After clicking into it, the stream was already offline. But he was still able to extract some data, such as the amount of viewers and how many gifts he received etc.

Originally the plan was to observe for a while. But now, Yi Xin felt like it could sign a contract off the bat. After all, not every author was so popular.

According to the data from “Meng Fatty’s Open Server”, this author’s own popularity could rival that of a small god.

The blackened interface was short so it did not respond for a long time.

Yi Xin thought about it and decided to fill out his info from the account details, then added Meng Fan on QQ.

Meng Fan hadn’t logged into his QQ in centuries. How could he have seen it?

Even if he did log in, based on the number of friend requests because of his presence, there was no way he would see it.

After waiting for a while, Yi Xin thought about it for a moment, then called the number listed on the account.

Hehe. Unknown numbers were straight-up blocked!