Chapter 165 Going Viral in The Mariana Empire!
Millions upon millions of search results all having his name, pictures, the shuffle maze he was playing in, videos of his battles, requests to join his club, people asking for his VR social media account, and many more interesting results.
The more he scrolled down, the bigger his grin got. He didn't believe that he would actually go viral in the UVR from his 2nd game only.
Although he went viral only in the Mariana Empire, it was more than enough for Felix, who never actually went viral even in the Alexandar kingdom! But now, the entire empire was talking about him!
Who could blame them?
Felix's run on the Shuffle Maze should have made him at least get nominated as an MVP of the month. He slew three beasts, two epics, and one legendary. His total kill tally was eight and three of them were hardcore players. All of this was done solo without anyone's assistance. Sadly, Zoe was his MC.
Somewhat eager, Felix clicked on a video and was transferred into the website called ]VRVidoes[. This site was almost the same as earthlings' youtube, just universal. But still, the site prioritizes showing videos based on the territory one was at.
Felix was in the Alexander Kingdom that was on the Mariana Empire territory, this meant only videos of the empire would reach his feed.
The site was designed as such to not confuse the viewers with the infinite number of videos. Though people could still watch other territories' videos. However, the process was a bit of a pain in the ass.
"Let's see how many viewers did I get." He smiled eagerly while scrolling down the video, wanting to check on view count as well as the comments. He didn't bother to watch the video as it was a replay of his fight with the Trypo Mother Spider.
"Hahaha! not bad, not bad at all!"
The moment his eyes landed on the eight-digit number, he couldn't help but laugh out loud, beyond satisfied.
A total of 98 million viewers in the past 6 hours or so, and still rising each second!
If it was another player, he would have probably cried himself out or made a party celebrate putting a real mark in the UVR.
However, Felix just smiled and continued scrolling down, checking on the comments and how did people react.
[This is my first time ever seeing a player fight against a legendary beast using only two active abilities!]
[No wonder he got viral! His bloodline let him use much more poison inducements than the known number!]
[Why was he totally unaffected by the mother spider's poison? Is it just me who thinks that was a bit weird?]
[Look at him dodge like a monkey! Tsk, can't believe even this type of player can go viral nowadays.]
[So nutty! I can't believe I actually missed watching this game live!]
The comments were endless, reaching hundreds of thousands, some were complementing Felix on his battle, some were simply trolling and hating on his fame.
Attracting hate was the true indicator of one going insanely famous. Thus, Felix wasn't annoyed by those comments. He simply ignored them and swiped the video to the left, wanting to see another one.
This time he didn't choose a fight against beasts but sought to see the viewers' reaction to his battle vs Solar Mist's party.
He kept scrolling down tens upon tens of his videos all about his battles and struggles in the maze. Some were about his fight with the Iron Titan, Terror Serpent, Lazy Rat, Charming Sky, and even Mastermania, while some videos were about him dodging the traps, entering the hidden compartment, showcasing fireworks, drama with Zoe, and such.
Everything that had any relation to Felix was split into parts and uploaded on the website.
"My fans are truly working their ass off." He smiled, "I should probably reward them later on."
Felix didn't even need to guess to know that his club were the ones responsible for editing those videos and uploading them so fast.
All of those videos took a good effort to be this well-made. No one had that much free time to help Felix increase his popularity besides his loyal fans.
Soon enough, Felix found what he was looking for. It was a video that was 15 minutes long and tilted ]Landlord Risen From The Dead![. Felix chuckled at the title and clicked play.
Surprised, he raised an eyebrow at what he was seeing. The video actually started from the middle of the maze, where Solar Mist's party were making amend to their plan.
Of course, the dragged out useless parts were edited, but what was said inside the video was enough for Felix to understand the full picture of what happened.
Before, he was planning to watch the game replay to solve his doubts. Such as Solar Mist's party locating him in such a short time, and especially, the reason that caused the game to be delayed until the last second. But now, there was no need. This video solved all of his doubts in one full sweep.
'No wonder that bastard nodded his head to me.' He thought of the time Hound Stench gave him a polite friendly nod.
He was solely responsible for finding him and putting him in that deadly situation, yet he had the nerve to nod in a friendly manner as nothing happened.
'Forget it, they did me a favor by blocking the exit.' He mused at the sight of 25 players all standing around the maze's exit, protecting it as their lives depended on it. He never thought that his enemies were the ones, who helped him get the championship in the end.
Truly good deeds arrive from one least expected.
After watching for only a couple of minutes, Felix stopped the video and scrolled down.
"Oh?"
The first thing he saw was the viewership that surpassed the 100 million barrier and was about to reach 150 million!
The Shuffle Maze game was watched live by only 35 million spectators. Yet, Felix's video had four times that amount!
Just 1% of those viewers deciding on a whim to follow Felix and his fanbase would increase by triple. In other words, his streaming revenue would increase by triple as well.
Soon, Felix began reading the comment section that had a million comments or so. He scrolled down while reading with his eyes the comments that interested him.
[To actually survive after getting hit by that sun, his ultimate ability was not a joke!]
[Astonishing, just astonishing...]
[Does anyone knows what the hell was that pitch-black inducement? I have never seen anything like it before, and I am a 3rd stage poison Elementalist!]
[I watched both of his games, and so far he used five more inducements on the original five he used in the first game!]
[A veteran player here, I just want to know how was he able to regain his energy back! Did he cheat or was his ultimate ability doing?]
Felix clicked on this comment and saw that he had hundreds of replies on it, each with their own unique answer.
[It must be his ultimate ability. It's impossible to cheat under the eyes of the Queen.]
However, the majority still commentated as such, believing that Felix's ultimate ability could heal him and also recover his energy. There were quite a few abilities that could do the same, so it wasn't really that hard to believe.
"Good, no one suspected anything." Felix was simply glad that everyone was duped by his passive ability.
As long as no one starts asking questions about the number of abilities he was using, he was good with them talking about anything else.
After a while, Felix got tired of watching his videos and reading comments. Although he liked what he was seeing, he knew that those videos weren't the cause that truly made him viral.
Those videos exploding with viewership were only a result, a result of something much bigger that happened in the UVR.
Felix knew exactly where to look. He typed ]Supremacy Games News[ in the search bar and a list of the latest trending news in the Mariana Empire was displayed before him. He clicked on the list and a side hologram was manifested to his right.
//
1)Shocking! Heaven's Melody drop down from platinum rank to gold rank!
2) Idol Enigma terminate his contract with the TNG agency!
3) Idol SunFire finally proposes to Miss Lilly!
4) Scandal! Madam Zoe MC/Judge on the verge of promotion, getting demoted to bronze games commentary instead!
5) Goranian Team clinches their 4th win in a row!
6) Monaka Planet, getting kicked out of the SGA after losing their first 5 games in a row!
...
19) Landlord a total anonymous player astonishes the empire with his 2nd game!
...
50) Mr. Instalock, will he finally join the promotion game to platinum rank? //
This list was called the SGN and it was the most credible trending list in the entire UVR, as it was made by personal of the SGA themselves. Any news that landed on this list, would never get doubted or questioned about its truthfulness. Just like VRV, the list was showcasing only news in the Mariana empire.
Every title led to an article written based on reliable facts from reliable sources. Not a single title was clickbait. This made Felix understand just from reading the title that he probably put Zoe in deep shit.
Cough, Cough!
A bit embarrassed, He coughed and clicked on the title, wanting to see if he really was the one who caused her to get demoted.
After reading for a while, and watching videos of what happened during the stadium, Felix knew without a doubt that he had absolutely no relation to Zoe's demotion!
The fact that he left the game without attending any ceremony, or even the fact he turned the spectators against Zoe before leaving, both of them were simply some of the fuses Zoe's rivals needed to take away her promotion to mid elo. It had nothing to do with Felix. The SGA wouldn't demote Zoe simply due to one player.
However, the same couldn't be said when a couple of MCs made sure that all of Zoe's in-game flaws were highlighted to the public, creating an outrage.
She made a lot of flaws inside the game. Even the fact she threatened that wounded player to not ruin her promotion was made public by the player himself and was included in the article.
Felix shook his head and stopped reading midway after knowing exactly how his name got in the tongue of the commoners.
In their journey to bring down Zoe, the MCs had to spot as much light as possible on Felix, the main character of the game, who in their own words inside the article, "Was treated unjustly by Zoe after everything that he had done inside the game."
This made people try to figure who was Felix and what exactly had he done in the game to be spoken this highly by many known low elo MCs.
After they watched the replay, they couldn't help but marvel at his bloodline, anonymous character, his fighting style, and especially the way he always battles solo.
He was unique from the rest. they saw it and they loved it. This made them share their favorite parts of his battles in their media feed.
Some shared his fight with the legendary beast, while some shared his battle with Solar Mist's party. What mattered was that Felix kept getting more and more attention until an SGN editor published an article written about Felix and his achievements. This article reached the top 20 in the trending list, and still climbing fiercely.
Just like a snowball, the more attention Felix got, the more people started to see how Zoe treated Felix at the very end of the game.
This was exactly what those MCs wanted, for Zoe's flaws inside the game to attract the public eyes, which in turn would attract the SGA's attention.
The moment that happened, those little flaws she made would be turned into deadly swords, sharp enough to cut Zoe's career into a half.
All of this juicy drama happened only in the six hours that Felix slept.
A known MC had fallen from grace to damnation in only six hours.
"Rest in peace Madam Zoe." Felix sighed, feeling a bit bad for Zoe's fate. Especially, after he saw that she actually made him the focal point of the game since the start.
But it is what it is.
Felix knew that the MCs weren't doing this out of spite or hate, but simply to remove another competitor from getting a promotion to mid elo.
The MCs like the players also had their own competition ongoing between them. Fighting for promotion was one of the many targets they had a rivalry for.
Titus, Marlion, and Zoe were called all low elo MCs, responsible for commentating and judging bronze, silver, and gold games.
They could never commentate on games at a higher rank than gold. Unless they got promoted to mid elo! However, that wasn't easy. Promotion spots were limited, and there were millions of them competing for those spots.
Zoe was one of the MCs, who had been in a promotion spot for a while now. She only needed one final push to reach the middle elo.
Felix's game was the one that was supposed to give her that push. Too bad, she made too many mistakes that accumulated into getting bailed out by everyone.
Her prank in the first shuffle made the players look badly at her. The fact she didn't announce that Felix got the unique title after he reached 10K GP. Most importantly, she tried to turn the spectators against Felix the champion. A foolish move she shouldn't have done. To top it off, threatening the wounded player.
All of those mistakes were used properly by her rivals to destroy her chances of getting that promotion. Now, she could only weep while commentating only on bronze games with MCs still in an internship.
Who knows when she would climb back to her promotion spot. Maybe it would take fifty games and maybe a hundred.
The only thing that Felix knew was that Zoe's MC career was doomed!
"Queen, please filter those emails. Show me only ones that were sent from high ranked players and top Idol agencies."