Sigh...
Qi Yuan let out a deep sigh. If only the Ancient God Cult hadn't stirred things up so early, he could have enjoyed a relaxing New Year.
Having never worked in a factory, the student instinct was ingrained in his bones.
New Year's should rightfully be a time for lazing about.
While sighing and grumbling, he completely erased the hard-working Three Bamboo monsters. He tried to console himself - work hard this year, slack off next year.
As the experience card disappeared, Qi Yuan couldn't help but lament how difficult it was to go from luxury to frugality.
SS-rank wasn't weak, but compared to power beyond SSS-rank...
He hoped these spectators would go back and promote vigorously, so his grueling efforts wouldn't be in vain.
Thinking of this, Qi Yuan couldn't help but recall that group of "staff members," coldly turning to head home.
Damn it, there were too many!
The awkwardness of their acting was secondary. To present a better stage effect, he had already practiced privately... uh... for less than two and a half years. His thick skin was trained, so this was just a minor issue.
The thought of the massive memory influx assaulting his brain made him uncomfortable. Finding a cozy spot to lie down before dismissing his clone was the way to go.
As he was quickly knocked out by the clone's memory impact...
Ten thousand miles away from Jidu, countless lights illuminated the Three Bamboo Hotel. YouTubers who had witnessed the entire event fiddled with their equipment, constantly replaying the recorded content.
Fried and his three companions were among those burning the midnight oil.
"Mellen," Bernice messed up her hair, completely disregarding her image as she anxiously called out, "Did the drone capture that terrifying entity?!"
She shouted at the top of her lungs, "Our minds went blank at that moment, we didn't capture anything!"
Mellen stared intently at the computer screen, adjusting the brightness of the footage captured by the drone as he worked on a new video. As for the full recording, he hadn't even looked at it before uploading.
Whether or not their embarrassing behavior was captured no longer mattered - no one would be watching them anyway.
Called several times by Bernice, he absent-mindedly replied, "I don't know either, haven't looked closely yet. But don't get your hopes up, the drone's recording time wasn't very long."
He had bought a very decent drone, but with events unfolding one after another, he hadn't even had time to charge it.
Most of the time, he had forgotten about aerial photography, simply holding onto the drone, which was why it had lasted so long.
"Have you uploaded the video? I'll go take a look."
"Yes, you know my account name."
Having got her answer, Bernice stopped pestering him.
YouTube's policy was to publish first and review later. As long as it passed the automated review, the video could be released. So Bernice didn't need to wait for approval; she could view the video by logging into Mellen's account.
She clicked on the video and dragged the progress bar, searching for the desired footage.
Bernice's gaze was fixed, and as she dragged to near the end, her eyes lit up.
The video angle suddenly changed, and she saw Mellen running towards an empty space. This was when they went to check the "ruins" to see who had dealt with the monster, and then encountered a child.
The key point was that Mellen had set the automatic tracking mode.
She remembered the mysterious child exchanging a few words with the old man, and then the terrifying entity appeared immediately after.
Sure enough...!
Dragging the progress bar a bit further, the scene from that moment appeared.
Bernice was dumbfounded after seeing it clearly. The on-site impact and video recording were two different things, and the scene of her being shocked senseless also appeared on the screen.
It's not that the scene had completely turned into a comedy, but the impact was at least ten times weaker...
No, a hundred times weaker.
The malicious gaze couldn't be captured on camera. There was only the violently trembling space and a scene that looked harmonious yet somehow conveyed an indescribable sense of danger...
That's why she noticed her own reaction.
Bernice forcefully shook off the jumbled thoughts. It didn't matter now, as long as it was usable.
After all, her task was to make an explanatory video, narrating what happened at the time, not to make a movie where they could reshoot.
For this purpose, she even specially called and woke up a friend who understood the language of Dragon Country.
Bernice was still relatively restrained; Fried was completely inconsiderate.
Not knowing how to make videos, he could only hastily upload the video to his account and then frantically send emails to his few good friends.
Fortunately, his friend was located in Britain, where it wasn't yet bedtime. Upon receiving the email, they immediately checked it out.
Then, this friend who had some knowledge of video production instantly entered overdrive mode, joining the all-nighter group across regions.
Many unedited videos appeared on the website immediately. Some night owls and people in daytime regions sneered when they saw the titles.
Huh, that's not how you brag.
Some people skipped over them, but as they refreshed the page, it was filled with similar titles, and the thumbnails were quite crude. However, the video play counts were not low.
Was the platform bugged?
This was their first thought, and they couldn't help but click in to investigate.
The unedited footage was very rough, with a lot of travel scenes at the beginning. Viewers were bewildered, exiting the video to click on another.
Then, the audience became even more confused, switching to another video of travel footage.
Is this all you're showing me?!
Did humans regress without my knowledge?
Or is this some retro trend, where travel videos are popular?
The audience had to take matters into their own hands, dragging the progress bar...
After the scene loaded, they rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Those watching on computers nearly flipped their tables, while those on phones almost unanimously dropped them on the floor/between their legs/on the sofa.
Is this for real? I don't believe it!
The audience spontaneously grasped the golden words of a certain famous host.
What followed was a series of actions: constantly refreshing videos, dragging video progress bars, reading comments, checking trending topics, etc. After confirming that this magical event had indeed occurred, they urgently wanted to find someone to share it with face-to-face.
One fellow who believed that staying up late was harmful to health, but pulling an all-nighter wasn't, suddenly sprang out of his bed covers and started banging on the door.
"Big bro, wake up!"
The person in their dreams pulled the covers, wanting to turn over and go back to sleep, but was startled awake by the loud voice.
"Don't sleep! Something big has happened!"
This commotion woke up their parents. The parents opened the door to check the situation, seeing their younger son inconsiderately knocking on their elder son's door.
The father couldn't help but scold, "What mischief are you up to in the middle of the night?"
"Dad! A triple-S rank ability user has appeared!"
The night owl shouted excitedly to the point of voice cracking, shoving his phone in his father's face.
The father's expression darkened, "You have the nerve to talk about things from your dreams? At your age, you can't even distinguish between reality and dreams?"
"Heh," the night owl's older brother opened the door, having heard the conversation between the two, and sneered sarcastically.
If SSS-rank ability users really existed, would they allow the Three Bamboo monsters to live?
Unless the publicly acknowledged strongest ability user, Qi Yuan, was still training to breakthrough in the middle of the night on New Year's, where else would you find an SSS-rank ability user?