Chapter Sixty-Eight: What Is Prestige

Huang Yunshuo curled his lips, unable to deny that these viewers had indeed hit a sore spot. Streaming was exhilarating, but he’d already been reported plenty of times—according to that “Starlit Ruoruo,” over ten thousand people had filed complaints against him, prompting the super-moderator to personally inspect his channel. If Starlit Ruoruo happened to get annoyed watching his stream and decided to ban him, that would be truly depressing.

To be fair, when it comes to streaming, gifts are really just a side benefit. Even though the sheer number of gifts he’d received over the past two days had left his hands sore from counting, when converted, the actual credit points weren’t much. It only looked impressive because ten Starcoins equaled one credit point, and as an unsigned streamer, the platform took sixty percent of his earnings. How much was left in the end? He could probably earn more just by casually selling something himself than from all the gifts he’d received lately.

Still, streaming was about the long game. If people kept sending gifts every day, over time the total would become staggering. As his popularity grew, he’d naturally receive more and more gifts. Today he might be tallying his gifts in tens of thousands, but perhaps one day he'd be counting in the millions.

Of course, all of this rested on a single premise—he didn’t get banned.

Feeling a bit unsettled, Huang Yunshuo buried himself in mining. The whole “one hundred jets” was just a joke, but since he didn’t feel like talking anymore, he figured he’d see whether anyone would actually send him a hundred jets. If they did, great; if not, it didn’t matter.

With each swing of his pickaxe, he was unearthing eighth-grade iron ore worth eighty thousand credit points, or even ninth-grade ore worth more than ten thousand—a staggering amount. “Such a straightforward path to riches,” he mused, “but not everyone can handle ten little roosters.”

“Twenty defense and three hundred HP, with attack power comparable to Stammering Liu—at the very least, you’d need a hundred or more. Even with hundreds or thousands of players, they’d just be slaughtered one after another.”

He’d wanted to share this lucrative method with his friends, but shook his head. “You started streaming?” someone from the group “Nine Affectionate Little Melons” tagged him. He checked and saw it was Ye Piaoxue.

“Yeah, I’m mining—nothing better to do,” Huang Yunshuo replied, glancing at her profile.

Ye Piaoxue was already level thirteen—she’d been leveling up quickly. Armed with an iron sword, her attack power was decent, but unless something unexpected had happened, she was probably still grinding on little white rabbits.

As for the sloths, there was no point mentioning them. At this stage, if a player wasn't prepared with sticky nets, they’d die the moment they entered; even with nets, unless they managed to knock the sloths out of the trees, it was useless. So, no one could really farm sloths yet.

The next best area for leveling was with the little white geese, but that was for organized guilds or impromptu studios already somewhat established in town. They’d group together—dozens, hundreds even—working in tandem to kill the geese. With professional skills, losses were minimal and the leveling pace was quick.

Ye Piaoxue didn’t like leveling with strangers, so she was destined not to farm the geese zone.

“I wish I could help them, but there’s nothing I can do,” Huang Yunshuo sighed. “I’ve already completed the first phase of the alchemist’s job change quest. Now I can craft a potent spray that restores a small amount of health—twenty HP per second.”

Ye Piaoxue sent a pitiful-looking emoji. “But the failure rate is high, and I’m low on copper coins.”

Twenty HP per second? Huang Yunshuo’s eyes lit up. That was practically instant recovery—super useful for both monster hunting and PvP!

“I’m out of copper coins too,” he replied, “but after I finish mining, I’ll have plenty. Just focus on leveling for now!”

“Then I’ll come watch your stream. Grinding is too boring,” she said. Soon after, Huang Yunshuo saw his friends entering the stream one by one.

[Piaoxue has been appointed as moderator by the streamer ‘Brain-Dead’]
[Shiyin Endless has been appointed as moderator by the streamer ‘Brain-Dead’]
[Waist-Slim-Long-Legs-Canvas-Shoes has been appointed as moderator by the streamer ‘Brain-Dead’]
…

Noticing that Chu Jun and Jin Xiong hadn’t joined, he figured he’d make them mods next time they showed up.

“What the hell, favoritism! I protest!”

“Why are you giving out mod status randomly? Damn it, I’ve sent you over a hundred meteors. I want one too!”

“I’ve sent dozens of likes!”

As Huang Yunshuo handed out moderator badges, the viewers in the chat grew restless.

Why do people spend money watching streams these days? Aside from the satisfaction of hearing the streamer thank them by name, things like leveling up, badge prefixes, and special privileges all catered to people’s desire to show off.

Imagine a chat room filled with low-level accounts, then you stroll in with the [Knight Noble] prefix—how satisfying would that be? Extremely. No matter what you say, even just a period, everyone notices.

That’s status.

Moderator badges were the same, not only granting the power to ban or kick people, but also adding a [Moderator] prefix in chat. At least in a channel like Huang Yunshuo’s, where nobles and mods were rare, any message stood out like a red flower in a sea of green.

Everyone wanted one. Early on, when a streamer’s channel had few mods, the price for mod status was lowest and easy to obtain. Later, as popularity grew, it became much harder to get.

“I’ve wanted one of those for ages, just felt awkward asking,” Ye Piaoxue said in the group chat, posting a screenshot of her ID with a giggling emoji.

Song Ting, who watched a lot of streams, chimed in, “You guys don’t know—nowadays, some big streamers, even mid-tier ones, have gotten arrogant! You have to be in the top ten, even top three on the weekly contributor board, to get mod status!”

“They actually have tons of unused mod slots—the most basic channels can appoint five hundred mods—so you can imagine how greedy they are.”

“And those viewers, especially fans, just spam gifts all week to try to snag a mod badge on Sunday night. It’s disgusting.”

The group, mostly five girls, kept the chat buzzing—over ninety-nine messages in a flash.

When Huang Yunshuo looked away from the group chat, he saw several more viewers had sent him jets. Each one was a hundred credit points. He thought about thanking them, but realized that wasn’t in line with his aloof persona, nor did it fit the subtitle of his stream, so he kept quiet and continued mining.

“No-sugar-free, oh oh, no-sugar-free!”

Clanging and banging echoed through the mine—the sound of Huang Yunshuo’s off-key singing, the ring of pickaxe against rock, and the occasional thud of stones hitting the ground, all reverberating in the empty cavern.

Picking up chunk after chunk of ninth- or eighth-grade iron ore, Huang Yunshuo was in high spirits, swinging his pickaxe tirelessly.

“Huh? Durability’s down to seven?”

Catching sight of his pickaxe’s durability out of the corner of his eye, he quickly stopped what he was doing.