Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

The only downside was that Hank had already attained the [Behemoth Slayer Tyrannosaurus] achievement.

So while everyone else rushed in to inflict damage on the unconscious dinosaur for the sake of achievements, he returned to “My World” to continue studying the [Iron Farming Machine].

He needed a great deal of iron and gold. But so far, no one had figured out anything as convenient as the [Iron Farming Machine]. Gold was still a tough thing to farm.

After working on it for a while and making some adjustments, Hank managed to create his first [Iron Farming Machine] half an hour later. After confirming that there were no issues with it, he began building the second one.

But then, news came from Dinosaur Island again.

He rushed there immediately, only to find an Alamosaurus—which he had defeated before…

At noon, he received another report. This time it was a Purlitirus, another dinosaur he had defeated in the past!

All the effort that morning resulted in only a single gain: three more giant dinosaurs appeared on his Dinosaur Island.

The progress of [Ancestors’ Glory] remained unchanged, with no advancement at all.

Moreover, there was news in the fan group that someone had discovered an albino buffalo in the “Hunter” world.

The bad news was that the person who found it was charging money for slots.

The price wasn’t cheap either—300 for one slot. Once half the amount was paid upfront, the person would let you into their world to trigger the [Where the Magic Animals Are] achievement.

Hank found this a bit outrageous. The rewards for the achievement were still unknown, yet people had already started profiting off it?

One slot was 300, and one world could invite seven people. So, discovering one albino animal could net an individual a cool 2100?

“Are there really fools out there willing to pay this much?” Hank asked, confused.

The person who relayed the news in the group chat responded, “Yes, there are. It’s already sold out. I was the last fool.”

“What…” Hank was at a loss for words.

After a moment, he asked, “Are you considering selling your spot? I’ll add another 100 to your price.”

“???”

Both the chat group and Hank’s live broadcasting room were immediately flooded with question marks.

Unfortunately, despite the raised bid, he failed. The guy was unmoved and chose to keep the slot for himself.

Feeling disappointed, Hank logged out to rest.

There was still a race in the evening, and he needed to be fully refreshed for that.

*

When Hank had finished resting and logged in again, it was already late.

As a result, he immediately entered Night City and headed straight for the [Modified Workshop] in the factory area. Before the race began, he intended to check his car.

However, just as he had reached the entrance of the Modified Workshop and before he even had a chance to check his car, he received a system notification—

“Dear Player:

The first round of [Sea Selection Battle] in [Card King] and [Mahjong God] has officially concluded! You’ve successfully secured your spot in the second round—the [Gold Rush Battle]!

The [Gold Rush Battle] competition rules will be upgraded to a ‘fast mode’: it will last for a week on fixed tables with random opponents. A player will be eliminated once they lose and there will be no resurrection match.

Eventually, 2000 players will advance to the next round—the [Qualification Battle]. Please take this seriously.

Also according to the rules, the top 1000 players in the [Sea Selection Battle] will bypass the [Gold Rush Battle], advancing directly to the [Qualification Battle] and obtaining an exclusive commemorative achievement.

One out of every ten entrants in the [Qualification Battle] will be among the 300 contestants advancing to the next round—the [Tower Climbing Battle]!

From the [Qualification Battle] onwards, all matches will be broadcast live on the Cloud Dream Live Broadcast Platform. Seventy percent of the gift and reward proceeds from these matches will go to the contestants. (Rewards from gifts and non-designated rewards will be split evenly by the contestants participating in the match. If there is only one contestant, all rewards will go to them.)

This mechanism will be implemented all the way through to the final round: the [Gambling King Fight]!

We request all contestants to give their best and provide an exciting match for the audience!”

Hank read through the whole system notice, once again marveling at the grand scale of Cloud Dream.

The eventual champions of [Card King] and [Mahjong God] would net a staggering prize of four million. That was a ludicrous sum to begin with.

But now Cloud Dream was adding even more, directly sharing the gift earnings with the players.

Given the current popularity of the event, this was absolutely a whopping amount.

In other words, from the [Qualification Battle] onwards, the players would receive extra earnings for each match they played. And the later stages of the competition potentially promised even larger sums of money.

It wasn’t restricted to the top three or top ten players, but to all 3000 contestants. This was incredibly generous!

Of course, this was undoubtedly fantastic news for all the contestants!

Hank knew his own limitations—he might be good at racing, but his card gaming skills were so mediocre he couldn’t even compete in his own neighborhood, let alone in a massive tournament of millions or tens of millions of contestants.

But not everyone else understood this. Particularly in the first round of the [Sea Selection Battle] of [Card King], due to its peculiar scoring system. So long as one kept playing and didn’t have horribly bad luck, getting 10 points was quite feasible.

This resulted in more than 3.2 million players making it past the first round. It was a terrifying scale.

In the next round, they had to slim down this massive pool to just 2000 people. That meant that on average, only one player could advance for every 1600 players!

Compared to the first round, this was basically operating on hell mode.

Many people believe that even if they can’t rank among the top 10, they can at least make it to the top 3000. At the very least, they can compete for one round and earn some pocket money.

Excited discussions are currently heating up online, with everyone eager for the next round of competition to start immediately.

Of course, Cloud Dream also revealed the list of the top 1,000 players from the first round of the competition.

Everyone is most concerned about two things:

First: What’s the reward for achievement? Is it something good?

Second: What kind of person can come first in such a terrifying competition that involves multinational participation and possibly more than ten million competitors?!

Forget about coming first. Ranking in the top ten is already absurd!

Luckily, the answers to these two questions are not hard to find:

For the commemorative achievement, someone quickly shared it online: The Card King participants got a very special achievement “trophy” which was actually a poker card.

This poker card also comes with a skill: [Summon Poker], which allows the player to conjure a deck of cards from thin air.

The Mahjong God participants also received a similar reward. Their achievement “trophy” was a mahjong tile, and it also came with the [Summon Mahjong] skill, allowing them to conjure a set of mahjong tiles from thin air.

Players commented on these achievements as follows: It seems useful, but also seems kind of pointless…

However, those who received the reward were quite satisfied.

Just receiving this item demonstrated their love for card games, so this reward was exactly to their liking.

The other question is: what kind of person can attain the highest score?

The first place in the Card King points competition is Jennifer, a 52-year-old laid-off female worker.

Her score – [2238]!

This astonishing score implies that she played cards online for over 10 hours every day during the two weeks of preliminary selections, and her winning rate was unbelievably high!

Due to a natural distrust of foreign things, Jennifer rejected all the brands and clubs waving cash at her, trying to sign her to exclusive contracts and sponsorships. She only accepted an invitation from Cloud Dream Live Broadcast Platform and started live streaming.

The reasons for accepting the offer were simple: Firstly, the game was developed by Cloud Dream, and the competition was organized by Cloud Dream too, so they shouldn’t deceive her. Secondly, she was only there for live streaming without the necessity of signing any strict contracts or having any financial dealings, which minimized the risk of being tricked.

She didn’t quite understand live streaming and only focused on playing cards without interacting much with the audience at the beginning.

Despite starting with disadvantages like being older, having average looks, and knowing nothing about live broadcasting, she accumulated over 500,000 fans in just over a week!

When she was playing cards, the live broadcast room consistently held over 300,000 viewers!

She had also earned a resounding nickname – the “Card Demon”.

This was not ironic or sarcastic at all, but filled with genuine awe and admiration.

Not only did the audience in the live broadcast room refer to her this way, but many people on the playing field also recognized her and addressed her as such face-to-face.

At first, she was embarrassed, thinking that people were just joking with her.

But as this nickname spread more widely – in the live broadcast room, on the playing field, from brand marketers, clubs, Cloud Dream live stream liaisons, and many familiar and unfamiliar people – things gradually began to change.

She became more and more confident and her presence at the card table grew stronger, putting more pressure on her opponents.

Her impressive presence was not due to loud shouting or slamming cards violently, but rather the combination of her astonishing winning rate, over ten hours of being online every day, and effortlessly seeing through her opponent’s strategy.

From the moment she sat at the table, even before dealing the cards, it seemed she already had the upper hand.

In just half a month, Jennifer transformed from an obscure, unremarkable laid-off female worker to a formidable presence on the playing field who could exert colossal pressure on her opponents through numerous invincible matches and endless positive feedback.

A true – “Card Demon”.

At this moment in the live broadcast room of the “Card Demon” Jennifer, she is smiling and sincerely thanking everyone for their blessings and gifts. Outside the competition, she hasn’t changed, but the initial restraint and unease are gone.

Hank promptly sent three rockets as a gesture of congratulations – “Congratulations, Jennifer, for claiming first place from the preliminary selections!

He was an early fan of Jennifer, cheering for her all the way and still ranking in the top ten of the fan leaderboard.

Jennifer noticed Hank’s gift and thanked him, not forgetting to wish him in advance: “I also wish you a smooth competition tonight and hope you secure the championship!”

Hank truly needed this blessing.

He was once again participating in the “Indiscriminate Death Race” early on, bringing his car to the starting line through the same special channel Lincoln and Xiaomeng used, saving energy, and waiting for the competition to start.

This was his fourth major competition and he was determined to come out as the champion!

However, an unexpected event occurred during the final five-minute countdown to the competition.

Suddenly, someone in the group chat tagged him. He had time, so Hank opened the group chat, and saw –

“Hank! Someone spotted a Poseidon Dragon on the Dinosaur Island! I remember you still haven’t got one! Do you want to come?!”

“???”

Hank checked his achievement progress – [9/10].

Then he glanced at the countdown until the start of the competition – [2:59].

“Damn! Are you kidding me?!”

Hank, who had been conserving energy for a long time and maintained a good mindset, suddenly exploded!