Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 70

Chapter 70

As expected, the fans’ reactions to unboxing a [Random Unique Skillbook] were outstanding. The Likes kept flowing in. In addition to that, donations from various places began to pop up.

?It was the right choice to hide the notifications of donations under one million won so that they do not appear at the top, Master.?

‘Even without donations, the viewers’ comments show up at the bottom of the screen anyways, I doubt anybody is going to donate that much money to make their comments show.’

-[乃Gumjis_Here_4_U乃] has donated 1,000,000 won.

[乃Gumjis_Here_4_U乃]: Umji, is it okay to unbox that in front of a large crowd? I thought those needed to be confidential. Popularity doesn’t bring food to your table!

‘Thank you.. But you could always just write comments at the bottom..’

Ji-Cheok couldn’t believe that someone could waste one million won just to get their comments noticed.

“It’s okay everyone! Don’t worry. Also, I am a man who is very serious about popularity!”

Now that a viewer made a large donation, Ji-Cheok thought he should do a donation reaction. He grabbed Cheok-Liang’s front paws and said ‘thank you!’ like a ventriloquist. The bottom chat went insane.

-That crazy fennec is cute AF! Cheok-Liang!!

-My heart is going to explode before I watch the unboxing..

At the beginning of the stream, there had been only 5,000 viewers. Ji-Cheok believed that was the right amount for his current popularity.

?The viewers are increasing significantly. As soon as you mentioned unboxing, people started to come in rapidly.?

Even as Cheok-Liang was held hostage, he continued to calculate the viewers like a cold-hearted advisor.

‘Alright, shall we start?’

The cyber tow trucks had already started to scrape Ji-Cheok’s streams for their content.

“I also hate dragging things for too long. Don’t you all hate wasting time for nothing?”

-Yes, sir!

-Umji! Are you really going to do an unboxing stream?

“Alright then, let's start opening one of the two random unique skills—”

At that moment, a message popped up on the chat.

-[Guardian of Freedom-HH05] has donated 1,000,000 won.

[Guardian of Freedom-HH05]: Hunter Um Ji-Cheok, I was watching your performance. I’ve sent you a message, could you please confirm that you got it? I would like to have a serious conversation with you.

A second donation appeared. However, Ji-Cheok couldn’t believe it came from them.

“I didn’t expect that a GOF headhunter would contact me! First of all, thank you for your donation. I will check your message after this stream.”

Ji-Cheok’s heart was racing. Guardian of Freedom, or GOF, was America’s largest and strongest Awakened company! Ji-Cheok had heard that the Pelos, a family with multiple super conglomerate businesses that essentially controlled the United States, was managing GOF. There were rumors that the Pelos held the right to issue money in the United States, but Ji-Cheok thought that might be just a rumor. In any case, it was a fact that the Pelos had a big influence in the United States.

In GOF, there were people specifically trained to scout talents around the world, and this viewer appeared to be one of them. As any one of the Awakened knew, HH was short for ‘headhunter’, so HH05 was headhunter nr. 5. Ji-Cheok had heard talks of GOF having more than three hundred headhunters in their company

‘I can’t believe they showed up on my channel.. I guess I’m more popular than I thought.’

-Huh? Why is GOF here?

-What’s GOF? historical

-They are the biggest Awakened Company in the United States! You don’t know that?

-Wow, now the United States is trying to poach our Hunter?

-We need to keep Umji here!

-No, Umji. If you want to go to the States, you gotta go. I heard they pay you so much more than here.. Just leave Jung Ji-Han and this hellish country.

-He is already thinking about pigeoning us.

The chat was very chaotic, and so was Ji-Cheok’s mind. The number of viewers also began to increase. However, Ji-Cheok couldn’t act surprised on the stream so he continued to stream with a straight face,

“Alright! Here comes a one million won reaction!”

Ji-Cheok had to do it. This chaos had to be extinguished by Cheok-Liang’s cute front paws. As expected, Cheok-Liang swung his front paws about three times, and the viewers started to debate whether the fennec had white fur on his stomach or ivory fur.

‘Cheok-Liang’s paws are like the magical Banana Leaf Fan.?They are called the Front Paws of Peace, for they could extinguish any flames in sight. They are the pillars of GodTube.’

“Don’t worry! I’m not going anywhere, so please calm down. Haha. Alright, here's the unboxing you’ve all been waiting for!”

Ji-Cheok couldn’t wait much longer.

Bark! Bark!

Cheok-Liang also pitched in. Ji-Cheok started the unboxing right after making the System sound audible to the viewers.

[[Random Unique Skill Book] shines brightly.]

[It transformed into one skill book.]

A bright light flashed, and a new text appeared in its place.

“Here we go!”

[Soul Telekinesis]

[Class: Unique (Upgradable, Rank F)

The power to exert both physical and spiritual power by simultaneously exerting the soul and the mind. It is one of the powers called ‘transcendental’, which can only arise when telekinetic power evolves and sprouts anew.]

This was a skill that Ji-Cheok saw for the first time. He didn’t even know there was such a skill among the unique skills. Telekinesis was considered very powerful even by itself, and yet this was an upgraded version?. Ji-Cheok looked at the chat and the response was crazy.

-Soul Telekinesis? What the hell is that?

-The description is saying that telekinesis has to evolve, so it must be an upgraded version of telekinesis.

-Why did he get a skill related to telekinesis? Was Umji a psychic?

-Did our Umji just become a psychic? Is he a dual-class now?

-That just proves that Ji-Cheok is an all-around Hunter. I saw him use the Telekinetic Arrows skill before. I guess this skill is related to that. It’s a rule of thumb that when a skill comes out of a random coupon, it is always related to the skills that you currently have.

-This is amazing!

Ji-Cheok was surprised that in the midst of the confusion, there was a viewer who grasped what was happening.

-And it’s an upgradable skill? Does that mean that if the proficiency of this unique skill increases, it is going to get stronger?

For a moment, the chat stopped, then started to come up like a flood.

-This is crazy!

-This just confirms that he is going to pigeon to America! 乃 Umji 乃 Pigeon 乃 Umji 乃 Pigeon 乃

-I’m so curious about these internet trolls. What kind of life are these kids living? Coming here and writing malicious comments..

-An upgradable unique skill? This is fucking crazy! An upgradable unique skill?

Ji-Cheok couldn’t think straight. He needed to say something to the viewers, but he was too stunned.

“Wow! Something amazing came out! I’ve heard that there are bad skills among unique skills. I guess I got lucky!”

This was true. Even though all of them were called ‘unique’, the actual skills vastly differed from each other. Ji-Cheok had heard that there were also skills not directly related to survival, such as flower arranging skills, origami skills, gardening skills, random skills that were not supposed to be there, or skills that could only be obtained by mastering other skills first.

-Yeah! There really are some garbage skills among the unique skills.

-There was one called Pizza Creation.

-That’s actually not that bad. At least pizzas are tasty. There are more garbage skills like Hair Loss Beam.

-Isn’t that the most terrifying skill? Making your opponent permanently bald?

As the viewers were having sophisticated debates in the chat, the number of viewers kept increasing.

?It has not been that long since you turned on your stream, but there are almost thirty thousand viewers already, Master!?

This was amazing. It was also surprising how many famous cyber tow trucks had gathered to steal viewers from Ji-Cheok’s stream.

“I’ll try to verify what kind of skill this Soul Telekinesis is later by actually using it. Of course, that video will also be on stream. Then, let’s open another skill!”

[[Random Unique Skill Book] shines brightly.]

[It transformed into one skill book.]

Just like before, the light flashed and the text changed.

[Indestructible Toy Summon]

[Class: Unique (Non-upgradable)

A transcendent magic created by a transcendent blacksmith for his child that was born late. An indestructible toy is summoned and moves according to the user’s will.

-Huuh? What’s that?

-A toy summon that is a unique skill? Are you kidding me?

-It says the toy is indestructible. Isn’t that why it’s a unique skill?

‘What kind of weird skill is this? A toy summoning skill? I know it says it’s indestructible. But where am I going to use this? How are they judging which skill is unique and which is not?’

This skill was non-upgradable, which meant that even if Ji-Cheok used it repeatedly, it didn’t mean that a bigger toy would come out later.

“Ah, that’s too bad. But since it’s said to be indestructible, there must be some use for it later on.”

The viewers responded to his comment.

-It’s all good. You got the Soul Telekinesis. That’s good enough!

-True. True.

-You can earn views from summoning that toy! Toy streams are also popular on GodTube these days.

“Yupp. Surely there’s a way to use this skill. And since I got at least one good skill that can be used immediately for my survival, I’m pretty happy about it. Now for the long-awaited third unboxing! Let’s go!”

[[Random Unique Item] shines brightly.]

[It was transformed into one item.]

A bright light flashed, and an item appeared in front of Ji-Cheok’s eyes. A description of the item was displayed above the item.

[Fragment of Illusion]

[Class: A

Type: Accessories (Artifact)

A long time ago, a certain Transcender thought it would be nice to sculpt illusion.

And he did it.

When equipped, it increases the mana rank of the user by one.

*Mana rank cannot exceed A with this item.

User acquires skill [Illusion Creation] when equipped.

Illusion Creation: The user can create any illusions they want without consuming any mana. The illusion only affects vision and disappears when the user’s will is broken.

“Uh... What is this?”

.

It was a necklace with an oval, teardrop-shaped gem. The gem was quite large, about the size of half a finger. What was surprising was that the color of the gem and pattern visible inside it were constantly changing. At first, the gem looked as if it had flames burning inside, then it shifted into a starry image of the cosmos. When light was reflected, a rainbow aurora appeared on the jewel.

‘You can create unlimited illusions? And it only affects the vision?’

Ji-Cheok felt like the item was useful, but he couldn’t tell why he felt that way.

?This is amazing, Master! With this item, Master can truly become a monarch that grasps the world in his palm!?

For some reason, Cheok-Liang was very excited. He hadn’t reacted like this even when Ji-Cheok obtained the [Soul Telekinesis] or the [Indestructible Toy Summon]. Ji-Cheok didn’t know what was so good about this item; however, now was not the time to talk about this with Cheok-Liang. Ji-Cheok was still streaming.

-What is that?

-I think it creates an unlimited amount of illusions..

-Is that good or bad?

“I know, right? I have no idea what kind of item this is. The same goes for the skills that I got before.”

-You can try it!

-Yeah! Go try it!

-Go into a dungeon and show us the skills and items!

-[Ssun_Ju_Ran] has sent you a request.

[Ssun_Ju_Ran]: If you demonstrate the new skills and item to the viewers, I will give you ten million won.

-She is here!!!

-Ssun_Ju_Ran, you are a goddess!

Ji-Cheok couldn’t believe he had just received a ten million won request.

“Just to meet Ssun_Ju_Ran’s expectations, I should do the demonstrations, right? But!”

-But what?

-What is it??

“It’s time for me to start my daily chores, everyone. It breaks my heart, but this is all for today’s sudden live stream.”

1. ‘Cyber tow-truck’ is the Korean term for a type of streamers that create videos by stitching together the contents of media articles and other streams, delivering unverified content as if it were factual, and the contents are edited provocatively to increase the number of views. They are called tow trucks because tow trucks are the first to run to the scene when car accidents occur.

2. In Korea, K-Pop fandom uses pigeon as a verb to describe K-Pop members that have not been faithfully active as a member of the group during the contract period and had withdrawn or terminated the contract midway.

3. The magical Banana Leaf Fan is a weapon held by the Iron Princess in the story of Journey to the West. The fan can create giant whirlwinds which are capable of extinguishing large mountain fires.