Lukas and Carla arrived home to find their mother watching television. When she heard the door open, she quickly ran towards the two of them and hugged Carla.
"My god, I'm glad you're safe. I was so worried! Why didn't you answer your cell phone? I called you several times!" She stroked Carla's hair, and tears appeared in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mom. My cell phone is on silent and I ended up not seeing it." Carla looked at Lukas for help, but he just shrugged and walked toward his room.
He didn't want to see his mother act so sentimental.
"Okay, let's take a look at this." Since Lukas had left the dungeon, he had not opened his YouMedia channel once. But he knew that his video had "blown up". He was still receiving likes.
However, the notifications were decreasing. The gain of Likes was slowing down.
"Shit, I only have 5,000 subscribers? Even though the video has reached almost 200,000 views? Are you kidding me..." Lukas was happy that his video had picked up almost 200,000 views but was disappointed.
He did not receive many subscribers.
"But of course they won't subscribe. I only have one more video, I don't have a profile picture, and I don't have a banner for my channel. I need to hire an artist to do that for me."
Lukas was willing to pay good value.
"My first video had a significant increase in views. However, I didn't get many likes. It also got some nasty comments and a few dislikes." The video was not as cool as Lukas thought.
But Lukas thought it was a breakthrough.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
He hoped to get more views, likes, and subscribers since the tiger incident had become such a big thing, but his video was being limited somehow. However, he felt that this was good enough.
It was just the beginning of his channel. Only some people have the opportunity to gain 5,000 subscribers as quickly as he does. He had to grab that opportunity and start posting videos weekly.
"Posting daily would be crazy, but weekly is possible. Maybe three a week? I have to make a schedule." Lukas nodded in agreement and started making a schedule in his Photoshop.
Then he created a new Twitter account and posted it there. He could not use his personal account to promote his videos.
"I don't have any followers yet, but probably as soon as I show my Twitter on one of the videos I will gain some. Should I do spam to gain followers?"
Lukas then spent a few hours promoting his Twitter and channel on other people's profiles.
He was blocked by more than ten famous people in this period.
####
Three days had passed, and Lukas had practically stopped receiving new likes. He managed to accumulate more than 20.000 likes. It was a considerable number; he could buy many things in the store and use the gacha 20 times.
However, he was not worried about that at the moment. He had ordered a profile picture and a banner, which would be delivered today. The artist had told Lukas that he worked fast and would deliver in two days.
Lukas looked at his email all the time anxiously.
And when late afternoon came, a new email arrived.
===//===
[ New email ]
[ From: Nunu To: Surmaingel ]
Here is the artwork you ordered. It took a little longer than expected. I hope you like it.
If you like it, please review it positively to help my work!
===//===
Lukas read the email quickly and downloaded the two images Nunu had sent. Nunu was a newbie artist on Twitter, but his art captivated Lukas mainly because of his "Dark and gloomy" style.
The first image was Lukas' profile picture.
It was an art of a man wearing a hood and a black mask. The black mask was identical to Lukas's. He had sent a picture to Nunu for reference.
The artwork was very detailed; it was realist-style artwork. The background was a dark dungeon with some glowing eyes in the darkness. It served to give a nice contrast.
"This is great. He's very good." It was $200, which is a very low price for the art of that level. The good thing about hiring beginning artists is that the prices are always lower.
"Now, the banner." For the banner, Lukas had chosen art where he would not appear. He decided to put the tiger on his banner. Lukas asked Nunu to draw a dark dungeon with the ground covered in grass. There he would place the tiger.
Nunu drew the tiger facing whoever entered Lukas' channel. It was a very eye-catching artwork.
"I get goosebumps just looking at this art." Lukas remembered when he met the tiger.
After placing your new profile picture and banner, Lukas sent Nunu an email thanking and praising his art. Of course, he remembered to leave a positive review on the website he had used to hire Nunu.
After that, Lukas went on Twitter and put the same profile picture.
"I only have 20 followers. I haven't posted a new video yet." Lukas had been a few days without posting a video, so he decided to go to a dungeon to record a new video. "But I need to prepare better."
Lukas feared the dungeon would change again, so he wanted to prepare.
"And that will be easy using the gacha."
[ System Banner ]
"COME ON SYSTEM!!! GIVE ME YOUR BEST CHARACTER!" Lukas used the gacha once again, and 1.000 likes were deducted.