"Next up, I need to make some money and max out the number of Tenth Tier Defense Towers!"
It had been eight or nine days since his rebirth. Looking at his Comprehensive Combat Power of over twenty million, Shen Fei nodded in satisfaction. After a week of heavy spending, he had become the number one player, topping most of the game's leaderboards.
The former number one, Taiyi Zhenren, had been utterly crushed by him.
A few days ago, when Shen Fei synthesized his first few Tenth Tier Defense Towers, Taiyi Zhenren would still try to keep up. He chose to compete. But by the time Shen Fei synthesized his 100th Tenth Tier Defense Tower, the former number one player simply gave up. Even if Taiyi Zhenren was a wealthy leather factory owner, there was no way he could spend this crazily.
But even so, compared to before Shen Fei's arrival, Taiyi Zhenren's Comprehensive Combat Power had still nearly doubled.
"I'm still short 200 Defense Towers before I hit the max!"
Seeing that he had filled half of his 512-Defense Tower limit, Shen Fei knew he had to keep going.
I need to make money, max out my Defense Towers, and then start the Enhancement on the Defense Towers and the Crystal!
Mulling over ways to make money, Shen Fei set the game to auto-battle again. His Crystal was already at max level, so the EXP from killing monsters was useless. However, he could still get items and other rewards for clearing a wave of monster attacks.
With 200 max-level Defense Towers, clearing waves was a piece of cake, even though the number of monster spawn points below his dirt-gray platform had increased to eight. He left the auto-battle feature running constantly…
DING!
[Dear player, the weekly ranking rewards have been calculated!]
[You have received Defense Tower Enhancement Stone x100, you have received Crystal Healing Scroll x10, you have received Defense Tower Temporary Attack Power Enhancement Scroll x10, you have received an Orange Secret Realm Scroll x1, you have received...]
Just as he was about to log off and sleep, Shen Fei was surprised to see a flood of system messages pop up right after midnight. The weekly leaderboard rewards had just arrived.
"A Secret Realm Scroll?" Seeing the highest-grade Orange Secret Realm Scroll among the rewards, Shen Fei murmured to himself.
A Secret Realm was a sort of instance dungeon where you could bring your Defense Towers to farm for treasure. Besides the daily Heaven-Reaching Tower, the only other way to enter one was by using a Secret Realm Scroll.
Shen Fei hadn't been interested in these things before. After all, entering an instance just got you items, and if he needed items, he could just pay for them. He had spent his precious time on synthesizing Defense Towers, which was his top priority.
"Time for bed!"
After glancing at the huge pile of rewards, Shen Fei closed the game. This past week, because he had to act like a "good kid" in front of his father, he mostly played at night. It was time to sleep now. He'd deal with the Secret Realm after he finished building all his Defense Towers.
When he woke up, he would get straight to making money!
***
"Boss!"
"Taiyi Zhenren isn't keeping up anymore!"
"That 'Skyrocketing' is spending way too much!!!"
At the headquarters of *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms*, the operations manager approached the boss again. At that moment, the entire game company was on edge. Frankly, Shen Fei was spending too much.
When Shen Fei spent ten million, the game company was thrilled.
When Shen Fei spent twenty million, they were ecstatic. They even threw a celebration party.
When his spending hit fifty million, their minds went blank.
And when his spending hit one hundred million, they panicked.
Someone spending a hundred million on a single game was an extremely rare event in human history. Moreover, in the past, anyone who spent over a hundred million did so on games from major corporations. For a small company like theirs, landing a million-dollar whale would have been cause for thanking the heavens. No one ever expected that Shen Fei would turn out to be a hundred-million-dollar Krypton Gold whale.
Three days ago, when Shen Fei's spending hit eighty million and the former top player Taiyi Zhenren gave up, the game company panicked. Game companies loved whales. But they never imagined a day would come when they'd worry because a whale was spending too much.
"What's the total amount spent?" the boss asked slowly, taking a deep breath.
"Over one hundred and thirty-eight million!" the operations manager answered, swallowing hard.
"Just who is this person?" Hearing his subordinate's answer, the boss rubbed his temples in extreme frustration.
With that much money, you might as well just buy my company. Or you could poach my engineers and build your own game; that wouldn't be a problem either. My game is simple; the algorithm and development aren't even that difficult! This isn't some AAA masterpiece. It's not some super-game with millions of concurrent players.
The game's owner simply couldn't understand why Shen Fei would spend money like this. The boss was even starting to worry that regulatory authorities might come to audit his accounts for money laundering or tax evasion. That would be a disaster.
Right now, their own Forum had exploded because of Shen Fei. Even many of his friends in the industry were calling to ask about it. The terrified boss could only claim to outsiders that this was a "shill." He wasn't even sure what he was thinking anymore. He was worried his small company couldn't handle a whale of this magnitude, but at the same time, he didn't want to let this Krypton Gold whale go to his competitors.
"Launch the new features! All the ones I told you to develop—release them all at once!" After a long period of thought, the boss made a decision.
Since you love to spend, I'll let you spend. I'll develop a ton of payment options for you to spend on. Let's see how much you can really spend! I'll update the game just for you. The entire game will be at your service...
"Contact Taiyi Zhenren privately," the boss continued. "Tell him this 'Skyrocketing' isn't one of our house accounts. It's a real person spending all that money!"
A hundred-million-dollar whale deserved their full attention, but they couldn't neglect their former top players either. As for whether Taiyi Zhenren would believe him, that was out of his control.
"Okay!" The operations manager nodded, then, right in front of the boss, called over the head of development and the head of customer service.
"Boss, all the features on my end are developed and ready!" the balding development head reported directly.
Following the boss's instructions, he had added all sorts of features to *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms*, including equipment, pets, skills, Gemstones, housing, and NPCs. Even though these features felt out of place in a tower defense game, they added them anyway. Of course, he had heard about the company's hundred-million-dollar Krypton Gold whale. The development head was well aware that they were rolling out a bizarre variety of payment options specifically for this big spender.
"Boss, what should my team do?" Dai Mei, the head of the customer service team, asked, looking slightly weary.
Her team had been working tirelessly for over a week because of this "Skyrocketing," this Krypton Gold whale. But despite trying various methods, they just couldn't establish contact. They even spammed all sorts of announcements in the world channel, but Skyrocketing remained completely unresponsive. This left Dai Mei and her team feeling utterly defeated.
"Just cheer for him, I guess…" The boss was aware of the customer service team's situation and didn't press the matter further.
Honestly, this whale's spending was just too straightforward. This guy's spending was like an open firehose—completely on his own initiative. There was no need for shills, no need to stir up rivalries, no need to dangle bait. If all whales were like this, game companies would have a much easier time.
At this moment, the boss had made his decision: launch countless new features and see how much the guy could spend.
I refuse to believe that in a tower defense game, you can actually pay your way to number one in every single weird feature I develop!
The boss didn't know what the major corporations, the Tencents and NetEases of the world, would do if they encountered a whale of this caliber. But this was his own small company. Faced with a mega-whale who just mindlessly threw money at the screen, the only thing he could do was get himself all cleaned up... no, wait... he just had to set up the payment options and let the mega-whale spend!
***
"Someone really spent over a hundred million on this crappy game?"
In the office of the Jiangnan Leather Factory owner, Huang Yi frowned strangely after finishing the special call he'd received from the game company. He then looked at the explanatory email from them.
"A major update with lots of new gameplay in two hours?"
Logging into the game and looking at the leaderboards, where he no longer held the top spot on most of them, Taiyi Zhenren suddenly became very curious about the real-world identity of the player who had spent over a hundred million.
***
"This intel is definitely worth five million!"
"A whale who spent one hundred and thirty million! I've even provided you with his phone number!"
"Five million, price is firm!"
"I have the transaction records of his spending as proof!"
At the headquarters of *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms*, the balding head of the development team was making a call in secret. This man had contacted another game company and was selling Shen Fei's information. This manager had secretly become a data trafficker.
The information on a super Krypton Gold whale, on sale for five million.