Night.
At Nanshan Villa, after getting home from work with his father, dutifully eating dinner with his family, and "reporting" on his progress at work, Shen Fei finally returned to his room. He closed the door, shut the windows, and even stuffed a towel into the gap beneath the door to prevent any light from escaping. With that done, Shen Fei once again logged into the game he had chosen: *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms*.
"Hm?"
Logging into the game and looking at the screen, Shen Fei was stunned. He saw that his Golden Orchid value had somehow reached 20,000. That player, "Taiyi Zhenren," had also sent him their daily Golden Orchid points. He and Taiyi Zhenren were now tied for first place on the Golden Orchid List.
But that was a minor detail. What truly surprised Shen Fei was that in the game's store, a new event had appeared called the "Nostalgic Item Limited-Time Giveaway." Many items he had never seen before were now available, especially two particular ones:
"Experience Pill: Price 1,000. Use to gain a large amount of Crystal experience!"
"Nostalgic Defense Tower Blueprint Pack: Price 1,000. Use to randomly obtain a special Defense Tower blueprint (may contain fragments)."
Although Shen Fei was a pay-to-win tycoon, he had been playing *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms* for a very short time. Not only was he missing some event and daily rewards, but more importantly, some of the special Defense Tower blueprints from past events were no longer available. This meant that even with all his money, he couldn't quickly synthesize and upgrade Defense Towers because he simply didn't have any of the special blueprints. After upgrading a normal Defense Tower to a Tenth Tier Lightning Ball Tower, he had stopped and had been painstakingly searching the auction house for special Defense Tower blueprints. Now, seeing the nostalgic blueprint packs in the store, his eyes lit up.
In addition, because he had been playing for such a short time, his Crystal hadn't reached the max level yet. The experience needed for the Crystal was mainly obtained by grinding mobs. Although he could AFK farm and had used a Double Experience Card and a Monster Acceleration Scroll, maxing out the Crystal still seemed a long way off. The amount of experience required was enormous.
Shen Fei never expected that when he logged on again, there would be special Experience Pills in the store. Looking at the limited-time Experience Pills and Nostalgic Defense Tower Blueprint Packs, Shen Fei didn't hesitate for a second and started buying them immediately! This was exactly what he wanted.
It's like someone giving you a pillow just when you're getting sleepy. This is perfect…
WHOOSH—
WHOOSH—
WHOOSH—
An hour later, Shen Fei had spent all of his remaining four million-plus Gold Coins on Experience Pills and Nostalgic Defense Tower Blueprint Packs.
Then, it was time to pop pills and open blueprints…
[System Tip: You have used an Experience Pill. Crystal experience +1,000]
[System Tip: You have used an Experience Pill. Crystal experience +1,000]
[System Tip: You have used an Experience Pill....]
[System Tip: Your Crystal level has been raised to the maximum Ninth Tier, activating the skill: Invincible.]
[Invincible: Grants all Defense Towers 100% damage reduction for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 1 day.]
[Crystal level has reached maximum. Defense Tower Workshop activated. Special Defense Tower—Wall Tower—activated.]
[Ding!]
[Dear player, you have entered the Crystal Level Rankings. Please check!]
Half an hour later, his finger was sore from all the clicking, but Shen Fei's Crystal was finally max level. After maxing out the Crystal, he had also activated an "Invincible" skill. Furthermore, he'd activated the Defense Tower Workshop and the Wall Tower.
The Defense Tower Workshop, as the name implied, was a structure where he could research technology to improve a Defense Tower's Durability, Attack Power, range, Attack Speed, and so on. He could also research new Defense Tower blueprints within the workshop.
As for the "Wall Tower," it was a special type of Defense Tower with no Attack Power but with extremely high Defense Power and a massive size. It was a special, wall-like unit that could be used to block monsters.
Not bad. With the Wall Tower, I can build city walls. The Wall Tower will be incredibly powerful if I can bring it into the apocalypse! And with the Defense Tower Workshop, I can set keywords to research the special Defense Tower blueprints I need…
The two things he got from maxing out his Crystal were both very important to Shen Fei. One was related to building city walls in the future apocalypse, while the other was related to assembling various scarce Defense Towers.
"Open the Nostalgic Defense Tower Blueprint Packs!"
After using up all the Experience Pills, Shen Fei rubbed his sore finger and began opening the Nostalgic Defense Tower Blueprint Packs he had just bought.
[System Reminder: You have obtained a special Defense Tower blueprint—Sandstorm Defense Tower.]
[System Reminder: You have obtained a special Defense Tower blueprint—Corn Cannon Defense Tower.]
[System Reminder: You have obtained a special Defense Tower blueprint—Anti-Invisibility Defense Tower.]
[System Reminder: You have obtained a special Defense Tower blueprint—Inverted Man Defense Tower.]
[System Reminder: You have obtained a special Defense Tower blueprint—Sword Saint Defense Tower.]
The packs opened, and all sorts of Defense Tower blueprints poured out. There were Element-type Magic Attack Defense Towers, tech-type gun and laser Defense Towers, aberrant-type Inverted Man Defense Towers, and even Warcraft-type Sword Saint Human-shaped Defense Towers.
What made Shen Fei happiest was seeing a blueprint for a human-shaped Defense Tower named "Zhong Kui." He remembered that in the future, there would be an invasion from a paranormal-type game. It would create various scenarios in many places, like the "Yin Soldiers' Passage," the "Ghost Bride's Wedding," and the "Night of Ten Thousand Ghosts." Looking at the Zhongkui Tower's abilities, Shen Fei was satisfied. With Zhong Kui, he would no longer have to worry about the paranormal elements of the invading game.
WHOOSH—
WHOOSH—
WHOOSH—
Now that he had the blueprint for the Zhongkui Tower, all Shen Fei had to do was synthesize it. Soon, a brand-new Tenth Tier Defense Tower appeared before him. It was a five-to-six-meter-tall pedestal, upon which stood a ferocious, human-shaped figure:
[Zhongkui Tower
Level: Tenth Tier (Max)
Range: 10 km
Durability: 50,000/50,000
Attack Speed: 0.2s
Attack Power: 2,000–5,000
Swallow Ghosts: Can directly devour large Ghost bosses. 1-minute cooldown.
Ghost Soul Whip: When facing soul-type enemies, can manifest a long Ghost Soul Whip for area-of-effect attacks.
Ghost Soul Crushing: When facing soul-type enemies, Comprehensive Combat Power is increased by 100%.
Ghostly Wail Domain: Within a 5-kilometer radius, the overall strength of soul-type enemies is reduced by 30%.
Daring Roar: Unleashes a roar that can cause soul-type enemies to flee in terror.
]
The Zhongkui Tower's Attributes were displayed.
Time to add more funds!
Looking at the newly synthesized Zhongkui Tower, Shen Fei nodded and clicked the top-up button again. The six million-plus he had topped up earlier had already been completely spent.
It costs 500,000 to synthesize a max-level Tenth Tier Defense Tower through rapid Krypton Gold. To build the maximum of 512 Defense Towers, I'll need over 250 million…
Shen Fei calculated in his head as he continued to top up his account. If he weren't in a hurry, he could synthesize one Tenth Tier Defense Tower in two weeks by completing all the daily tasks, daily dungeons, daily check-ins, and other activities, which would only cost about twenty to thirty thousand. But for him, that was impossible. He was in a rush, so his only option was Krypton Gold.
After a rough calculation, he realized that the 130 million he currently had on hand wasn't enough to max out all his Defense Towers.
First, I'll put in all the money I have on hand! Then I'll figure out a way to get more from Dad!
As he topped up, Shen Fei knew he still needed to get more money.
[Ding!]
[Dear VIP Level 20 Player, you have successfully topped up 64,800 yuan.]
[Ding!]
[Dear VIP Level 20 Player, you have successfully topped up 64,800 yuan.]
[Ding!]
[Dear VIP Level 20 Player, you have successfully topped up 64,800 yuan.]
In the silent night, Shen Fei stayed up late, topping up his account. Each top-up was over 60,000. To put the entire 130 million into the game, he would need to do it over 2,000 times. This was a massive undertaking in itself.
However, to avoid having dark circles under his eyes the next day, Shen Fei set the process to run automatically and went to bed after topping up ten million.
「The next day, the cycle continued…」
In the morning, he accompanied his father to visit clients. In the afternoon and evening, he played the game and topped up his account.
This cycle continued for a whole week.
Within that week, the *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms* game exploded. In just one week, Shen Fei had synthesized 200 Tenth Tier Defense Towers. He completely dominated the top spots on numerous leaderboards, including the "Combat Power Rankings," the "Defense Tower Level Rankings," and the "VIP Level Rankings." He was dubbed the "King of Shills" by countless players.
It even got to the point where the company that developed *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms* became famous because of Shen Fei. According to players' calculations, for Shen Fei to have improved so much in such a short time, he must have spent at least 100 million. But that was absolutely impossible! No one would pour so much money into a niche game that wasn't even popular. He had to be a shill!
The forums were completely flooded with posts claiming Shen Fei was a shill. The company behind *Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms*, having supposedly created a 100-million-yuan shill that pushed the real whales down to second place, became a laughingstock among many other game companies.