Upgrading Equipment

As an intelligent program, Alice could tirelessly post and reply on major gaming forums to promote Stardew Valley.

Although Alice was quickly muted and banned by forum moderators, Stardew Valley had made a name for itself.

Soon, people began downloading and installing it to try it out.

Those who tried it were quickly drawn in, unable to pull themselves away from the joy of farming.

"To continue playing, please purchase a registration code. Price: $10 each."

Once the thirty-minute trial ended, players who were playing Stardew Valley immediately found themselves unable to control the game, along with a pop-up notification.

By then, they were just getting familiar with the gameplay and starting to become immersed in it.

"Oh, S**T!"

Seeing the prompt, the players immediately began cursing.

Then they copied down the address, hurried to the nearest post office, bought ten-dollar money orders, and mailed them over.

Since mailing took time, those players who could not continue playing for the moment could only head to the forums to make posts.

"This is absolutely the best game I've played in years!"

"An absolute masterpiece! Once you enter the game, you'll be completely hooked!"

"Stardew Valley, a perfect game well worth recommending!"

"..."

Through word of mouth, Stardew Valley quickly became popular across major forum websites.

More and more people began downloading it, trying it out, then rushing to the post office to send money orders.

Mark was too young, so he had listed Rosalie as the recipient of the payments.

As a result, Rosalie had recently been going to the post office every day to collect the mail and cash the money orders.

At first, there were only a few hundred dollars' worth of money orders each day, but later it grew to thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars a day.

In just one week, Stardew Valley had sold twenty thousand copies, earning Mark two hundred thousand dollars!

"I... I never expected your game to sell this well, Mark!"

Rosalie was also stunned by how quickly Mark was making money.

All the money she had earned through years of hard work as an actress combined was still less than what Mark had earned in a single week!

"No need to rush. Stardew Valley's reputation has only just started spreading. It'll earn more and more in the future!"

Mark had confidence in the game he had made.

Once he had money, the first thing Mark did was upgrade Alice's hardware!

The most advanced supercomputers now cost tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, of dollars each. Naturally, Mark could not afford one.

Even mid-tier enterprise-grade supercomputers cost several million dollars apiece.

With Mark's current funds, he could only spend fifty thousand dollars to buy Alice a four-node personal supercomputer.

The computing power of this kind of personal supercomputer was only a few hundred thousandths that of a top-tier supercomputer, but it was still far more powerful than the original home computer.

After transferring Alice's code to the personal supercomputer's hard drive, her operating speed improved dramatically!

When responding to Mark's and Rosalie's commands, Alice almost never experienced any delay or lag again.

Afterward, Mark bought a batch of high-definition cameras and installed them throughout the house.

If anyone broke in illegally, Alice would be able to detect it immediately and sound the alarm.

Ever since he had crossed into the Marvel Universe, Mark had always lacked a sense of security.

After all, he was not the real Superman. At present, Super Brain was the only superpower he had obtained.

Mark's body was still no different from that of an ordinary person. A normal bullet or an illness could take his life.

He had lacked the means before, but now that he had money, Mark naturally used it to improve his own security first.

Perhaps the unease in his heart would only disappear once he unlocked more of Superman's abilities in the future.

"Rosalie, time to get up! Today is the day we're going to Bell Film Company to join the production crew, so please get ready in advance!"

Early that morning, Alice woke Rosalie and reminded her.

"Mom, have you memorized all your lines?"

While they were having breakfast, Mark asked Rosalie.

"Don't worry! Not only have I memorized all my lines, I also know exactly how I should perform on set!"

Rosalie confidently patted her chest, then looked toward the large screen across from her. "I have Alice to thank for constantly correcting my problems. That's why my acting has improved so quickly!"

This was a function Mark had added to Alice some time ago.

She recorded Rosalie's expressions and movements while acting, then searched the film database for similar scenes and compared them frame by frame.

Alice then marked out the differences between Rosalie and the other performers, allowing her to imitate them and improve.

Many of those references were Best Actress winners, so Rosalie's acting naturally improved quickly!

Alice, wearing a red princess dress, appeared on the large screen.

She lifted the hem of her skirt and curtsied toward Rosalie. "Rosalie, don't mention it. It's what I should do."

"Alice's movements are getting smoother and smoother, and even her tone sounds more and more like a real person!"

Rosalie looked at Alice with affection, as though she were looking at her own daughter.

Mark pursed his lips, feeling that ever since Alice had appeared, half of Rosalie's motherly love had been taken away from him.

After breakfast, Rosalie and Mark took a taxi to Bell Film Company.

Caleb gathered the production crew together and held an initial meeting.

More than twenty people attended the meeting, all actors playing different roles in Dreamland Children's Park.

The rest of the staff had already taken the filming equipment to the shooting location in advance.

"This is Rosalie. She'll be playing the female lead, Joanna Perry. This is her son, who'll also be playing her son, Galle, in the film..."

Caleb first introduced Rosalie and Mark to everyone.

"Clap, clap, clap!"

The other members of the crew applauded to welcome them.

However, Mark noticed that some people in the crew looked at Rosalie with either confusion or dissatisfaction.

They clearly did not understand why Caleb had chosen an unknown actress like Rosalie to play the lead in this production!

The two actresses among them, in particular, looked at Rosalie with hostility.

They had also wanted the female lead role in this production.

Both of them believed that, whether in terms of seniority or acting ability, they were far superior to Rosalie.

Yet Rosalie had somehow landed the lead role, while they could only play supporting characters.

Naturally, they were dissatisfied with that result and believed Rosalie must have had some unspeakable deal with the director, Caleb.

Mark took out the laptop he had been carrying on his back and placed it on the conference table in front of him.

It was the latest model, which he had just bought for twenty thousand dollars.

Noticing what he was doing, no one around him paid much attention, assuming the child was simply playing around.

Mark secretly aimed the camera at everyone in the meeting room and lowered his voice. "Alice, pull up all publicly available information on these people."