Compared to the other characters in the anime, Qiji's greatest advantage, aside from knowing the plot of the first season, was his ability to freely control when his livestream started and ended.
The anime called "Echo" was produced by editing together footage from the "main camera" and the "livestream cameras."
In other words, he could freely choose which side of himself to show the audience.
On top of that, he had spent a full five million and nine years laying the groundwork for his extraordinary strength and exceptional good looks.
If he still couldn't reach the pinnacle of popularity in the first season of "Echo" with all that, he might as well buy a block of tofu and bash his head against it until he died.
Nine years of preparation, nine years of acting, nine years of giving it his all, day after day.
All for this moment-
The show
began!
Chapter 2: A Genius Beyond Definition
Qiji remained lying on his back and, with a thought-
The system interface, visible only to him, instantly unfolded before his eyes.
Two floating windows sat side by side in the lower right corner:
One was his personal channel.
The other was the main camera, currently focused on Huomu, the anime's protagonist.
Today was the first day of school for Echo Academy's new students, as well as the day all of them had their aptitude tested.
Qiji opened the main camera feed, enlarging the image.
In a classroom, a red-haired boy nervously pressed his hand against a testing device.
The device's light flickered. At the lectern, a teacher reading a romance novel glanced over and spoke lazily:
"Echo potential rating-F."
Huomu stiffened and returned to his seat in a daze.
Meanwhile, a few scattered bullet comments drifted across the main camera feed:
"Holy shit, this picture quality? Are you serious???"
"The budget's burning. The budget's burning like crazy..."
"Another trash start? But for production quality like this, I'll put up with it for now."
"Exactly. Can we get something satisfying? I want to see him crush everything in his path! I want to see rivers of blood!"
"The protagonist looks so weak... Guys, kick me when he makes his comeback."
Since this was a "warm-up livestream" before the anime's official premiere, there weren't many viewers.
After all, most viewers preferred the main episodes, carefully edited down to the best parts.
But there was also a group of core fans and people looking for entertainment who liked to camp out in the livestreams and enjoy the feeling of participating in "witnessing history firsthand."
Qiji glanced at his own channel. Its numbers were even more dismal, with only a single-digit viewer count.
There were only two bullet comments:
"Streamer, streamer, isn't today the entrance assessment? Why are you still sleeping here?"
"Wow, a masked character! That's exactly my type! Love it, love it!"
Qiji casually browsed the popularity rankings for personal channels.
Unsurprisingly, the protagonist Huomu was currently in first place. The main camera was pointed right at him, after all.
In second and third were the main female characters of the first season-
Bai Lili and Liuli.
Both had benefited from the character models and the high production values. They were absolute stat monsters, basically.
Qiji clicked into their streams and took a look. Sure enough, the comments were full of people stunned by what they saw and praising the character models to the skies.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! This picture quality! This immersion! I'm taking off right here!"
"Is this even allowed? Such an innocent face paired with such a wicked figure? That's cheating!"
"Guys, I really like this one!"
-That was the kind of thing filling Bai Lili's stream.
"Jade, jade, jade, jade, jade!"
"Is this a fine dining channel?"
"This isn't just 'eating good' anymore. This is a full Manchu-Han banquet shoved straight into my mouth!"
-That was what Liuli's stream looked like.
Qiji joined in with the crowd and posted a couple of bullet comments himself before closing the window.
He took a look and saw that his personal channel was currently in the lower-middle range of the rankings.
It wasn't as though he couldn't use items such as camera cards, spotlight cards, or lucky bag cards to draw attention to himself. He just didn't think it was necessary at this stage.
Because he was about to get some camera time with a "big streamer."
In Liuli's livestream, the girl was walking toward the place where Qiji was.
The rooftop door was gently pushed open.
Liuli leaned inside and looked around.
She soon spotted Qiji lying on his back with his arm under his head.
"Qiji, you really are here. You haven't had your aptitude tested yet, have you? If you don't go soon, you'll run out of time."
Qiji didn't move. He merely answered in a matter-of-fact tone:
"An aptitude test? I don't need to do that."
"Huh?" Liuli was taken aback.
"To test is to define, and to define is to limit. I am a genius beyond definition."
Qiji spoke with grandeur!
Of course he knew how very "Jiahao" that line was.
But the character profile for the [Thousand Faces] card was an eighth-grade-syndrome genius who never stopped spouting pretentious lines!
So, to play the role well, Qiji had long since thrown his sense of shame away!
Don't underestimate his resolve, damn it!
Besides, in the world of anime, eighth-grade syndrome came with a filter!
As long as he wasn't embarrassed, it would look "cool" on camera!
That's right. It had to be!
For an actor, the most important thing was conviction!!!
"..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the bullet comments in Liuli's livestream began to scroll in a frenzy:
"Where did this eighth-grade-syndrome mask guy come from? What a show-off."
"Eighth-grade syndrome? If you said that in real life, I wouldn't argue, but this is a damn anime! This is exactly what I'm here to see!"
"Full marks for that bit of showing off!"
"Acting this cool? He's literally me!"
"That mask is so pretty. Can I get one like it?"
At Qiji's answer, Liuli opened her mouth, an "I knew this would happen" expression appearing on her face.
Before enrolling at Echo Academy, she and Qiji had attended the same preparatory school.
Though they couldn't be called close, she had heard a little about this genius's unconventional style.
"Qiji, this isn't like the preparatory school. The people who make it into Echo Academy are the elite of the elite, geniuses among geniuses. There are even monsters born with awakened Echoes, as well as children from prominent clans and families.
"You have to fight for everything here yourself. If you miss the aptitude test, you'll be rated F! When the time comes, it'll be even harder for you to obtain resources than it is for the other students."
Liuli tried a few more times to persuade Qiji, but when he remained unmoved, she could only sigh and leave, worried.
Watching Liuli disappear from the rooftop, Qiji rolled over and settled into a more comfortable sleeping position.
He wasn't deliberately showing off by skipping the test. Rather-
He couldn't take it.
He was a visitor from another world and had no aptitude for "Echo" in his body at all.
If he actually took the test, he would only get an "F," or perhaps something even worse.
Wouldn't that be ridiculous?
He couldn't let the "super genius" persona he had worked so hard to build be ruined here.
So avoiding the test and using outrageous words to cultivate an air of mystery and arrogance was the best solution available to him.
After all, playing a genius in front of the camera was hard work too.
One slip could give the whole act away, so he had to put in ten thousand percent effort where no one could see.
After Liuli left, Qiji's personal channel lost some viewers, but a few people looking for entertainment stayed because of the "outrageous take" he had just delivered.
"Came over from my wife Liuli's stream. I heard there's a streamer here who's really good at showing off?"
"Streamer, streamer, can you take that damn mask off your face?"
"Take off the mask and I'll send you a plane!"
Watching his personal channel gradually grow livelier, Qiji curled the corners of his mouth beneath his mask.
Sure enough, to quickly gain popularity early in a broadcast, he still needed to get more camera time with the "big streamers" and do some collaborations with them.
In that case, the next one to ride the coattails of was, of course, Huomu, the anime's protagonist, who was about to run into trouble.
Qiji wasn't in a hurry.
He lay there at his leisure and continued watching the "main feed" through the system window.
Chapter 3: The Stage for Traffic Was Set
The students went up for their tests one after another. Time flew, and before long, it was lunch break.
Several students still hadn't been tested. Teacher Yuejian checked the time, and the moment the bell rang, she announced that class was dismissed and openly became the first to leave the classroom.
It was also at this point that Liuli's livestream went offline.
The bullet comments were instantly flooded with question marks:
"?????"
"Seriously? That's it?"
"Confirmed, she's a lazy streamer. Such a short stream on the first day?"
Correspondingly, viewers began arriving in Qiji's livestream.
After all, he was currently the only character who had interacted with Liuli, and the viewers wanted to see whether he and Liuli had any more story together.
That way, they could keep watching Liuli.