Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 178

?If you learn these four skills, you can increase the number of potion makers from ten to thirty.?

‘I used to make three thousand bottles a month with ten machines. With thirty machines, I can make nine thousand potions. And if I combine it with the [King of Production]…

“...that means I can make 45,000 bottles of D-grade potions per month. Didn’t you say the entire country consumes about 36,000 bottles of D-grade potions per month?”

?Yes, Master.?

“Okay, I’ll purchase them all!”

The skills were instantly acquired and learned. He didn’t feel like he had received superpowers or anything like that, but he was well aware of what the effects of these skills were. He had practically become a walking factory.

“Good. Let’s have a little competition with the big pharma guys, shall we? If we want that to go perfectly, I think I need to stream. And while I’m doing that, I’ll be giving away some potions as well as an event bonus.”

?How many potions are you going to give away??

‘Well, I don’t know how many will participate in the streaming event, but I’m thinking of giving away ten thousand bottles.’

?…You are really trying to help your fandom.?

Cheok-Liang looked surprised at the new message.

?Ah, I just got the answer from the Jungji guy—no, Jung Ji-Han answered directly!?

“What did he say?”

?He said it was a very good idea.?

“Then let’s get started.”

?Yes, Master.?

‘You’re all going to feel my wrath, evil big pharma~????’

* * *

Woong~ Woong~ Woong~

The development of Arcane Engineering impacted even the most niche industries. Among them, what Shin Ju-Ran particularly liked was massage equipment. Originally, Korea\'s love for massage machines had been well-known throughout the world even before the dungeons and monsters had appeared. Now, people could buy ultra-expensive massage machines upgraded using Arcane Engineering.

The massage chair that Shin Ju-ran was using was equipped with powerful functions that completely melted away the fatigue of the whole body, and it was even approved by the Ministry of Food and Drugs Safety as a medical device! As she sat in the massive chair, enjoying the amazing massage, Shin Ju-Ran watched something on the giant wall-mounted TV in front of her. She had survived the life-and-death battle the other day, so she definitely deserved some me-time.

Then, her wrist vibrated. It was a round watch linked to her phone that notified her that the content she had set an alarm for had started.

“Umji is so diligent~”

Had it been up to her, she would’ve just sent the Elixir Replica straight to Um Ji-Cheok. Unfortunately, her parents had told her to go through the Planning team if she was going to use such an important item. Out of nowhere, the Planning team planned an event to give it to the Hunters who were in the top five of the GodTube ranking. Ju-Ran couldn’t help but okay the proposition, and the chairman, who was also her dad, signed it off. That was how it all started.

‘My feed is on fire.’

The reward was indeed the Elixir Replica that could heal even a dying person. Every fandom gathered up trying to win this for their Hunters.

‘The first-place fandom is forming an alliance with the fifth-place fandom. They’re also exchanging votes.’

This was a common occurrence in ranking battles for popularity. She had expected the first place and the second place to form an alliance, but because of the recent scandal between their Hunters, the fandoms were not very happy with each other. In addition to the prizes from their agencies, the fans were raising money to give out refrigerators and laptops in a lottery format to those who proved that they streamed their Hunters’ content.

They were desperate.

‘The current third place Hunter has a sad backstory of how he almost died from losing his arm.’

His arm had been replaced with a mechanical prosthetic arm, and he had been hovering between life and death for a month now. The news reported every day on who would take his inheritance if he died and even calculated how much the taxes would be reduced.

‘No matter how desperately they needed the viewership, that was too much.’

?Our Hunter is still alive! Why are you all talking about the insurance money?!?

It was even discovered that his agency was preparing to introduce the next rookie Hunter with a similar concept that could succeed in the dying Hunter’s legacy. However, as a result, the fans of the third-place Hunter felt that their Hunter was receiving horribly unfair treatment.

Even though the third-place Hunter and the rookie Hunter were still in the same agency, their fandoms were not on good terms. On the contrary, the fandom of the third-place Hunter still didn’t know why their Hunter hadn’t ended the contract with that agency already. The Hunter didn’t speak out about this matter either. Fans were just assuming that he had signed the worst contract in the world.

Due to this incident, his fans started to stream his content, hoping that their Hunter would break free from the agency by the end of the year.

Like this, each Hunter and their supporters had a story.

The problem in this case was with Um Ji-Cheok’s fandom, ‘Gumji’.

Among the Hunters in the top ten, his fandom had been created most recently, and their growth was dazzling. This was the positive aspect.

Since they were the most recent fandom, however, they also got a lot of hate from other fandoms. In particular, the alchemist Hunters hired by pharmaceutical companies were cursing Gumji in every way possible. And since the Hunters were cursing, naturally, their fandoms joined in. That was why Gumji hated those fandoms.

In addition, since Ji-Cheok was rather secretive about his past and his personal life, there were many negative rumors about it. For example, there were rumors that Ji-Cheok was crazy about luxury bags, he saw his fans as his ATM, he had bullied kids when he was in school and everyone in his neighborhood knew he was a degenerate, and he slept with different women every night. There were even rumors that he was doing property speculation on the side.

“Why do I have to be this stressed out when I’m the one who is hosting this event?” Ju-Ran said to herself.

Ji-Cheok was in seventh place. He had to climb two ranks, but she couldn’t just give up on him, because he was very close to the sixth place. Unfortunately, she couldn’t let her staff stream Ji-Cheok’s content to help him out. She was the one who had started this event. If she took his side for no reason, she knew that it would be detrimental to her brand image.

She gulped down the whiskey and changed the TV screen on the wall to GodTube.

‘I just got the notification, I guess I need to check it out.’

What she saw on the screen was shocking.

“...What is that? Is he for real? Is he crazy?!”

?The Legendary skill I got this time is called [King of Production]. It really is a Legendary skill. It increases my productivity by five hundred percent!?

On the screen, Ji-Cheok was wearing a hamster costume and posed cutely. If any other person had worn that costume instead, the viewers would have instantly puked, but Ji-Cheok’s handsome face somehow made it cute.

Ju-Ran remembered that she used to put this kind of costume on her ball-jointed dolls. It was a little bit different, of course, since Ji-Cheok was a living person. And even though she thought he was handsome and cute, he was still clearly crazy.

?Also, it says that the faction I belong to also will also get a one hundred percent boost to their production. Do you guys know that meme with Mr Krabs swimming in money? It’s kinda like that, but with potions!?

‘Five hundred percent increase in production?!’

?Now, I can produce 40,000 bottles of D-grade potions per month! Not only that, I even lowered the price, and I’ll be selling them for 499,800 won! Did you just have an accident? Are you worried because the hospital is far away? Well, don’t just stand there, buy my potions!?

Um Ji-Cheok posed with his thumbs up in the air.

?From now on, everyone, don’t be afraid to hunt those monsters and drink a lot of potions!?

The head part of the hamster costume wobbled around because it was way bigger than Ji-Cheok’s own head. He couldn’t care less, though.

?We are now free from expensive and ineffective potions! Today marks the new era of cheap potions, everyone!!!?

His stream was as mad as a March hare. Ju-Ran could almost physically hear the cheers from the chat, and she saw that the Like button was being clicked like crazy.

His stream was certainly giving some people a sense of liberation, but it evoked a different feeling for Shin Ju-Ran.

Fear.

‘He’s going to produce 40,000 bottles? He’s going to sell them for 499,800 won, even cheaper than his previous price? He’s singlehandedly covering Korea’s D-grade potion production. This is crazy… ’

He was essentially declaring the destruction of the entire potion industry!

“Hello? Chief secretary? I want you to sell all the stocks I have in the potion industry. Yes, I mean right NOW!” she yelled at her subordinate on the phone.

Then, Um Ji-Cheok said,

?Oh, I’m also doing a streaming event. I’m thinking of giving out potions to my viewers. The number of potions…?

A demon king had descended upon the world.

* * *

[He is supplying all of Korea’s D-grade potion by himself! A walking factory! The world is envious of his ability. The United States are begging for his help! Are we dreaming? Korea’s national power has never been this high!]

This title looked absurdly nationalistic, and the video even had a huge Taegeukgi on the thumbnail, but the number of views actually exceeded 5.6 million in just three hours.

This video was made by a GodTube channel named [The Real Patriot], which had 2.1 million subscribers. [The Real Patriot] was famous for making videos that were different from other ignorant nationalist channels. They always had evidence to back their nationalistic ideology. With the concept of high-quality nationalism, they were famous for making videos based on facts, although the titles were more than a bit provocative.

No matter how good the food was, even a triple-starred chef in triple-starred restaurant could not beat an eighty-year-old traditional Makguksu restaurant. Similarly, the number of subscribers of [The Real Patriot] was higher than even Um Ji-Cheok’s! And when [The Real Patriot] promoted Ji-Cheok’s channel in his video, Ji-Cheok’s number of subscribers also rose rapidly.

Among all the people who were rejoicing as they watched the video, one man was frowning.

It was Park Il-Sung, the director of SL Chemicals.

“Director, our stocks are crashing.”

“Only ours?”

“Every company involved in potion production is taking a hit.”

“Ha…. That bastard…. He’s fucking us up pretty bad, isn’t he.”

“He is also streaming live, and people started to participate in his event because they’re crazy about the free potions.”

Bang!

“The what?! Free potions?! Who in the hell would give potions?away just for a streaming event?!”

Park Seong-Chan, who was the head of the Strategic Planning Office and also Il-Sung’s right-hand man, continued his report with a calm expression in spite of the Director’s wrath.

“The media started pouring out articles. Among the GodTubers, there are even people who are streaming from right in front of Um Ji-Cheok’s house.”

“No shit they do. Those D-grade potions are worth 500,000 won…. This is hopeless.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Contact other companies. If they don’t want to collapse like their stocks, they have to cooperate. Get rid of this Um Ji-Cheok guy by any means.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And gather some of our reporters. Find dirt on this guy. Tax evasion or anything. Drag his name into the mud. He has?to be hiding something.”

The leader of a modern empire had decided to go all out to kill Um Ji-Cheok.

* * *

“Hyung… This is serious!”

Two hours after his potion livestream, the stock price of SL Chemical had fallen so low that it looked like another Great Depression. They were down thirty percent!

The Korean stock market had a law that prevented stock from falling below thirty percent in a single day. In the past, this had even been capped at fifteen percent… Ji-Cheok had heard that in countries like the United States, where there was no lower limit at all, if a stock crashed, it could even drop as much as eighty percent in a single day. That sounded scary.

Just like that, Sl Chemicals hit the lower limit of the day and lost hundreds of billions. If they tanked another thirty percent the next day, the net loss would literally be in the trillions.

On the opposite side, Ji-Cheok was actually making money, as he had sold the stocks short. However, to him, making money was not the priority. That was just a bonus. The real purpose was to destroy big pharma companies like SL Chemicals.

“I can see that it’s serious.” Ji-Cheok shrugged.

“They’re really going to try and kill you, hyung. They’re going to use any means necessary to fight back.”

Mu-Cheok looked serious.

‘I would too if I were them. Down thirty percent in one day… And it’s going to fall even further.’

1. The flag of South Korea.

2. A Korean noodle dish made with buckwheat noodles served in a chilled broth and sometimes with sugar, mustard, sesame oil or vinegar.