This talent combination was truly invincible—a triple-threat setup that would make any gacha player weep with envy. Web Streaming at S-rank, E-sports at A, and Editing at A—it was like drawing three SSRs in a single ten-pull.
However, precisely because it was so invincible, Kuroha Akira instead frowned in distress, held his forehead, and showed a pained expression. His face contorted like he'd just bitten into a lemon.
Takanashi Mirai, as the person whose palm was being read, felt flustered seeing the diviner make such an expression—even if she didn't fully believe in palm reading. When someone looks at your future like it's a train wreck in slow motion, it's hard not to feel nervous.
"What's wrong? You look constipated… Is my palm reading really that bad?" She pulled her hand back slightly, eyeing him suspiciously.
Kuroha Akira shook his head, sighed dejectively, and said in a dramatic, fortune-teller tone,
"Alas… No… Your palm reading is quite good—I should say, very good. But how to put it… it's like 'the time hasn't come yet'."
"What the heck!" Mirai threw her hands up. "Sure enough, you fortune-tellers love speaking in riddles! Just tell me clearly! What do you mean 'the time hasn't come yet'? Is something going to happen to me in the future?"
"Don't rush. Let me think about how to tell you."
It wasn't that Kuroha Akira didn't want to explain clearly—he just genuinely couldn't explain 'what would happen in the future' to Mirai. Not without sounding like a complete lunatic.
Unlike when he'd met Shion, Kuroha Akira's only thought after seeing Mirai's three talents was a single, overwhelming feeling…
What a pity!
It's truly regrettable!
Born at the wrong time, Takanashi Mirai!
Because the most important of her three talents—the S-rank talent for being a streamer—was completely useless in this world's Japan. It was like having a smartphone in 1995: technically advanced, but with no network to connect to.
As mentioned before, Japan in this world was still using flip phones. 3G internet speed wasn't fast enough, WiFi wasn't widespread, and even video tapes hadn't been fully phased out yet. In this era where not everyone had a smartphone, watching online videos wasn't the main form of entertainment—at least in Japan, TV program viewership still held an overwhelming, dominant position.
In fact, in the original world, many people in Japan still used button-operated flip phones well into the 2010s—a 'temporal inertia' caused by entering modernization too early. However, in this world, this wasn't a situation limited to Japan. It was the same all over the globe.
Not using smartphones wasn't because people didn't want to use them, but because there were none to use! The technology simply didn't exist yet.
Because the technological level of this world was generally one major version behind the world Kuroha Akira had transmigrated from. It felt like the early 2000s—a time when dial-up was still a thing and buffering was a way of life.
And Kuroha Akira finally understood why this discrepancy occurred.
Actually, to be precise, this world as a whole was 'fifteen years behind' his original timeline. Why fifteen years? Because Kuroha Akira was fifteen years old. In his previous life, Kuroha Akira—who had been Bai Yu Ming—had just turned thirty. The difference was exactly fifteen years.
When he first transmigrated, Kuroha Akira had thought he had 'become younger,' but that wasn't actually the case. He'd had similar conjectures earlier, and it wasn't until he received some confirmation from Aka-nee—learning that Aka-nee in his previous life, Tashiro Kohaku, was 39 years old—that he completely confirmed his guess.
Because Tashiro Kurenai was currently 24 years old, exactly 15 years younger than Aka-nee had been in his previous life.
So, in reality, it wasn't that these transmigrators became younger; rather, 'they were this age in this world.' Although the calendar showed 2024, in reality, this world should be equivalent to 2009 in his previous life. Transmigrating to Tokyo in 2009!
This was the truth!
If it was 2009, then everything made sense. It hadn't fully entered the era of information explosion and traffic. In the current age, where communication network speeds hadn't entered the high-speed era, watching videos on mobile phones was still 'very uncomfortable.'
Could you tolerate watching videos on a screen the size of two coins, with low resolution and constant buffering? Therefore, people in this world would think that watching videos on a mobile phone was a very foolish thing to do. Like watching a movie through a keyhole.
Because of this, the form of 'live streaming' was also limited by communication speed and hadn't yet been widely recognized by the public. In fact, live streaming already existed at this time, but it was still mainly PC-based, primarily in chat room modes—like YY Voice, focusing on show-style broadcasts.
The live streaming industry truly began to rise around 2012, with the emergence of dedicated platforms, and game streamers started to appear. Then, around 2015-2016, live streaming shifted from PC to mobile, ushering in its true explosive period—the beginning of the high-traffic era. It was similar abroad; in terms of networks, foreign countries weren't much more advanced, and even lagged behind due to the 'era inertia' mentioned earlier.
In summary, Takanashi Mirai's S-rank talent called 'online streamer' had no room to be utilized at all—because there were simply no full-time streamers now. It was like having a driver's license before cars were invented.
Then e-sports became even more awkward. Because e-sports could be said to be an industry that rose alongside online live streaming; many game streamers benefited from the era's dividends, becoming well-known personalities after retirement.
Moreover, e-sports in Japan was still an unexplored territory—there was simply no such environment. Of course, this mainly referred to MOBA games. The reason was that in Japan, console penetration was higher than computers. People felt that to play games, they should use game consoles, not computers—computers were for office work.
Only fighting games, because their origin was in Japan, had many various competitions. But in fact, before connecting with international standards, fighting game competitions were no different from street brawls—small in scale, with low prize money, making it difficult to make a living solely from them.
Even Mr. Me, a legend in the fighting game world, had written in his autobiography that the current era was better, and fighting game players could receive more attention and sponsorships. When he was young, he would participate in a competition, win the championship, and the prize money wouldn't even cover his round-trip travel expenses…
In other words, two of Takanashi Mirai's three talents were pretty useless right now. Perhaps only editing could still be put to use, since editing skills were needed for movies and TV shows.
If Takanashi Mirai had been born in the world where Kuroha Akira was from, she would definitely be invincible. As someone who had fully experienced the traffic era, Kuroha Akira deeply understood how much an online mega-streamer could earn—and how much influence and fame they possessed.
Although Kuroha Akira found it very abstract, those famous live-selling streamers earned more in a single day than others earned in a lifetime, with a single live stream generating hundreds of millions in revenue. It was truly to the extent that celebrity idols had to serve as foils for big streamers, and even many older-generation artists had 'gone into the business.'
Rather, in the internet streaming era where 'traffic equals money,' streamers were the 'new-age celebrities.'
But in fact, the underlying rules had never changed. Why did those brands used to spend a lot of money advertising on TV? Because advertising drove product sales. It was just that after what people watched changed, advertising shifted from TV to other platforms—live-selling streamers and video website ads. The money that only TV stations could once earn was seized and a huge chunk bitten off by the trendsetters who grasped the wave of the era. Ultimately, wherever the public's attention gathered, money flowed in.
That's why Kuroha Akira had that constipated, uncomfortable expression.
It's really, really too bad…
It felt like discovering a massive gold mine, but because it was buried deep underground, it couldn't be excavated with current technology.
Again, he thought, if Takanashi Mirai could catch up with the new era…
No.
Wait!
She might not have 'missed out'! She was only eighteen years old now—just a high school student like him! If she started making videos now, building her reputation, and then immediately went live when the streaming era arrived, she could become a veteran mega-streamer! Accumulate and then explode!
She can do it! There's a chance!
Rather, this era—where live streaming hasn't yet emerged—was a golden opportunity to build a reputation in advance! If she could maintain her momentum and successfully transition into the live streaming era when it arrived, money would flow in continuously. Just from donations alone, she should be able to earn a fortune!
Kuroha Akira didn't want to miss this super-rich mine, comparable to Shion in potential value. He looked at Takanashi Mirai with passionate, eager eyes—so intense that he was practically licking his lips, a wicked smile spreading across his face like a predator who'd just spotted its prey.
Takanashi Mirai felt a chill run down her spine from his gaze and asked timidly, instinctively leaning back.
"Why are you suddenly looking at me like that… Speaking of which, Akira, you've been secretly looking at my mom's chest before, haven't you? You big pervert…"
"Wait, don't interrupt—I'm still analyzing Mirai's future!"
"Mmm…"
Takanashi Mirai's face flushed slightly, and she instinctively protected her body, not knowing if this guy was analyzing the true future or analyzing her figure. What was there to analyze about her own body?
She wasn't like Mom, with such a voluptuous figure that could stop traffic. Although Takanashi Mirai didn't envy a curvy figure—it would prevent her from wearing cute clothes—her current slender frame was just right for dresses, so she was quite satisfied.
But it must be said that, being both Takanashi, the difference in figure between Akiko and Mirai was like the difference between the ceiling and the floor. This was also one of the reasons Takanashi Mirai suspected she wasn't her mother's biological daughter. No matter how you looked at it, the difference in figure between mother and daughter shouldn't be that extreme, right? Genes couldn't be that outrageous!
Kuroha Akira, on the other hand, crossed his arms and continued analyzing Mirai's future prospects like a business strategist plotting a market takeover.
First, she definitely needed to upload videos to build her reputation. The video type could be discussed later; a more important question was which website she should upload them to. This was as critical as choosing a publishing house or an agency. If the wrong video website was chosen and the site went belly up, all her hard-earned reputation would be wasted—and on a new website, she'd have to start from zero. Changing sites was equivalent to changing accounts.
Kuroha Akira had been surfing the internet a lot since his transmigration. While searching for videos online, he discovered that this world hadn't yet seen the emergence of a super giant platform like YouTube. It was still in an era where various websites were vying for dominance—a chaotic landscape reminiscent of the early internet days. This was mainly because watching videos was pretty much the same no matter which website you used, as there were no bullet comments yet…
Hmm? Bullet comments?
That's right—bullet comments!
Kuroha Akira suddenly realized that bullet comment websites hadn't yet risen in this world. Although there were a few small sites, they were still in the stage of self-entertainment and self-contained communities—nothing like the massive platforms he remembered.
At this moment, Kuroha Akira recalled the history of bullet comment websites in his hometown. As an old-timer who had been active on bullet comment sites since the early days—from N to A, from A to B, and then watching B grow day by day, commercialize, and finally go public—he had witnessed the entire process. This expansion speed was extraordinary! It was like watching a rocket launch in slow motion.
Then, looking back at N station—the progenitor of bullet comment websites in Japan, also known as Nico Nico—it had been crushed by YouTube due to poor operation and was now on its last legs, essentially sitting at the same table as A. Regardless of B's later website environment, from a capital perspective, it was undoubtedly quite successful. Uncle thus became a well-known figure among netizens, and the founder achieved financial freedom.
Unfortunately, Kuroha Akira didn't know how to build websites or computer technology. Otherwise, he would definitely go create a bullet comment video website right now. If it could grow successfully, he could earn a lot of money just by selling the website later. Even if he could replicate talents now, he'd have to learn a lot of knowledge from scratch—and that process would take time. By the time he learned, he'd already be a step behind.
If only there were ready-made computer talents…
Then, in that instant, a person flashed through Kuroha Akira's mind. A middle-aged man who had lived with him for over half a year, worked diligently, and whose hairline was increasingly receding.
Hijikata Isamu! Uncle Isamu!
A master in the field of computer science! With his help, it could definitely be done! Most importantly, Kuroha Akira didn't need to sell him a dream—because he came from the same world as himself and had personally experienced that internet era. As long as he explained it clearly, Uncle Isamu would understand completely!
Moreover, unlike Kuroha Akira, Hijikata Isamu in his previous life had truly been a big boss. He had managed large companies and understood the game at a level Kuroha Akira could only dream of.
Actually, the reason Kuroha Akira hadn't thought about starting a company was simple: he really didn't know how to do it. As the saying goes, working hard all your life, starting a business impoverishes three generations. That wasn't something he, with his desire to lie flat and slack off, should touch—it was a path for those striving to become superior after transmigration.
Making Kuroha Akira, a former corporate slave, into a boss was simply impossible. He knew he wasn't cut out for it. With Kuroha Akira's capacity, being a middle manager was his limit.
But if Hijikata Isamu were to be the CEO… he could do nothing and still get money! I also have my own uncle!
Once this thought appeared in Kuroha Akira's mind, it refused to leave.
If Kuroha Akira's previous idea of lying flat by clinging to the coattails of geniuses was a "small money" side road, then this path was undoubtedly a "big money" highway—the kind that could lead to a penthouse suite instead of a one-room apartment.
Idols, actors, manga artists, novelists, athletes, musicians—no matter how top-tier and world-renowned they were, they couldn't make it onto the world's richest list. People who became "super-rich" were often major shareholders holding large amounts of stock, such as company founders.
Whether it was the two Ma's domestically or that one overseas, they had all held the title of "richest person." These people held many shares of their own company before it went public, and if the company grew and went public, the shares would generate immense value. Most of the world's tycoons followed this blueprint.
Of course, there was another path: becoming an investor with unique insight, putting money into the market and participating in the growth of other companies, thereby gaining huge profits. The most famous example, Mr. Buffett, belonged to this category. In general, the rise and growth of an enterprise was a process of "gathering people and wealth."
As long as one could become an "initial member" and participate "early" enough to be allocated shares, then once the enterprise rose, the early members could "rise to heaven with it."
Kuroha Akira didn't want to be as rich as those three billionaires. But he definitely wanted to be the chicken or dog that ascended with them—riding the rocket to success without having to build it himself.
And this plan also encompassed Takanashi Mirai's innate talent. Since there wasn't yet the soil for her to be a full-time streamer and video creator, then wouldn't it be great if he created the video website himself! She could be an UP host on his platform, do live streams, and use her talent to bring him traffic!
Kuroha Akira knew deeply how much traffic a big streamer could bring to a website, and with Takanashi backing him, he had even more confidence in creating a bullet comment video website and live streaming platform.
With Takanashi Mirai's three complementary talents, as long as she could continuously produce high-quality videos and keep streaming, why would the website ever worry about having no viewers? It was a perfect concept!
While looking at Takanashi Mirai's talents, Kuroha Akira had also found the "career" he should invest in. A truly broad road that would allow him to make money while lying flat on his back—the ultimate lazy dream.
That is: to unite the transmigrators, create a bullet comment video website, and establish Japan's exclusive YouTube!
He saw the future in Mirai. And it was streaming in high definition.