"Ignore it!"
Glancing at the flashing friend request tab, Shen Fei had no intention of adding anyone. His goal was crystal clear: spend money and build towers! He had no interest in chatting or socializing with anyone. Having just spent millions on a shopping spree at the Auction House, he needed to use the items he'd bought immediately.
Time waits for no one.
Compared to the veteran players who had been around for a long time, his only option was to spend money quickly to catch up…
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
He opened his inventory and got right to work. Soon, the special Defense Tower Blueprints he had just purchased—the Star-Slaying Tower Blueprint, Gale Tower Blueprint, Armor-Piercing Tower Blueprint, and others—were all synthesized up to the Ninth Tier. At the same time, his Crystal's level was boosted to the Eighth Tier by a massive number of Crystal Experience Books.
An Eighth Tier Crystal could already support the construction of 256 Defense Towers. He had even more room to grow.
[DING!]
[Respected VIP player, you have entered the Comprehensive Combat Power Ranking. Please check!]
After synthesizing more than a dozen Ninth Tier Defense Towers and raising his Crystal to the Eighth Tier, a system notification popped up in front of Shen Fei. Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms had a Combat Power Ranking. A single Ninth Tier Defense Tower added 10,000 Combat Power, while an Eighth Tier Crystal added 80,000. With these few actions, he had finally made it onto the ranking. Once on the ranking, you could claim a weekly reward…
"Not bad. Let's keep going!"
Without bothering to check the rankings, Shen Fei nodded and continued synthesizing Defense Towers. It was almost time to get off work, and he had to get more done before then. Otherwise, he would be heading home with his father soon, and then he would have to go AFK for another long stretch of time. His time was precious; he couldn't waste a single second.
Ignoring the ranking button, which had also started flashing, Shen Fei opened the Defense Tower synthesis menu and kept going. Now that the upper limit for Defense Tower levels had been unlocked, he was naturally going to synthesize a max-level Tenth Tier Defense Tower. The newly unlocked Tenth Tier Defense Towers required five Ninth Tier towers of the same type to be synthesized.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
He quickly synthesized five Ninth Tier Lightning Ball Towers. Using the five Ninth Tier Defense Towers, Shen Fei finally created his very first Tenth Tier ultimate Defense Tower—the Lightning Ball Tower.
[DING!]
[Respected VIP player, your Tenth Tier Lightning Ball Tower has reached first place on the Defense Tower Level Ranking. Please check!]
As the Tenth Tier Lightning Ball Tower was synthesized, a new system notification appeared. Because Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms had been live for a long time, Shen Fei's previous Ninth Tier Defense Towers hadn't made it onto the Defense Tower Level Ranking. But now that a new Tenth Tier Defense Tower had appeared, he immediately shot to the top of that list. Simultaneously, his position on the Combat Power Ranking also jumped forward by a huge margin.
Of course, Shen Fei paid no attention to any of this. He quickly inspected his new Tenth Tier Defense Tower, then continued synthesizing. In any case, it all boiled down to one thing—spending money!
While continuing to synthesize Defense Towers, he also opened the wormhole to let monsters through, farming them quickly for experience. After his Crystal reached the Eighth Tier, the monster spawn points around his "home" increased from two to three. Even so, with a Tenth Tier Lightning Ball Tower, not a single monster got through, even with accelerated spawn rates…
And so, Shen Fei continued to spend money synthesizing Defense Towers while rapidly gaining experience and raising his Crystal's level…
***
"Boss! This isn't working!"
"He's not adding any of us as friends!"
"We can't get him to join a guild, sweet-talk him, or fall for any of our shill tactics!"
At the Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms game company, Dai Mei, the head of the customer retention team, was tearing her hair out in front of the boss. At that moment, the TV in the boss's office was displaying a live feed of Shen Fei's gameplay. Dai Mei could see that the player named "Skyrocketing" was rapidly synthesizing Defense Towers while also auto-farming monsters to level up…
And his friend request tab was flashing like crazy. But the player showed no intention of clicking on it. This left her team of girls with no way to use their extensive experience as shills…
The frantic Dai Mei wanted to take control of the "Skyrocketing" account herself and just open the friend request tab. Many of her "sisters" had even sent provocative photos with their friend requests. Dai Mei was confident that as soon as he opened that tab, her team would absolutely be able to add him as a friend.
"Then launch an event. Force him to add friends!" the boss said slowly, suppressing his excitement.
After depositing six million, Shen Fei had immediately begun spending it rapidly. This was exactly what the boss wanted to see. Only when the cycle of depositing, spending, and fighting—then re-depositing, re-spending, upgrading, and fighting again—was established would this whale be considered truly hooked by their game. Seeing Shen Fei synthesize Defense Towers and spend money made the boss very happy.
However, the boss knew it wasn't enough. He wanted Shen Fei to spend more, to increase his investment in the game. They needed to increase interaction, as mindlessly synthesizing Defense Towers would get boring quickly. His customer retention department couldn't add him as a friend and was unable to work their magic. As the owner of the game company, he, of course, had his ways.
"Activate the Golden Orchid event!"
"Also, increase the reward for first place on the Golden Orchid Ranking by tenfold!"
A game company always has ways to drive player behavior. Upon discovering that Shen Fei wasn't adding friends, the boss activated a ranking that was based specifically on friends. Furthermore, the reward for the ranking was increased tenfold.
"Yes!" Beside him, the balding head of the development team immediately nodded.
"How are the other features coming along?" the boss pressed the head of development.
"Almost done. The team is working overtime to get it finished!"
***
"Hm?"
In the game, while auto-battling was on to harvest experience, Shen Fei was searching the Auction House for special Defense Tower Blueprints. Suddenly, he saw a full-screen notification appear on his game screen.
[DING!]
[Respected Player, to celebrate the game's third anniversary, the Golden Orchid Ranking is now open!]
[Players can gift Golden Orchids to friends to increase their Golden Orchid Value!]
[After gifting a Golden Orchid, you will immediately receive rewards such as random Defense Tower Blueprints.]
[In three weeks, the Golden Orchid Ranking will be finalized. The player in first place will receive a mysterious grand prize!]
Shen Fei saw several lines of large, golden text appear on his screen.
Are they trying to get me to add friends?
Reading the golden text, Shen Fei understood that to participate in this event, he first had to add friends.
"Let's see!"
Seeing that gifting Golden Orchids could yield random Defense Tower Blueprints as a reward, Shen Fei's interest was piqued. He directly opened the Combat Power Ranking.
[NO.1 Taiyi Zhenren, Combat Power 3,280,000]
[NO.2 Central Plains Bandits, Combat Power 1,450,000]
.
[NO.71 Skyrocketing, Combat Power 680,000]
.
Shen Fei was ranked 71st on the Combat Power Ranking. Although he had spent millions, his playtime was still too short. The other players on the ranking, thanks to their head start, were stronger than him, even though many had spent less.
Huh? Wait a second!
He had opened the Combat Power Ranking intending to find someone near the top to add as a friend and farm Golden Orchid Value with. But when he saw the name of the first-place player, Shen Fei suddenly froze. He remembered that, in the future, the largest sanctuary in the Xia Country was Fanghu Cave Heaven. The second-in-command there, it seemed, went by the nickname "Taiyi Zhenren." Moreover, his main abilities were all related to various Immortal Skill Defense Towers.
Back then, he had seen Taiyi Zhenren when he was dragged to Fanghu Cave Heaven by a super-humanoid boss to serve as cannon fodder. And he had even been saved by "Taiyi Zhenren."
What a coincidence?
He clicked on the profile of the number one ranked "Taiyi Zhenren." Shen Fei saw that this player had over two hundred Ninth Tier Defense Towers. And all of his Defense Towers were Immortal Skill Towers. They were all towers like "Celestial Spirits and Earthly Fiends," "Thunder God Talisman," and "Celestial Soldiers and Generals Summoning." There were no other miscellaneous towers. Clearly, this player liked to specialize in a single type of Immortal Skill Defense Tower…
It has to be him!
Seeing a "Qiongqi Summoning Tower" among Taiyi Zhenren's top-ranked Defense Towers, Shen Fei confirmed his suspicion. Back then, Taiyi Zhenren had controlled a Qiongqi to save him when he was just a small fry. The Qiongqi was one of a kind in the entire Xia Country. This was the man who would become the number one Defense Tower user of the future!
His decision to choose a tower defense game after being reborn was also inspired by this very person. What Shen Fei didn't expect was that the game he found was the same one this person was playing. It was all too much of a coincidence! Suddenly realizing that the future's number one Defense Tower user, Taiyi Zhenren, was playing the same game as him, Shen Fei became even more confident and determined to continue pouring money into it.
Then it's you…
After the apocalypse, Taiyi Zhenren had not only indirectly saved him but had also been a great help to the entire Xia Country. After confirming the man's identity, Shen Fei shot over a friend request. After that, he went straight to the store, bought ten thousand Golden Orchids, and sent them all to Taiyi Zhenren.
A Golden Orchid sold for 1 Gold Coin, which was the equivalent of one dollar. The daily purchase limit was 10,000, and Shen Fei sent all of them directly to Taiyi Zhenren.
[DING!]
[You have gifted 10,000 Golden Orchids and received 10,000 Golden Orchid Value!]
[Congratulations! You and your friend Taiyi Zhenren have become number one on the Golden Orchid List!]
[Reward: three special Defense Tower Blueprints. Please check your inventory!]
[Reward: Crystal Experience Book x10, Reward: Defense Tower Range Enhancement Scroll x6, Reward: ...]
.
A torrent of system messages flooded the screen after he sent the Golden Orchids. You didn't need to be friends to gift Golden Orchids; you only needed to be friends to gift them back and forth. By gifting Golden Orchids to Taiyi Zhenren, Shen Fei instantly shot to first place on the Golden Orchid List.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Just as he was about to check his new rewards, there was a sudden knock on his office door.
"Come in!"
The person who entered was the secretary his father had assigned to him. The secretary informed him that the Chairman, Father Shen, wanted to see him. Shen Fei immediately set his game to AFK and went to his father's office.
He still had to keep stringing his father along. He had originally thought the 130 million he had would be enough. But with the new Tenth Tier Defense Tower cap unlocked in Tower Defense of Ten Thousand Realms, he knew he had to "get more money" from his father.
I can't afford to provoke Father for now…