— The Animal Shelter Stream – "Hope for Paws" (437 Viewers)
A girl knelt beside a golden retriever with a bandaged leg. While feeding the dog, she introduced, "I found Cooper with an injured leg in a park. He is a lovely and obedient child."
She genuinely smiled while feeding Cooper. "Even $5 helps us buy food for a day," she said, looking at the camera.
Augustus smiled and, without any hesitation, gifted: $50,000.
Familiar with small donations, she gasped visibly at the notification, then started tearing up with a happy smile. "You don't know… how much this means. Thank you, thank you, Augustus," she said, tears welling, and she tightly hugged Cooper.
"Woof woof!" the pup barked. She chuckled through her tears and, with a cracked voice, mumbled, "See, even Cooper is thanking you," and broke into a dazzling smile.
| I'm not crying, you are!
| He gave more than money. He gave hope.
The number of viewers began increasing.
Augustus chuckled with moist eyes. "Haah… even after cleaning, there's so much dust," he mumbled with a soft smile and backed away to search for more videos.
[Can confirm: moisture detected near both heart and eyeballs.]
He sighed playfully and kept scrolling.
Soon, a notification popped up. He tapped on it and saw the same girl mention him in her story with a long, heartfelt thank-you speech.
And instead of becoming happier, he sighed. If I could help every creator like this... he thought. But he knew he couldn't. Not yet. With a shake of his head, he smiled faintly.
He began scrolling but noticed that… Janice was finally live.
Augustus smiled and clicked on her stream. Her soft, beautiful voice immediately filled the room with comfort.
He narrowed his eyes. Janice… was wearing a mask, hiding her identity. But her voice was unmistakable to him.
| "Without hearing your singing, I can't fall asleep."
| "The voice is so soothing, you're my inspiration Janice <3"
People commented one after another, relishing in her beautiful voice.
Already used to her singing, a light smile appeared on his face. He eased into a comfortable position and closed his eyes.
Lying down on the bed, Augustus relaxed as her soothing song washed over him. It was as if all his worries had faded away, and only her voice remained.
His muscles eased. His breathing slowed. For a moment, the world fell silent.
Unknowingly, he was slowly drifting off to sleep, and when he realized this, he jolted awake, grabbed the phone, and looked at her for a few minutes.
Then, going to the gifting section, he sent her 10,000 rockets, which translated to… $10,000.
Yes, $10,000. He had considered sending more but decided that this was a good starting amount.
[Romance unlocked: the 'Soft Simp with Deep Pockets' route.]
"Tsk, Shut up system" he smirked playfully.
Augustus could tell she wasn't the type of woman where you could win her heart with just money. If he sent any more, then she might start doubting his intentions, or worse, distancing herself from him.
After listening to a complete song, her voice brought a strange sense of comfort. His eyes became heavy, so he closed the app and decided to sleep…
However, a passing thought made him open his eyes once again.
One last gift to another creator, he thought, and grabbed his phone to open an app where he had read a few novels whenever he had time. For a limited time, they helped him forget all his problems.
100X Subs sent to the Author: The_Light
He sleepily sent the gifts and finally closed his eyes. A faint, gentle smile lingered on his lips.
It was a good day.
With that thought, he finally drifted off to sleep, with the same gentle smile still lingering.
Ding…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Task #16:
[✓] – Gift 3 Creators, Be the Reason They Don't Quit.
Status: Task Completed Successfully
Kindness scaled. Someone, somewhere, just chose to keep going.
| Reward: $250,000 + Influence.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ring…
Augustus's phone vibrated with enthusiasm. However… he was still asleep with the same dumb yet warm smile.
Ring… Ring…
It buzzed non-stop.
And when his senses caught onto the phone's ringing, he immediately perked up and checked the phone.
4 missed calls.
2 messages.
He saw the notifications on the screen and opened them: two calls from David, one from a delivery agent, and one from the store owner.
As for the messages:
Janice (Streaming App)
| I know it was you who sent the gifts.
David
| Augustus, the computer, and other items are safely delivered. They arranged and installed everything. The office looks like a tech hub.
A happy smile appeared on his handsome, sleepy face. And it brightened as he saw the system's panel for the [Daily Grind mission] hover before him.
But before he could get up to take a cold shower…
[Congratulations, Host. The Tutorial Phase has ended.]
[Foundational character growth achieved.]
[Emotional Resonance successfully calibrated.]
"Huh?" Augustus furrowed his brows in confusion, though the system's messages didn't seem to stop.
[New Features unlocked.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Assets Overview
Havencrest properties - 10%
Stewart Horizon Institute - 2%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Liquid Cash Monitor: $644,091.87
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Debt Tracker
Crunch Studio: $5,950,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Public Perception: (68%) ↑
– Reflects your presence across your network — from trending hashtags to whispered admiration. Everyone can influence this (readers included).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Charisma Rating: (-10%) → (+3%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Business Blueprint
No businesses are currently owned.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Task Log
Active Tasks: 4
Completed: 17
Filter by: [Completed], [Active], [Reward]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He read the wall of text. Going through each feature, he understood what every feature meant. "Whoa, System, was this all just a tutorial?" he asked with confusion, yet excitement flickered in his eyes.
"Hmmm…" he hummed thoughtfully and deduced, "Well, they all seem to help me with tracking, but I'm curious about the Business Blueprint," he mumbled with a small smile and got off the bed.
Thirty minutes passed, and after completing most of the daily tasks.
Augustus stood at the main door of his small room. with a bright smile and fresh mood, he looked extra charming today as his eyes gleamed with playful confidence.
Augustus was ready for yet another exciting, new bright day…