I'm Really a Superstar
chapter-728

Late at night.

In the dead of night, almost every household was asleep.

Zhang Ye was at his parents' house checking on the performance of his popularity in recent days and slightly summarizing his thoughts about his work for the past few months. Overall, he was pretty satisfied with how everything has turned out. At least when comparing it to how he was doing at the beginning of the year, he was doing much better in recent days. His popularity had also grown exponentially and could not be mentioned in the same breath as the past. Other celebrities might have encountered a bottleneck and slowed down in their progress the moment they entered the B-list rankings, but it was the exact opposite for Zhang Ye. It seemed like he had only just started ascending and heading toward the peak of his career.

His short-term goal was reached earlier than expected, putting him in a very good mood.

After summing it all up, it was about time for the lottery draw.

During the recent college entrance examination question setting, Zhang Ye had spent a good half of his reputation points earned from the first few episodes of The Voice. He used them to increase his understanding and knowledge of this world by reading books related to the social sciences, novels of this world, foreign history, foreign languages, and all other sorts of books with varying topics. He scanned through all those books once, then by using the Memory Search Capsules, he revisited all the text and images to store them into his mind, increasing his knowledge greatly and getting a better understanding of this world. Although not perfect yet, at the very least he wouldn't accidentally reveal that he wasn't from this world due to a lack of basic general knowledge—this was more than enough as his greatest weakness was slowly being made up for.

As for whether the additional knowledge was enough for him to relearn, Zhang Ye knew that it was not. He did not expect himself to be able to summon the wind and call for rain with just some books, since knowledge from text and images were almost always more passive in nature. It wasn't as if he could practically apply all of the replicated knowledge he had become so familiar with now. It wasn't that powerful, otherwise, what was the point in having teachers? This was why the additional knowledge was just a way to supplement and enrich Zhang Ye and improve himself. He did not expect that he could put them to use any time soon. If there was anything he knew that he could depend on, it was the lottery draw. With the existence of the game ring, it was the most direct and practical help that Zhang Ye could use. This was his greatest trump card!

It had been some time since he had done the lottery draw. He was itching for it!

First, a check to see how many reputation points had been earned!

Zhang Ye was already prepared to have a spin at the lottery with all that he had. He opened up the game ring's virtual screen and immediately saw a long string of numbers appearing overhead.

183 million, 82 thousand Reputation Points!

Hey!

It's a little less than expected!

The figure was a bit less than Zhang Ye's expected amount of reputation. He felt that it was a little low, but still acceptable overall.

He understood that it was because of proving the mathematical conjecture he had gotten so many reputation points at that time, which caused him to have a higher expectation than what he was seeing now. But thinking about it practically, quite a lot of the reputation points he had gained earlier through the college entrance exam questions and The Voice he had already spent earlier. Moreover, The Voice might have high viewership ratings even when taking into account this world's factors and had gotten a 2-point rating, but that still would not compare to the sensation caused by proving a mathematical conjecture. After all, Dale's Conjecture was huge, something that encompassed the entire world, so even if it was just a minority of people in each country who gave it their attention, his reputation points would still increase by a lot. That should not surprising at all.

As for why the mathematical conjecture did not bring more real world popularity to Zhang Ye as compared to The Voice, he also knew the reason for it. After Dale's Conjecture had been proven, many people learned of it and were shocked by it. But because Zhang Ye was considered a rookie in the mathematics world, coupled with the fact that proving a mathematical conjecture did not count as entertainment news, or to be precise, it was not considered a mainstream topic within the entertainment industry or of interest to the people, this had created the reason for why proving the mathematical conjecture did not bring Zhang Ye as much popularity as The Voice, even though his game ring's reputation points had increased by a lot. But on the whole, the game ring's reputation points' system still worked rather proportionately with Zhang Ye's popularity score in the real world, except in special circumstances like the situation surrounding the mathematical conjecture where there was some difference to a certain extent on how he gained his reputation points and popularity.

Alright, it was time for the lottery draw!

He would use the first draw and place a small bet to test his luck!

He brought up the lottery draw interface and his eyes scanned the options available. He did not choose the upgraded lottery draw system. Instead, he just lightly touched the option that said "Lottery Draw (One)." This was the lottery draw system that was available prior to the system upgrade. But even if it was an older version and the prize items that could be won from it could no longer help much to Zhang Ye's progress, there were still some exceptions. In the Lottery Draw (One) system, he could win items like the "Difficulty Adjustment Die" which was cheap yet overpowered. The key was that its fail rate was very low, in that winning an empty treasure chest was unlikely. Compared to the new Lottery Draw (Two) system which had about a 50% chance of landing on an "empty" icon if he did not use the Lucky Halo, the probability of winning a prize was a lot higher in the older version. Zhang Ye had never intended to stop using the Lottery Draw (One) system. He was about to test his luck with it now.

He clicked and purchased the right to play one round of the lottery draw!

100,000 Reputation Points were deducted.

Once the wheel started spinning, Zhang Ye immediately clicked on the Additional Stakes button and added 99 stakes, making it a total of 100 stakes and spending 10 million points for this round of the lottery draw!

Once around!

Five times around!

The wheel spun extremely fast and then gradually slowed down!

"Special Category!"

"Give me the Special Category!"

Zhang Ye whispered under his breath the entire time.

In the end, it came to a stop in the Skills Category zone.

100 Treasure Chests (Small) came spilling out. Zhang Ye took a deep breath and lowered his head to open the chests and reveal the item that he won!

[Basics of Directing Skill Experience Book] × 100.

Basics of Directing? Wasn't this a required course when majoring in directing?

Zhang Ye blinked several times. This skill experience book had him surprised a little, as it was a prize that wasn't too different from what he had expected. It looked like his luck today was rather good.

As a result, without another word, Zhang Ye pressed Lottery Draw (One) again!

It started again!

100 additional stakes!

Another 10 million Reputation Points were spent just like that!

Looking at the spinning wheel, Zhang Ye screamed in his head again, hoping for a prize in the Special Category. This might be the older lottery draw system, but a prize from the Special Category could still mean getting the rights to purchase normal items from the Merchant Shop. Even if it didn't compare with the newer and upgraded Lottery Draw (Two), it would still be a great help to him. An item that could be bought without limit and at any time he needed it as long as he had the required amount of Reputation Points was much better than getting an item that he might only get to use once, unless that item was on the same level as the one in his inventory—the 1-Up item. However, there still might be a Merchant Shop purchase right to the 1-Up item, so if he could win a Special Category prize that gave him the rights to purchase the 1-Up item from the Merchant Shop, wouldn't it be even better?

So as long as he could land in the Special Category zone, Zhang Ye wouldn't want it any other way. Unfortunately, these outcomes were not up to him and he could only depend upon luck!

Ding!

The wheel stopped. The needle pointed at the Skills Category zone again!

The lottery draw ended!

[Camera Techniques Skill Experience Book] × 101.

When Zhang Ye saw this, he was again very happy with it. He thought about how strangely coincidental this result was. Camera techniques? This should also be part of the syllabus for a directing major, right? The prizes he got today from the lottery draw were all related to directing work, and were even quite useful to Zhang Ye. Although he was the executive director of The Voice, everyone knew that Zhang Ye wasn't exactly a true-blue director. He was considered someone who had no solid foundations in directing. He had only managed to do the show so well because he had the original The Voice show from his previous world to follow along with, and also the fact that a talent show did not really necessitate much skill from a director. This was not a TV drama or a movie, so it was much easier to handle the program as a director.

Now that The Voice had ended, Zhang Ye's next program was still undecided. He had not started considering what his next program would be, so naturally, if he experienced two types of directing skills to boost his resume, wouldn't it be even better? Even if Zhang Ye were to come across any program that had very difficult shots to handle, he would still risk taking on the job as the executive director. 100 books of both the Basics of Directing and Camera Techniques skills? Together with his experience and the original shows from his world, Zhang Ye believed that he could definitely match up against any director who had just made their debut or graduated from directing school. This allowed him to add even more clout and qualifications to himself. Do you know how important the role of the executive director in a program is? If Zhang Ye could handle the entire process by himself, then he definitely wouldn't let others do it. Besides, with these kinds of Experience Books, he could put them to good use for TV dramas or movie filming in the future!

It was time to "eat" them all!

A total of 201 Skill Experience Books were "eaten" and "digested" by Zhang Ye!

After taking a deep breath, Zhang Ye reopened the lottery draw screen. With some hesitation, his eyes landed on the Lottery Draw (Two) option. With focused determination, he reached out his hand and clicked the new lottery draw system. This was still the lottery draw that he was most anticipating. After all, even though the Lottery Draw (Two) system was much riskier and he had wasted quite a lot of Reputation Points on it before, the prizes that could be won in Lottery Draw (Two) was totally incomparable to those in Lottery Draw (One)!

It was time to give it a try.

With the same attitude as the previous times, Zhang Ye was unwilling to activate the Lucky Halo (Upgraded) as it cost too many reputation points to use. 100,000 Reputation Points for just one second of usage, if kept on for one minute, would force him to spend 6 million Reputation Points. This was almost the same as spending 10 million reputation points in Lottery Draw (Two), so he was exceedingly unwilling to use it!

The total reputation points he had left now was slightly over 160 million. Zhang Ye immediately clicked and purchased one ticket to play!

10 million Reputation Points suddenly vanished into thin air!

The slot machine lit up and the icons in the windows started spinning!

Stats Category…

Empty…

Empty…

Consumption Category…

Skills Category…

Empty…

Skills Category…

No matter which icon showed up on the slot machine, Zhang Ye just kept whispering the same name under his breath—"Special Category." But the probability of the Special Category icon appearing in this version of the lottery draw was way too low. Compared to Lottery Draw (One), it was even lower. In any case, whether it was because Zhang Ye's eyesight wasn't too good or something else, after staring at the slot machine's windows for half a minute, Zhang Ye did not manage to spot the Special Category icon even once!

Eventually, after a long time, he suddenly seemed to have caught a glimpse of the Special Category icon flashing across the slot windows!

That's right! Don't mention getting it, even just seeing it was difficult, so what would you make of the chances to land on that category!

Zhang Ye wasn't confident either. All he did was stare at the slot machine that was coming to a stop, hoping for a miracle to happen!