Chapter 10: 10 - Numb Release

    "Hey Olivia, wait a minute, I want to ask you something," I called out, making her turn to me in confusion.

    "Hi." she said.

    "Oli..." she said.

    "What?" I asked confused.

    "You can just call me Oli. That''s what my friends call me..." she mumbled while looking away a little.

    Smiling, I nodded and asked, "So, Oli, I was thinking about posting that song from yesterday on a MeTube channel I made. Is there a problem?"

    "A MeTube channel? What channel?" Hearing that I was going to post the song, instead of being sad, just as I imagined, she got excited.

    Taking out my cell phone, I opened the newly created channel and showed it to her.

    "I decided to make a channel to post the songs I''m going to make in the future. For now the only song I''ve made is Numb, but I intend to write others when I get inspiration," I explained.

    "Woah!" Hearing my idea and seeing the channel logo ready, Oli was getting more and more excited. I wonder what she was imagining.

    "Of course, you can post it! Send me the link when you finish; I want to hear it again."

    "Alright." I nodded and went back to my room, ready to begin my plans.

    -------- Olivia''s Commentary --------

    Sitting on the couch excitedly, Olivia was looking at her cell phone while dragging her finger from top to bottom as if she was refreshing a page.

    "When Noah told me he was going to make a MeTube channel, at first I was just surprised, but when I remembered how well he sang, that surprise turned into shock." the girl replied to the camera with a smile.

    "Why shock? Because of how well he sang! I know it''s very possible that he can make his channel go viral. Have you ever wondered what it''s like to be the sister of a famous MeTuber? Maybe he even knows my favorite makeup MeTuber and will introduce me to her in the future!" she answered excitedly as she began to imagine what it would be like in the future when Noah was famous. Th/e most uptodate novels are published on n0velbj)n(.)co/m

    -------- Commentary End --------

    Arriving in my room, the first of my plans was to find a Krav Maga tutorial video. Each day that passed at school I felt like that group of idiots was getting closer and closer to doing something shit to me, and with how busy I was during the week, I hadn''t had any free time to learn a fighting skill.

    Finding a tutorial on MeTube was easy, so the next few hours I spent imitating and practicing how the instructor taught in the videos.

    [Requirement for Krav Maga Mastery Lv1:

    Effect: Develops an improved understanding of Krav Maga, accelerating learning by 1% and promoting more efficient body adaptation by 1%. Additionally, improves technique retention and practical application during practice or combat. Gain a tangible advantage by absorbing the fundamental principles of Krav Maga.]

    ...

    [Krav Maga Mastery Lv2]

    ...

    [Krav Maga Mastery Lv3]

    ...

    [Krav Maga Mastery Lv4]

    ...

    [Krav Maga Mastery Lv5]

    I still heard the song, and bro, what song is that? This is fire!

    I''m now one of your subscribers and look forward to more music!

    Ps. I liked the song so much that I decided I''m going to make some complimentary art for its cover. If you like it, you can use it for free.]

    [WTF, did you hear his music and like it Jacob?!]

    [Just because his music is good he''s going to get free art?!]

    [I''m in line for my art and I''m only going to receive it in 1 week, and this dude got free art and won''t even need to queue? I have to see if this song is that good.]

    [...]

    Even though Jacob only had 3k followers, the amount of engagement he received was very high to the point that any art posted by the account would usually get between 5k and 10k likes, so that was the main source of publicity I was counting on for my song to reach 1k views in the first 24 hours.

    Finally, the last thing I did was set an alarm on my cell phone to go off in 4 hours, which was the time I would pretend Jacob took to draw the art for the song, and in the meantime I would do other things.

    My time during the week was quite busy because I had to spend 7 hours at school every day, but on the weekends I had those 7 hours free, so I would make good use of it.

    One skill that I knew would be extremely useful to me would be computer programming.

    To be honest, I had tried to learn it in my past life, but since I probably had no talent in it, the speed at which I learned was excruciatingly slow. I had tried for a week, dedicating myself as much as possible and I hadn''t managed to understand anything, so after a while I had just given up.

    But I knew that in the future a Skill like this would be one of the most useful for me, both for practicality and for the money I could potentially get with it, not to mention the security I could potentially guarantee for myself and the people I care about. So, I decided to start learning programming, and to my disappointment, my talent at it in this life wasn''t all that high either.

    It took me an hour of studying to finally unlock the skill.

    [Programming Prowess Lv1:

    Effect: Deepens understanding in programming, accelerating learning by 1% and facilitating more effective adaptation to new languages ??and concepts by 1%. Additionally, it improves algorithm retention and practical application during software development. Gain a tangible advantage by absorbing essential programming fundamentals and honing your practical skills.]

    When I unlocked this Skill, it was as if the programming concepts I had been having so much difficulty with were finally becoming slightly simpler for me, probably because the advantage in absorbing the essential fundamentals of programming and the speed at which I learned things had increased a little.

    To raise the Skill to Lv 2 it only took me 50 minutes. For Lv 3 it only took me 48 minutes, and considering how the speed at which I learned was increasing, I was very excited.

    I had spent a week studying this in my previous life to no avail, and now, what little I had learned was only a miniscule fraction as much as this Skill currently at Lv 3. I think it was because of my poor understanding that the Skill started so slowly at Lv 1, but I didn''t mind that much. As long as my learning speed remained high, I was very satisfied.

    In another 47 minutes, the Skill managed to reach Lv 4, giving me enough experience to follow in the footsteps of most accomplished programmers and be able to make my first calculator alone without consulting anything on the internet. If I studied a little more, maybe I could make a simple game, but that would have to be put aside for now, as now was the time for me to post the image that Jacob made for Black Velvet.

    Looking at my Tweep as Black Velvet, I was surprised to see that Jacob wasn''t the only person I had tagged who responded to me. In fact, 2 other people I tagged also responded quite excitedly about my song. Before reading through these people''s comments, however, I made Jacob''s post with the art I drew, which was a marionette doll that was being controlled by chains, but a padlock holding those chains had opened, causing the doll to fall and it finally began to loosen, coming out of the dark and into the light where it was more colorful. The art really looked beautiful, to the point that it would probably attract a lot of attention from anyone who saw it on MeTube.

    My biggest concern when making the art was the choice of colors. My focus was on using the contrast of two opposing colors using watercolor to attract even more attention from the public who would see this Thumbnail on the MeTube page.

    After posting this image, I went to see the comments of the other influencers I tagged.

    [Damn, this song... I have to admit, it made a small tear run down my eyes...] One of the people I tagged responded, making that person''s followers curious to listen to my song.

    Out of curiosity, I saw that my song on MeTube already had 401 views, which was much more than I imagined it would have at that moment.

    Confused, I looked in the comments to see if anyone said how they had found the page.

    ////NunuNote/////

    Every 1k Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter :)

    discord.gg/NunuXD

    I really need your support for this competition!!