I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 132 - 132 131. One million_1

Chapter 132: 131. One million!_1 Chapter 132: 131. One million!_1 A week later.

The Mid-Autumn Festival had just ended, and the weather became cool.

I hadn’t yet recovered from the leisure of the holiday when the National Day holiday came around.

It felt as if the last holiday was just the other day.

Lu Ban didn’t have a family, so there was no need to go back to his hometown for the holiday. In fact, he was now a freelancer; every day was a holiday for him, but he also had to work every day.

When you gain freedom, you also lose it.

Lu Ban agreed deeply with this. He seemed like the freest person in the world, but in reality, he was the least free.

When he opened his eyes in the morning, Lu Ban felt a bit of tightness in his chest.

Those who have had cats may be able to relate to this sensation; it’s like your own big ginger cat has silently climbed onto your chest early in the morning, sitting there with its paws tucked in. When you open your eyes, it even yawns and breathes its bad breath onto your face.

Lu Ban slightly lowered his head. The curtains blocked most of the sunlight, making the room quite dim. He saw a thick black fog curled up into a ball, pressing on his chest. The mist swirled around, sometimes dispersing, sometimes condensing, as if breathing.

Good gracious.

Lu Ban exclaimed in shock.

Was this for real—being haunted in his sleep by a ghost?

It was physically oppressive, wasn’t it?

“…”

Lu Ban reached out from under the air conditioner’s blanket and gently poked the black fog.

The contraction of the fog seemed to pause for a moment, but then it slowly shifted its position and continued to expand and contract at its original rhythm.

“Still fancy a lie-in?”

Lu Ban glanced at the eyeball peeking out from under the bed with a disapproving look.

He reached into the black fog with his hand, but felt nothing as if there was no substance to it.

The black fog suddenly contracted, then dispersed like a cat facing an enemy, swiftly flying up the wall and disappearing through a crack.

Thud—

The cabinet seemed to move, emitting a faint sound.

“Good morning.”

Lu Ban courteously greeted, addressing the friend sitting in the air on the chair.

He went to the bathroom, freshened up, and the face of Lu Ban in the mirror looked a bit off-color. After brushing his teeth and wiping the mirror clean with a cloth until it looked as good as new, even his reflection in the mirror seemed to give him a thumbs up.

Back at the computer, Lu Ban opened the web page to check his data.

The views on Old Day Video had broken three million, with fewer than two hundred thousand effective clicks, earning roughly around three hundred thousand.

The views on Tomorrow Online were already at five million, but the effective clicks were less than fifty thousand, indicating a majority of non-paying viewers.

Surprisingly, Love Craftsmanship Video, with only one million plays, had already exceeded two hundred thousand effective clicks, with a paid ratio of over five to one.

The situation on Scarecrow Video was similar to Love Craftsmanship, except that the site was currently promoting an idol trainee variety program, which stole a lot of traffic, making its records slightly below that of Love Craftsmanship Video.

After a quick calculation of his earnings, Lu Ban found that he was close to his small goal of one million. At the latest, he should be able to reach it today.

Thinking of this, Lu Ban felt pleased.

But he still maintained the heart of an apprentice, immersing himself in studying acting-related content.

Because of several projects, professional film critics were dissatisfied with Lu Ban’s acting, finding it too exaggerated.

So, Lu Ban had to refine his skills and then amaze everyone!

He discovered that in modern film and drama, acting is divided into three schools: Experiential Acting, Method Acting, and Performance Acting.

Experiential Acting is about experiencing the character’s situation, like playing a blind person by blindfolding oneself, or portraying a worker by carrying bricks on a construction site, achieving subconscious instinctive reactions during performance through a period of experience.

For example, if Lu Ban wanted to improve his acting skills using the Experiential Acting approach, he might have to live with psychiatric patients and interact with them to truly understand how they live and converse.

Method Acting is considered a branch of Experiential Acting, but whereas Experiential Actors fully immerse themselves in their roles, Method Actors feel that approximation is enough—the specifics of the subject aren’t important; what’s key is the behavior.

For instance, if Lu Ban needed to portray a mentally ill patient, from the method acting perspective, he didn’t have to actually go to a psychiatric hospital; instead, he could talk to psychologists to learn, read case studies, and through these means, learn the behaviors of mentally ill patients to achieve a performance.

As for presentational acting, it’s about not caring how the character actually should be, but rather how I choose to present them.

Just like when Lu Ban had to play a mentally ill person, he didn’t need to know what state a mentally ill person actually was in. As long as he designed a set of behaviors for the performance and acted according to these rules, then he became his own version of a mentally ill person.

After some research, Lu Ban felt that method acting suited him best.

After all, he wasn’t someone with an innate acting talent. To truly experience being a mentally ill person, to learn about them, Lu Ban could do it, but he felt he couldn’t learn anything from such behavior.

And designing a set of outward behaviors for a mentally ill person was something he, as a common person, found difficult to accomplish.

Only through studying the materials did he learn.

He was still considering whether to seek out Dr. Hao, who had treated him before, to learn from when his phone vibrated again.

It was a message from Feng Yu.

[Feng Yu]: Sorry, the crew has to shoot an extra scene last minute, so I won’t have time during the National Day holiday. Let’s meet up next time! Definitely next time!

“Hm? So now it’s her turn to cancel on me?”

Lu Ban suddenly felt a bit refreshed by the novelty.

He sent a reply and put down his phone.

“I wonder what drama Feng Yu is shooting that’s keeping her so busy.”

He murmured to himself, it seemed he was going to spend the National Day holiday at home after all.

With a sigh, the text about acting techniques in front of Lu Ban suddenly distorted and changed into the System’s cold, gray, and neat font.

[Earnings obtained: 1,000,000/1,000,000 yuan]

[Congratulations on completing your career development task]

[Settlement commences now]

[Task Exploration: 60%]

[Task Achievement: Common]

[As you step onto a brand new stage, you earn distinction in this entertainment-focused era. Showing off your strength in front of an audience, you are highly anticipated. Keep creating, your future is bright and dazzling!]

[Silence Points gained: 6300 points]

[Settlement completed]

[Sometimes, the most terrifying places are right beside you. The seemingly ordinary world harbors danger. Compared to distant Foreign Domain wars, local crimes cause more trepidation.]

[Please complete the task to receive the reward.]

“Common, huh?”

Earning a million yuan wasn’t much of a surprise for Lu Ban by now, but the task evaluation piqued his curiosity.

“Looking at it this way, to achieve an amazing or perfect evaluation, it might truly require a bit of external help?”

Lu Ban wondered.

It’s possible that a direct buyout from a video website for a million yuan could’ve gotten him an amazing evaluation, and maybe dealing with Song Yunyan could’ve secured a perfect evaluation.

“Sigh, I’m just too righteous.”

Lu Ban exclaimed.

Being as upright as he was, he wouldn’t seek that kind of favor from Song Yunyan.

Just as Cui Siter said, in the Silent Lands, one must have some principles.

If one acted without any bottom line just for the sake of Silence Points, it was very possible that one would lose their humanity and turn into a mutated monster.

Lu Ban firmly believed this.

“Now that my Silence Points have accumulated over fifty thousand, I can unlock a higher-level store. Let’s see what’s new in the store first.”

Lu Ban opened the Silent Store.