Chapter 35

"This is insane, your speech went viral, everyone is talking about you."

Ed's eyes widened as he saw the number of visitors on Alex's website. People were commenting about it everywhere. Unlike the last time when the gaming and android communities were talking about Detroit, now the speech had become an instant meme, leading a huge number of people to search for Alex's site.

A quadrillion visitors is an average number for a regular website, but for a newly created one with hardly any investment, especially one made to sell, in a universe where everyone has at least a slight military education, Alex's speech could be considered completely out of the ordinary for today's society.

"Hehehe, boss, how much did we earn?"

Fred ran over to Alex and started massaging his shoulders.

"Get off, don't suck up to me... Ouch, stop squeezing my shoulders..."

Alex pushed Fred away and began looking at the website statistics. Many people were exploring the site, but what he really wanted to know was how many people had downloaded DHPlay (DreamHeart Play, I know, it's not the most creative name).

Quickly checking the number of users, Alex began to tremble with joy—119 billion downloads. That was a really huge number for a beginner app.

[Note: A quick explanation, I never specified the number of people in the universe, and the reason is simple: if I gave an exact number, it would limit me in the future, and it could easily create plot holes in the story.

I would also have to state the number of colonized worlds and everything else, so I decided to leave that open and let things develop naturally over the course of the story.]

Alex's heart began to beat fast, and he became really excited. Running to the bedroom, he burst through the door, waking Jade.

"Aaaahhh… Alex, what are you doing?"

"Sorry, I need to check something."

Ignoring Jade, who was completely confused and with messy hair, Alex entered his virtual area and started checking how people were reacting to the app.

Looking at the graphs, Alex noticed that the toys he made as a test for solid light were quite popular. Moreover, Undertale was installed on more than 90 billion holographic bracelets. Seeing this, Alex laughed out loud.

"Hahaha, Luna, get ready, I'm going to buy all the updates you wanted, hahaha."

"Really, yay! Look, I've already separated several updates I wanted. There's this fast-learning one, it's the latest on the market, it's only 150 billion credits. There are also these professional components that can boost my performance; it's going to be around 300 billion credits."

"Hahaha, yes, you can… Wait, did you say 150 and 300 billion? Not million, but billion?"

"Huh?! Yes, these components are semi-professional, used by startup companies or enthusiasts. Actually, this price is very cheap, we should get some for me and some spares. I've also picked out several updates that are useful for now, at the start of the company. I found some good deals, if we get everything it should be around 5 or 6 trillion."

"Tri, tri, tri, TRILLIONS??? Luna, you told me we could buy everything we needed with a few million or billion!"

"Yes, I said that for the project we were working on, that would be enough. But Alex, you need to understand that right now we are talking about a company with universal recognition. If you were only focusing on our galaxy, you wouldn't need much more.

But with your speech, and with the traffic on the website, obviously you are trying to reach everyone in the universe, so obviously we are going to need much more advanced technologies, whether it's my updates to enhance our knowledge and facilitate work, or equipment for you and your team.

All this will cost a lot of credits, the bigger the things you want to do, the more credits you'll spend. Alex, you need to understand that with technology, you can do almost anything you want, as long as you have enough credits.

We won't even talk about trillions of credits; if you want to create a company that reaches the whole universe, even spending quadrillions of credits wouldn't be enough. You don't just need quality equipment for yourself, but also for your employees.

Large companies invest huge amounts of credits to buy equipment, and let's not even talk about the AIs. The amount of credits these companies generate is enormous, but their expenses are also proportional.

Why do you think Eternal Dream is investing in this competition? It's obviously because the gaming market generates an astronomical number of credits, while at the same time generating an unimaginable amount of taxes. The government obviously doesn't want to lose such a large passive income, which is why they are supporting the competition.

Alex, if you really want the company to grow and stay ahead of all the others, you need to get used to this level of spending, as it will increase exponentially as the company grows. As I said, with enough credits you can buy almost anything, even a planet if you want, but it all depends on how many credits you have.

You need to stop thinking only on a planetary level. If you really want DreamHeart to reach a universal level, you need to start thinking big."

"..."

Alex felt his heart break. He thought that in this universe it would be easy to get rich, but the truth came knocking the door down, shattering his small dreams.

(Damn it... for a moment I really thought my time of poverty was over... But it makes sense, I remember in my time Elon Musk bought Twitter for 44 billion, and that was back then. In today's times, obviously, companies spending billions and trillions must be normal.)

Sigh

"Maybe I should study a little about the universe's economy."

"Hehe, I'm glad you understand, Alex. So, about my updates…"

"Don't even think about it, until I know more about the universal economy, I'm not going to spend a single credit."

"Damn it."

......

Alex's speech had a massive impact on the internet, but the memes made by people were what really took it to another level. People of all ages and from all areas of the universe knew or had heard about what he did, and obviously, along with that, DreamHeart's website became immensely popular.

But instead of the game, what really became popular were the solid light movies and toys.

In an office, Erik stood up from his desk, humming softly.

"In my heart.

I know, you will always be.

I swear my love will follow you.

In my heart.

Wherever I go.

You will always be.

Here."

As he sang, he stepped onto a conveyor belt and was slowly taken to a machine to get coffee. He could have asked to be taken to his desk, but he liked to get it himself, so he could walk a little. When he reached the machine, he didn't notice a friend arriving alongside him.

"Look at you, someone's in a good mood. What happened?"

"Oh! Cristiano, well, Luana and I made a decision."

"Decision?"

"You know about the adoption? We're going through with it."

"Are you serious? Why would you want to raise someone else's kid? Just have your own."

"Don't be a jerk, you know we've been dealing with this for a while. With those damn resistance fighters, there are a lot of orphans out there. I was one myself."

"I know, I'm just messing around, but I thought you'd given up on the idea."

"We've been thinking about it for a long time, but you know it's a tough decision. So yesterday, when I got home, Luana and I were talking about the competition. At first, we were just laughing, then we decided to check out that kid's website. After a while, we found an interesting movie... I'm not sure how to explain it, but after watching it... we just decided to go through with it."

"Really? A movie?"

"Don't look at me like that. I don't know exactly how we decided, but that movie just... I don't know, it just inspired us. After the movie ended, we just knew we wanted to do it."

"That must be a masterpiece of a movie. What's it called? If I have time, I'll watch it."

"Tarzan."

"Tarzan? What a weird name, hahaha. If I have time over the weekend, I'll check it out."

[Note: I miss the days when Disney movies had wonderful songs and great messages, but now it's just sadness.]

The following Monday, Erik got up from his desk as usual and went to the conveyor belt to head to the coffee machine. When he arrived, he saw Cristiano getting a cup of coffee, humming softly.

"Can't come, can't see.

Always the good girl should be.

Cover it up, not feel it, they'll never know.

But now go.

I am free, I am free.

I can't hold anymore.

I am free, I am free.

I left not to return.

Oh, I don't care what they say.

Storm comes.

The cold won't even bother me."

"Looks like you're the happy one today."

"Huh?! Erik, this is all your fault."

"What did I do?"

"You told me about DreamHeart, so I went and watched Tarzan. It was fun, but my daughter absolutely loved the movies."

"??? Then shouldn't you be thanking me?"

"Thank you for what? That girl kept watching several movies, and when she found this one, Frozen, she watched it over and over again. When I tried to turn it off, she'd start crying. Now I can't even get this song out of my head."

"Hahaha, I saw that one. Luana liked it a lot too, but I liked Mulan and The Lion King more."

"I don't care about your favorites... The Lion King? Really? I liked The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Moana. I thought they were all so unique."

"Those aren't very fun. I liked Mulan for the songs. Another one I liked was Anastasia."

"You have terrible taste. How can you not like Maui?

Come with daddy, stick with me.

You can trust me, I'm Maui, believe me.

Someone like me was never born.

You're looking at a demigod."

Cristiano struck a pose like Maui.

"Pfft, hahaha."

"Hahaha, I loved that character."

As the two were laughing, another colleague arrived on the conveyor belt, holding a cube and mumbling quietly.

"Huh?! What are you guys doing?"

"Nothing, just talking. And you?"

Sigh

"I'm trying to solve this damn cube."

"Cube?"

"Yes, yesterday my girlfriend was playing with this thing, but after failing to solve it, I laughed at her."

"A brave man indeed."

"Yes, courage personified."

"Shut up... She got mad, so we made a bet. She gave me the app and said if I could solve it, I'd get access to the 'back door,' but if I couldn't, I'd spend a month getting to know my hand better."

"....."

"....."

"I spent the whole night trying to solve this crap, but I couldn't. I think it must be bugged."

Frustrated, the man quickly called platform support, and a small guide appeared.

"Hello, how can I help?"

"This thing's bugged, so I couldn't solve it."

The guide seemed surprised. With a wave of his hand, the cube floated to him. After a quick analysis, he found nothing wrong. He even solved the cube, scrambled it again, and returned it to the man.

"There's nothing wrong, the cube is working perfectly."

"What? Nonsense. If there's no bug, then why can't I solve it?"

(￣～￣;)

The guide looked at the man with a strange expression, then lightly coughed.

"Ahem, ahem, as I said, the cube is working perfectly. If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave."

"Pfft, hahaha, did you see his face? I bet he wanted to call you an idiot."

"Hahahaha, I think that was worse than directly calling you an idiot, hahaha."

"Shut up."

"Hahahaha" x2

......

Note: Sorry for the delay, my vision got blurry yesterday, and I got a little worried, so I went to the doctor. He said I was in a state of exhaustion.

I was a bit surprised; I always sleep 5 or 6 hours, but I always woke up fine. I always thought a person only got exhausted if they went without sleep for a long time, and after sleeping, they'd be fine. But now it seems I'll have to sleep more.

Thursday's chapter will still be released, at the latest, I'll launch it on Friday.

Just one more thing, has anyone played Concord? I knew the game was going to be a flop, but this really surprised me. Almost no one is playing, but that was expected. I don't know how anyone thought this game was a good idea.

One more question, did anyone like the ending of My Hero Academia? I thought it was trash. I understood the concept Kohei was trying to convey, but seriously, after all this time, he throws in this talk that we're all great heroes.

I don't mind Deku losing his powers, but he should have had a much bigger impact on the world. I always thought the story would be like Naruto, with an older version of the characters, and he would develop the world more. But in the end, the story always stayed very limited to their city. I thought the ending was a waste of potential.