APP: Chapter 98

So good?

Xie Chi raised his eyebrow in a happy manner.

Strength could be gained when fighting a stronger opponent. It seemed to have a limited range but there was no need to increase strength when fighting against someone weaker. It was only when fighting a stronger opponent that a strength increase was needed.

Not to mention the unknown effect of Demonic Field. It increased strength and could be upgraded so it was worth losing a consumable ghost-move item. The strength buff must be Xie Xinglan. Xie Chi joked, “Brother, it’s really good.”

Xie Xinglan coughed and changed the topic. “Aren’t you curious about the white one?”

“I’ll know once I get 5,000 points.”

Xie Chi suddenly turned upright. “However, since we have a talent, we also need to guard against the talents of other actors in the future.”

He had 3,368 points. It wasn’t impossible to meet actors with over 5,000 points in later movies. For actors who reached 5,000 points, they could consume points to unlock a talent as long as they had one and the awakening conditions were met. His talent increase wasn’t small and the talents of other actors might not be weaker than him. He just took advantage and opened up his talent in advance. It wasn’t worth feeling too much joy.

Xie Xinglan understood his thoughts and answered.

“Demonic Field.” Xie Chi realized the meaning of these words. “A field is a range and demonic might be a special state. At present, I can only guess the literal meaning. The trigger probability is extremely low and it can’t be upgraded. Therefore, I don’t know the situation.”

“We’ll talk about it at the time.” Xie Chi was too lazy to struggle with a temporarily unsolvable problem. He exited the talent page and went to the title interface.

His title had finally upgraded. His original title was ‘New and Sharp Budding Talent’ while his upgraded title was ‘Rising Star Who Showed off One’s Ability’. The title was originally a gentle blue color but it was now an elegant purple. This time, the title box had a special effect. Light purple energy wrapped around the frame with clouds and fog drifting and dispersing.

The evaluation under the title had also been updated: Your popularity is far ahead of the new generation of actors. More people have seen your abilities, are impressed by your personal charm and have become your fans. Your comprehensive strength is relatively strong and there are basically no shortcomings. Your representative works are: ghost move Spirit in Red Clothes (starring), 1552 Haunted House (starring); zombie movie Zombie Lovers (starring), You have participated in the Horror Skewers variety show and achieved the good result of first place.

Below the evaluation was a small note: [Congratulations, your title has been upgraded and you now have permission to enter some wonderful quality (orange) horror movies.]

[Since you have filmed ghost and zombie movies, you have access to wonderful quality ghost and zombie movies. As your points increase, you will unlock more types of orange movies.]

Xie Chi smiled. According to his understanding, first in the comprehensive evaluation for an orange movie gave 1,000 points. This was tempting. Xie Chi had gained more than 1,200 points in Zombie Lovers and more than 1,400 points in 1552 Haunted House. Therefore, the upper limit of points that Xie Chi could get in a movie was estimated to be around 1,500. If he wanted to break through this upper limit and earn more points then he could only go to higher quality horror movies.

He still had more than 6,000 points to go until his brother’s body was permanent. If it went well then it was… three or four orange movies.

Xie Chi’s heartbeat became a bit faster.

The app had opened some permissions for him which meant he could challenge it at his current level. In addition, the purple movie 1552 Haunted House was upgraded to an orange movie. This gave him a certain understanding of orange movies.

Xie Chi evaluated himself. In terms of physical fitness, he wasn’t necessarily worse than Lu Wen when it came to resistance to beatings. His vision and mental strength were slightly superior. In terms of items, Duplication had great flexibility. It might not be worse than any item he had obtained before. The talent ‘weak wins against the strong’ was useful and stable. The variable was Demonic Field. The things he lacked now were handy weapon items and high explosive items.

Still, he could duplicate other actor’s weapons and expensive explosive items. These two types of items were very common and the probability of copying them wasn’t small. To some extent, he didn’t have any significant shortcomings. Even if he went to a wonderful quality movie, he might have his own place.

Xie Chi thought about it and went to look at the expandable column behind the points column.

[Your current total ranking is 3,919. There are 1,677 actors with the same title as you.]

Xie Chi remembered that he started around 20,000. He finished Zombie Lovers and shot to 8,000 then 5,000 after completing the variety show. Now it was almost 4,000. Sure enough, the higher the ranking, the harder it was to rise.

For this ranking pyramid, it was rare to reach the top and there were thousands of troops at the bottom.

Xie Chi suddenly became a bit curious. Zhao Jinhua said she had made dozens of movies. Even if she only went to bland quality movies, one bland quality movie was 500 points. Dozens of them would be worth 20,000 to 30,000 points. Yet she was only third-tier? If this algorithm was true, wouldn’t Shen Yi have 70 or 80,000 points?

Xie Chi thought it was a bit ridiculous. He searched this question on his mobile phone. His title had been upgraded and he now had the authority to view the answers to these questions. Xie Chi looked at the answer on the screen and his eyes gradually narrowed.

In the beginning, the title upgrade was only linked to points. Once the right number of points was reached, the title would be upgraded. It was just that after Rising Star Who Showed off One’s Ability, the upgrade of the title didn’t only require points. There were also requirements for the quality of the filmed movies. To upgrade to Rising Star Who Showed off One’s Ability, an actor must’ve successfully filmed three pros outweigh the cons movies or one orange movie. After Rising Star Who Showed off One’s Ability, there were only a few paths to be ranked. Upgrading to third tier required shooting three orange movies or one red movie. Further up, he didn’t have the authority to know.

In the early stages, the upgrade of an actor’s title basically depended on points while the later period was the number of high quality movies. The titles in the later period might even jump several levels because the actor made a great movie.

At this point, he had even figured out the quality of the movies. From low to high, they were: green, blue, purple, orange, red and black. This represented rough, bland, pros outweigh the con and wonderful.

The quality names for the red and black movies weren’t disclosed.

Therefore, it didn’t matter how many points you accumulated if the quality of the movie wasn’t enough. This coincided with the reality of the entertainment industry. The fame of a star wasn’t related to the number of movies they shot. The quality of the work produced and the reputation played a vital role.

So in the app, there was a situation where those with more points had a lower ranking. Those in the top 10 of the rankings might not have the most points but they were definitely the best in terms of filming quality. This was why Zhao Jinhua was only third-tier despite having so many points. She was stuck at the requirement of movie quality. Zhao Jinhua obviously had the authority to go to orange or even red movies but she stayed in the pros outweigh the cons with actors far behind her. The orange movies were estimated to be the limit for Zhao Jinhua and going up was as difficult as reaching heaven for her.

Xie Chi spent some more time searching and got some information.

The quality of a movie wasn’t equal to difficulty. The theme, service, cast and wonderful operations could all affect the quality of the movie. Therefore, the quality of a movie might not be high but the difficulty was greater. Still, it was true that relatively speaking, the higher the quality, the more dangerous it was. This was because the ghosts and opponent actors were stronger. He needed to not only guard against the ghosts but also the other actors.

After all, it was a competitive ranking app.

Zhao Jinhua wasn’t willing to go to high quality movies. It wasn’t necessarily because she was afraid of the difficulty. It was probably because she was afraid of being suppressed by a powerful opponent, becoming cannon fodder and even losing her life.

Thus, she did what she could.

Xie Chi’s eyes swept over the top 10 rankings again. Shen Yi remained motionless while the fifth, ninth and tenth place were all replaced. The fifth place was probably dead while the ninth and tenth places were squeezed out of the list.

Xie Chi smiled. He didn’t seem too far away from these people. The fastest way to climb was to shoot the highest quality movies.

***

Xie Chi sent a message to Yan Jing. For the next two weeks, he had Yan Jing help him look for appropriate orange movies. For half a month, Xie Chi lay in his residence and watched the app’s movies. After his title was upgraded, he could watch all the movies below the pros outweigh the cons quality for free.

One day in early September, Xie Chi received a video invitation from Yan Jing.

The video was connected and Yan Jing looked excited. “Brother Xie, there has been a bloody storm outside these past 10 days. However, I know you didn’t want me to bother you so I didn’t find you.”

“What’s going on?” Xie Chi played with the radish flower Xie Xinglan had carved and asked blankly.

Yan Jing was stunned and couldn’t control his expression. “You killed Zhao Jinhua. Don’t you realize what big news this is?  A newcomer killed a third-tier actor. Many actors know you now—”

“Oh, you’re talking about this.” Xie Chi interrupted with a lack of interest.

“You…” Yan Jing secretly sighed. Xie Chi didn’t care what the outside world thought of him. Yan Jing was so happy but he had nowhere to express it. Then he saw the radish flower and was instantly distracted. “Huh? Your knife skills are good.”

Thanks to the zombie lineage, Yan Jing was like a fish in water in zombie movies and he earned a lot of points. It only took a dozen points to restore his vision for a short time, which was very cheap.

The disinterested Xie Chi suddenly got excited when he heard this and blinked at Yan Jing. “It’s just good?”

“Huh… yes?” Yan Jing was confused. He wondered if this person wanted praise. His brain was broken as he spoke uncertainty, “It’s… very good, good and beautiful.”

A smile slowly appeared on Xie Chi’s face as he turned the flower around in his hand. “Say your business.”

“Oh…” Yan Jing felt that he might’ve spoken the right praise and started to talk. “Fewer orange movies are released. You only have ghost and zombie movies and you can’t go for the orange movies that are deep in color. There are too many conditions. It has been a month but I’ve finally found one. It is light orange, which is slightly inferior in quality among the orange movies but it is still orange. You said that the title upgrade requires an orange movie and this is absolutely fine.”

“Nothing else?”

“No. There are many pros outweigh the cons movies. I have also written them out for you. Do you want to take a look…?”

Purple movies gave 500 less points than orange movies. Xie Chi shook his head decisively. “What about the orange movie? What is the situation?”

“It is a ghost movie.” Yan Jing scratched his head. “It is said to be an alternative ghost movie. The message is written like this but I don’t know how it is alternative.”

Yan Jing spoke bitterly. “Brother Xie, you don’t know! The information of an orange movie can’t be bought with points. In other words, apart from the official information disclosed, no one knows any other information…”

“Isn’t this fair?” Xie Chi was a bit surprised. Starting off from the same point was good for him. He was… poor, in a rush and also stingy.

“Well…” Yan Jing scratched his head again. “You are right to say that.”

“What else is officially revealed?”

Yan Jing immediately said, “The app recommends strong personal ability while support actors should have certain self-protection capabilities. I came to tell you immediately because of this. I’m afraid the number of people allowed to enter will be full if you agree too late… ah, let me see.”

Yan Jing looked down at his mobile phone. “Two spots have already been filled. I can’t see the maximum quota…”

Xie Chi listened quietly and didn’t hesitate to say, “Add me in.”

“Okay!” Yan Jing was excited.

“When does it start?”

“Four days later.”

---

Proofreader: Purichan