In a short time, he gained four intermediate level skills and was left with nine basic skills.
Ye Lingchen took another look at his popularity points and there were around 28 million points remaining.
Since Cultivation had reached the intermediate level, then he might as well go for two more advanced skill upgrades and hope for getting it to the advanced level!
Cat Language (Intermediate), Dog Language (Intermediate), Aura Divination (Intermediate), Transfiguration (Intermediate), Cultivation (Intermediate), Dragon-Catcher Hand (Intermediate), Gastronomy (Intermediate).
10 million popularity points deducted. The lucky draw began!
Ye Lingchen glued his eyes to the Cultivation skill and both his hands gripped tightly.
Ding!
The glow stopped.
Transfiguration (Intermediate)!
‘F*ck! This again.’
Ye Lingchen felt his head hurt.
‘Transfiguration (Advanced): You can change your appearance as you wish.’
Following that, a special technique appeared in Ye Lingchen’s mind. With that technique, he did not even need time to prepare. All he needed was some materials for the disguise and he could turn into another person with just a simple rub.
It was an amazing skill, but useless for Ye Lingchen’s current situation.
Again!
Another 10 million popularity points were spent.
‘Cultivation! Please be Cultivation!’
Any skill would undergo a qualitative change upon reaching the advanced level. Going from basic to intermediate level increased the efficiency by seven fold. If he reached the advanced level, then his Qi cultivation speed would be unimaginable!
Finally, while Ye Lingchen was lost in his anxiety, the light stopped.
Cat Language (Intermediate).
‘F*ck! F*ck, f*ck, f*ck!’
Seeing those two words, Ye Lingchen’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
He suddenly felt a deep hatred for various languages. They were just made to waste his popularity points.
What was the use of having them upgraded to the advanced level?
The next moment, a mysterious aura befell Ye Lingchen and disappeared in an instant.
After that…there was nothing else.
‘Cat Language (Advanced): You have the ability to communicate with all felines.’
The skill description was no different from the intermediate level.
Superficial! Was there anything more superficial than that?
Ye Lingchen’s mouth twitched. ‘This is just a troll!’
He was dumbstruck.
To be honest, the animal language was just like the Wood Spirit Constitution. They were not really considered a skill, but rather, a talent. In its simplest sense, it was the talent to communicate with animals.
With that, Ye Lingchen had no idea where the difference was after acquiring this talent. He would need to explore it himself.
Backing out of the system, Ye Lingchen was speechless. Just like that, his popularity points dropped down to eight million.
Finally, he had the time to think about other things. ‘Why did my popularity points shoot up this much?’
It was rather simple as one would only need to search around online for the latest news regarding Ye Lingchen to find the reason.
Very soon, he found it.
It was because of the King of Masked Singers. Natural was a hit so massive that the effect even spread overseas.
That song was sung in English and a completely original song. It naturally made its way to the international audience.
In an instant, the foreigners were dumbstruck. How could a Chinese citizen write an English masterpiece!? That was just illogical!
That was just like having a Murican compose a masterpiece in Chinese and even outshine the Chinese people themselves. That was just unbelievable.
As unbelievable as it was, Ye Lingchen managed to do so. That made countless people feel ashamed of themselves, especially the foreign singers. They were dumbstruck by the news.
Under such circumstances, it was impossible for him to maintain a low profile. Following that, countless foreigners began to idolize Ye Lingchen and turned into his die hard fans. Some extremists had even begun to criticize their local singers, shaming them for being outdone by a Chinese.
However, after the incident gained traction, some foreigners were unable to bear with it any longer and chimed in.
The first to voice out was a singer named Dave. “I’ll admit that the song is well written. However, for such a masterpiece to be sung by a Chinese seems weird. Why don’t you give some consideration to my guesses?”
That was an obvious move to jump on the hype train. The Chinese celebrities were not the only ones that loved to jump on the hype. Other countries were the same. As long as one could become famous, jumping on the hype train was a common practice.
After that, various singers made their appearances like sprouting mushrooms.
“It’s indeed an awesome song, but I somehow felt that it was a little weird. Turns out it’s sung by a Chinese.”
“This song should be sung by us Muricans. Come listen to my version.”
“Unbelievable. Is this really composed by a Chinese person? I doubt it.”
Following that, more and more people chimed in. A lot of foreigners were eventually affected by their opinion.
Ye Lingchen’s singing had no issues, but it was their mentality that affected their perception. With more and more people talking about it, they were subconsciously being influenced. Add to the fact that Ye Lingchen was a Chinese, it was unavoidable for them to have some sort of bias.
After giving it a listen, the Chinese’s singing did seem rather awkward. It was a wonderful song that somehow felt as though it was sung emotionlessly.
Following that, they listened to the version sung by their own countrymen. ‘Dang! That’s the way it should be sung. English songs should still be sung by our own people for best effect.’
To be honest, Natural was too big a hit. After the foreigners heard it for so many rounds, they were naturally fatigued by the song already. Followed by a change of singer, the feeling was naturally different.
However, that was not how they perceived it. They immediately attributed it to the fact that the song was sung by a Chinese. Following that, the voices of doubt increased as well. Was that song really something that could be composed by a Chinese?
Under such circumstances, a foreign singer finally posted a status. [Singer Y from China plagiarised the song! He stole someone’s work!]
He had even posted a few screenshots as evidence.
Those pictures were lyrics from a song with parts of the lyrics highlighted in red. Beside it was Ye Lingchen’s song with the highlights pointing out the similarities.
To be honest, the so-called similarities were quite forced. It was either a somewhat similar line in the lyrics, or some part of the tune that was similar. That person was really going all out as he found over 20 songs and forcefully found some similarities between them.
The claim was backed by evidence. Most importantly, the singer was one of decent standing named Dani. He was not a superstar, but much better off than some influential internet celebrity.
With such explosive news, it immediately shook the international entertainment industry, stunning everyone.
After that, an even bigger news appeared. That singer posted another status, [You should have noticed that the songs I posted were all works of my partner. I’ve been working with George for a decade and he’s my closest working partner. I really can’t bear to watch George suffer this alone in silence. Even if he doesn’t mind, I must fight for his rights! To be honest, around eighty percent of this song is plagiarized from our new song that we’re publishing soon!]
