Chapter 64: Gifts Shower

Almost instantly, her clean stream overlay completely broke.

[Noob_Ethan gifted 1,000 Tier 1 Subs!]

[Noob_Ethan dropped a Rocket!]

[Noob_Ethan gifted 2,500 Tier 1 Subs!]

[Noob_Ethan dropped a Rocket!]

[Noob_Ethan gifted 6,500 Tier 1 Subs!]

[Noob_Ethan dropped a Rocket!]

The massive, high-tier animation of a custom neon rocket detonated across her screen three times in a row, flooding her audio feed with deafening alert chimes. Her viewer count exploded from twelve people to thousands as the platform’s algorithm violently pushed her stream directly onto the front page under the trending list.

In the middle of lining up a long-range headshot in her new lobby, Luna’s character suddenly froze in place.

"What... wait, what is happening?!" her voice squeaked through the mic, completely dropping her cool, calm composure. "Wait—stop! Please stop spamming gifts! My screen is literally freezing! Who are you?!"

The chat window, which had been completely dead two minutes ago, was now moving at lightspeed, a blinding waterfall of text from stunned viewers who had just watched a default-skin account drop a life-changing fortune on an unknown streamer.

User_99: IS THIS REAL?! 10K SUBS IN ONE SECOND?!

GamerGuy99: WHO IS NOOB_ETHAN HAS TO BE A BUG

ApexGod_00: BRO JUST BROKE THE PLATFORM ALGORITHM WITH A DEFAULT SKIN ACCOUNT

Vortex_FPS: AIN’T NO WAY A RANDOM JUST GETS A 50K DROP OUT OF NOWHERE

SniperMain: SHE WAS AT 12 VIEWERS A MINUTE AGO NOW IT’S AT 15K WTF

Kxng_7: BRO DROPPED THREE ROCKETS BACK TO BACK HE IS A GOD

I picked up my headset mic, letting out a dry, low chuckle as I watched her chat go absolute chaos.

"Who am I?" I asked smoothly, leaning back in my leather chair. "Let’s just say I’m a secret prince whose inheritance just unlocked."

"No way," Luna stammered, her hands visibly shaking as she tried to alt-tab out of her broken stream software. "You’re... you’re lying. This has to be a chargeback scam, right? Nobody just drops that kind of money on a default account!"

"I’m joking about the prince part," I said, a cold, decisive smirk settling on my face as I brought up her channel profile on my main monitor. "I told you. I’m just an investor. Now, turn your stream off, get into a private lobby, and let’s talk business."

[System Notification: Direct Gift Purchase Complete] [Amount Expended: $10,000]

[Remaining Liquid Balance: $28,070,097]

I leaned back in the leather chair as the system log flashed across my vision. Ten grand was pocket change compared to what I was building, but watching her channel melt down in real-time was worth every cent.

Luna sat frozen on her stream for another ten seconds before her brain finally caught up. "I... okay. Going private right now," she stammered, her voice still completely shell-shocked.

A second later, her live stream went dark, and a notification popped up on my main monitor inviting me to a locked, custom lobby with just the two of us.

I clicked Accept, dropped into the lobby, and reached down to flip my camera toggle on, streaming my own high-definition video feed directly into our private chat.

The lighting from my underground lounge hit the lens—sleek neon ambient strips, acoustic walling, and the outline of a multi-million-dollar setup glowing in the dark behind me.

Luna’s avatar flickered on the screen as she gasped through the comms.

"Wait... you’re actually real?" she whispered, staring at the feed. "And you weren’t playing from a college dorm?"

"I told you," I said, leaning closer to the mic, a cool smirk on my face. "I’m an investor. Now, let’s talk about turning that potential of yours into a real empire."

As we sat in the quiet of the private lobby, Amanda—which she admitted was her real name after realizing I wasn’t an elaborate internet hoax—finally dropped the guarded persona. It turned out she was a college student who wasn’t necessarily starving, but definitely didn’t have the cash to burn on top-tier gear, entry fees, or team sponsorships.

And once the initial shock wore off, her true personality came flying out at full speed. She wasn’t shy at all; she was an ambivert with a habit of blabbing when excited.

"Okay, so basically I’ve been playing FPS games since I was like, twelve, right?" Amanda said, her words running together as she gesticulated wildly on her webcam. "Because obviously, my brother used to hoard the console, so I had to improvise with this ancient office PC that sounded like a jet engine taking off every time I booted a match. You know how it is when the frame rate drops to single digits and you’re basically aiming through a slide show?"

I blinked, staring at my screen. "No... I usually just upgrade the GPU."

"Right! Exactly, because you’re a normal person with a bank account!" Amanda squeaked, her face instantly turning bright red as she realized how absurd her assumption sounded. She slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in pure, instant embarrassment. "I mean—obviously you don’t play on a potato setup, look at your background! God, why did I say that? Anyway, moving on!"

She cleared her throat aggressively, trying to play off the flush creeping up her cheeks.

"So, yeah! I’ve played in a few small local tournaments, won most of them under alias accounts, but never went full-time because... well, college engineering classes exist to ruin lives," she continued, leaning into her desk mic. "And honestly, the pro scene is just exhausting. If you don’t have a backing team or an investor who actually knows what they’re doing, you just get signed to some trash contract where they take eighty percent of your earnings and demand you wear bunny ears on stream."

"That’s not happening here," I said, leaning back in my chair with a dry smirk. "With me, you keep your identity, you keep your creative control, and you get the best hardware money can buy. In exchange, I build an elite team around you, and we take over the competitive circuit."

Amanda stared at me through the screen, her lips parting slightly as the reality of my offer hit her. "Wait... you’re actually serious? Like, official team-lead, global-tournaments serious?"

"I don’t drop ten grand on a whim, Amanda," I said, my voice low and absolute. "So, are you in?"