Nethersky - Chapter 13

‘Time to learn how to become a manhua artist!’ Yuning mentally proclaimed while clicking out of the oncologist website and returning to the computer’s search page.

However, once he was there, his fingers hovered above the keyboard as he stared blankly at the screen. It just hit him that he had no clue how to start looking for the information he needed.

It was a humbling situation.

Yuning might have excelled in a lot of things, but researching wasn’t one of them. Usually, he would pawn off such activities to one of his mom’s assistants. It was sad that they were no longer alive.

Don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t lazy or anything. He just never had a good experience when he tried researching.

There was this one time when he wanted to find a book he read a long time ago. It was about a girl’s journey raising an octopus. Let’s just say after searching for a while for the book, he saw things that couldn’t be unseen.

Shuddering in disgust, Yuning willed away that memory and tried to focus on the task at hand. If this was the past, he would have just uploaded his works and made his presence known on social media.

But this wasn’t the past, and it wasn’t as easy to be a manhua artist as it was back then.

Sighing, Yuning wondered if he should just type ‘Manhua Artist’ into the searched bar but discarded that idea as soon as it came to his mind. Since he knew that would only get him a list of all the manhua artists in the world.

‘Of course, the last task on my to-do list would be the hardest.’ Yuning thought, mildly frustrated. ‘Okay, I need to think. Where is a good place to start looking?’

As soon as that question popped into his head, he knew precisely what he needed to search. A website that hosted webtoons.

Typing the keywords ‘popular webtoon websites’ into the search engine Yuning pressed enter, revealing many results. After scrolling through them for a bit, he finally found a link that showed a list of the top five websites for webtoons.

~~

It took him an hour combing through each of the websites, from looking over the About pages to searching through the forums, for him to learn that things were indeed different from how they were in the past.

Artists were no longer able to publish their creations on these types of sites freely. Instead, they must contact one of the site’s editors and send them a thirty-page outline of their idea.

If the editor thought the artist’s idea had merit, they would then send it to the higher-ups to be vetted. The vetting process usually took about 4-5 months, and even then, there was a chance that the idea would be rejected.

So right away, Yuning ruled out trying to create his own manhua and thought about being a colorist on somebody else’s project. But that dream was also destroyed as soon as it began.

Looking through a career website, he learned that to get a well-paying job as a colorist, he would need to have a certificate in art and design.

Curious about how long it would take to get one, Yuning researched art certificate programs and was astounded by what he learned. The other soul was really fortunate to have such a good friend who could get him a job without having a certificate in the field.

From what he read, getting certified in art and design would take up to four years. He felt crushed; there was no way he would have time to get one.

Yuning continued to look through the other programs just in case there was something else he could see himself taking. While doing so, he saw that even a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant would take 2-5 months, depending on the position.

Grabbing his head in frustration, Yining stared at the screen, desperately wondering what he should do when a colorful banner with the words ‘MVP is recruiting players’ caught his eye.

‘Why would a company be asking for players instead of people? What could that mean,’ Yuning wondered curiously as he clicked on the orange and blue ad.

Once he clicked the link, a small window popped up on the screen, and a video with a red-headed woman in an orange & blue jacket started to play.

“Hello, fellow gamers!” started a red-haired woman standing in front of a giant poster of a busty woman holding a gun. “Do you play Guns and Guts? Is your profession a gunner or a medic? If so, then great! I, Lira James, leader of the group Mad Vain Players (MVP), am recruiting gunners and medics for our team. The position is not temporary, meaning that you will become a full-fledged team member right off the bat. Not only that, but if you’re picked, you’ll get a 15k starting bonus and a 5% of the competition rewards! If you want to join MVP, you need to have a level 50 medic or level 70 gunner to be eligible. We are willing to help you rack up the experience so that you can be a better player than you ever thought you could be! Just send us your profile and a few clips of your usual gameplay! Hope to see ya soon!”

Yuning was surprised to see that people could earn that much just from playing games. This intrigued him, making him want to know more.

After doing a basic search on the subject, he learned that FPS and other co-op games have been made into a sport that was on par with basketball and football. However, unlike the other sports, there were tournaments happening all year round.

These tournaments were a bi-weekly event, and the top ten winning teams made up to $10,000 to $100,000 plus they were able to auction off any items they found during battle.

From what he learned, it seemed like joining one of these organizations would be a very lucrative opportunity.

Yuning was tempted to build a character and try to get recruited into a team, but even though he played MMOs in the past, he never was a fan of competitive games. He just never had that competitive spirit, plus he absolutely hated the repetitiveness of the game stages.

That’s why he always preferred open-world fantasy games; there was constantly something new to discover.