At the same time, in Zhongdian Chinese Network’s inspiration class.
Cui Geng looked at the time. There were still two hours to go.
A week passed in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow was the weekend again.
He left the film area of the inspiration class and went to the work area to find an empty workstation to continue writing the plot of ‘Successor’.
Of eight working hours a day, six hours were spent watching various movies, novels, and comics to gather material. Only two hours could be used for creative writing. That was the rigid rule of the ‘inspiration class’.
At first, Cui Geng felt that two hours was too short. He was not used to it.
The timing was exactly the opposite when he was writing web novels after all. He would spend two hours at most collecting materials and spend the rest of his time writing.
On the other hand, Cui Geng felt like he was not used to the fact that he had only two hours to write. He felt as though the time had gone by before it even started.
Cui Geng felt that the rhythm of his creation was not right during the first half of the week. It took him the entire two hours to get into the right mood.
The computer in the office would record every author’s writing time. They could not write for more than two hours.
Of course, it would not matter if the author wrote on his own laptop or went to the internet cafe after work or on weekends. However, there was no requirement for the number of updates and the total number of words in the novel. Who amongst those who chose to participate in the “inspiration class” would write during their break?
That was why Cui Geng found it difficult to adapt at the beginning. He wrote slowly, leaving his readers hanging which was why they scolded him a lot.
However, he gradually adjusted his creative mode.
He used six hours a day to collect materials and finalize the details of the story nowadays. The remaining two hours were enough for him to concentrate on writing. All the content had been carefully considered. He generally did not experience any writer’s block.
What’s more, the story seemed to be more compact since he had to compress all the content he wanted to write today into a two hour time frame.
Cui Geng felt that it was not bad after gradually adapting to this creative rhythm.
Cui Geng arrived at the work area and quickly got into character after turning on his computer. His hands quickly tapped on the keyboard as each part of the story turned from the concept in his mind into actual words one after the other.
Cui Geng did not dare to delay any longer because he knew that once it was time to knock off, all the mice in the office would come alive. They would run around like real mice and would not be caught anymore.
He had to finish today’s work before the mouse ran away.
This week, the “inspiration class” had more people.
More authors from Zhongdian Chinese Network completed their old books, accepted the new Fixed-rate Contract, and came to the “inspiration class” to collect materials while writing.
However, most of them were still being scolded.
The readers of Zhongdian Chinese Network were also aware of the existence of this “inspiration class”, and their opinions were growing.
That was because only a small portion of the authors at Zhongdian Chinese Network had finished their old books and started writing Tengda’s custom-made IP novels. The range of readers was not that wide.
However, more and more authors were being affected!
Over the past week or so, the readers had watched as the authors who had finished their old books were “unable to protect their integrity”. The number of new books that they liked to read had also decreased. Naturally, they were very dissatisfied. They felt that Zhongdian Chinese Network was just messing around and giving instructions blindly. They were biting off more than they could chew. If they took too big of a step, they would easily end up achieving the opposite effect.
However, Zhongdian Chinese Network did not respond to this.
The authors had different reactions.
Some people felt that the current way of writing was quite good. It was very free and could write content that they liked freely if they ignored the protests of the readers. Another group of authors regretted it. They felt that they were not satisfied with the content that they wrote, and the readers were not satisfied. They wanted to go back and continue writing on royalty contract after writing this story.
Obviously, the ‘inspiration class’ would eliminate a batch of authors after a month or two and leave behind a portion of them.
However, everyone still had to fulfill the current creative contract no matter what. Fortunately, the highest word count requirement was only 500,000 words. It would definitely be completed in at most three months without any delay.
As for Ma Yiqun, Zhu Xingan, and the other editors of Zhongdian Chinese Network, they followed Boss Pei’s instructions and let them do whatever they wanted.
Cui Geng did not care about that. It did not matter to him whether the other authors wanted to go back to writing on a royalty contract or continue with the fixed-rate contract.
He wanted to write the story of ‘Successor’ in peace now.
It would still be a good experience for him even if no one liked it.
Cui Geng had already written the beginning of ‘Successor’ last weekend.
Cui Geng had almost completed the outline of ‘Successor’ within a week. He had to perfect the details of every plot.
…
Playboy, rich second-generation heir Phil Simmons, who did not have any special talents, decided to become a superhero. He also obtained a lot of support from his rich father and could use two billion US dollars to realize his dream of becoming a superhero.
Phil had also conducted a very detailed investigation and knew four steps for ordinary people to become superheroes in this era:
Find a way to become a superhero apprentice and debut successfully;
Be careful with his words and actions during observation period, and accumulate supporters;
Participate in the Superhero election and become the spokesperson of a certain group;
Become the top superhero, become the most powerful and influential person in Hope City and even the entire country.
Phil knew very well that it would be extremely difficult for ordinary people to walk this path.
Tens of millions of people in the United States had dreams of becoming superheroes, but only a few hundred people could complete the first step; only a few dozen people could complete the second step; only a dozen or so people could complete the third step; and only three to five people could really stand at the top of the pyramid.
Moreover, Phil was not the first rich person who wanted to become a superhero by throwing money.
There were at least dozens of super-rich people who were richer than his father, Ryan Simmons in Hope City. However, most of them had not become superheroes.
Most of them would choose another path: to indirectly exert influence by hosting a Superhero talent show, providing campaign funds for Superheroes, or investing before they debuted.
When a large financial group became the sugar daddy of many superheroes, these superheroes might not be his lackeys, but they would still give him enough face in most cases.
However, the problem was that such influence could not be achieved just by giving money.
Ryan Simmons was also considered a very famous tycoon in Hope City. However, Phil had not reached the level where he could do whatever he wanted because he did not have much control over the superheroes.
The Simmons family could only control some weaker superheroes.
The citizens of the United States would not allow superheroes to become lackeys of the large financial group. Thus, there were many restrictions in the system.
For example: The large financial group could provide campaign funds to superheroes, but it had to be voluntary and indirect. It could exert influence but could not be completely controlled;
A powerful superhero definitely did not only have one huge financial group behind him. Instead, it was a community of interests formed by many large financial groups. These large financial groups would also form checks and balances. What’s more, superheroes could reject the requests of a certain large financial group on the basis of the ‘wishes of the people’.
If something were to happen to a large financial group, the superhero would cut it off immediately. He might even “place righteousness before family” and deal with the large financial group personally.
To summarize, the entire plutocrat class controlled the superheroes, but they could also be fish on the chopping board when tycoons were considered individually.
The superheroes at the top had huge combat power and huge influence. They even had huge amounts of money in their hands. They had become invisible tycoons and corporations. They could already reverse their positions with the tycoons.
Rich people like the Simmons family were nothing in the eyes of the top superheroes.
The corporations would also fight openly and covertly for the superheroes, and the Simmons family obviously had no advantage in this aspect.
That was why Ryan Simmons was willing to bet half of his net worth on the future of the Simmons family and support Phil Simmons as a superhero.