Lin Yu spent the next eight or nine days testing out the Academic Genius System, filming his own changes out of habit as footage for his video.
The trial went pretty well as he already had a habit of studying for two hours every day from before. However, with the Academic Genius System in play, the only major addition to his daily schedule was the extra half an hour of daily exercise. The difference for Lin Yu between having the System and not having it was his studying effectiveness.
Nine days later, he began editing his footage after shooting enough of it. He spent a morning on it before uploading the video of the Academic Genius System onto B site. He also shared the video on other platforms such as Weibo.
He spotted a few problems when the Exo gauntlet exploded the last time. During that time, the 'The Exo Suit Meets A Robber' video, together with other videos, were being reshared by B site uploaders and Weibo users. This either brought him minimal EXP or none at all. Although most of his audience came to B site through links, the situation was still a little abnormal.
He could not dig deep into the matter of superpowers anyway and could only make assumptions of what happened. It seemed like it was not because of his account or the lack of EXP collected in his area, so he decided to register new accounts on other platforms and reshared his own videos.
Unfortunately, his efforts were to no avail as the problem was the target audience. For example, Weibo was full of celebrities with mukbang videos, among others. Its target audience was completely different from B site, which was full of anime-related content.
On top of that, it was hard to recreate his success on B site due to his lack of exposure coupled with the existence of Awakened Superhumans. His audience on other platforms were mostly his supporters from B site since people no longer relied on a single app; they would also watch short videos on Weibo and WeChat as well.
However, something was better than nothing, and sharing his videos to other platforms could attract a few dozen new viewers anyway. What if one of his accounts on other platforms became viral?
The next day, Lin Yu admired his own efforts after completing his exercise task on campus in the morning.
He went straight to B site. The other accounts, which only had a few hundred followers, could be ignored.
"Hello everyone, welcome to the Slacker's Counterattack Series."
"Everyone thought that I was an academic genius, but unfortunately, I'm only a slacker… I decided to save myself from my Slacker's Disease so that I don't ruin the good impression my female fans have of me."
The video started off with a flirty introduction and a funny photo on top of the caption.
"You're a slacker? Real slackers would be crying in the toilet right now."
"No, wake up. You don't have female fans."
"Female fans? You wish."
"Let me wake him up with my pee."
The truth was that although B site and the SLSH platform seemed to overlap with each other, B site was still heavily reliant on videos, and its unique style had managed to sustain its audience's loyalty as well. The overlapping was not as big of an issue as Lin Yu thought as watching livestreams was different from watching videos, after all.
He had over a million followers, which was why even his video's introduction led to a huge stream of comments on his live chat.
"However, after interviewing multiple academic geniuses, this is the result…"
After the introduction, Lin Yu went straight into it in his video. The video cut to pixelated videos of his interviews with the academic geniuses he had interviewed.
"Huh? Studying? Isn't it just about being hardworking and revising more frequently?"
This was the first academic genius he interviewed.
"There were also geniuses like this one."
Lin Yu's voice narrated as the video cut to another scene.
This was a high school student who had just walked out of his classroom sleepily and was a clear shot as the student did not request to have his identity hidden.
"Huh? Tips for studying? I sleep in class and just kind of learn what I need to from flipping through books. I don't really have any skills."
The second academic genius spoke while yawning, looking confused.
"There were also geniuses like this one, this one, and this one…"
The video cut to a few brief scenes, and viewers erupted in laughter in the live chat.
"Hahaha, it's too relatable. They're so awkward."
"I'm guessing when the uploader interviewed them, he must have been pissed."
"It's too relatable. I have someone like this in my class as well. He slept in class every day but obtained 99% for every subject during finals."
"Hahaha, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to die from laughter."
…
"After multiple tortuous trips, I finally understood that geniuses either had 1% talent with 99% hard work, or had 99% talent with 1% hard work. Ah, such a painful realization~"
"However, nothing is impossible for a willing heart. Just as I was about to give up, I met a beautiful academic genius by accident and solved all my problems. All slackers, pay attention as this is good news to you."
The video continued, and Lin Yu spoke about his own flaws as well as how the Pomodoro clock and the numerical stimulation idea had solved his problems.
Truth be told, he snapped out of the admiration he had for Zhao Xiaolu after some time. Laziness and procrastination were pretty normal, and many people, especially artists, usually encountered these issues. What Zhao Xiaolu had said was just like how horoscopes worked as anyone would feel like it was applicable to them.
"You're so good. Academic Genius Brother, did you study psychology? It feels like you're describing me. The more I don't understand something, the more I resist studying and end up running away from it and procrastinating."
"I seriously think you set up a hidden camera in my house."
"I feel like I just found my hope to cure my Slacker's Disease."
"Am I the only one who wants to know how pretty the beautiful academic genius is? Where's her video? Since there were videos for the rest, why isn't there one for the beautiful academic genius?"
Although it was a long and boring description, the problems affected everyone. Viewers began expressing their interest and enthusiasm in the topic, and the live chat erupted.
"Of course, theories were of no use and it was useless to attempt to mimic others in studying as well. Since I'm a manual and skill-based uploader… I decided to create something that goes against the law of nature."
"You've all read novels, haven't you? You know about the tricks that the main characters have? I made a trick system—the ultimate cheat for the Slackers' Counterattack—the Powerful Academic Genius System!"
Lin Yu continued to speak in the video.
"F*ck, you're so good!"
"What an awesome uploader. If you actually managed to create a trick system for this, I'll continue watching your videos no matter what!"
"What a familiar sight, the man of black tech is back."
"Uploader, are you the legendary system developer? Be careful as you might be attacked by both the protagonist and antagonist in novels!"