Chapter 488: Two Months in a Flash

In June, Titan Game also began its global promotional campaign. The promo video shot by Rock Johnson, fueled by a massive marketing push and the game’s hefty prize money, instantly went viral worldwide.

Auditions began in major cities across several continents at almost the same time.

Of course, the audition process was very simple and accommodating.

The auditions featured a total of five challenges; contestants only needed to pass any three to advance to the next round.

The five challenges for the men’s division were: a 100kg deadlift, pushing an SUV for 20 meters, a 10-meter shuttle run, box jumps, and 20 pull-ups.

Since there was an audition site in Modu, Wu Yun went to check it out. The place was an absolute sea of people.

Registration for Titan Game was free. Coupled with Rock Johnson’s promotion and Wu Yun’s public endorsement, the auditions on every continent were incredibly popular.

True talent really is hidden among the masses.

People from all walks of life came to audition, including off-duty firefighters, fitness coaches, and groups of physical education students. Thanks to their long-term training, they passed three challenges with ease.

There were numerous audition locations. In Huaxia alone, every provincial capital had a registration site. The first round of auditions lasted for three days.

Since so many people passed, the second elimination round was moved to local gymnasiums.

Wu Yun was an avid sportsman himself, so when he showed up at the Modu elimination round, he personally took on the challenges to test their difficulty.

The sight of a billionaire showing off his muscular physique and competing in person caused another stir online. All sorts of thirsty comments were posted by his “Little Fairies,” who seemed ready to rush over to the venue themselves.

The difficulty ramped up significantly in the second elimination round.

It was still a “pass three out of five” format, but this time, the three chosen events had to be completed within a specific time limit, with different time combinations for any given three events.

The men’s division events included a 30-meter, 150kg tire flip; a 100-meter sprint; splitting logs within a time limit; an 80kg farmer’s walk; and a rope climb.

These were the optimal tests devised by sports experts after extensive trials, requiring a combination of explosiveness, endurance, strength, and skill to pass.

This elimination round weeded out nearly ninety percent of the contestants. In Modu, those who remained were almost all from sports-related fields or had long-term careers in manual labor.

One man who left a deep impression on Wu Yun was in his thirties, looked honest and simple, and had clearly done manual labor for years. He was tall, nearly matching Wei Wu in height.

The man chose the log split, the farmer’s walk, and the 100-meter sprint.

He showed Wu Yun the true meaning of “practice makes perfect.”

The long-handled axe in the man’s hands struck the surface of the log with precision. Each subsequent swing landed in the exact same spot as the one before. Wood chips flew, and in just a few strikes, the man split the log in two.

Judging by his farmer’s walk, it was clear he was used to manual labor. He carried the weights the full 50 meters without pausing. Because he had so much time left over, he still completed the challenge even though his 100-meter sprint wasn’t particularly fast.

During a post-event interview, Wu Yun learned that the man was a manual laborer who swung a sledgehammer at a steel mill.

After all, the purpose of Titan Game was to select the people with the best all-around physical fitness while promoting the strength and beauty of the human form.

Wu Yun’s idea was to use methods like this to try and change the prevailing aesthetic in the country, which was dominated by “little fresh meat” and becoming increasingly distorted. At the very least, he wanted to prevent future generations from seeing disgusting incidents like that infamous “peaches are so cool” video.

The auditions and elimination rounds were simply compiled into video collections and posted on the official website and its various social media platforms.

After the eliminations came the city finals, where three individuals would be chosen to represent their city in the national finals.

At this stage, the top ten contestants selected already received prize money based on their ranking, and all subsequent travel, food, and accommodation expenses were covered by the production team.

The national finals were set for July. Thanks to Wu Yun’s substantial financial backing, the competition set designed by the production team was already nearly identical to the Titan Games of later years.

The competition was held at the Modu Gymnasium. The scale was so grand that it blew other obstacle course shows out of the water.

Wu Yun even sent people to contact the national sports channel. After extensive negotiations, they successfully reached a cooperation agreement, much like the live broadcasts of the World’s Strongest Man competitions back in the day.

For the mid-July national finals, Wu Yun naturally attended in person. Since the finals in each country were scheduled at different times, he brought in Dwayne Johnson to co-host with the host from the Huaxia sports channel.

Thanks to the prolonged promotional period, the Titan Game Huaxia finals attracted widespread attention. Even many trend-chasing young people who weren’t sports fans posted on their social media that they were going to watch the finals, much like the bandwagon fans that appear during the World Cup.

This caused the sports channel’s ratings to climb steadily. During the final showdown, the viewership even matched the channel’s best ratings in recent years.

After the event, the sports channel’s leadership even came knocking. For various reasons, their previous arrogance and prejudice were gone, replaced only by a desire to curry favor.

The director also stated that the sports channel hoped to secure the broadcasting rights for the Huaxia Region for the upcoming continental and world championships.

Wu Yun, of course, left these negotiations to his subordinates. The sports channel director readily agreed to all of Wu Yun’s conditions, including broadcasting future competitive gaming events.

In any case, you could tell from the look on the sports channel director’s face as he left the conference room that the negotiations had been a great success.

In July, the competition results from countries around the world came in one after another. Of course, for some smaller nations, the production team had arranged for joint regional events.

As for the subsequent continental finals, they were scheduled for mid-August due to preparation needs, with each continent holding its finals in succession.

…

Back in Huaxia, the broadcast of *Diamond Lover* caused Dilireba’s popularity to skyrocket. The endorsement ad for Luckin Coffee, which had been released earlier, also caught a new wave of hype. Luckin Coffee’s sales soared, and it became common to see chic urbanites walking through the streets and alleys holding Luckin Coffee cups.

And Luckin Coffee, having received funding from Nirvana Investment, opportunely began its second phase of expansion, pushing into second and third-tier cities across the country. For a time, Luckin Coffee was all the rage.

Many famous domestic venture capitalists came knocking, waving cash and asking if Luckin Coffee wanted another round of financing, boasting they had sufficient funds.

Wu Yun naturally refused them all.

Meanwhile, *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds* and *Honor of Kings* had also started their online team-based point-accumulation tournaments.

The massive prize pools for both games spurred the formation of professional teams all across the country, and even around the world.

When the tournaments for the two games were announced, you could often hear netizens posting things like, “These pro players are just too strong. Our hastily assembled squad is no match for them at all.”

Of course, there were also many dark horse teams from the general populace who completely trounced these professional teams. However, this phenomenon mostly occurred in the early stages of the competition before team coordination had fully developed. As time went on, such upsets became increasingly rare.

Thanks to the tournament promotion, sales of *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds* exploded starting in May. By the beginning of July, it had sold over thirty million copies. In the second quarter alone, the game generated 2.8 billion Huaxia Coins in after-tax revenue.

Naturally, Wu Yun’s experience points also shot up by 2.8 billion.

As for *Honor of Kings*, although Wu Yun knew its half-year revenue had exceeded 3 billion Huaxia Coins, Nirvana Investment was not the sole shareholder. A year-end settlement was required to calculate Nirvana Investment’s dividend, so Wu Yun hadn’t yet received the corresponding experience points from this half-year’s income.

During this time, something else happened. One month after the release of the *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds* mobile game, in June, just as Wu Yun had expected, NetEase did indeed release a knockoff version called *Wilderness Action*.

Kunpeng Games, having been prepared for this, naturally sent a cease and desist letter to NetEase. However, NetEase ignored the warning and stubbornly insisted on continuing to distribute *Wilderness Action*.

Left with no other choice, Kunpeng Games had to sue NetEase. By July, the case had reached the local intermediate court, but judging by the way things were going, it would probably have to go all the way to the Supreme Court before a verdict was reached.