Popularity itself was a thing that Zhao Youyue could never fathom, not to mention "high popularity". How to judge whether a literary work was popular? And which character in it would be the high-popularity character?
After watching the acts of Zhao Hao, Zhao Youyue sort of understood that popularity could be measured with money. By watching aside if there were more people willing to pay for a literary creation or character, she could then evaluate their popularity. Of course, this must be a good-quality novel in the first place!
Take streamers for example. Some female streamers' popularity will skyrocket through the support of godly tycoons. Having stabilized her popularity with some loyal fans later, she will remain as a famous streamer even if the tycoons are gone someday. Of course, there are also some streamers failing to grasp the popularity no matter how much the godly tycoons supported them. In the end, they lost it all because the godly tycoons were no longer interested in them.
The same logic applies when it comes to literary creation. "The Strongest King" itself was a high-quality work, not to mention that it was having a climax plot recently. Formerly, its popularity had been almost explosive, now with the appearance of Silver Sect Master and Golden Sect Master, the novel had broken through its mischance as if it had acquired a divine elixir[1] in the spiritual-cultivation novel.
"The Strongest King" would become a famous literary work in the future!
It could actually compete for the first place in Monthly Tickets Ranking!
Zhao Youyue was still deciding whether to exit the novel earlier…
Zhao Youyue had come to a conclusion now. The characters she had molded could be classified into three stages. The first stage would be "Popular Character", which had been attained by the "Yu Shengfan" molded by Zhao Youyue few days ago. In this stage, Zhao Youyue could exit the literary world without bearing any negative consequence. Naturally, she could neither obtain the character card nor inherit the character abilities.
The second stage would be like now, as in Yu Shengfan had turned into a "High Popularity Character". In this way, if she bowed out earlier, she could obtain the character card which had a time limit. In that limited time, she could inherit the character abilities. The higher the character popularity, the longer the usage period would be. On the other hand, if the author did anything that adversely affected her popularity, the usage period would decrease as well.
The most terrible outcome would be that the character was totally ruined. Imagine if an elite female scholar went for spiritual cultivation out of the blue, emerging as a fantasy character, was she still who she was? Such an outcome would lead to an immediate shattering of the "High Popularity Character Card", and Zhao Youyue would never be able to the character abilities.
The most ideal situation would be that the author's writings continuously bettered, and eventually made her an iconic character!
Therefore, if Zhao Youyue considered an earlier exit, she would have to bet on the author's personality. She would not take any chances on the amateur authors. They might be affected by their readers once Zhao Youyue exited the literary world, and would start doing ridiculous acts which caused the whole literary creation to crumble. Then all her efforts would be to no avail.
Should the novel be suitable for any doujinshi works, that would be awesome. Most doujinshis would naturally give rise to popularity of the original work!
Obviously, "The Strongest King" perfectly satisfied these conditions. Rosemary was an author with his own pace, moving forward steadily. He had never given up halfway in his previous works or given them some crappy endings. Treating his literary creations seriously, he had also discerned that "The Strongest King" would let him acquire the moniker of "God of Authors". Of course, he would not destroy this novel of his!
Zhao Youyue did have the heart to stir up any more troubles in "The Strongest King", because if she wanted to convert "Yu Shengfan" from a "high popularity character" to an "iconic character", she might have to lead "Yu Shengfan" to death. Rosemary would certainly be troubled by this as his livid readers would haul him over the coals. Therefore, she was unwilling to allow such low profile and steady author to suffer because of her actions.
Plus, nobody could guarantee that "Yu Shengfan" would become an iconic character after her demise. Besides, she could not prevaricate by taking reference from Huang Shaotian or Negi Sanzenin, as both of them were not dead in their respective literary works.
If she encountered such authors without their own pacing, who made their readers suffer, gave up the work halfway or scribbled a meaningless ending, she would not hesitate to "kill" high popularity female character, just to see whether she could become an icon…
The first two stages of the character had been introduced clearly. The third and final stage would be "iconic character", also called "super popularity character". People would always remember them, and so their character cards would constantly be "charging" and become a "permanent tool". But somehow creating an iconic card was extremely difficult because she had to be unique.
A unique character in a unique literary work could always be remembered, and that was the definition of an iconic character. (Characters who die in the novel have better chances of becoming iconic characters, because deaths will cause an impact on the readers, making them unforgettable.)
Hmm, how do we classify whether a literary work was a unique piece? Of course that particular literary creation would need to achieve a national standard and carry its own originality. This also requires a unique difference from any other novels and mangas, something that other creations does not possess. (National-standard work with startling popularity is considered unique too). As such, plagiarism literary works will never surpass the original.
After discovering these three stages, Zhao Youyue assessing the cost performance index [2]. She thought that she would not need to go after the perfect "Iconic Character Card", unless that ability was useful in real life. "Xu Jing's" card was the perfect example of an almighty card, as it could be utilized in every possible way, Hence, Zhao Youyue would make sure "Xu Jing" become an iconic character by hook or by crook.
What abilities could she obtain from "Yu Shengfan's" character card? Two abilities, which were "maximum gaming talents" and "proficient in multiple languages".
These two abilities were not really important to Zhao Youyue, so there was no need for "Yu Shengfan" to develop into an "iconic character". Three years were more than enough for her, and it might even increase as "The Strongest King" was just about to conquer the world!
After going through the pros and cons in a short period, Zhao Youyue made up her mind to exit the novel!
She then perceived the miraculous "Two Dimensional Gate" in her mind, along with a new character card this time! A blonde twintail lolita who sat in front of a PC, wearing headphones with her mouth opened exposing her cute canine teeth, looked like she was talking nonstop.
This character card had a time counter on it, representing its usage period. As the counter was ticking backwards, sometimes it would move forwards suddenly, interesting huh.
At this moment, Zhao Youyue could possess "Yu Shengfan's" abilities whenever she activated "Yu Shengfan's" mode!
Translation Note:
[1] Divine Elixir(仙丹) grants one an eternal life. It appears as pill form in Chinese ancient novels.
[2] Cost performance index(性价比) - A measure of the efficiency of expenses spent on a project. The formula that a business normally uses to assess the cost performance index (CPI) is the ratio of earned value (EV) over actual costs (AC).