The Martial Arts Genius and the Viral First Stream

Lucky me. I swallowed the thought and let a smile spread across my face.

A hundred thousand won, tossed out like pocket change — from the very first viewer to wander into my very first stream? Sure, I had shown him martial arts, but even so. This was a smoother opening than I had any right to expect.

I was waiting for CoinMaster to come back, just as he'd said he would when he dropped that donation, when the chat window — which until then had held nothing but his messages — suddenly erupted.

A dozen-odd viewers poured in all at once. I actually flinched, watching the count jump.

"Wow, a lot of you just rolled in. Did word get out or something?"

Judging by the chat, CoinMaster — the one who'd vanished after telling me to wait a minute — had gone and posted a promo thread on Inbang-gal.

Luck really is on my side today.

People always said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that in streaming, getting started was half the battle. Growing from a small channel into a mid-tier one, or from mid-tier into a major name, was hard — but nothing compared to clawing your way out of complete nobody status and into even a small-time streamer. How fast you escaped the bottom pretty much decided the rest of your career.

Which made me, thanks to CoinMaster's post, a very lucky man: dozens of new viewers, first stream, right out of the gate.

"Wrapping a blade in Sword Qi and cutting a boulder? That's not even hard."

Buoyed by the sudden crowd, I gave a short huff of a laugh and flicked the sword the way they'd asked. Sword Qi coiled along the steel in a deep blue-green, and a blade that should have bounced off with a sharp clang parted the boulder as easily as silken tofu.

No stalling, no dragging it out — I just gave them exactly what they wanted, and the chat caught fire. The stream started getting recommended as the numbers climbed, and before I knew it the viewer count was pushing a hundred.

"Just in case anyone wants to claim it's a prop that only looks like a rock, I'll prove it's the real thing first."

It always paid to be thorough with this kind of thing. People's hearts were reeds in the wind — leave even a sliver of room for doubt and you'd regret it.

"Well, the way it shatters and the sound should be enough to tell, right?"

Between the first demonstration I'd given CoinMaster and the one I'd just done, the torso-sized boulder had been reduced to a half and a quarter. I lifted the smaller piece with Object Control and, with a casual flick of my fingers, drove it into the remaining slab.

CRACK!

Anyone watching could see it and hear it: two chunks of real stone colliding and breaking apart. Fine grit sifted down; shards large and small clattered to the ground. The chat lost its mind all over again.

To the people watching, it must have looked like something out of a comic or a movie had torn its way into the real world.

"We've got a decent crowd now, so how about we change venues and get into today's main content?"

They'd gathered far faster than I'd expected. I took hold of the mood and gave my left hand a lazy wave.

WHOOSH!

Internal energy stirred, and the remaining slabs of rock lifted off the ground, caught in Object Control, drifting up as light as balloons. I tossed them into the brush beyond the clearing, tidied the place in a few seconds, and — right on cue — the chat lit up again.

Every last reaction was exactly what I wanted. First impressions decided a person's reputation, and for a nobody streamer, how hard you hit on your first broadcast was everything.

Honestly, this much would already be enough. But...

If I was going to put martial arts on display, I might as well go all the way and show them the signature techniques.

Hah!

I unfolded my Lightness Skill and sprang high into the air, pulling the tripod up after me with Object Control. Phone, tripod, and all went soaring, and the camera caught the world the way I was seeing it.

"Don't focus so much on the height. Look at how close the city is. Closer than you'd think, right? That's because this clearing sits about halfway up the mountain."

Climb high enough and the towns and cities below usually shrink to distant gray specks. But the city on the stream right now was close enough to pick out the shapes of individual buildings.

"What else? In wuxia, when a master sits down to talk with a disciple, they do it at the mountain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠peak. That's just the rule."

A stream was a kind of theater, and the stage mattered as much as the act. My content was martial arts, first and last — so the more I could make it feel like something out of a wuxia novel, the better.

"See the peak over that way? You can just make it out."

The camera, drawn around by Object Control, found the summit rising high and distant. Not impossibly tall — an ordinary mountain, the kind people set aside a day to hike.

I looked at a climb that should have taken a full day's effort, and stated my intention without a hint of doubt.

"I'm going to climb up there with Lightness Skill."

I set the camera angle, then kicked off the tree I'd landed in. The camera, still held in Object Control, locked onto me and came racing after.

The view whipped past. Trees and undergrowth smeared into afterimages. It didn't look like climbing so much as tearing up a mountain trail on a motorcycle.

Where the trail was clear I ran it; where it turned steep I simply leapt. I used the trees as stepping stones, skipping from trunk to trunk, and when the terrain would have forced a long way around I cut the corner in a single straight-line bound.

"Whew. Been a while since I really ran."

In a little over ten minutes, I was standing on the summit.

I'd shown them something that simply could not be faked, and the chat was taking the mountain speedrun at face value.

"This is just a what-if, but..."

"Is there anyone who still thinks martial arts don't exist?"

The question earned me nothing but incredulous laughter. I smiled at that, then dropped myself onto the ground.

The board was set. For now the questions were sparse only because I'd been too busy showing off — but from here on, people would start asking about my martial arts in earnest.

I just took something that only ever existed as lines on a page and dropped it into the real world, bold as you please. Of course they're going to have questions. Dozens of them. Hundreds.

Is it real martial arts? How can martial arts exist in reality? How did you even learn this?

I could already see the flood coming. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even after today's stream ended, I couldn't ignore the chance that every time I went live, a fresh wave of newcomers would show up to call me a fraud and tear into me.

So I'll lay the whole board out right now and settle it.

If you can't avoid it, you might as well enjoy it. A Q&A was going to happen one way or another — I might as well turn it into content on my terms.

"As you all know, today's my first stream, right?"

"I've been watching the early broadcasts of some popular VTubers and streamers lately, and they all filmed a self-introduction at least once."

For a regular streamer it was a channel intro; for a VTuber, some kind of rapid-fire Q&A to lay out their concept and direction. I wasn't a VTuber, but if I borrowed the format and used it to put on record exactly who I was, I could wrap up the inevitable interrogation cleanly.

"But given what I've shown you... I'm guessing you've all got a mountain of questions, yeah?"

They were excited about a Q&A and nervous at the same time — and fair enough. A Q&A was usually something you collected questions for in advance, then read off like a script.

I, however, had a method.

Ba-ba-ba-bam-bam-bam!

The cam cut out. The stream went black — and in the same instant, a cheerful little chime rang out as a small box appeared in the upper-right corner of the screen.

The streaming platform's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mission system. Instead of handing over a donation outright, a viewer set a condition — and the streamer only collected the money if that condition was met.

Other streams used it as an actual "mission," the way the name suggested. Today, I was going to use it like an auction.

"Put the question you want to ask as the mission name, and put what you'll pay for that question as the reward."

The trick of the mission system was that anyone could add money to a mission another viewer had already posted — and that the list sorted itself automatically, highest amount at the top.

"The ten most expensive questions."

And with that as the starting gun—

The race to satisfy their curiosity had begun.