Chapter 13

Meanwhile

After uploading the video, he logged out of his YouTube account and spent the rest of his remaining time on Facebook.

Reading and replying to the messages, and occasionally accepting friend requests.

Half an hour later, his time finally ended.

Leaving the internet cafe, he did not immediately return to the apartment, nor did he come to his friend's place, but rode a jeepney to travel several kilometers to the nearest bank in their area.

Since his videos have started generating revenue, he decided to open a bank account in advance so he wouldn't find it problematic later.

In order to withdraw the money he earned from YouTube, he needed to link his YouTube channel to his 'Google AdSense' account because 'AdSense' is the platform that pays out YouTube earnings, and then transfer the money in Adsense to his bank account so he could use it.

Time passed slowly..

After reaching the bank and entering the building, he headed towards the counter and was immediately greeted by a clerk.

"Hello, sir, how may I help you?"

Seeing the respectful posture of the other party, others might feel flattered at first glance.

But as a person who had already experienced society in the past time and space, he knew that the other party's action was just the standard etiquette of every service industry practitioner.

Looking at her, Edward assumed she must be a newbie in her line of work.

After all, a veteran knows how to judge people, and when a veteran faces a person who is lower than them, they are not too respectful.

Not that he was complaining.

On the contrary, he was even glad to deal with newbies; after all, they are more patient and easy to talk to.

"Hi, my name is Edward, and I want to open a bank account." Edward briefly introduces himself with a smile and directly stated his business.

"Alright, sir, may I know how old are you?" The clerk was clearly doubtful, but because of her professionalism, she still does her job paitently.

"I'm 16, and yes, I know that I have to be 18 and above to be able to open a bank account; that's why I'm going to apply for a custodial account." Edward answered and deliberately showed her that he knew the process so she didn't need to explain things to him himself one by one.

(P.S. A custodial account is the property of the child but managed by the parent until the child turns 18. With a joint account, parent and child both have access, but the adult can supervise or limit activity on the account.)

"Okay, sir, have you brought the requirements needed to open a custodial account?"

"Yes, it's inside; please check it as much as you want." Edward answered plainly and gave her a brown envelope containing all the requirements needed.

In this way, the process of opening an account went smoothly without any complications.

Two hours later, after getting his bank account information and a debit card issued by the bank, he finally left the building.

On the way back home, Edward couldn't help but think about the future—how to spend the money he earned, how to deal with taxes, etc.

In the Philippines, every citizen is required to pay personal income tax; even minors aren't exempt.

However, the condition is that the income level must be high enough—well, at least it must be ₱250,000 and above.

Edward doesn't think his annual income could reach that level until next year, so there's no need to issue an income statement to the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) this year.

However, it is estimated that his annual income will exceed ₱250,000 next year, so he still needs to make enough preparation.

"It's too complicated." Edward sighed helplessly and decided that he must hire a financial advisor in the future; after all, he doesn't know anything about finance.

Two days later,

The draft of his next song cover was completed.

Early in the morning, after the usual routine, he found himself at the usual shooting site and started recording again.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, he began packing up and headed towards the Internet cafe to look at the statistics of his videos.

As he expected, the views of his first two song covers were still the same as before, while the third and fourth song covers successfully broke through the 100k mark, reaching 135,632 and 128,069 in total.

As for the fifth, which has only been released for three days, the views have already reached 84,203.

Seeing the following statistics, Edward couldn't help but feel excited.

However, it did not take too long before the smile on his face became grim because he found that some smart people had also started imitating him.

There are not many at the moment—only a few dozens—and their attempt to imitate him obviously failed.

Whether it was the picture, editing and recording quality, etc., it was obvious that they made it casually.

However, no matter how bad their video quality was, it is indeed a fact that they successfully made a split-screen song cover.

And according to this trend, it will only get better and better in the future until they surpass him.

Hiss.. This is bad.

Edward couldn't help but feel uneasy, and he felt regret for introducing 'split-screen' too early.

Unfortunately, there's no medicine for regret.

After calming down, he began to look at the whole picture again, and after a while, he found that things were not as bad as he initially thought.

It is indeed a trend for people to follow suit, and the fact that some will surpass him sooner or later is unavoidable.

However, as a traveler, he has more advantages than others.

First of all, he knew the real potential of a split-screen-type song cover.

Right now, people only think that it can only be used on guitar, but as a traveler, he knew that the future of split-screen-style song covers involves multiple instruments.

Second, there are not many content creators at this time, so the competition is not as fierce as in the future.

There is a lot of traffic on the whole network, and as long as he harvested enough subscribers in the next three years, Edward was not afraid of any competition.

End.