Chapter 1
In front of billions watching, I got dragged into a deadly, rule-based horror game.
Everyone had to write down a special ability. If someone guessed right, you'd be dead.
I saw the "No word limit" prompt flash across the screen, and I couldn't help but grin.
While everyone else was busy typing stuff like "fire breath" or "invisibility," I quietly dropped a 100,000-word monster titled "Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity: A White Paper on Idealist Practice in the Real World."
Now, the game began.
*****
A cold, mechanical voice blared in my mind, piercing my temple like a steel needle.
"Welcome to the Chosen One Game."
"Rule 1: You have to write a unique ability for yourself within ten minutes. Only you know it."
"Rule 2: The whole game will be streamed live to the whole world. Everyone watching can try to guess your ability."
"Rule 3: If any viewer manages to guess your ability, you'll be erased immediately."
"Good luck."
Just a second ago, I was freaking out about my thesis.
The next second, I was suddenly standing in a sealed, blindingly white room.
Right in front of me, a deep blue virtual screen floated, its countdown flashing brightly.
It was not just me. There were ninety-nine others in the room, their faces full of fear just like his.
The gaze of billions around the globe bore down on us like countless spotlights, pinning us to the spot.
"What the hell. What is this? Are we getting abducted by aliens?" someone cried out.
"Mom, I don't wanna die!" another person yelled.
A guy in a suit, definitely the business type, was the first to calm down. He pointed at the screen and shouted, "Everyone, look! The key is the ability! We need to pick something nobody can guess!"
Everyone snapped out of their daze.
A muscle-bound guy immediately typed "super strength" on his screen.
A girl with glasses wrote "flight."
A sleazy-looking guy snickered and typed "invisibility."
How foolish.
These were the most obvious abilities, the kind everyone imagined. If they used them during the challenge, it was almost guaranteed they'd get instantly guessed. That was suicide.
My eyes were fixed on the corner of the screen, where a line of tiny text sat, barely noticeable and missed by everyone else.
[Your ability can be described however you want, no limits, no word count.]
No word limit. My heart skipped a beat.
A crazy idea shot down my spine like a bolt of electricity.
What if instead of just a single word, I wrote a book?
A 100,000-word white paper covering physics, chemistry, philosophy, law, and even the occult, meticulously detailed, logically airtight, and all-encompassing.
Who could ever guess that?
Five minutes left for me.
I took a deep breath and placed my hands on the screen.
While others were still stuck arguing whether "fire control" or "ice control" was sneakier, my fingers were already flying across the screen.
I wrote, "Report on the Possibility of User Felix Conducting Macroscopic Interference Based on the Pauli Exclusion Principle and Schrödinger's Wave Equation in a Subjective Idealist Universe, and Combining Maxwell's Equations to Alter Local Physical Laws."
I even copied my 30,000-word thesis word for word, tacking it on as the first addendum to the master rulebook of my ability.
Time ticked away, second by second.
The people around me had already finished, and now they were all staring at me like I'd lost my mind.
Someone scoffed, "What's this guy doing? Writing a novel or something?"
"Is he crazy? Time is almost up!" another person shouted.
Had these mortals ever heard the old saying, "knowledge is ability"?
As the timer hit zero, I finished.
In total, 103,472 words.
"The editing of the ability is completed. The game begins now."
"First mission: In the primeval jungle, survive seven days."
The blinding white space exploded around me, and suddenly I was weightless, dropping like a stone straight toward an endless sea of dark green jungle below.
The wind howled in my ears.
I was at least 0.6 miles above the ground.
All around me, the other contestants were screaming in terror.
The live chat was blowing up.
[Starting with a bang? Falling from the sky?]
[Check out that buff guy, number 77! He roared, his body swelled up, and he smashed straight into the ground, leaving a crater. His abilities gotta be 'super strength' or 'body enhancement'.]
[I bet it's 'invulnerability'.]
"Contestant 77's ability, 'Invulnerability,' has been guessed. He is erased."
The once-mighty muscle guy was reduced to ashes mid-air in an instant.
Everyone felt a chill run down their spine.
A girl screamed, with a pair of white wings spread on her back, letting her land safely.
[I guess it's 'Angel Wings'.]
[I bet it's 'Flight'.]
"Contestant 33's ability, 'Flight,' has been guessed. She is erased."
Another one died.
The viewers were going wild with their guesses, covering every possibility like a carpet bombing.
A bunch of idiots. I had been saying it, simple, obvious abilities are the fastest way to get killed.
As the ground got closer, I stayed totally calm.
I'd made sure to include a special clause in my ability manual just for moments like this.
[Addendum 347, Section B: Whenever Felix is falling uncontrollably with acceleration over 9.8 m/s², 'Relative Spatial Coordinate Lock' kicks in. All the gravitational energy from the fall gets instantly converted into harmless heat and sound, which then dissipates somewhere random within 0.3 miles where nobody's around.]
Put simply, I was unkillable by a fall.
And I landed as quietly as a whisper, not even a thud.