So here is the question: if one day you suddenly became the center of global attention, how would you react?
I do not know what you would do, but our protagonist Mr. Alo and his younger sister Ms. Avi, the expressions on their faces at that moment were probably exactly like this: 凸(艹皿艹 ). In their heads there was only one line playing on repeat, again and again: You've got to be fucking kidding me!!!
So what on earth was going on? Let us turn the clock back thirty minutes, to around two o'clock in the morning on November 25.
At that time, Mr. Alo was slowly waking up from his sleep. The reason he was jolted awake in the middle of the night was not that this guy had terrible sleep quality, but that [Alo's System] had just gone online. The system had yanked him out of his dream by brute force for one single purpose, and that was to tell him a "piece of incredibly good news": "Hey! Buddy, your cheat system has just gone live!"
Upon receiving this news, Mr. Alo was of course overjoyed. He was so excited that he even slapped himself twice, just to make sure he was not still trapped inside a dream. Do not think he was overreacting; he had every reason to be this ecstatic. You have to understand, this world is not any kind of magical fantasy land, it is just an ordinary twenty-first century. Alo is not some chosen one standing under the spotlight of the masses, either. He is simply the most typical kind of ordinary person of this era, born in an ordinary way, growing up in an ordinary way...
The only experience in his life that barely seemed worth mentioning was probably that he left his hometown at the age of eighteen and went to Tokyo, Japan to study abroad together with Avi. After that, once he graduated from university, he quite naturally joined a small company in Tokyo that could not have been more ordinary. He muddled along at work there, drifting through the days from the age of twenty-four up to his current age of thirty. If nothing unexpected happened, his life would, with very high probability, end up just like that of the vast majority of people: working in an ordinary way, retiring in an ordinary way, and then, in that same ordinary way, heading toward the end of his life.
As for marriage, that part was rather unfortunate. He had almost never seriously thought about it. Why had he not thought about it? On the one hand, it was because he was very poor, and his life was already packed full to the brim with all kinds of pressure. He had absolutely no intention of starting a family and adding one more layer of responsibility and one more layer of anxiety onto his shoulders. On the other hand, this guy was also a stubborn, long-term chuunibyou patient, someone who in his younger years had always been fixated on that so-called "perfect girlfriend", a perfect woman who existed the way a heroine does in anime.
Obviously, Mr. Alo's dream was no different from sheer delusion, and he himself was very clear about that. So over these years, he had already backed down again and again in his heart, stepping down from "a perfect woman" all the way to "as long as she is a girl I am truly satisfied with". He no longer insisted on perfection and only asked that she could please both his eyes and his heart. But after compromising this far, he refused to compromise any further. So he simply laid down a final decision for himself: unless he met a girl who truly satisfied him like that, he would rather remain single for the rest of his life.
And what did the arrival of the System actually mean? With the System's help, it took Mr. Alo less than three seconds to completely figure out what this so-called "system" actually was. Moreover, as a veteran reader who had devoured a whole mountain of "system novels," Alo was very clearly aware of what this cheat meant for him.
To put it in simple and crude terms: if you crave wealth, then with the System, becoming the richest person on Earth is not a joke at all. If you crave power and status, then with the System, there will come a day when you can sit on the throne of "Emperor of Earth," with everyone shouting long live to your face. If you crave lifespan and eternal youth, then with the System, you will have a life far beyond human limits, maybe a few hundred years, maybe a few thousand, maybe even tens of thousands. If you crave strength and abilities, then as long as everything goes smoothly and you keep growing, there will come a day when you can even punch the sun to pieces. If you crave knowledge and wisdom, then perfect, the System can let you keep gaining greater wisdom and more knowledge without end. All those things that used to exist only in pure fantasy had all turned into options that could actually be realized in front of the System.
So for an ordinary man who had spent thirty years living a miserable little life, what exactly did the System mean? On this point, Mr. Alo saw things extremely clearly. Starting today, he would no longer be one of those ordinary office workers who get pushed around by the era. For the first time in his life, he was really holding the steering wheel of his own fate. All those old "perfectly ordinary" life scripts, working overtime for a paycheck, stressing over savings, getting crushed in a commuter train until he began to doubt his existence, from this moment on, all of that could be thrown straight into the trash. His future would no longer have anything to do with the word "ordinary."
In short, Mr. Alo understood very well just how absurdly over the top a future the System could bring him. Inside, his heart felt like someone had stuffed a dozen fireworks into his chest and lit every single one. So the very first person he thought of was his little sister next door, Avi. He could not wait to share this good news with her so she could be happy with him. So he acted the moment he thought of it, threw off his blanket, slipped on his slippers, and almost jogged out of his own bedroom. He yanked open Avi's door without the slightest concern that she was still asleep, snapped the light on, then shouted at the top of his lungs, "Stop sleeping! Get up, now!"
At that moment, Avi was happily soaking in dreamland. In her dream there was a whole lineup of insanely handsome guys on the level of top idol stars, each one fussing over her, circling around her and showering her with attention. The sweetness of it all had her on the verge of laughing out loud in her sleep, drool hanging off the corner of her mouth. Then that annoying Mr. Alo went and kicked her straight out of that dream world back into reality, and his method was unbelievably rough. First he whipped her blanket away with a sharp swish, then grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out of bed while she was still half sleepwalking, not treating her like a girl who deserved even a little bit of gentle handling at all.
Even though Avi struggled and yelled in a half-asleep rage, "You are so annoying, get lost! I still have work tomorrow!" and tried her best to fight back, Mr. Alo had no intention of going easy on her. It was like he could not hear a single word she was saying. Running purely on that inexplicable rush of excitement, he forced her all the way awake.
In a situation like this, it was easy to imagine what Avi would be like after being dragged out of her dream so rudely. Her gaze was practically about to burst into flames, and she looked like she might charge into the kitchen the next second to grab a kitchen knife and chop the culprit into little pieces. In the end, though, she did not actually do that; she merely forced out one sentence, her face full of anger: "You had better give me a reasonable explanation, or I am going to kill you!"
Of course, just a few seconds later, Avi simply could not stay angry anymore. Instead, she became even more worked up and excited than Alo. Why would that be? Was it because Alo had shown off some ridiculous magic in front of her, like condensing a fireball in his palm, floating in midair, or casually turning water into ice? Was it any of that? It was not. The way Avi realized that "something huge" had happened was much more straightforward than any magic: Alo simply let her use the System as well.
The situation went roughly like this. When Alo received the System, it casually tossed him a [Newbie Gift Pack] on the side. Inside this [Newbie Gift Pack] were: a Japanese sword, 500 system coins, a few beginner skill books, and a pretty broken [Follower Slot]. Alo did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately assigned this [Follower Slot] to Avi, letting her connect to the System just like he had and enjoy all the benefits of having a cheat.
The moment she activated the System, Avi finally understood why Alo had been so excited just now. Seriously, who the hell would not be excited by this?! According to the System's rules, even if you actually die, you can spend system coins to bring yourself back to life. There is a price to pay, of course, but this whole "die and come back again" setup is completely absurd in how overpowered it is.
So the same Avi who, just moments earlier, had been surrounded in her dream by a whole crowd of super handsome guys and was grinning in her sleep with drool at the corner of her mouth, threw all those dream hunks straight out of her mind the instant she grasped the System's value. Instead, she started practically drooling over her own brother. No matter how you looked at her eyes, something felt off. It was like she was not looking at her real brother at all, but at a freshly roasted, fragrant, crispy-skinned chicken leg.
Seeing that look in her eyes actually made Alo a little nervous, and a vague sense of danger rose in his chest. He quickly forced himself to straighten up, put on a more serious expression, and hurriedly reminded her, "In short, this is the kind of thing we should just secretly enjoy ourselves. We absolutely must not go around talking about it, or there is a very real chance we will get dragged off to some lab and treated like little test mice. You have to remember, reality is not a novel or an anime. Those Big Shots are not going to stop craving healthier bodies, younger bodies, longer lifespans, and greater power. So if they find out about our secret, it will not just be you and me who are screwed. Our mom, our whole extended family, will probably get wiped out along with us."
In response to this little speech, Avi shot him an absolutely textbook eye-roll. Her tone sounded full of disdain, yet she agreed with him completely. "Please, do you take me for an idiot? You think I'd run around showing something like this off? A secret on this level is something we absolutely, absolutely cannot tell anyone about. We keep our heads down, quietly make our fortune, level up under the radar, and get stronger while we lie low. No showing off. Ever."
So, after they obtained the System, the siblings reached a very clear agreement almost immediately: their secret absolutely must never be exposed. However, unfortunately, reality did not move forward according to the roadmap they had in mind. What kind of accident could have happened that sent everything completely off the track they had imagined? Before we talk about that "accident," it is better to first talk about something else: after getting the System, what did this brother and sister plan to do? The answer could not be any simpler: make money. Achieve financial freedom first, talk about everything else later.
Both Alo and Avi had long since had enough of that office-worker life where you squeeze onto a packed train in the morning and work overtime at night. They were desperately yearning for a life where they did not have to clock in, did not have to read anyone's mood just to get through the day, a life of real freedom where they could do whatever they wanted. Of course, they needed money not only because they wanted to live comfortably. On a deeper level, the reason was that for many years they had been constantly anxious about not having money.
As for why they were so anxious about money, it was not because the two of them spent recklessly. It was because their mother back in their hometown had fallen ill a few years ago with something called "chronic kidney failure." From that point on, she had to go for regular dialysis. Treatment costs and medical expenses instantly turned into a fixed burden on the family. Most of the money Alo and Avi had managed to save through hard work over these years was sent back home again and again to pay for their mother's treatment, and they themselves had almost no real savings. So once the cheat landed in their lap, their first instinct was very simple: earn a serious amount of money and at least buy a bit of security for themselves and their family.
So how were they planning to make that money? The method was actually simple and brutal: trade stocks, trade foreign exchange, and trade cryptocurrencies. The reason they chose these paths was largely thanks to a free beginner skill the System had given them: [Transcendent Intuition]. In the rule description, the System explained [Transcendent Intuition] very clearly. It is a kind of instinct that belongs to Transcendents. It is more accurate and more reliable than ordinary intuition, and to some extent it can even faintly push beyond cause and effect and vaguely sense the future.
It does not reach the level of literally "seeing the future," but it is already more than enough to set an ordinary person on the road to riches. To give the simplest example, before a certain stock is about to skyrocket or crash, Alo's [Transcendent Intuition] will send him a strong warning of "danger" or "opportunity," urging him to buy immediately or to sell quickly. Of course, if he wants to trigger this intuitive warning more often, Alo has to honestly pour his attention into investing, watch his stocks, forex positions, and coin prices every day, and think over and over about whether to buy or sell. Only when he is in this state of intense focus will [Transcendent Intuition] come out more actively to remind him.
As for what exactly they should trade, should it be stocks, foreign exchange, or cryptocurrencies? In the end, Alo set his sights on forex. The reason was very simple. He had never traded stocks and had never touched cryptocurrencies, but back in university he had tried his hand at forex for a while. He knew very well that with forex you can use leverage, using relatively little capital to take on bigger risks in exchange for returns that are multiplied several times over.
Of course, the outcome back in his university days had been downright tragic. The 50,000 yen he put in was wiped out completely in the end. Fifty thousand yen was not exactly a fortune, but it was not a trivial amount either, and that failure was enough to crush his spirits. He closed his account on the spot and swore a vicious oath in his heart that he would never touch that stupid stuff again for the rest of his life. Now, however, the situation was completely different. With the System as his cheat, he felt incredibly confident that this time he was absolutely solid, and he charged back into the forex market brimming with self-assurance.
If he wanted to trade forex, he had to find a platform first, right? So Avi picked up her phone and started searching online, checking which foreign exchange trading platforms were more reliable. As she searched, she chatted away with Alo, painting one grand vision after another. Once they had money, they would go on vacation in the Maldives, eat lobster every day, travel around the world, and move their mom to the best hospitals with the best doctors... Alo was swept up by her words, his heart racing, and he simply joined her in daydreaming about that "wonderful life after getting rich overnight."
However, when the time reached 2:23 a.m., Avi suddenly could not laugh anymore. Her phone froze on a bizarre screen. The entire display had turned into a single black window, with one very suspicious white link lying all by itself in the middle. No matter how she tapped it, nothing happened, and every other control had stopped responding as well. Her first reaction was completely normal. She assumed she must have clicked some shady site just now and that her phone had picked up a virus.
So she cursed under her breath, "Those bastards planting malware deserve to rot," while holding down the power button to force a reboot. She thought everything would be fine once it restarted, but when the phone powered back on, the screen was still stuck on that same black window, as if someone had locked it from the system level. With no other choice, Avi had to give up on her own phone for the moment and asked Alo to hand over his so she could keep looking up platforms. Alo passed his phone to her, she connected to the internet, opened the browser, and before long, his phone "caught the infection" as well. The display turned into the exact same black window plus white link combination.
The odds of both of their phones malfunctioning almost at the same time were not completely impossible, but in all the years of their lives so far, nothing like that had ever happened. More importantly, at that very moment, the same bad feeling rose in both of their hearts, a vague, indescribable warning coming from [Transcendent Intuition].
After a brief moment of silence, Avi still went ahead and tapped on that white link. The link led to an extremely simple, yet deeply eerie-looking website. Its title read: Transcendent Ranking. The site had only a single page, and on that page there was just one line of text: [Currently scanning the overall strength of all "Transcendents" within Earth's civilization and selecting the top 100 as candidate targets based on the evaluation results. Please wait.]
The instant they saw that line, Alo and Avi both felt their hearts jolt almost at the same time, a chill running down their backs. The term "Transcendent" was not unfamiliar to them at all, because in the System's definitions, their current occupation was literally listed as [Transcendent]. Many of the skills in the System also had the word "Transcendent" in their names, such as Transcendent Intuition, Transcendent Computation, Transcendent Radar, Transcendent Network...
So this website was almost certainly not some prank thrown together by a bored hacker. Much more likely, it really was tallying information on "the top 100 Transcendents by overall strength." Which naturally raised a question: who had the ability to do this? Who was pulling something like this off? The first suspect that popped into their minds, of course, was [Alo's System].
So Alo could not help forcing down his anger as he questioned the System. The System's reply was extremely calm: [The current event was not initiated or participated in by me, and it does not conform to the core directive of "placing the protection of this user's interests as the first priority." Since activation, I have never carried out any operation that conflicts with your interests. You are free to maintain your doubts, but the above conclusion has already been repeatedly verified and recorded by the System; it is a fact, my master.]
Since the System had denied being involved, Alo naturally pressed on: "If it was not you, then who did this?"
For that question, the System gave the following answer: [Due to restrictions imposed by System rules, I can only provide a limited explanation. First, please be clear on one point: there is currently no "person," and no still-living consciousness of any kind, watching you from afar. The data on this ranking is not obtained by viewing surveillance footage, listening in on your conversations, or tracking your actions. It is the result of an 'extraordinary rule program' that covers the entire solar system and is automatically settling its calculations.]
[The higher lifeform that set up this rule has long since died, leaving behind only the formulas and statistical mechanisms that continue to operate without anyone overseeing them. This rule does not watch what you do the way a camera would. It only performs passive statistics on "life" and 'related information' that appear within the solar system. It does not think, it does not judge, and it does not report your daily activity to any existing entity. Therefore, you do not need to worry that you are being watched every moment. As long as you stay calm and handle everything properly, no one will be able to uncover your secret through this ranking. If your information appears on the ranking, my recommendation is that you disguise yourself as an outstanding and powerful Transcendent, and let everything that defies common sense be naturally attributed to your own strength rather than to the System.]
Faced with that answer, Alo and Avi could only look at each other, speechless. They were both more than a little unhappy about it, but for the moment they could only swallow it and accept what the System had said. The next question in front of them then became: was this stupid thing only showing up on the two of their phones, or had all 8.5 billion people on Earth been dragged into this mess?
On that point, the System gave a clear reply. In short, at this moment every terminal device on Earth that could connect to the internet—phones, televisions, computers—as long as it went online, would be forced to pop up this window. Avi instinctively felt skeptical, so she immediately opened her laptop. She connected it to the Wi-Fi and refreshed the page. The screen went black for a moment, and then the exact same black window and white link combo as on her phone popped up. If they had owned a proper television, the next step would probably have been to switch it on for another test. Unfortunately, the two of them did not watch TV at all and did not even have a real TV in the house—just an external screen they used as a monitor for games. Even without a TV experiment, by this point they already believed that what the System had said was very likely true.
Just then, Avi noticed how obviously uneasy Alo looked, so she deliberately put on a relaxed tone and said, "Come on, stop looking like the world is about to end. This stupid ranking says it very clearly, it only counts the top one hundred. There are 8.5 billion people on Earth, you know. Do you really think a pair of total newbies who only just got their System would make it into the top one hundred? There are people with more ability, better backgrounds, and greater talent than us out there like stars in the sky. Stop always pushing yourself in the direction of 'I am the savior of the world.'"
Hearing that, Alo went along with it and started comforting himself too. He nodded and muttered, "You are right, you are right, 8.5 billion people. If the two of us actually managed to sneak into the top one hundred, that really would be supernatural... no matter how you look at it, there is no way we would be that unlucky."
Even while he was trying to reassure himself, Alo's thoughts still could not help drifting toward the worst-case scenario. What if his name really did show up on that ranking? There was no doubt in his mind that if he actually landed in the top one hundred, it would take the police at most a dozen minutes to trace the network and pinpoint his front door. They would ring the bell politely at first, then very likely carry him straight off to some laboratory in the middle of nowhere and make him lie down nicely as a test subject for those Big Shots. So sitting there waiting for doom was absolutely not an option. He had to think of a way to hide somewhere and lay low for a while first.
Right then, the System considerately popped up a recommendation: a handy skill tailor-made for going on the run—[Transcendent Spatial Science Lv1]. According to the System's explanation, as long as he combined [Transcendent Spatial Science Lv1] with basic skills like [Heart of the Strong Lv1], [Transcendent Computation Lv1], [Transcendent Network Lv1], [Transcendent Intuition Lv1], [Transcendent Radar Lv1], [Transcendent Wisdom Lv1], and [Transcendent Constitution Lv1], he could just barely pry open what it called the "Wall of Subspace," slip into Subspace, and then use the network of "Subspace Routes" there to make a run for it.
All of those skills except for [Transcendent Spatial Science] were already included in the Newbie Gift Pack and Alo had already learned them, so all he needed to do now was spend 300 System Coins to buy [Transcendent Spatial Science Lv1], and that was it. The moment the System finished its recommendation, Alo gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and spent the 300 System Coins to buy the skill book. The instant he used it, a flood of transcendent knowledge about "space," "dimensions," and "Subspace" poured into his soul like a breaking dam. With the System assisting in the calculations, it took him less than ten seconds to digest it all completely, as if he really had spent several hundred years studying nothing but this field.
Right after that, he ordered the [System Helper] to start up the cracking program and begin prying open the "Wall of Subspace," while his MP slowly ticked downward. If his name really did show up on that ranking, he would jump into Subspace and use the "Subspace Routes" there to run as far as he could. It was not like the police could chase him through Subspace Routes, right? And if they really did have that kind of ability, then he would just have to accept his fate.
As for Avi, her own [Transcendent Intuition] let her sense right away that Alo was secretly up to something, so she quietly spent 200 System Coins to buy [Transcendent Energy Science Lv1]. That skill book unlocked a whole bunch of practical minor skills, such as energy bullets, energy shields, energy tentacles, and so on. She was not planning to fight the police; what had really caught her eye was one special variant of the energy shield—one that could be tuned into an invisible state, making them extremely hard to catch with the naked eye, infrared, or ordinary surveillance equipment. Put simply, it was a must-have god-tier skill for running away and hiding.
By the time the clock reached 2:35 a.m., the website called [Transcendent Ranking] finally updated, and the ranking itself officially appeared. In that instant, Alo and Avi both felt their chests tighten, their breathing turn unsteady, and there was only one line left blaring on loop at maximum volume in their heads: You've got to be fucking kidding me!!!
Why did they react like that? The reason could not have been simpler: the very first line of the ranking clearly said "No.1: Alo". And what was shown on the page was far more than just a name. The info panel prominently displayed his photo—that same formal suit photo he had taken in his senior year of university specifically for job hunting. Clicking the small link under the photo opened his full profile: his academic history and work history were laid out line by line, and in the "Current Residence" field, it clearly said: Japan-Tokyo-Ikebukuro. It did not go as far as listing the exact street, apartment building, or room number, but even that was more than enough to make Alo grind his teeth in fury, wanting nothing more than to roar at the screen: Fuck you!
In just a few seconds, the expression on his face shifted from stunned and breathless to dark and stormy. Then he drew in a deep breath, lowered his voice, and said to Avi, "Don't just stand there in a daze. Pack your things, now. We're running."