The press release hit like a quake.
"FISTORIA ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE, LANDMARK PARTNERSHIP WITH CHRONOS_ARCHITECT"
Industry forums exploded. My reader base celebrated. Rival authors seethed.
The narrative was perfect: the young, genius author rewarded for his vision.
Kasia had orchestrated it all.
With the Gold contract active, my influence was now formalized. Kasia began forwarding me internal reports she was now required to send.
Rival authors' promotion schedules. Budget allocations. Long-term platform strategy.
I was reading Fistoria's playbook before the players were.
I used the first week of this new power to solidify my throne. I approved a massive site-wide "Chronos Imperium" celebration event—power stone bonuses, exclusive badges, a Q&A with me.
Traffic for the fantasy genre spiked 45%. My story's metrics went vertical.
Gregor from Fistoria sent a personal congratulations email. The tone was obsequious. Authority Projection was already working.
But the "-D" splinter remained.
The strange pulse from Kasia had not repeated. But I was hyper-aware now. I started noticing other... glitches.
A System notification would sometimes flicker with a crimson edge before settling into its usual blue. My Reader's Insight heatmap once showed a perfect, impossible red square over a paragraph for a split second before correcting to green.
Small things. Unexplainable.
I began to think of it as static. Interference from a nearby, more powerful signal.
It scared me. And that fear pissed me off.
I channeled the anger into my next move. It was time to expand the empire beyond the page.
Using Kasia as a proxy and a network of shell corporations set up with System money, I initiated a silent stock acquisition. The target: Vortex Media, the struggling parent company of a small audiobook platform.
It wasn't Fistoria. Not yet. But it was a beachhead.
The acquisition of a controlling 12% stake cost $400,000. A fraction of my wealth.
I now owned a piece of a real company. On paper, I was a mysterious, minor shareholder.
In reality, it was a test. A first step towards owning the means of production.
The System approved.
[MILESTONE ACHIEVED: FIRST CORPORATE ACQUISITION]
[REPUTATION SHIFT: 'INDUSTRY PLAYER']
[REWARD: 'FINANCIAL INTUITION' (PASSIVE)]
[DESCRIPTION: Gain instinctive understanding of the true value, leverage points, and hidden vulnerabilities in any financial deal or corporate structure you examine.]
The rewards were becoming meta. Skills to gain more power, to understand deeper systems.
I was no longer just an author with magic. I was becoming a corporation with a soul.
At school, the change in me was now palpable. I didn't just ignore the Marcin's of the world. My mere presence seemed to unsettle them. Authority Projection at work, even here.
Teachers began treating me with a wary respect. My grades, maintained with minimal effort, were suddenly "impressively consistent."
I was a rock in a stream, and the social current was parting around me.
One afternoon, Kasia sent an urgent, encrypted message.
"Anomaly. A new story. 'Goblin Coin Hegemon.' Launched three days ago. Already #8 in Fantasy. Metrics are... unnatural. Perfect reader retention from click to chapter 10. No drop-off. Zero negative comments. It's statistically impossible."
I pulled up the story. The cover was mediocre. The synopsis was generic goblin-economics wish-fulfillment.
But the numbers were a straight vertical line.
I used Social Web Sight on the author's profile pic—a cartoon goblin.
The web that bloomed was wrong.
Instead of lines connecting to people, a single, thick, violet cable of energy shot upward, into nothing. The label shimmered: EXTERNAL SUPPORT - NON-STANDARD.
This wasn't a talented newcomer. This was a plant.
A rival System user?
Or something else?
I remembered the email. Bigger toys.
"Kasia," I typed, my fingers cold. "Who is the author? Real data."
"There is none. Account created with encrypted details. Payments routed through a cascade of dummy wallets. It's a ghost. But it's climbing. Fast."
A ghost story, powered by violet energy, eating my genre.
This was no longer a corporate or creative rivalry.
This was an incursion.
My phone buzzed. Not a message. A calendar notification I didn't recognize.
The title was one word: Audit.
The time was for tomorrow, 3:33 PM.
The location field was blank.
Below, in the notes, a single line:
"Let's see how the cornerstone handles pressure. -D"
The splinter in my mind became a knife.
He wasn't just watching.
He was playing.
And he had just made his first move.
I looked at the impossible stats of "Goblin Coin Hegemon," then at the chilling calendar invite.
The board had been flipped.
A new game had begun.
And for the first time, I wasn't sure I knew the rules.
//-\\
To my fellow authors in the trenches:
They told us we weren't good enough. They sent the cold, automated emails. "Not a fit for our current line-up." "Lacks marketability."
Every time you see Alex Thorn crush an editor in this story, remember: this isn't just fiction.
This is the scream of every writer who stayed up until 3:00 AM pouring their soul into a document that the world ignored. It is for everyone who has ever struggled with low reads, low reviews, low comments, and those painful, stagnant low collections that make you want to quit.
The gatekeepers are human. They are flawed. And in the digital age, they are becoming obsolete.
They sit in their comfortable chairs judging worlds they could never even imagine, let alone build. They look at spreadsheets while we look at the stars.
We don't write for the approval of a corporate board in a glass office. We write for the person scrolling on their phone at a bus stop, looking for a world better than their own.
We write for the ones who need an escape from a life that feels like a dead end.
If you have a manuscript sitting in a folder named "Draft 1" that you're too afraid to post—post it right now.
Stop waiting for permission to exist. If you've been rejected ten times, go for the eleventh. Use their "No" as fuel for your fire.
Alex Thorn had to die to get his second chance. You don't. You just have to keep typing until your fingers bleed and your vision blurs. The industry thinks they hold the keys. They forgot that we are the ones who build the doors in the first place.
Let them call us "cringe." Let them call us "amateurs." While they talk, we build. While they judge, we evolve into something they can't control.
Current Motivation Level: 17%
Next Level: +1%
If this chapter resonated with you, drop a comment. Tell me about the time a gatekeeper told you "No."
ALL HELL FROM WEBNOVEL STARTS FROM YOU!
— A.T.