He woke up in a daze, opening his eyes to a ceiling that felt both strange and familiar.
“This is the house I lived in during high school, over a decade ago. What's going on?” Lu Wen thought, confused, but his body felt fine.
He slowly sat up and looked around, everything feeling both unfamiliar and familiar.
He pulled out his smartphone, still sporting a Home button, and checked the time. It was July 2016, right after he graduated from high school.
Lu Wen’s grades weren’t great, and he ended up attending a mediocre junior college, where he spent a few years just messing around.
Holding his phone, Lu Wen suddenly felt an inexplicable sensation. He could merge his phone with other things.
A wave of information flooded his mind, and Lu Wen understood what he had gained.
Infinite Synthesis, a power that allowed him to merge two non-resistant targets.
“A rebirth cheat code?” Lu Wen was overjoyed.
He knew he was just an ordinary person. Even knowing future events for the next few years, his talents, abilities, and connections would only allow him to achieve financial freedom at best; even becoming a multimillionaire would be difficult.
But with this cheat code, everything was different. Lu Wen’s ambitions ballooned.
The ability description: The fewer words, the greater the power.
Lu Wen carefully sensed his Infinite Synthesis ability, and all the information flowed back to him instinctively.
There were no restrictions on the targets for Infinite Synthesis. Specific objects, vague abilities, even concepts could all be merged.
The merged existence was completely under Lu Wen’s control; he could obliterate it with a thought.
But merging came with a cost in energy. As long as the energy cost could be met, anything could be merged.
Generally speaking, for ordinary targets, as long as Lu Wen could physically handle them, the energy cost could be met.
Merging two ants would definitely consume less energy than merging two horses.
His innate ability automatically absorbed energy, allowing Lu Wen to use Infinite Synthesis without restrictions once every thirty days.
He currently had one unrestricted synthesis chance accumulated.
After absorbing all this information, Lu Wen was so excited his heart was pounding.
To prevent himself from getting too worked up and having a “Fan Jin Taking the Examination” moment, Lu Wen quickly shifted his focus, stopped thinking about Infinite Synthesis, and started browsing the news on his phone.
He didn’t remember much from 2016. Overall, China was still in a stable and peaceful state.
Having calmed down, Lu Wen was about to experiment with his Infinite Synthesis ability when the earth suddenly shook, causing his mind to jolt.
“Earthquake?” Lu Wen was startled. Without hesitation, he ran downstairs, reaching the open space in less than ten seconds.
But after a few breaths, nothing happened.
“What’s going on? It wasn’t an earthquake, but something definitely happened. I’m just an ordinary guy with no information channels, completely clueless.” Lu Wen thought to himself.
Then, a “sun” rose in his vision, even though he wasn’t looking at the sky.
He frowned and closed his eyes, but the “sun” remained.
“This ‘sun’ isn’t in my vision, but in my mind!” Lu Wen speculated with an open mind.
The “sun” sent down a ray of light, and Lu Wen could clearly feel it directed towards him.
Lu Wen didn’t panic. His Infinite Synthesis ability still had one unrestricted synthesis chance left.
The ray of light landed, and a wave of information emerged. Lu Wen now understood what had just happened.
The World Will had awakened. All adults aged eighteen and over had received the World Mark, that ray of light.
Through the World Mark, they could view their personal attribute panels and traverse the Multiverse.
They had three chances of revival. After dying in a different world, they would return to the main world, their bodies restored to the moment they received the World Mark.
Attributes showed their personal Realm, innate Abilities, Divine Skills, and Equipment attributes.
Transcendence allowed them to cross over to different worlds, where they would receive legal identities and the time ratio would be one-to-one with the real world.
For each Realm level-up, they could add one keyword to filter their Transcendence choices, such as Apocalypse, Zombies, Internal Energy, Urban, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Xuanhuan, etc.
After Transcendence, the main world’s Will would issue tasks. Completing them would grant Transcendence Tickets and Primal Coins.
Task One: Basic Survival Task. Simply living in a different world for a period of time would suffice. It was usually easy and granted Transcendence Tickets upon completion.
Without Transcendence Tickets, they would have to spend Primal Coins to purchase Transcendence eligibility.
Task Two: Participate in the Main Plot. Difficulty varied, ranging from easy, normal, hard, to nightmare. Completion yielded significant rewards.
In addition to the two fixed tasks, random tasks could also be issued.
Finally, upon settlement, the impact they had on the different world would be summarized, and they would receive corresponding Primal Coins.
Causing intense emotional stimulation to 10,000 people would yield one Primal Copper Coin.
Primal Coins were a universal material for consumption.
They could also be used for cultivation. Spending one Primal Copper Coin was equivalent to one day of cultivating a skill.
Primal Coins could also be used to appraise equipment, which would then become usable in the Multiverse.
Only the Transcendent themselves and appraised equipment could cross over.
Equipment smuggled through spatial equipment might malfunction due to incompatibility in worlds with abnormal rules.
…
The World Mark information wasn’t extensive. Lu Wen had processed it all in half a minute.
“The Age of Universal Transcendence? I was thinking about becoming an artist or a scientist, but things are unpredictable.” Lu Wen sighed.
He smiled at his neighbor who had also come outside. Nobody was in the mood for chatting right now.
Lu Wen returned home and started thinking about what to use his first unrestricted synthesis for.
Thinking about the World Mark’s functions, Lu Wen opened his personal attribute panel with a thought.
Name: Lu Wen
Realm: Zeroth Order
Innate Ability: Infinite Synthesis (Prismatic)
Divine Skills: Culinary Arts (White), Throwing (White), Handcrafting (White)
Equipment Items: Smartphone (Purple), Clothes (White)
Primal Coins: Zero
“Prismatic? White?” Lu Wen was confused, but when he focused his attention on the words, the corresponding information was received.
This was the World Will’s set ranking system. Equipment, items, abilities, and skills all shared the same grades.
There were seven tiers: White, Green, Blue, Purple, Gold, Red, and Prismatic.
White was ordinary, Green was advanced ordinary.
Blue was extraordinary, Purple was advanced extraordinary.
Gold was Lesser Divine, Red was Greater Divine, Prismatic was Supreme Divine.
Lu Wen’s Culinary Arts, Throwing, and Handcrafting were all White tier.
The ants on the sidewalk, the spiders on the eaves, the geckos on the walls, their abilities were also all White tier.
The martial arts in movies and novels where strikes left people resembling paintings were advanced ordinary, Green tier.
The steam engines of the First Industrial Revolution were Green tier.
Internal energy from Wuxia novels was Blue tier, the electric technology of the Second Industrial Revolution was Blue tier.
Powerful cultivation techniques from Xuanhuan and Fantasy movies and novels were advanced extraordinary, Purple tier.
Lu Wen’s smartphone, the pinnacle of 21st-century human scientific technology, was a Purple tier item.