1: A battle for supremacy across countless realms?

It was three in the morning, and the clatter of the keyboard beneath Lin Ye's fingertips was the only clear sound in the rental apartment.

The glaring light of the monitor shone on his tired yet still focused face, his glasses reflecting the game character that kept falling on the screen—this was already the seventeenth death tonight.

"Is this a game a human could possibly make? Damn it, I scratch at it for half an hour, and it kills me in one hit?" He cursed under his breath, rubbing his sore eyes.

This newly released single-player masterpiece, *The Chronicles of Aendor*, had deterred countless players with its hardcore combat and absurd numerical design. Lin Ye had been stuck on the Frost Dragon obstacle for three full days.

As a programmer who considered himself reasonably competent, Lin Ye believed that stubbornly grinding was not the way for him to solve a problem when facing a game purely constructed out of numerical values.

We programmers should have our own way of clearing a level. If the skills in the game are too weak, what about the skills I learned in college? Professional skills count as skills too, right?

A few hours later, a rudimentary yet powerful window hovered over the computer interface, its title clearly reading—"xiao dingdang modifier V1.0".

"Doraemon" was the nickname he gave the modifier he created, a playful jab that seemed to mock the game designers' unyielding hardcore persistence.

Carrying a subtle sense of guilt and a greater sense of relief, Lin Ye changed both his Health Points and Attack Power to 9999999, took a deep breath, and charged once more toward the Frost Dragon perched atop the snow-capped mountain.

"Heh heh, let's see who the real numerical monster is!"

Just as he was controlling his character, ready to enjoy the thrill of slaughtering the BOSS, an anomaly suddenly occurred!

The screen flashed violently, shaking like an old television with a bad connection, emitting a crackling static noise. Immediately afterward, an indescribable suction force came from deep within the computer screen, threatening to tear him inside instantly.

Lin Ye felt the world spin, the lights in the room twisted into grotesque colors, the keyboard and mouse slipped from his grasp, and his body felt drained of all strength.

"No way? Does cheating really bring down divine retribution..." This was Lin Ye's final cry before vanishing.

The city nightscape outside the window, the familiar lights of thousands of homes, rapidly dissolved and blurred like pigment dropped into water, finally disappearing completely into a heart-stopping darkness.

When Lin Ye's consciousness focused again, he found himself in a boundless, pure white space. Everything—up, down, left, and right—was pure white, without any reference points, as if the entire world had been stripped of color, form, and boundaries, leaving only endless nothingness.

Before he could question his surroundings, a cold, emotionless mechanical synthesized voice rang out simultaneously in everyone's mind:

[Global humanity has been bound... "myriad realms hegemony" game is loading...]

[Initial area division is being carried out based on the source planet and civilization affiliation. Earth Civilization has been assigned to the Novice Trial Zone—Blue Star Civilization.]

[Internal structural unit of civilization detected: Country. Each country unit has been automatically divided into an independent initial sub-area.]

[Initial screening complete. Adepts: 7,952,341,821 people.]

[Welcome to... the Trial Grounds of the Gods!]

[Adept, please confirm your name in the Trial Grounds.]

Panic, confusion, disbelief... countless emotions assaulted Lin Ye's brain. The amount of information was too vast for him to immediately digest this sudden drastic change.

A naming box appeared before his eyes.

"I'll just call myself... Lin Ye."

After a brief period of adaptation, Lin Ye accepted reality and entered the name he frequently used when playing games.

After entering the name, a Status Panel popped up before Lin Ye.

[Character Status Panel]

Name: Lin Ye

Race: Human

Level: 1 (0/1000)

Class: None

Health Points: 300/300 (Physique × 100)

Mana Points: 500/500 (Spirit × 100)

Base Attributes:

Strength: 3 (Attack Power, Muscle Strength, Load Capacity, etc.)

Agility: 4 (Reaction Speed, Physical Coordination, Movement Speed, etc.)

Physique: 3 (Vitality, Stamina, Resistance, Recovery Ability, etc.)

Intelligence: 7 (Learning Ability, Logical Thinking, Casting Effectiveness, etc.)

Spirit: 5 (Willpower, Perception, Magic/Energy Limit, etc.)

Luck: 1 (Affects the triggering of rare events, drop quality, critical hit rate, and many other probabilistic events)

Lin Ye's gaze lingered on these numbers.

Strength 3, Physique 3... Sure enough, the body of a programmer who sits all year and lacks exercise was the perfect template for a total weakling in this world that required real fighting. Intelligence 7, however, matched his confidence in his own IQ.

But when he saw the number next to Luck, he felt his world collapse.

"No wonder I always hit the pity rate when I spend money on gacha draws, and always get the consolation prize at the annual meeting raffle... So this is why."

[Novice Guidance Phase: Talent Draw is about to begin.]

[Talent is the manifestation of the soul's essence and will greatly affect your initial development and survival ability in myriad realms hegemony.]

[Each person only has one chance for a Talent Draw.]

[Please concentrate and prepare to draw your Initial Talent...]

After the brief adaptation period passed, the cold and unwavering voice of myriad realms hegemony sounded again.

As the final prompt faded, the pure white space before Lin Ye's eyes suddenly changed!

Countless dazzling orbs of light materialized out of the previously empty void, radiating multicolored, varying brightness like billions of stars.

Some orbs were stable and soft, like warm pearls; others flickered and jumped, wisps of energy dissipating from their edges; and still others appeared deep and reserved, as if containing some unknown power.

These orbs varied in size and shape, quietly floating in the pure white space. They were so numerous that they stretched beyond sight. Lin Ye had no doubt that every single orb represented a completely different Initial Talent.

Not far in front of his vision, a simple and clear virtual button, glowing with soft white light, also condensed into form, clearly displaying four large characters:

[Begin Draw]

"Talent Draw..." Lin Ye muttered, gazing at the scene before him.

With so many choices, it was harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

Thinking of his Luck stat, he could almost predict that if he casually tapped one, he would definitely pick up the most inconspicuous, or perhaps the most disappointing, orb of light.

Just then, a line of tiny yet extremely clear text suddenly popped up in the bottom left corner of his vision:

[xiao dingdang modifier loading...]

Immediately afterward, an extremely thin progress bar flashed, instantly skyrocketing from 0% to 100%! Almost simultaneously with the progress bar disappearing, new information popped up:

[xiao dingdang modifier loaded successfully. Welcome!]

Before the voice finished, right below the welcome message, a window interface that Lin Ye was incredibly familiar with emerged:

[ xiao dingdang modifier V1.0 ]

1. Attribute Modification

2. Item Modification

3. Custom Modification

Remaining Uses: 1

Lin Ye felt his breathing hitch, his mind went blank, and only his heart was pounding wildly!

This... wasn't this the modifier he had created himself?!

It was exactly the same! The rudimentary interface, the casual naming, and the few hastily made function options were all completely identical to what he had produced!