(My new novel is available on WN. Not sure why it didn't come out when you peek at my profile, but you can search for it. "My Tenth Transmigration, Destination Hollywood"
Reviews and comments will be greatly appreciated)
[Edward POV]
I hung out with my friends at Jay's pool after the yard sale. Jenna sat next to Elsa and Enid, sharing the same chair, while Jacob and Finneas were wrestling at the edge of the pool.
The breakup didn't seem to bother Enid that much. Or Micheal. He acted sad, but he looked relieved when Enid asked him to end things.
Alex and Billie were talking about a movie. I was talking with Jenna about her new movie role she got.
Jenna asked, "Hey Ed. Um, I read an article saying that you're building a new film set?"
I nodded casually while sipping my lemonade. "Yeah. Want to see?"
"Cool! Are there pictures?" Jenna beamed, taking the chance to move away from the other girls and squeezed into my chair, waiting for me to take out my phone.
Enid rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, "Opportunistic bitch."
"I mean, let's go to the set," I clarified. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward me.
"This is the new AR fusion set, right? I've been wanting to see it," Finneas said, his face red from being in Jacob's headlock.
"If you don't say my girlfriend isn't crazy, I'm not letting you out!" Jacob threatened.
Finneas grunted in frustration. "She is crazy! You can't make me take back the truth!"
"Then you're staying there until you change your mind!" Jacob shot back.
"What if I do this?" Finneas licked Jacob's arm.
"Ew!" Jacob immediately released him and shoved him away in disgust. I chuckled and said, "Do you guys want to come too?"
"Yeah, we want to go!" Enid said with a twinkle in her eyes. Then she grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the chair.
Before we could leave, Gloria and Cam walked by the pool, heading toward us.
Gloria said angrily, "Edward, here's your check back." She held out the check I gave Manny and Luke for their charity program, which confused me.
Cam clarified, not wanting me to get offended, "Since it's a competition between classes, we think this amount will make them win for sure, and it's not fair to the other students."
"The students are competing for a pizza and a pool party," I said in disbelief.
"But it's not going to help train their moral values—" Cam began, but Alex interjected.
"The money's going to charity anyway. Isn't the point to raise as much as they can, instead of caring whose class wins?"
She crossed her arms and stood by my side. Gloria and Cam looked overwhelmed. Gloria turned to Cam, "That's right. The whole point of this is to raise money for cha-rity. Not the pizza party."
Cam quickly changed his tone. "Okay, I'm not the villain here. Claire suddenly had a stomach ache and asked me for help."
"Instead of UNICEF, the school should've partnered with the Ohara Foundation for this kind of thing. Ed's charity will double the school's donations, and all of it will go to starving children instead of some greedy NGOs," Alex added with a condescending tone.
I looked at Alex with disbelief, wondering why she was backing me up so hard.
"What?" she asked, startled by the look.
"You sure know a lot about my company," I said.
Gloria chuckled and added, "Ay! Of course she knows. She always studies everything you're doing."
Cam joined in, "Not because she's admiring you. She uses it as a guideline for her own career path."
Alex nodded smugly, raising her chin.
Gloria exposed her, "After she finished crying because she couldn't possibly do that, she decided to just support you."
"Gloria!" Alex gasped, stunned.
I laughed and patted her head, which she angrily brushed off.
After some convincing, they decided to keep the check. Alex told her family she was going to see the set, and I invited them too. Only Phil, Gloria, and Cam decided to come—despite their spouses clearly hinting at them not to.
[Cam, Gloria, and Phil's commentary]
"They said Ed was just being polite and didn't really mean it. They really don't know Edward!" Phil said with some frustration, the others agreeing.
Gloria followed, "He wouldn't have asked if he didn't want us to come! It'd be rude to say no."
"Yes, and this is definitely not because we want to see what kind of movie he's filming right now, or meet Ryan Gosling," Cam said with a slightly awkward mirth.
Phil nodded along. "Not because we want to stand on the set and suddenly show off our acting ability so Ed will cast us in his next movie."
Gloria added on, "Definitely not that!"
[Commentary ended]
"I can't believe they are really coming." Alex whispered to me as we got out of her grandpa's house.
I nodded and said, "Maybe they really want to see the set?"
"Still. They could've taken the hint." Alex grumbled.
…
"Introducing the future of filmmaking," I said ceremoniously as the lights inside the circular dome turned on one by one, illuminating the white, pristine movie set.
Phil looked around in confusion. "It's empty though?"
Gloria, Cam, and the rest of my friends all looked quizzical. Enid guessed, "Oh, is it not ready yet?"
"I just haven't started it up yet. I had the idea two years ago—combining my Unreal Engine setup, holographic tech, and some AR systems I figured out—to create a pocket world for fantasy stories." I walked to the middle of the white stage.
Seth McFarlane pitched me an idea about a space adventure called 'The Orville'. I remembered the simulation room in that show and tried to recreate it myself.
A control panel lifted from the floor. "I call this place Canvas."
I picked a scene from the Unreal Engine worlds, and the entire dome transformed.
At first, it was subtle—a soft shimmer across the walls, water rippling in a pond. Then the whiteness peeled away like the world was waking up from a dream.
The ceiling vanished, revealing a sky streaked with twin suns, clouds drifting lazily across a lavender horizon.
Beneath our feet, the flat white floor began to pulse. Millions of nanobots stirred, reshaping the terrain in real time.
Grass erupted in fast-forward, spreading like ink through water. Trees curled upward, stones unfurled from the soil like blooming flowers, and glowing mushrooms blinked to life in the shadows.
It wasn't just cosmetic. The terrain had weight, texture, and resistance. If one stepped on a stone, one could actually trip.
But the most astonishing part was the movement. As we ran, the floor moved with us—treadmill-like, adaptive. We could sprint for miles and never leave the set.
Phil gasped as a breeze blew past him. "Wait… I felt that. How did I feel the wind?"
"The vents simulate wind," I said. "And the lighting adjusts in real-time to match the scene. Watch this."
I tapped another icon. Stone towers erupted in the distance, rising from nothing.
The ground trembled faintly as a cobblestone path unfurled beneath us, moss and tiny flowers growing between each brick. Overhead, a dragon's shadow passed by—its roar low and distant.
Enid spun around. "Okay, that's… that's not just a screen. That's—"
"It's presence," I said. "The cameras are synced to everything, so the actors don't have to pretend. They're in it. This isn't greenscreen. It's a living set."
I wasn't sure if they were lost in wonder or simply unimpressed.
Then the dragon landed in front of me, and Enid yelped in horror when she saw it.
"E–Ed–Ed!" she stammered, trying to warn me. I looked at her in confusion. The dragon opened its mouth and spewed fire at me.
"EDDDD!" Jenna screamed in desperation.
I was engulfed by the flames—and walked out of them with a poker face.
"I feel like I should clarify. None of this is real."
Alex asked, "This is all holographic, right? How do you shoot the scene? Do you still need to bring a camera in?"
"You can use a camera, or use the built-in function. Check this out." I gestured for a holographic panel to appear, and it showed the recorded video.
I edited the clip so that it zoomed in on Jenna screaming my name, before cutting to me getting engulfed in fire. The shot was from within the fire itself and from Jenna's point of view.
The scene looked like it had been plucked straight from a magical blockbuster movie, and everyone was visibly stunned.
Jenna's hair fluttered in the wind, the flame reflected on her eyes.
"In traditional filmmaking, this scene alone might take a week to shoot, and many more weeks to edit the VFX. Here, it's done in five minutes." I nodded in satisfaction when I saw their reactions now.
"Can you send that to me? I'm going to put it in my acting reel for my next audition," Jenna said coyly.
"All right." I grabbed the video mid-air, squeezed it into my fist, and blew it in Jenna's direction. She heard a ding on her phone.
Her eyes widened as she saw the clip being sent via AirDrop.
Everyone grew excited and began exploring the structures of the scene. It truly felt like being in the location itself.
"Can you only do fantasy settings?" Phil asked.
"Nope." I changed the setup and the entire Gotham City merged into the setting. The floor raised upwards as it turned into buildings, separating the crowd into several teams.
Everyone was shocked by the new set. "Oh my god. You can shoot the Nightwing movie in just a few weeks if you have this." Enid yelped.
I nodded slightly before shrugging with disappointment, "Too bad Warner Brothers didn't want me to do it. Ah, but I will direct the Black Widow movie here. And Daredevil too."
Finneas and Jacob were excited about the new superhero shows.
If an actor wears the stop-motion-capture suits, he can immediately transform into the beast he's playing inside the set, which made for an easy recalibration and enhanced chemistry between actors.
Even an office space, a teenagers room, and many more settings were pre-installed in the program by me. And since the cameras could shoot one scene from various angles, it eased up the necessity for reshoots.
"Hey Ed. Do you have Hogwarts?" Enid asked, changing the subjects before the boys could geek out.
"I can do that. If you guys want more immersion, you can change into wizard robes. You can even do this." I held out my hand after typing into the control panel, and a replica of the Elder Wand materialized.
I pointed to a nearby boulder and shouted, "BOMBARDA!"
A red light flew from the wand and struck the boulder, exploding it into pieces.
"OH MY GOD!" Phil squealed in a high-pitched voice. "Can I do that too?!" he asked.
"You can. Though using a real wand prop is better. The magic works the same," I explained.
"I can't wait to use Avada Kedavra on people!" Gloria shouted gleefully before skipping away with the others to change into wizard robes.
Alex walked over and asked, "Edward, this is amazing. But what about the energy usage for something like this?"
"It is exorbitant," I said, "but I have my own energy reactor, so it's fine."
I had arranged for Stranger Things to be shot on the set. Without Canvas, the VFX alone would balloon the budget to 4-6 million per episode.
This could create a tv episode for only 300 thousand, which allowed for more creativity in a fantasy tv series. So in the future, people wouldn't have to wait 2 or 3 years to get another season with only 8 episodes released.
"Aren't you afraid people are going to protest this set? I'm not clear about Hollywood, but if this threatens people's jobs, then they will try to shut it down." Alex pushed her glasses upward and asked hesitantly.
I nodded in agreement and clarified, "I'm not just typing prompts. The world needs to be built, the monsters need to be designed. VFX artists just need to adapt to the new process."
I opened up a design panel and told Alex, "The directors will have to control the world and the writers need to come out with a story. Actors still need to act."
Alex chuckled and said, "Sorry. I forgot even though you're a money grubbing billionaire, you don't skimp out on your employees."
I turned to her with disbelief and said, "Just for that, I'm not going to tell you where the real bathroom in this place is."
We had quite a lot of fun playing inside the set. From Harry Potter to Star Wars, we roleplayed quite a lot.
"Ay! I know what we should do. We should make a movie ourselves." Gloria suggested, wearing a green witch outfit with a deep cleavage shown.
Phil was excited and pretended, "What– We can't do that? Edward needs this set for his next work."
Cam added on, "Yeah. We can't possibly disturb his work here."
"Actually, the set is free for another two weeks. So you can use it if you want." I said casually.
"Yes!" Cam and Phil pumped their fists. Alex rolled her eyes and said, "Did you guys follow us here just to do this?"
Both of them looked uncomfortable by Alex's questions. Enid decided to ask another, "Do you even have a script? Who's going to direct the movie? Who's going to foot the budget? You cannot make Edward invest, create, direct, and even cast you guys as the actors right?"
"Besides, all three of you have a kind of Diva Syndrome. Are you really sure you want to become famous? Everyone will absolutely hate your guts." Jacob said, and his words hit like the final nail in the coffin.
"Di– DIVA?!" Cam gasped, offended. "We're not DIVAS!" Gloria added angrily.
Enid interjected mockingly, "Oh yeah. Sure~!" She then snapped, "All three of you interrupted us when it was our turn as the lead."
Cam jeered, "That's only because your performance was unconvincing honey."
"See. Giant Diaper wearing Divas, all of them." Enid snarked.
I didn't want to get into the fight so I used a holographic projection of myself to stand there while my real self went to the car.
It was 10 in the evening, and although we had some food delivered to the set before, I was still starving.
Before we left, Jenna said, "Hey Ed. Um, Paramount picture just contacted my agent?"
Jenna posted the short clip on her Ig page. The first clip was the dragon fire reaction, and the other one was us playing with water and earth bending.
In less than 2 hours, it already got one hundred thousand likes and thousands of comments. People were asking if this was part of a new movie.
Her authentic and visceral reaction of me getting burned was hailed as great acting, which made her agents push her to get a role as the lead in a new Paramount movie.
Unexpectedly, Jenna said no to the role.
"I don't think I'm ready yet. Besides, something about the tone of the producer is creeping me out."
I sighed and said, "I'll check him out for you. I'll find out whether he really wants you to be the lead, or someone out there wants to put their penis in you–"
Jenna nudged her elbow at me, laughing embarrassedly, "Don't say it so directly. I don't want to hear you say penis at all."
"Oh I'm sorry. An old guy out there wants to put his manhood in you. Is that better?"
"No!"
…
The next day, a visitor came by my house. We went to the gym together.
Wearing only a gym bra and tight yoga pants, Scarlet Johansson twirled her wooden staff and said, "Thank you for giving me some time to prepare for the character. I know you like to shoot it fast and then forget all about it once it hits theater."
I copied her movement while looking at her with disbelief, "Is that a shot at me? Really? You're taking shots at the guy who's funding your own movie because people at Marvel don't believe your character."
Scarlett giggled and said, "What? So now that you're a producer, I have to walk on ropes and watch everything I say to you?"
I suddenly stopped and took out a small notebook and a pen, "Walking on ropes. Maybe I can put it in somewhere."
We were training for the fight choreography between Black Widow and Task Master.
I wanted to show more of the Black Widow fighting skills. I wanted Scarlett to be familiar with combat. She wasn't aware of this, but I was training her in the ways of a Valkyrie– a Knight's training for a woman Knight.
It would help her be in tip top shape without even the energy meditation technique of the book.
After we were done training, I entered the sauna to relax a little when Scarlett entered the same sauna, only wearing a towel on her body.
"Oops– Sorry." She immediately turned back, stammering, "Your maid said I can use it, she didn't mention you're in it too."
"There's a separator if you want to use it." I said casually, not moving from the bench.
Scarlett stopped and returned inside the sauna while I set up the separator in the middle while we sat facing the same direction, blocking my sight from her body and vice versa.
Once both of us were starting to sweat, she asked, "So tell me honestly, why are you pushing for the movie?"
"Because it's good?" I replied with a sneer. "I don't know what you expect me to reply."
She didn't push it and said jokingly, "So, it's not because of me? I'm pretty disappointed."
"If I want you, I don't have to spend 30 million to make a movie just so I can get you." I chuckled.
She scoffed, offended, "Do you think it's that easy to get me?"
"It's not the matter of your looseness, it's just, I'm really good at it." I joked again.
"Ah!" She scoffed and then changed the topic, "Wait. 30 million? I thought you told Marvel the budget is 150 million."
"30 million, just to get the cast and crew together." I hurriedly lied– didn't want to expose my new studio set capability just yet.
I heard her groan as she massaged her own neck. I asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think I pulled something." She replied. "My neck has been hurting since the bo staff fight."
"I'll check it out later on." I said casually.
She chuckled and said, "What, you're giving me a massage too? You're really giving the full service huh?"
I grimaced and said, "I never said I'm going to massage you myself. Yuri is certified. She can do it."
We came out of the sauna at the same time. After changing into another outfit, Scarlett had some lunch at my place.
However, while we were eating, another guest came to my place. It was my ex-girlfriend, Vanessa. Yuri led her to me.
"Hey Ed. I'm here to tell you that I can't make it to the fundraiser in London–" Vanessa was apologetic until she saw Scarlett eating with me.
"W-Wh-What is she doing here?" She stammered.
"Training for the Black Widow movie." I replied easily before I asked, "Are you sure you can't come? I RSVP'd with a plus one. I may not find a date within an hour, although… not impossible."
Yuri talked to Scarlet while I had a conversation with Vanessa, her voice clear and audible enough for everyone to hear.
"Your neck muscles are strained. You should stop playing with Edward's staff for a while until it gets better."
"WHAT?!" Vanessa was startled.
"WHAT?!" Scarlett was also flabbergasted.
I turned to Yuri, face full of disbelief and clarified to the two stunned women, "My bo staff. The wooden staff."
"That's right." Yuri tilted her head, not knowing what she had done.
"I'm going to go now." Ness quickly rushed away.