The force ought to have killed him outright.
Alex Chen stood in the middle of Broadway, gazing at the driver of the delivery truck stumbling out of the flattened cab fifty feet ahead of him. The man lived, dazed but breathing, shouting something about brake failure and impossible physics to the growing crowd.
But Alex wasn't listening. His gaze was fixed on the golden words hovering in his vision—words that won't, can't, yet burned themselves onto his retinas with unyielding clarity.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION 847% COMPLETE]
[ANALYZING DIMENSIONAL BREACH…]
[TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT: 0.3 SECONDS]
[HOST SURVIVAL: CONFIRMED]
The world moved sluggishly around him. Paramedics arrived, sirens blaring in the distance. Police officers diverted traffic around the site of the crash. Ordinary people went about living their lives, none the wiser that reality had torn apart, and there stood something impossible.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
[WELCOME TO THE BILLIONAIRE ASCENSION SYSTEM, HOST ALEX CHEN]
[YOUR DEATH HAS BEEN… POSTPONED]
"Postponed?" Alex breathed, his voice barely audible over the din.
[EXPLANATION: This process needs an optimal host with peak motivation. Near-death experiences yield the most favorable conditions for bonding.]
[QUESTION: Do you want to live, Alex Chen?]
The words of the psychologist hung in the air like a gauntlet. The city churned around him relentlessly. People stepped over him as if he were another obstacle, another urban trash. To them, he was nobody. Nothing. A college dropout with no future, no hope.
But something had just saved his life. Something impossible.
"Yes," Alex said resolutely. "I want to live."
[RESPONSE ACCEPTED. BONDING PROCESS INITIATING.]
The gold script erupted in streams of light that flowed directly into his chest. He breathed in, expecting pain, and sensed instead a warmth spreading through his system. Muscles that had gone long, hungry, and lean from months of poor food and anxiety contracted into strength. Vision, normally muddled by hours of screen-staring, focused until he could recognize individual bricks on buildings blocks away.
[BONDING COMPLETE]
[SYSTEM STATUS: FULLY OPERATIONAL]
[HOST STATUS: OPTIMAL]
[TUTORIAL MODE: ACTIVATED]
A new screen opened in front of him, clearer than the last one:
[BILLIONAIRE ASCENSION SYSTEM – TUTORIAL]
[Your system operates on two connected paths:]
[BUSINESS PATH: Earn money → Unlock cultivation techniques]
[CULTIVATION PATH: Gain power → Obtain market data]
[Current Level: Mortal (Broke)]
[Next Goal: $10,000 net worth OR Basic Body Strengthening]
Alex's heart raced. Cultivation? Like mythological ancient Chinese fantasy novels, he had devoured on sleepless nights. The idea was absurd, impossible, yet here the evidence stood before him.
[FIRST MISSION AVAILABLE]
[OBJECTIVE: Earn $1,000 within 24 hours using only your current assets]
[CURRENT ASSETS: $247 cash, smartphone, basic clothing]
[REWARD: Basic Body Strengthening Technique + Market Insight (Cryptocurrency)]
[FAILURE PENALTY: System bond weakens by 50%]
[ACCEPT MISSION? Y/N]
A thousand dollars. Twenty-four hours. On $247.
Alex almost laughed. Yesterday, it would have been impossible. Yesterday, he'd been Alex Chen—failure, too morally straight-laced for Wall Street, too penniless for anything else.
But yesterday, he hadn't died and been reborn with an impossible gift.
"I accept," he said aloud, ignoring curious stares from approaching passersby.
[MISSION ACCEPTED]
[TIMER: 23:47:32 REMAINING]
[HINT: Your phone has more opportunities than you know]
[GOOD LUCK, FUTURE BILLIONAIRE]
The screens faded, and Alex stood alone among the crowd with nothing but determination and an inviolable vow burning within his chest.
He pulled out his phone and opened the app store. Time to find out what precisely "more opportunity than you realize" looked like.
With each step he made in the sidewalk's opposite direction, he felt lighter, even though the city swirled around him with its usual uninterested chaos. Passersby went by him, their lives ordinary, oblivious to the cosmic event that had just occurred in the center of their street. Alex felt, though. Different. More potent, more sensitive, tuned in ways he could not yet articulate.
The first impulse, habituated by years of subsistence and necessity, was pragmatic. He looked about him, calculating like a Wall Street executive inspecting a bazaar. There were people here—merchants, peddlers, hustlers, and opportunists. They were all potential. They were all a confluence of possibilities if tapped in the right way. His phone could connect with them all.
Alex remembered the initial business rule: move fast. He had no time to think or hesitate. He first pulled out an app for cryptocurrency, adhering to the SYSTEM tip. The golden words had not wasted their time—there was a reason they had arrived, and he would trust them until they proved him wrong.
Patterns appeared self-evident almost immediately. There were coins underpriced, overlooked by the throngs, and ignored by sloppy investors. Low stakes, high volume, managed risk. The SYSTEM pulsed in his mind with instructions, admonitions, and figures impossible for the human brain to accomplish promptly.
His first trade was minimal. Small, precise, calculated. His $247 became $312 in under an hour. There was a burst of exhilaration that ran through him. It was more than money—it was proof, affirmation, and the start of a taste of power that he had lacked.
He did not relent. Any application on his phone was a potential lever, every relationship a way to leverage. Delivery gigs near his location, freelance gigs, micro-investments—the SYSTEM held patterns, predicted results, and instructed his movements. He had hit his first milestone by lunchtime.
He breathed deeply, eyes flicking to the golden letters still faintly dancing within his line of sight. This was not a dream. This was real. Every nerve ending in his body hummed with possibility, and for the first time in his life, Alex was unencumbered.
Minutes blurred by like hours. His world was a haze, but he moved with superhuman efficiency, every decision crisp, every action productive. His initial $247 had grown by the night to over $1,000. A modest bundle by his own modest standards, but most importantly, it was proof that the SYSTEM demanded.
[MISSION ACCOMPLISHED]
[REWARD: Basic Body Strengthening Technique + Market Insight (Cryptocurrency)]
[NEW GOAL: Earn $10,000 within 24 hours legally OR Upgrade Physical Strength to Level 1]
Alex smiled. This was only the beginning.
He extended his fingers, and the slow tightening along his muscles was tangible. An ordinary task—lifting a grocery bag, climbing stairs—was easy. His stamina was increased, reflexes were faster. It was a bodily proof of the SYSTEM's promise.
The darkness became deeper. City lights twinkled like a million chances suspended in blackness. Alex stood on the corner of Broadway, seeing the world differently. Where yesterday he was a failure, faceless and helpless, tonight he was something else—something unassailable, uncontrollable, alive in ways old Alex could not even have imagined.
The SYSTEM throbbed again in his brain. Tutorial mode persisted, coaxing, teaching, prodding him to grow. Each new test wasn't just about money—it was about power, insight into the secret currents beneath ordinary human culture.
A taxi horn honked. People pushed past on the street. The night was normal, but Alex was more than human. Every small decision, every thought-out movement, upon the previous one. He was learning, growing, coming up.
By the time he reached his small Queens apartment, exhausted but exhilarated, reality had sunk in about what he had just done. He had cheated death. He had activated a system beyond human comprehension. And he had made the first genuine step toward mastery of himself and of the world.
He laid his phone aside, trembling a bit, but with exhilaration rather than terror. Tomorrow would be more difficult. Tomorrow would demand more. But for the first time in his life, he knew the game, and he had the SYSTEM on his side.
Alex lay back on his bed, gazing at the patterns of cracks in the ceiling, patterns that had now become puzzles to be solved, paths of possibility that had lain hidden in plain sight. He caught his breath, resting for an instant, and then continued. The city slumbered, but not Alex Chen.
The golden light of the SYSTEM had reoriented everything. Fear, doubt, scarcity—these were irrelevant now. Motivation, strategy, action—these were the monies of his new world. And he had a surplus of all of them.
Tomorrow, he would rise. Tomorrow, he would seize more.
He smiled now. The impossible had happened. And Alex Chen lived.