- Luck
The world from his nightmare resurfaced. That was a cold, dusky world full of deathly stillness. There was no life force. Regardless of whether it was the flying birds, mutated creatures, or the lowest bacterium, there was nothing. This was a vast and endless world, but also an incomparably desolate one. The cracked great earth was covered in grains of sand, yet there was no sign of water. Extremely large planets floated in the sky, the dark black outer space backdrop filled with stars. However, the doctor who gazed upon this boundless cosmos had a feeling that couldn’t be clearer, and that was that regardless of whether it was the stars he could or couldn’t see, they were all the same as the celestial body under his feet, completely devoid of all life!
It was a deathly still universe. There was no life right now, and in the future, there wouldn’t be any either. In this universe, Dr. Connor was the only one with consciousness, but he knew that he himself wasn’t alive either. He existed in this universe through an unexplainable state, and he was currently being influenced by the universe, his life force quickly flowing out from him. At the final moment, Connor’s instinct to survive erupted with shocking power, forcefully pulling his consciousness out from the universe.
Thus, the doctor woke up.
Conor knew that this was definitely not just a simple dream. If his willpower wasn’t that steady, he might have been forever lost in that dreamland. No, not lost, but dead after completely exhausting his life force in that desolate world. That world was truly barren. His pitiful bit of life force was like the most precious drop of water, a drop that would dry up in the blink of an eye. This sounded inconceivable, but even after waking up, Connor could still clearly sense everything.
After talking to his assistant, Dr. Connor’s mind became a bit calmer. Even though the night was extremely long, he decided not to sleep anymore. Instead, he sat down at his writing desk and opened his personal computer, pulling up the paper he had written up in his earlier years. During this period, he would look at this paper every few days, within it a few sections that left him with a profound impression, sections that he would read again and again.
“War, war changed this entire world.”
“This war definitely did not only comprise of the nuclear explosion that covered the entire planet, and the difference between the new and olden era is not its radiation or lack of. Out of entire era, the entire world, even entire universe’s natural course have already been changed.”
“Abilities appeared. Most abilities can be explained from a scientific, genetics, or logic standpoints, however, the Mysterious Fields is the only one that can’t be explained. All of the abilities in this ability domain are completely incompatible with the olden era’s records, these abilities shouldn’t even exist in the first place. However, in the new era, they appeared, and no one knows where they came from. What kind of ability is this, that not even those who created the ability formulations are able to clearly explain its origins? However, the Mysterious Fields is precisely like this, something more like a gift bestowed by the heavens, those lucky fellas waking up one day with the Mysterious Fields ability formulation suddenly appearing in their brains. The entire process is precisely like this.”
“Without a doubt, the core of the Mysterious Fields domain is luck. Luck is an ability that should not have appeared in this world. In the olden era, all luck could be explained with probability, but in the new era, this is completely no longer the case. The variation in probability is already inadequate to describe everything, the higher level one’s luck abilities, the harder to it is to explain. One can imagine that once one had over seven levels in luck ability, the one who has the ability would completely become something doted on by the entire world!”
“To be doted on by the entire world, this phrase really isn’t all that empty, but instead might very well represent the truth of the matter, even though I have no way of providing any evidence for this statement. Those with luck, what they obtain is the care of the entire world. It is difficult to say if it is they who are affecting the world, or if they sensed the awareness of the world, from there on out choosing the most favorable course of action. I reckon that it is both. Similarly, this is just a speculation, a speculation completely without proof, but something that might very well be truth.”
“The world showing concern for mortal beings… it is just like the legendary god showing care, or reprimanding certain people. An astonishing speculation I made is that this world is a conscious one, one capable of thinking, choosing, and deciding! The new era has a god, and this god is the world itself in which we all reside in!”
“The raging flames, smoke clouds, and radiation brought about by the thousands of nuclear warheads not only ravaged the earth below our feet, it also awakened the world’s consciousness. This is the fundamental difference of the new and olden era! We are living on a world that has come alive!”
“War, war changed this entire world.”
...
Only after a long time had passed did Dr. Connor release a long breath of air.
This paper was written when he was twenty-four years old, the contents full of powerful opinions and baseless assumptions and speculations. Back then, this paper had been treated by most people as a complete joke. Even after Connor displayed his genius, everyone still understood this paper as something that he created purely because he truly wanted to become famous. During the following years, Connor experienced endless ridicule and mockery, making him fall into depravity and compromising. In the end, he relied on his talent in the biochemistry field to gradually distinguish himself and climb up to his current position. However, his past heart that felt no misgivings and had no fear had long disappeared. The past Connor, every paper, every page contained completely unique viewpoints, the contents obviously containing preposterous fantasizing, but definitely didn’t lack signs of talent.
Meanwhile, the current Connor had high status and weight, but before he obtained a new way of thinking, a new point of view, what he considered even more was what others thought and saw, if he would obtain approval, at the very least the approval of those with status and authority around his own level. Connor understood that from the day he obtained this habit, he would never truly make any epoch-marking breakthroughs.
Connor and Helen were people from two completely different eras, and their talents and academic attainments were roughly the same; this was what Connor secretly believed. Even though she was his arch-enemy in science, and he had received intolerable humiliation from her, in the middle of the night, when there was no one around him, Connor would admire Helen. There was no other reason, only because Helen was just like his past self when he was writing this paper, currently in her passionate and fervent years.