A Long-Planned Rebirth

"We had a chance, but we lost. We lost so badly."

"It's all my fault! If it wasn't for saving me..."

"Enough! Shut up! Everyone made mistakes. This is everyone's shared responsibility! Reality isn't a fairy tale, there are no magic words to undo regrets. I don't want to hear the word 'if' anymore!"

"The responsibility for humanity's extinction isn't something one person or one group can bear..."

"In three minutes, everyone will die. Earth has no future!"

The dejected voices of his companions echoed in Ma Ran's ears.

"No! There's still hope!"

An unyielding flame flickered in Ma Ran's eyes, his voice carrying a convincing power. "My superpower isn't actually some Ultimate Cultivation Talent, but rather..."

"Restart Worldline!"

"This ability means exactly what it says – reversing time and space, bringing everything back to the beginning!"

"Although triggering this ability requires sacrificing my life, but..."

"It's better for only me to die than for all of humanity to kick the bucket, right?"

As he finished speaking, a hint of sadness hid in Ma Ran's eyes, but his lips curved upwards in an effort to smile. He said loudly, "Sister Die, use Concentric to spread this message. Let as many people know as possible."

"I want the survivors to remember my name!"

"I want everyone to sing praises of my great achievements!"

"Even if my existence will be forgotten after the timeline restarts, and no one will ever make movies or TV shows about my experiences, I can only be a hero for these three minutes, but..."

"That's enough!"

"As everyone knows, I'm someone who loves to steal the spotlight."

Hearing this, a red-haired older sister not far away froze for a moment, then nodded solemnly. "You can count on me!"

Three minutes later, Earth, as predicted, shattered into cosmic dust.

At the very instant Earth was destroyed...

Time flowed backward!

January 13th, 20XX.

In a bedroom of about fifteen square meters, a young man's eyes snapped open. He sprang up from the bed with a powerful roll, his dark eyes filled with elation, an almost uncontrollable smile on his face.

"Hahahaha!"

"The plan succeeded!"

The young man's name was Ma Ran, an ordinary third-year student at Qingquan City First High School.

Besides this, he had another identity – a reborn individual.

His rebirth wasn't a coincidence, nor was it due to overwhelming luck. It was a plan he had meticulously orchestrated!

Before his rebirth, Ma Ran had told one last lie.

His superpower had absolutely nothing to do with Restart Worldline. Instead, it was an anomalous and bizarre power he had named Acting!

By creating a persona for himself, such as "Swordsmanship Genius," as long as enough people believed in the authenticity of that persona, Ma Ran could become a true swordsmanship genius and acquire formidable swordsmanship talent!

When he first awakened this ability, Ma Ran was rather shy and lacked acting talent. The personas he created for himself had significant limitations and hidden dangers.

Although he had become a core combatant for humanity and joined the elite class by relying on this ability, compared to numerous alien civilizations, he fell behind step by step, ultimately failing to avoid his death.

When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. With Earth's explosion, he would naturally die too.

Fortunately, in the final moment before death, enough people believed that Ma Ran possessed the preposterous ability of Restart Worldline – humans are creatures who love to deceive themselves, and often, they believe what they want to believe.

At the critical juncture when Earth was about to be destroyed and humanity faced extinction, Ma Ran's declared, non-existent ability gained the approval of many.

Therefore...

He truly gained the ability to restart time!

"Ah, let me analyze the current situation a bit."

Ma Ran slapped his forehead, opened his old-fashioned phone, and quickly swiped the screen, confirming some matters through communication apps like WeChat.

He put down his phone, counted on his fingers, and muttered, "I've been reborn, but this rebirth is different from what I expected."

"Firstly, only I retained my memories and returned to a peaceful era. My comrades don't recognize me yet."

"Heaven knows what the survivors imagined back then. The originally conceived Restart Worldline actually mutated into Rebirth."

"Of course..."

"More likely, it's because there were too few survivors. Even the best performance can't conjure a preposterous ability like Restart Worldline without the necessary ingredients."

"Secondly, the proliferation ability I accumulated before rebirth has been completely wiped clean."

"The current me is a thorough, true ordinary high school student."

"Lastly, and most crucially."

Ma Ran grinned, laughing wildly, "I actually survived!"

"Awesome!"

Compared to being alive, those post-rebirth sequelae were nothing!

Ma Ran could feel that his anomalous-level ability, [Acting], had been perfectly preserved.

In his mind, [Acting] was the core ability. All other special abilities gained because of it were merely "proliferated abilities." If they were gone, they were gone; he could just re-grind them.

Now was the era of pure-hearted students!

And Ma Ran was an Emperor-level expert who had struggled for many years in future timelines!

To stand out and become the strongest among humans was like playing a single-player game with cheats enabled. The phrase [Easy Mode] was no longer sufficient; it could be called [Heaven Mode]!

However...

The smile on Ma Ran's face gradually faded.

There was a small problem now.

Based on his experiences before rebirth, even the strongest humans were mere weaklings in the face of those alien invaders.

What Ace Mech Pilots, Martial Arts Masters – they were so pathetically weak in the face of true disaster that it made one want to laugh!

"Like a mime show, vision obscured by fog. Tentative evidence, exposed thoroughly..."

His phone alarm rang. Ma Ran swiped it away, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and bolted downstairs.

As the captain of the "Shusi Squad," many classified files were accessible to Ma Ran.

He knew that in this era, while the global population was oblivious, various governments had already begun to come into contact with extraordinary abilities.

"I won't forget!"

A faint light flickered in Ma Ran's eyes. "In three days, the school will hold an emergency exam, and the results will be released that same day."

"The top student from all three grades will disappear simultaneously!"

"Six months later, when they reappear, they will have become China's first batch of superpowered youths."

Ma Ran scanned a shared bicycle with Alipay. While cycling towards the campus, he mentally mapped out his next course of action.

Under normal circumstances, by leveraging his precognition and [Acting] ability to become the strongest in [Academic Power] for the entire school, he could be selected by the official organization disguised as "Caolu Academy" and become one of the first "superpowered developers." This would be enough to ride the wave of the era and become a favored son of heaven.

This kind of start was already far, far better than his previous life!

Before his rebirth, Ma Ran had only awakened the anomalous-level super ability [Acting] three years later, when extraordinary powers became widespread.

However...

What Ma Ran intended to do now was a bit more than just "getting first place in the grade."

The protagonist's name in the new book being the same as a previous supporting character is purely coincidental!

hahahah