Open Source Novel Writing

Chen Mo looked at the satisfied, hopeful smiles on his parents' faces, then caught a glimpse of his sister Chen Qing peeking through the crack in the door with a look of curiosity and envy. He tightly gripped the bank card and cash in his hand. The warmth of home, the expectations of his family—no longer a heavy pressure, but a scorching, endless stream of power flowing through his limbs and bones, pouring into his heart, filling him with fighting spirit.

He had to work harder! He had to succeed! Not just for his own ambition to rise above the ordinary, but to live up to this unreserved love and hope.

At eleven o'clock at night, the whole family had fallen asleep, except for Chen Mo's room, where a dim desk lamp still glowed. He lay in bed, wide awake, the bank card under his pillow like a warm branding iron, constantly reminding him of his responsibilities.

He called up the system panel in his mind, looking at the steadily growing data:

[Cultural Class Comprehensive Score: 368 (improved by 87 points)], [Martial Arts Score: 324 (bottleneck, needs breakthrough)], [Physical Fitness: 8.7 (average person 5)], [Mental Strength: 9.2 (average person 6)].

The path of martial arts required continuous resource investment, and improving his cultural class scores meant buying extra tutoring materials and online courses. Especially for martial arts training, he needed to supplement his qi and blood. At the start, eating enough—especially meat—could replenish it, but now he felt that meat alone couldn't keep up with his consumption. The hundred thousand yuan his family had saved was a lot, but if he spent it all on these things, it would run out quickly. He couldn't really drain his parents' retirement savings.

"I need to find a way to earn money..." Chen Mo stared into the darkness, his mind racing.

Go the entertainment route? Copy a few hit songs from his past life, or write a script and submit it? No. In this world, the entertainment industry was deeply tied to martial arts. Most stars were martial arts experts or had strong backing. Without connections and resources, a newcomer had no way to start. Plus, producing songs or scripts required professional equipment and teams. He had neither the time nor the connections—this path was a dead end.

Start a small business? Like reselling martial arts equipment or nutritional supplements? Forget it—without a martial artist identity, he couldn't operate any of that. And the market was complicated; he lacked relevant experience, and the risk was too high. If he took a loss, it would only make things worse.

So, only one relatively low-barrier, low-cost path remained—writing web novels.

In this world, the online literature industry was equally developed. On major literary platforms, themes like martial arts, superpowers, and space adventures dominated, with a huge reader base. But traditional wuxia was almost ignored here. After all, in a high-martial world where people could truly split mountains and cut rivers, fly and escape, those Jianghu grudges and fist-and-foot techniques seemed "too small in scope." Pure Eastern xianxia and fantasy also faced fierce competition, with complex settings requiring deep cultural accumulation and delicate writing—hard to master in the short term.

Chen Mo's thoughts drifted back to his past life, recalling a type of work he'd been obsessed with—a "sequence" style novel blending Cthulhu mysticism, Victorian-era atmosphere, and a rigorous power system. That hidden, eerie, mad, and transcendent path beneath the mechanical roar of steampunk and classical elegance—that step-by-step, clearly structured yet perilous upgrade model—seemed oddly compatible with this world, where martial arts flourished yet unknown elements like "psionic particles" and "Antaya" existed.

This genre wouldn't clash directly with local martial arts culture like traditional fantasy, and it could bring enough novelty and immersion to satisfy readers' curiosity about unknown worlds. More importantly, the core appeal of such novels lay in their grand world-building, layered suspense, and rigorous power system, which was more forgiving on writing style—better suited for someone like him, who had to squeeze in time for creation and wasn't a literature major.

"Let's call it... 'Black Tower Prologue: The Puppeteer's Path'?" A vague idea took shape in his mind, and the title followed. He could borrow classic settings from his past life to build an extraordinary world with "primordial quality" (a localized name for psionic energy) as the underlying logic. The protagonist would take specific "secret medicines," complete corresponding "rituals" and "acting" to digest the power, climbing the "sequence" step by step until reaching the peak of transcendence. The protagonist could be set as an "outsider" who accidentally came into contact with ancient forbidden knowledge, thus walking a different path of transcendence—this identity conflict itself was full of dramatic tension.

No time to waste. Chen Mo quietly got up, afraid of waking his family. He gently twisted the desk lamp, turning the brightness to the lowest setting. The dim yellow light cast a small shadow on the desk. He took a new notebook from his bag—one he'd bought to organize his mistakes—and decided to use it for his novel. He planned to use the twenty to thirty minutes of "flexible time" after finishing his daily study and training, before bed, as well as spare time on weekends, to build the world's outline and opening.

He quickly jotted down the core settings in the notebook:

[Power System]: A total of twenty-two extraordinary pathways, corresponding to the twenty-two Major Arcana tarot cards. Each pathway includes ten levels from Sequence 9 to Sequence 0. The smaller the sequence number, the stronger the power. Promotion requires taking the corresponding sequence's "secret medicine," made from special materials, and must be taken with a specific "ritual." After taking it, the user must "act" as the corresponding sequence's role to digest the magic potion, or risk madness. The protagonist chooses the "Puppeteer" pathway: Sequence 9 is "Apprentice," Sequence 8 is "Trickmaster," Sequence 7 is "Puppeteer," and so on.

[Worldview]: On the surface, it's a modern Blue Star with thriving martial arts. Every country has a complete martial arts education system, and the Gaokao places equal emphasis on martial arts and cultural classes. But in the shadows unseen by ordinary people, "primordial quality" energy is reviving globally. Ancient organizations stir quietly, unspeakable bizarre creatures lurk in the darkness, forbidden knowledge hides in the ruins left by the "Antaya," and human martial arts training is essentially a crude application of "primordial quality."

[Major Factions]: The official "Bureau of Anomaly Affairs," handling supernatural events, mostly composed of martial arts experts who have awakened faint supernatural abilities; the "Secret Cultivation Society," pursuing forbidden knowledge, with members across all walks of life, aiming to explore the essence of "primordial quality"; the "Fallen Eye," worshipping evil gods, gaining power through bloody rituals, a destabilizing force in the world; and the neutral "Astral Merchant Guild," monopolizing the trade of supernatural materials.

With the framework set, Chen Mo's thoughts grew clearer. He flipped to a new page in the notebook and began writing the first chapter. The protagonist, Lin Yan, was an ordinary high school student similar to Chen Mo's past self—mediocre in martial arts, unremarkable in cultural classes, and unknown at school. After his grandfather's death, he inherited an old ancestral home. While cleaning the attic, he accidentally discovered a locked wooden box. Prying it open, he found no gold or treasure, only a notebook bound in strange metal and unknown leather. The cover was engraved with complex patterns. When he tried to burn it with a lighter, the flames couldn't damage it at all.

Curious, Lin Yan opened the notebook. Inside, written in ancient script, was the starting magic potion recipe for the "Apprentice" sequence—the main ingredients being "Shadow Lizard Scale," "Moonlight Grass Juice," and "Whispering Conch Powder," with three common herbs as auxiliary materials. The ritual required performing it on a moonless night in a room without light. The last page of the notebook bore a chilling warning in crimson ink: "Every step of promotion brings you closer to the abyss; every act of performance dances with madness."

The desk lamp's glow illuminated Chen Mo's focused profile. The pen scratched across the paper, like silkworms eating mulberry leaves. He wrote quickly, the pen barely keeping up with the inspiration flooding his mind. Scenes, dialogues, inner thoughts gushed out like a spring; he only had time to jot them down, leaving the polishing of details and style for later. At this moment, he was completely immersed in the world he was building. Everything outside vanished, leaving only the collision of words and imagination.

The clock on the wall slowly ticked. When it reached one in the morning, Chen Mo finally stopped. He rubbed his sore wrist, looking at the dense handwriting in the notebook—three full pages, about three thousand words for the first chapter's rough draft. A strange sense of fulfillment washed over him. This wasn't just finding a possible "income" channel; it was like opening a secret garden of his own amidst the intense pressure of Gaokao preparation. Here, he was no longer Chen Mo chasing others' footsteps, but the creator controlling the fate of an entire world, free to unleash his imagination and build a new universe.

He carefully locked the notebook in his desk drawer, gently turned off the lamp, and lay back in bed. Physical exhaustion surged like a tide, his eyelids heavy and almost impossible to keep open, but his spirit was unusually excited, with a relaxed and pleasant release.

The road ahead was still full of challenges: martial arts needed a breakthrough, cultural classes needed higher scores, family expectations weighed on him like a mountain, and now there was a "side hustle" requiring long-term persistence. But there was no fear in Chen Mo's eyes—only a more determined light. The system had given him a chance to defy fate, his family had given him the strongest support, and now he had opened a Plan B to accumulate capital. Every step was steady and firm, every day full of hope.

He closed his eyes, running through tomorrow's plan one last time in his mind: wake up at six, practice stance training for an hour in the community fitness area to solidify his martial arts foundation; focus on math's functions and geometry weak points in the morning, completing two sets of past exam papers; go to the school's martial arts hall in the afternoon, try to spar with Xu Yunjing for a move or two, observe her combat techniques, and learn from her experience; finish the day's study tasks in the evening, then continue drafting the second chapter of "Black Tower Prologue," describing how Lin Yan searches for magic potion ingredients and his first encounter with the supernatural world—tense and curious.

The night was deep. Moonlight seeped through the curtain gap, casting a sliver of silver light. The boy's breathing gradually became steady and calm as he drifted into a sweet sleep. The bank card under his pillow seemed to feel his resolve, radiating a warm, reassuring presence.

Tomorrow would be another new day. And the magnificent, turbulent poem of Chen Mo's rise was being written page by page, in nights and mornings like these, with sweat, ink, and unyielding fighting spirit.