The System Is Back

Time passed far faster than Lin Mo had expected.

It seemed like only a blink before the day he turned eighteen arrived.

Of course, Vought's researchers would not celebrate his birthday. They did not even know when he had been born.

The system had sent him into this world as a baby, and even he had never been able to pin down the exact date.

The reason he now knew he was an adult came down to an accident.

A surprise eighteen years in the making.

That night, at around midnight.

Lin Mo and Joanna had wrapped up their day's activities together early and returned to their respective rooms.

By his reckoning, Joanna would soon turn eighteen too.

Vought's training plans for her had been looking more and more like preparations for public appearances. Image teams, media advisers, and hero operations staff came and went from the Research Center, while documents concerning the new leader of The Super Seven had begun appearing in executive meetings.

If everything went according to Vought's plan, Joanna would soon join The Super Seven as Homelander and become its leader in both name and practice.

That would also mark the start of Vought International's rapid expansion. Superheroes familiar from the original story, including Queen Maeve and A-Train, would then begin joining The Seven one after another.

Lin Mo lay in bed, thinking about what to do next.

Joanna could now control her strength with reasonable consistency and had developed some judgment of her own.

Maybe it was time for him to slip away and explore the world. Nearly eighteen years in this place had left him stir-crazy.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, a voice sounded in his mind without warning.

[Ding!]

The crisp mechanical chime made Lin Mo's eyes snap open.

He lay rigid in bed for a full three seconds before he was sure he had heard it right.

That voice...

The system had been silent for eighteen whole years, and now it had returned.

If it had not suddenly piped up tonight, Lin Mo would have been convinced that the so-called system would stay frozen until he died of old age.

Then the cold mechanical voice sounded again.

[Host has reached adulthood.]

[Basic system requirements met.]

[Dimensional Shuttle System now online.]

[Loading system functions...]

[Loading complete.]

[Hello, host.]

The last traces of sleep vanished from Lin Mo's mind.

The Dimensional Shuttle System.

So that was his system's name. He had read plenty of webnovels in his previous life and knew the drill. Even systems had their pecking order. Some ridiculously powerful ones let their hosts check in and become emperors on the spot, then climb to immortality by stepping on their own feet. It was absurdly overpowered.

His system's name did not sound as instantly unbeatable as a check-in-and-become-a-god system, but what it implied went far beyond a simple boost to his abilities.

It meant he might no longer be confined to this world.

Lin Mo sat up at once.

Before he could sort through his thoughts, the system's voice continued in his mind.

[System functions are as follows.]

[The host can obtain system energy by influencing the current world.]

Lin Mo frowned slightly.

"Influencing it?"

That definition was far too vague.

Did changing one person's decision count?

Did disrupting Vought's plans count?

Or would destroying the world count as a major influence too?

The moment that thought arose, the system seemed to sense his question.

[Yes.]

Lin Mo froze.

The system went on to explain.

[The system defines "influence" as including, but not limited to, changing the fates of existing characters, interfering with major plot points, disrupting the world's established course, and killing important characters.]

[The greater the deviation from the world's original course, the more system energy awarded.]

Lin Mo stared at the virtual panel taking shape in his mind and said nothing for a moment.

Wait.

That was just an extreme example I threw out.

It actually counts?

Destroying the world is a way to earn energy?

A standard feature for an otherworldly demon. I like it.

The system's values seemed even more brutally straightforward than Vought's.

Suppressing the grin spreading across his face, Lin Mo looked down.

Lines of text slowly appeared on the translucent virtual panel.

[Host: Lin Mo]

[Age: eighteen]

[Current world: "The Boys"]

[World influence: calculating]

[System energy: pending settlement]

[Completed influence events: scanning...]

Lin Mo's expression shifted when he saw the last line.

It was scanning for completed influence events?

In other words, although the system had only officially come online today, it would count the changes he had made over the past eighteen years.

And the greatest influence he had had on this world was, without question, Joanna.

The original Homelander, that violent overgrown child, no longer existed.

In his place was Joanna, whose gender, personality, upbringing, and emotional attachments were entirely different.

Soldier Boy's fate might also have shifted because of Lin Mo's presence, and Vought's plan for raising its hero had changed at its roots.

If the system counted all of that as influence on the world, he should receive a substantial amount of energy on its very first day online.

Just as Lin Mo reached that thought, the text on the panel began to flash.

[Scan complete.]

[Host has caused multiple major changes to the current world.]

[Calculating initial energy award...]

[Severe deviation detected in a core character's fate.]

[The current timeline has diverged irreversibly from the original plot.]

As Lin Mo watched the notifications appear, surprise gave way to a strange look.

An irreversible divergence.

He had expected that much. From the moment he decided to change the course of Joanna's upbringing, there had been no chance of this world following the original plot.

What really concerned him was something else.

How much energy would dimensional travel cost?

Could he bring other people?

Could he travel back and forth between worlds? How would time pass on each side?

And most importantly, could he still go home...

Whatever the answers, this could only benefit him.

He was about to examine the system's functions when the mechanical voice sounded again.

[Initial settlement complete.]

[Detected change to the original story arc of an important character: Homelander.]

[Congratulations, host. You have received 1,800 energy points.]

Lin Mo watched the energy total climb in the center of the panel. After a moment's silence, his gaze grew intent.

Maybe it's time to change my plans.

Before Lin Mo could consider his options, the system spoke in his mind again.

[The host can receive a fixed income of 50 energy points per day.]

He could earn energy points every day too? Before he had an answer to one question, another had appeared.

His head full of questions, Lin Mo pushed himself upright in bed and asked the system in his mind.

"How does this daily energy income work?"

[Host, the influence caused by changing the plot can be divided into two types.]