Chapter 1
[Transmigration and Rebirth] "I Ground My Way to Becoming a Calamity with the Evolution Panel" by Meng Manzhi [Complete]
Synopsis:
Interstellar
era: Some humans could awaken extraordinary biological clones after turning eighteen.
A clone might be a mutated animal or a race from myth, capable of traveling through higher-dimensional space-time and granting strength, wealth, and lifespan beyond ordinary people's imagination...
To qualify for awakening, interstellar schools taught both academics and martial arts. Students competed over talent, and even more fiercely over resources.
Wen Jing, who had transmigrated into this world, was a poor student, yet ranked first in her entire year.
While undergoing the same training and studies as her peers, she had realized there was also a panel in her consciousness that kept adding +1.
[Master Basic Combat Technique, Skill Points +1]
[Master Basic Movement Technique, Skill Points +1]
Her only worry was that the panel showed the human attribute cap was ten points, and she had already maxed it out long ago.
Until the day she successfully awakened, when the testing instrument announced:
Name: Wen Jing
Species: Unknown Insect Family
Wilderness Body Rating: F
People laughed at the genius who had become a washout, while Wen Jing looked at the panel in her consciousness-
Her insect body really was F-rank, with every attribute value at the pitiful 0.01. Only her species cap was '∞'.
Looking at the Skill Points she had stockpiled over eighteen years, Wen Jing smiled.
Who cared whether her talent was F-rank? As long as she could add points without limit, she could evolve without limit!
Evolve [Antennae], enhance all senses;
Evolve [Compound Eyes], gain Millisecond-Level Dynamic Vision;
Evolve [Super Digestive
System
], when injured, chew on rocks and eat dirt to replace medicine;
Evolve [Division and Reproduction Ability], resurrection coins +1+1+1... A mere fatal injury was nothing to worry about;
Evolve... Huh? [Gestalt Consciousness]?!
Looking back, Wen Jing discovered that she had become a cosmic calamity in the eyes of other civilizations.
People called her
the Insect Race
Queen.
(As usual, I'm terrible at writing synopses. Please read the main story.
[Reader's Guide]
1. My take on interstellar fiction, an evolution story, a feel-good power fantasy, with a fictional setting unrelated to reality. Please don't compare it to real life.
2. This is not set in the usual Insect Race genre background (important). The heroine's human body and insect body are two sides of the same coin. She will evolve from an individual into the only Insect Race in the universe depicted in the story: Gestalt Consciousness, I am the swarm, the swarm is me.
3. The plot comes first. The heroine is the strongest. The CP is tied to plot foreshadowing, so no spoilers for now.
4. Some bugs are foreshadowing.
Tags: Futuristic, Feel-Good Power Fantasy, Leveling, Growth
Reverse the Odds
Brainstorming
Main characters: Wen Jing, Xu Yuan
One-line blurb: Unlimited points, unlimited evolution
Theme: Surpass yourself
At First High School on School District Planet, Class 1 of Senior Year Three.
During the last self-study period in the afternoon, the students read at their desks with their upper bodies, while their lower bodies all held horse stances.
There weren't any chairs for students anywhere in the entire high school.
Homeroom teacher Wang An sat at the lectern, playing Minesweeper in a small window on his monitoring tablet.
Suddenly, a system that analyzed students' focus from their facial expressions popped up a red warning: [Student Thirty-Seven, focus has dropped to 34%, below the 60% threshold!]
"Hmm?"
Wang An abruptly raised his head, swept his gaze across the entire classroom, and finally fixed it on one student.
The student under his gaze was trying hard to keep his eyes open, but his dazed expression and drooping chin gave him away.
Wang An rose silently. Even seated, his burly frame had looked like an iron tower; now it cast a terrifying shadow across the blackboard.
In the next moment, he charged at the dozing student with a speed and lightness that belied his build-
"Bang!"
The students watching couldn't bear to look: There it was! Old Wang's signature "Heavy Punch"! They said he'd bent Teacher Xier's sword with that move and won the homeroom teacher position!
As for whether it counted as corporal punishment? Not a chance. In an era when martial arts scores made up 90% of a student's overall grade, a teacher beating a student was called practical instruction.
Wang An lifted the student, who had stars in his eyes from the punch, like a chick. "Thirty-Seven, recite the parallel universe theoretical model."
On School District Planet, the ultimate hell of the Federation's education system, it had long been a tradition for students outside the top ten in each class to automatically lose their names.
Thirty-Seven, who had lost his name, instinctively began reciting: "The parallel universe theoretical model is a theory supported by observations and data. It was first proposed in Federation Star Calendar Year Eleven..."
"Summarize it in your own words," Wang An interrupted.
"Uh..." Thirty-Seven faltered, then continued haltingly under the gaze of the homeroom teacher's fist, big as a sandbag. "The model's main idea is... Ancient Wilderness is a parallel universe to our world, and it possesses many important strategic resources that our universe doesn't have."
"At the same time, Ancient Wilderness is extremely dangerous. Not only is its environment constantly changing, there are also all kinds of powerful, dangerous nonhuman life forms. They can't be reasoned with, have no goodwill, and attack on sight."
"Fortunately, we humans can become Awakened!" At this point, Thirty-Seven's tone couldn't help turning wistful.
"Because it's a parallel world, some humans have corresponding parallel clones in Ancient Wilderness. Those people are the Awakened."
"We call the Awakened's bodies in Ancient Wilderness Wilderness Bodies."
"Wilderness Bodies are also nonhuman life forms in essence. They may be animals, mutated species, or even beings from mythology... But they contain our human consciousness."
"The Federation ranks Awakened based on the strength of their Wilderness Bodies, from F to S. But even the weakest Wilderness Body can empower the human body with higher-dimensional energy, granting all kinds of supernatural abilities, as well as strength and lifespans far beyond human limits!"
"Furthermore, only the Awakened can enter Ancient Wilderness and bring back all kinds of rare resources."
Wang An: "Finished?"
Thirty-Seven nodded.
Wang An: "Then do you want to become Awakened?"
Thirty-Seven nodded.
"You do? Then why are you dozing off at a time like this?!"
Wang An roared: "The Unified Awakening Examination is in three days! Only the top 5% of students qualify for free awakening. Do you think you're guaranteed a spot? Or are you the son of a tycoon who can afford the awakening fee?"
Thirty-Seven shut his eyes and took the scolding. The students nearby were just as silent with fear.
"Ding ding ding..."
Just then, an incongruous ringtone rang from the back row of the classroom.
Everyone turned around instinctively to see who was about to get Old Wang's second Heavy Punch.
It was a very beautiful girl.
Black hair and black eyes, with picturesque features. Her high ponytail was tied into a braid that hung down her back, outlining the graceful curve of her skull.
It wasn't just her face that was beautiful, but her figure too. She was 1.8 meters tall, and through her school uniform one could make out her admirable, perfect muscle lines-lean and fluid, like a crouching leopard ready to unleash astonishing power at any moment.
Her build wasn't conspicuous in a classroom full of muscular students, but oddly, everyone who caught sight of her would instinctively pause. There was an indescribable sense of harmony about her.
The girl glanced at the message on her watch-like communicator, then straightened up and said cheerfully, "Teacher, I'm heading out early. I have a part-time job today."
Faced with such an outrageous move, Wang An, who had been furious just a moment ago, broke into a kindly smile as warm as a spring breeze.
"Sure, go ahead. Don't be late."
The other students also calmly looked away, as if used to this. Oh, it was Wen Jing. Then it was fine.
School District Planet was a place where grades came first. The entire planet had nothing but schools and their associated facilities. Every year, hundreds of millions of new students entered primary schools, and the schools took in students from across the Federation, except for the children of tycoons.
Starting in primary school, students faced a brutal last-place elimination system every semester. Expelled students were sent straight off the planet. All those who made it through to high school graduation and the unified examination numbered just over a million each year.
And Wen Jing was the top student in her senior year across the entire School District Planet.
Though the difference between first and second place looked like 1,000 points versus 995, her classmates all knew: Wen Jing scored 1,000 because 1,000 was the maximum.
So not only could she leave early to work part-time, she could even ride the homeroom teacher to school and get away with it.
Even more legendary was that, despite her grades, she wasn't born into a wealthy or even middle-class family. Instead, she came from an artificial population factory at the very bottom of Federation society, with no family at all.
What was worse than being born with nothing? Being born with a negative net worth.
People born this way had no parents to raise them and owed the population factory a "life loan" from the moment they came into existence. The population factory also covered their subsequent upbringing and tuition, but all of it came in the form of interest-bearing loans. Repayment began at eighteen, and anyone unable to pay on time had to settle the debt with their organs.
Despite those circumstances, Wen Jing's grades still thoroughly crushed classmates who had attended tutoring classes and used all kinds of nutritional supplements from a young age. She was practically like someone using a cheat code.
And the reason she could do all this...
Of course, it was because she really did have a cheat.
Wen Jing's part-time job was in the cafeteria at No. 1 High School.
"Hey, you're here. I've already set it up the way you asked before: thawing the food in a 40-degree warm-water bath." As soon as she walked in, the cafeteria chef greeted her with a smile.
"Okay." Wen Jing answered as she put on a hat and apron with practiced ease, then headed for the stove.
Several bags of different kinds of prepared food sat in a large basin filled with warm water.
She washed her hands, lit the stove, opened a bag, and poured a large bag of pale-yellow chicken with shiitake mushrooms into a wok more than a meter in diameter.
Several cafeteria chefs hurried over to watch.
Wen Jing didn't touch the spatula beside her. Instead, she reached out and gripped the wok's extended handle-
"Clang, clang, clang..."
The huge wok swung closer to and farther from the flames below. The ingredients inside flew up and fell back down as she tossed the wok just like an ordinary one, despite its contents weighing over three hundred kilograms.