Part 1: Invalid Login Request
2:14 PM, Jiang City University Library.
The air smelled of old paper mixed with cheap coffee. Su Wen sat by the window, a ballpoint pen spinning unconsciously between his fingers. He wasn't reading. Instead, he was staring at the bizarre cloud formation outside the window.
The sky, originally clear, had somehow been dyed a sickly purplish-red. The clouds didn't drift with the wind; instead, they hung frozen in mid-air like some viscous liquid. Occasionally, jagged black cracks would flash across them, resembling the static noise of an old CRT television with a bad signal.
"This doesn't follow meteorological logic," Su Wen muttered to himself, pushing up his rimless glasses.
As a notorious eccentric in the Computer Science department, Su Wen saw the world as a construct of logic and probability. But the scene before him clearly exceeded the computational scope of existing scientific systems.
"Hey, Su Wen, have you checked your phone? The internet is exploding!"
Sitting opposite him, his best friend Wang Dapao (Big Cannon Wang) whispered urgently, his massive frame making the chair groan in agony. He shoved his phone screen into Su Wen's face, his expression terrified. "These purple clouds are appearing all over the world! Some say it's an alien invasion, others say it's the apocalypse..."
Su Wen glanced at the screen. The trending topics list was paralyzed, filled with blurry photos and hysterical pleas for help.
"Dapao, if it really is the apocalypse, you should be at the cafeteria looting all the canned luncheon meat right now, not scrolling through Twitter," Su Wen said calmly as he closed his laptop.
The moment the laptop snapped shut, a piercing screech—sharp enough to puncture eardrums—exploded without warning inside everyone's minds.
Zzzzt—!
The library lights instantly went out, then began to flicker madly. The quiet library descended into chaos as screams and the sound of crashing furniture erupted everywhere.
Su Wen felt a wave of intense vertigo, as if a red-hot iron rod was stirring his frontal lobe. Through the agonizing pain, a cold, grand, and emotionless mechanical synthetic voice forcibly intruded into his auditory nerves.
[Attempting to connect to Earth Server... Connection successful.]
[Loading resource packs... Reconstructing terrain... Digitizing biological data...]
[Welcome to "The God-Forsaken Land" Version 1.0.]
[Randomly assigning initial Talents to all human players...]
The moment the voice faded, the world in Su Wen's eyes changed completely.
The vertigo receded like a tide, replaced by an unprecedented clarity. He opened his eyes to see countless semi-transparent blue light particles in his vision. These particles rapidly converged, constructing a sci-fi-style UI interface on his retina.
[Name: Su Wen]
[Race: Human]
[Level: 1 (0/100)]
[Class: None]
[Strength: 4 (Weak)]
[Agility: 5 (Average)]
[Constitution: 4 (Weak)]
[Spirit: 18 (Abnormally High)]
[Talent: Drawing...]
Su Wen scanned the data calmly. Digitization? Gamification? Was this the truth behind the purple clouds?
By now, the library was in complete disarray. Some people were waving their arms in terror, trying to swat away the virtual screens in front of them, while others knelt on the ground praying.
"Holy crap! Su Wen! I awakened a Talent!" Wang Dapao's excited voice rang out. He pointed above his own head. "Can you see it? The System says I have an [F-Rank Talent: Thick Fat], which reduces physical damage by 5%! I'm a tank!"
Su Wen looked at Wang Dapao.
Indeed, floating above Wang Dapao's round head was a line of faint white text: [Panicked Fatty].
Wait.
Su Wen frowned slightly. What he saw wasn't a Talent introduction, but a simple descriptive label.
He turned to look around.
Above a crying girl's head: [Mental Breakdown Girl].
Above a toppled bookshelf: [Heavy Metal Bookshelf].
Above the ballpoint pen in his hand: [Cheap Plastic Pen].
"Is this my Talent? Observation Eye?" Su Wen wondered. If he could only see item descriptions, this starting ability was far too mediocre.
Just then, the System interface before his eyes suddenly shuddered violently. The smooth blue data stream began to glitch with red static. The line [Talent: Drawing...] seemed to get stuck, flashing wildly.
[Error... Unknown logic conflict detected...]
[Permission verification failed... Re-verifying...]
[Administrator remnant code detected... Adapting...]
Su Wen felt a stabbing pain deep in his brain, ten times more intense than before, as if something scorching hot was being forcibly written into his soul.
[Adaptation complete.]
[Congratulations, Player. You have obtained the Unique Hidden Talent: The Logic Editor (Incomplete).]
[The Logic Editor]
[Description: The world in your eyes is no longer a pile of matter, but a collection of code. As long as the logic is self-consistent, you are the truth.]
[Current Authority: Level 1 (Adjective Modification Only)]
Su Wen paused. Subconsciously, he looked at the ballpoint pen in his hand.
The moment his focus locked on, the label [Cheap Plastic Pen] above the pen suddenly zoomed in. Under the word "Cheap," a flickering underscore appeared, just like text waiting to be edited in a document processor.
Su Wen moved his mind.
His consciousness acted like a cursor, selecting the word "Cheap" and hitting the delete key.
Snap.
The ballpoint pen in his hand suddenly made a crisp sound. The rough plastic casing instantly disintegrated, revealing a precise metal structure underneath. Although it was still a pen, the cheapness was gone, replaced by a premium, minimalist industrial texture.
The label changed to: [Plastic Pen].
"I can really change it?" Su Wen's pupils constricted, his heart beating violently. This wasn't an hallucination; the material structure had actually changed!
Before he could test it further, the space in the center of the library hall suddenly twisted.
A pitch-black rift tore open out of thin air. Accompanied by a nauseating stench, a small creature—green-skinned, wrinkled, and holding a rusty dagger—leaped out of the crack.
It was only about 1.2 meters tall, with long pointed ears and a mouth full of yellow teeth. Its cloudy eyes were filled with a hunger for flesh and blood.
[Goblin Scout (Lv. 2)]
"Gah gah gah!"
The Goblin let out a piercing shriek, waving its dagger as it lunged directly at the nearest girl.
"Ahhh—!"
Blood splattered.
This wasn't a game. This was a slaughter.
Part 2: The Rusty Mop and Fatal Logic
The library exploded into panic instantly.
The girl whose arm had been slashed screamed and stumbled back, blood staining her white dress. The Goblin licked the blood from its dagger, a cruel and excited expression on its face. It clearly enjoyed the thrill of hunting the weak.
"Help! Murder!" "Run!"
Students rushed madly toward the exit, but the library's glass doors had been sealed by a layer of pale purple light barrier. No matter how hard they rammed against it, it wouldn't budge.
"Don't push! Don't push!" Wang Dapao was squeezed against the wall by the crowd, his face pale. "Su Wen! What do we do? That thing is a real monster!"
Su Wen didn't move. He stood his ground, his calmness starkly out of place amidst the surrounding chaos. His gaze was locked dead on the Goblin—or rather, on the label above the Goblin's head.
[Hungry Goblin Scout]
[Status: Excited]
[Weakness: Throat, Heart]
"After digitization, monster attributes are visible too," Su Wen's brain raced.
The Goblin seemed bored with the scattering prey. Its cloudy eyes suddenly swiveled, locking onto Su Wen, who hadn't moved from the window. In its beastly instinct, this human gave off an unsettling aura. He had to be eliminated first.
"Gah!"
With a strange cry, the Goblin kicked off the ground, launching itself like a green cannonball toward Su Wen. It was fast—far beyond the reaction limit of an ordinary human.
"Watch out!" Wang Dapao roared, wanting to rush over to help, but it was too late.
Five meters. Three meters.
Su Wen could even smell the foul stench erupting from the Goblin's mouth.
He had no weapon in his hand. His only "weapon" was a mop left behind by a cleaner, which had been kicked to his feet during the chaos.
Su Wen bent down and grabbed the mop.
It was an old-fashioned wooden-handled mop. Due to long-term soaking in water, the wooden handle had turned black and rotten, and the mop head reeked of mold.
In Su Wen's eyes, the stats of this weapon were abysmal:
[Rotten Wooden Mop]
[Attack: 0-1]
[Durability: 1/10]
[Trait: Breaks on Touch]
Block the Goblin's dagger with this? It would likely snap in two upon contact, and then the rusty dagger would pierce Su Wen's throat.
Time seemed to slow down at this moment.
The Goblin's hideous grinning face was inches away, its dagger glinting cold light.
Su Wen's focus was at its peak. The pain of a red-hot iron rod stirring his brain struck again. This was the cost of using [The Logic Editor]—Mana consumption.
His vision focused on the word [Rotten].
"Edit."
The mental cursor flashed.
Delete [Rotten]. Input [Hard].
[Warning: 10 Mana deducted.]
Just as the Goblin's dagger was about to touch the mop handle, a miracle occurred.
The surface of the blackened, soft wood suddenly flashed with a metallic sheen. The wood fibers were forcibly compressed and reorganized at a microscopic level, their density increasing dozens of times in an instant.
[Hard Wooden Mop]
[Attack: 5-8]
[Durability: 50/50]
[Trait: Hardness Comparable to Steel]
Clang—!
The crisp sound of metal clashing rang through the library.
The Goblin's sure-kill strike felt like it had hit solid granite. The massive recoil cracked the web of its hand, and a chip even flew off the rusty dagger.
The Goblin froze. Its walnut-sized brain couldn't comprehend why a piece of rotten wood was harder than its iron dagger.
This was a logic loophole.
This was a BUG.
Su Wen didn't give it time to think. Seizing the moment of the Goblin's stiffness, he gripped the mop handle with both hands and thrust it forward like a spear.
This time, he looked at the leather armor on the Goblin.
It was a tattered piece of protective gear. The label read: [Rough Hard Leather Armor].
Su Wen activated his ability again.
Delete [Hard].
The label changed to: [Rough Leather Armor].
Without the adjective "Hard" reinforcing it, the leather armor instantly became as soft and fragile as wet toilet paper.
Puchi!
The enhanced [Hard Wooden Mop] pierced through the Goblin's chest without any resistance, like a hot knife cutting through butter.
Green blood sprayed out.
The Goblin looked down in disbelief at the wooden stick protruding from its chest. It made a gurgling sound, then its body went limp, hanging motionless on the mop.
[Killed Goblin Scout (Lv. 2)]
[Experience Gained: 20]
[Logic Points Gained: 1 (First Kill via Logic Exploit)]
Su Wen gasped for air, cold sweat covering his forehead. Modifying reality twice in a row made his brain throb like a hangover. But looking at the corpse before him, which was gradually dissolving into particles of light, the corner of his mouth curled up.
Dead silence surrounded him.
Everyone stared dumbfounded at the scene.
A frail scholar who usually only knew how to code, holding a broken mop, had insta-killed a monster in two moves?
Wang Dapao's mouth was wide open, his chin nearly hitting the floor. "Holy... Holy crap? Su Wen, is that mop a Divine Artifact?"
Su Wen pulled out the mop, shook off the green blood, pushed up his glasses, and said indifferently:
"No, it's just a mop that is logically more reasonable."
He looked up and gazed out the library window. Under the purple clouds, more black rifts were opening up over the city.
The game had just begun, and he held the cheat codes.