My Web Novel System - Chapter 1

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“That’s all for today’s class. Class dismissed!”

The tutor on the podium put away his briefcase and strolled out of the classroom.

When he reached the door, he suddenly turned around.

“Fang Yuan, including other foreign students with weak foundations, pay special attention. Your graduation thesis is due soon. What are you waiting for if you don’t hand it in now! Do you want to delay your graduation?”

After saying that, he left without looking back.

Then, the classroom was in an uproar.

“What bad luck! Last year’s graduation requirement was a 50,000-word novel. This year, it turned into a 100,000-word novel.”

“Forget the length, the most difficult part is the topic!”

“Asking us to write a fantasy novel that contains elements such as dragons and magic is giving me a headache.”

“How much did you write?”

“I’ve only written half of it. What about you?”

“I’ve already handed it over to Hades.”

“Impressive.”

“Impressive, my *ss. Hades deleted pretty much my entire manuscript except the first paragraph. He called me into his office and scolded me, saying that if I keep writing this nonsense, I won’t be considered a writer, so I had to rewrite the whole thing.”

“Bro, that’s really unfortunate, but I’m not much better either. Fang Yuan, what about you?”

Fang Yuan, who was suddenly called by his classmate, seemed to have just woken up from his muddled consciousness.

The students around him had all sorts of skin colors and spoke English with all kinds of accents. Everything was like a dream.

Fang Yuan knew that he had transmigrated.

This was not Earth, but a parallel world, the Blue Planet.

The technological progress here did not change much. It was similar to the early 21st century.

Perhaps due to the space-time turbulence caused by the transmigrators, the cultural progress of mankind had changed.

The biggest change was that Fang Yuan’s motherland, China, had not started the vernacular movement1.

China’s modern and contemporary literature had completely vanished!

The world’s understanding of Chinese culture was still stuck in the era of Tang poems1, Song lyrics2, and Yuan songs3, before the emergence of the Four Classic Chinese Novels 4of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Simply put, the glorious past was now desolate.

Although thanks to good leadership and economic development, China’s national standing became stronger.

The standard of living of the Chinese people had greatly improved.

It was not inferior to any other place in the world.

However, without the bright stars of modern and contemporary literature and without the nourishment of literature, people’s souls always seemed empty.

There was a sense of cultural inferiority.

Thus, developing a cultural civilization became China’s current main goal.

The country allocated special funds for studying abroad.

A group of young talents with potential was sent to other countries to study literary creation, with hopes of bringing about a change in Chinese literature.

Fang Yuan was one of these young talents.

He came to the University of Iowa in the United States with the mandate of his hometown.

It was the best creative writing college in the world.

The only goal of this school was to produce qualified writers who could make a living by writing.

Every teacher at the University of Iowa was an author who had published at least three works and had sufficient creative experience.

All of the courses at the University of Iowa were about creative writing, which included novels, short stories, poems, plays, and many more.

Most importantly, the University of Iowa’s graduation thesis was very different from other schools.

Literature students from most schools, like Harvard or Stanford, had to write a review of a famous author or an analysis of a famous work for their graduation thesis.

However, Iowa did not want that.

The University of Iowa only required students to write novels, high-quality novels that were worth publishing!

The school’s classes were even segregated based on the value of the students’ work.

Class A students, who usually published books independently, earned more than 10,000 yuan in royalties from their writing.

Class B students, who usually published their works in magazines, earned thousands in royalties from their writing.

The students in Class C, where Fang Yuan was placed, usually could not publish a book or a magazine, so much so that they even worried about their graduation thesis. In other words, they were all broke writers!

Of course, being a broke writer was not entirely the problem of Fang Yuan’s predecessor.

Since he was in this parallel world, modern and contemporary literature simply did not exist in China.

Therefore, in any large global awards, only English manuscripts were accepted.

If the literature was not in English, it had to be translated into English first.

The University of Iowa’s graduation thesis also had the same requirement.

Writing in a foreign language was indeed too tough for anyone.

Fang Yuan’s predecessor was talented and hardworking.

He had begun preparations for the novel early on, did lots of research, and even constructed a detailed worldview. He came up with wonderful plots, created vivid characters, and honed his writing skills through day-to-day training.

All he wanted was to prove to the world that Chinese people could also write good novels.

In the end, he died in front of a computer screen because he was overworked from staying up all year to write.

Before he died, he accidentally cut the power cord to his desktop computer.

Thus, all of his manuscripts were lost.

Now, there was nothing left. It was such a pity.

Fang Yuan, who was Chinese, also hoped that Chinese literature would one day be revered by the whole world.

He quickly pulled himself together and muttered to himself, “Rest in peace, I’ll realize this dream for you and for myself.”

Before he could finish his sentence, an automated female voice sounded in his ear:

[ Ding! Due to the host’s strong will, the ‘Culture Output System’ has been automatically bound to you. ]

[ As long as you publish Chinese works and influence the world, you will receive reputation points, which can be exchanged for generous rewards in the system. ]

Fang Yuan, who had read every web novel in his previous life, was already used to the existence of this system, which was a must-have for transmigrators.

“Got it, got it. This is the plagiarism system.”

“I want to get the ‘Complete Works of Mo Yan’ and win the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

[ Currently exchanging the “Complete Works of Mo Yan”. It requires 100,000,000 reputation points. Do you want to proceed with the exchange? ]

“Wait a sec! Check my current balance.”

[ The current reputation points balance: 1 point. ]

Having considered his unlucky predecessor, this value was not surprising. It was just a difference of 100 million reputation points!

Just as Fang Yuan was frowning about this, the system reminded him again.

[ Ding! A novice gift package has been received. Do you wish to open it? ]

“Why didn’t you say so earlier? Open It!”