The cursor blinked steadily on the screen.
Lin Yu didn't rush.
He already knew what kind of story he wanted to write—not a miracle, not a fantasy, but something that felt like it belonged naturally in this world.
He typed the title.
Dark Energy Civilization
Simple. Clean. Open-ended.
For the genre, he selected Science Fiction without hesitation.
Then he began.
The novel did not open with explosions or dramatic awakenings.
It opened in a classroom.
"As we all know," the instructor said, adjusting the holographic screen behind him, "dark energy constitutes the majority of the universe."
Rows of students sat quietly, listening.
"For centuries, humanity believed dark energy was unresponsive. That it existed everywhere yet could not be interacted with. This assumption," the instructor continued, "has recently been proven incomplete."
Lin Yu paused, rereading the paragraph.
Good.
Too much excitement at the beginning would feel artificial. A classroom felt familiar. Safe. Credible.
He continued typing.
In the story, humanity had advanced into a sci-fi civilization. Technology was mature. Interstellar travel existed. Artificial intelligence assisted governance. And yet, humanity's greatest breakthrough had not come from machines.
It had come from understanding the human body.
Dark energy cultivation wasn't presented as magic.
It was taught as a discipline.
Breathing patterns to stabilize neural signals.
Mental focus to reduce biological noise.
Physical stillness to improve resonance probability.
The teacher explained it calmly, like a physics lecture.
"Cultivation does not grant instant power," the instructor said.
"Most students will feel nothing for years. A small percentage will experience weak resonance. This is normal."
Lin Yu allowed himself a small smile as he typed.
Expectation management.
The protagonist was ordinary.
No hidden bloodline.
No destiny.
No sudden awakening in the first chapter.
Just a student listening, curious, skeptical, but willing to try.
By the time Lin Yu finished the first chapter, the sky outside his window had darkened.
He read through it once more.
It didn't promise miracles.
It didn't shout breakthroughs.
It didn't ask the reader to believe.
It simply described a future where cultivation using dark energy was as mundane as mathematics.
Perfect.
He clicked Publish.
The chapter vanished into the sea of online novels without ceremony.
Lin Yu closed the page and went to sleep.
When he checked again the next day, there were already comments.
User: AxisZero
Opening in a classroom is bold, but kind of boring.
User: Photon
Interesting worldbuilding. Feels like hard sci-fi pretending to be a cultivation novel.
User: NightReader
The cultivation theory sounds weirdly reasonable.
Lin Yu focused on the last one.
Reasonable.
That was the word he wanted.
He continued updating.
Chapter two expanded on training halls where students practiced breathing under sensor supervision. Chapter three showed researchers publishing resonance probability charts and dismissing early failures as statistical noise.
Slowly, discussion grew.
If this were real, wouldn't dark energy interaction require extreme conditions?
The breathing technique feels like meditation, but framed scientifically.
Low probability doesn't mean impossible.
Lin Yu never replied.
He didn't need to.
Several days later, late at night, Lin Yu felt it.
A familiar exhaustion spread through his chest, as if something unseen had been gently drawn out of him. It wasn't painful—just deeply draining.
His authority responded.
Information surfaced in his mind, cold and precise.
Belief Interaction Detected
Imitation Attempts: Confirmed
Effective Belief Ratio: Extremely Low
Manifestation Status:
Dark energy resonance probability enabled
Initial success rate: < 0.1%
Lin Yu lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
"So someone tried," he murmured.
Not because they believed.
But because it sounded plausible.
That was enough.
He turned his head toward his desk, where his notebook lay open.
"This world doesn't need to be convinced," he thought calmly.
"It just needs to be shown a future that feels possible."
Outside, countless screens glowed quietly in the night.
And among them, a new story—labeled as science fiction—was teaching its readers their very first lesson in cultivation.