After the excitement settled, Li Ge's expression suddenly changed. He remembered something important. Without hesitation, he grabbed his phone and bolted out the door.
But just as quickly, he ran back.
He stuffed the game headset back into its original delivery box and shoved it under the bed. Then, he booked a ride and rushed out of the cramped rental unit, sprinting out of the urban village.
The village wasn't far from the main road. It was always noisy, and lately, things had gotten worse with construction on a new overpass. The drilling and hammering never stopped—not even on holidays. Li Ge had lived here for six months, and the construction had been going on just as long.
Before, the noise would drive him crazy. But now, after three months of silence in the game world, it felt oddly comforting. Hearing people talking, machines working—it made everything feel real again. Alive.
Once he got into the ride, his adrenaline began to fade.
"Driver, can we go faster? I'm in a hurry."
He glanced at the app. It would take an hour to reach No. 178 Shennan Road, Nanshan District. That made him anxious. But what could he do? Nanshan was a core business district. Even the urban villages there charged over 1,500 yuan for a tiny single room. Good apartments in the CBD easily started at 10,000 a month. A luxury place in Pengcheng Bay? Try 40 to 50 grand—or even 300,000 a month for the top tier.
For someone like Li Ge, fresh out of college and earning only 7,000 to 8,000 yuan a month, even 1,500 was pushing it. That's why he lived so far out.
"It's Sunday. Traffic will be bad, but I'll try," the driver said.
"Don't just try. Take the highway—I'll pay the toll," Li Ge replied calmly. "The app says one hour. For every minute you arrive early, I'll give you 100 yuan."
The driver stared at him through the rearview mirror. "You serious?"
"You've already wasted one minute," Li Ge said flatly. "That's 100 yuan gone."
The driver blinked, then looked Li Ge up and down. Though dressed simply, Li Ge carried an unusual calm—like he wasn't joking.
Suddenly motivated, the driver hit the gas.
"You going to claim a prize or something?" he joked, noticing the destination was a lottery shop.
Li Ge smiled. "Yeah, won a hundred million. Going to cash it in."
The driver laughed. "Come on, man. I buy tickets too. You can't redeem that kind of money at a corner shop. You need to go to the lottery center."
"Busted," Li Ge said, still smiling. He didn't explain further, and the driver, sensing his silence, focused on the road. After all, 100 yuan per minute—arriving 20 minutes early meant 2,000 yuan. Worth it.
With the expressway, they might even make it in 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, Li Ge noticed something else.
It wasn't just his mind that had changed. His body had too.
In the game world, he had spent nearly two months doing high-intensity physical training. At the time, it became his new normal—he hadn't noticed anything odd when returning.
But now, sitting in the car, he realized something.
He had sprinted over 100 meters from his apartment to the main road—without breaking a sweat. He wasn't even out of breath. His stamina hadn't just improved—it had carried over.
Could physical stats from the game world come back with him too?
He had a thousand questions, but the headset wasn't with him, and there was no voice prompt to provide answers.
So instead, he focused on his new ability: Transcendent Mind.
It reminded him of the drug NZT-48 from the movie Limitless—a pill that unlocked the full potential of the human brain. With it, the protagonist gained perfect memory, unlimited energy, crystal-clear thinking, and superhuman insight. He could absorb subtle details, rearrange them instantly, and even charm everyone around him.
NZT-48 was said to open every neural pathway, granting photographic memory and genius-level intellect. People on it could learn complex languages in a day, understand dense equations effortlessly, and win others over in moments.
Li Ge didn't feel that extreme. But he did feel sharper, more energized, and capable of retaining everything he saw.
Learning a new language in a day? Maybe not.
But in a month? That felt realistic.
Then, another realization struck him.
That estimate—one month to master a language—wasn't just a wild guess. His mind had calculated it on the spot.
He remembered reading that mastering a language typically required a vocabulary of 10,000 words. A reasonable benchmark.
For instance, CET-4 English level was around 4,000 words; CET-8 was about 10,000. Normally, people needed to review a word at least seven times to remember it. That meant 70,000 repetitions to memorize 10,000 words.
At 100 new words per day, it would take two years of consistent effort.
But with his current ability? If he could remember a word in one second, he could learn all 10,000 in under three hours.