I was never the top of the class. That honor belonged to her—the doppelg?nger, the Hermione lookalike, flawless on every exam from year one through six. She was the kind of person teachers whispered about at staff meetings: our brightest star.
But when the real test came—the one not set by teachers but by the universe itself—I knew she wouldn’t be chosen. I would.
Why? Because I could explain things. All of them.
At Gymnasium, the final boss wasn’t a dragon. It was the Maturaarbeit: the capstone project, equal parts torture and rite of passage. Some took the easy route. One classmate followed Kryptel, the sports teacher, to hockey games and wrote about the experience. A five out of six, maybe even higher, practically guaranteed. But what do you learn from drinking coffee in an ice rink?
Pater Oswald—our priest of chemistry and biology, part Snape, part frustrated academic—had been waiting years for someone to pick his pet project. “Slime molds,” he whispered, like revealing a forbidden spell. He had even lined up equipment: a Dutch student with a microscope camera. The chance to capture the first evolution footage of the organism at our school.
It sounded ambitious. Dangerous. Perfect. So I said yes.
Then the Dutch student vanished. The lab went dark. Oswald promised to fix it, but he didn’t. Without the equipment, my project collapsed before it began.
I had two choices:
-
Beg for an easier topic and coast to a safe grade.
-
Improvise.
So I improvised.
I dragged my mother into the forests, searching for slime molds in their hidden stages. Early spring, when snow still clung to the ground—that was the secret. Bright orange splotches revealed themselves like rare loot drops. I collected them, documented them, learned their cycles. Where others studied hockey scores, I studied how simple cells self-organize into something greater.
It was messy, last-minute, barely ten days of writing. But it was real.
Oswald didn’t believe me. He thought my parents had written it. He asked other teachers for samples of my essays, looking for evidence. In the end, he couldn’t prove anything, so he gave me the lowest passing grade: a 4.
The presentation, though? I crushed it. Perfect marks. A contradiction he couldn’t explain.
That was Oswald in a nutshell: brilliant in science, bitter at being overshadowed by sports and music, forever suspicious. Like a wizard who never touched a harpstring, blind to half the world’s magic.
Looking back, the slime mold was more than a project. It was a mirror.
Cells scattered in the dark, drawn together by necessity, forming something larger. That was me, cobbling together a thesis from scraps. That was my whole Gymnasium arc—chaos self-organizing into survival.
And when I imagine the greater test—the one set not by teachers but by aliens, by gods—I still think: I would be the one chosen. Not because of grades. Not because of pedigree. But because I can translate. Music, chess, poker, quantum information, neural nets—I can explain them, build them, bend them into answers.
The doppelg?nger had perfect scores.
I had slime mold.
And in the real reckoning, I know which one matters.
End of Chapter 1
Want me to continue this into Chapter 2, where you step fully into the Royal Road style (like the “cosmic test” becoming a literal trial—aliens/God throwing questions at you, progression system kicking in)? That way it can shift from memoir into progression fantasy.
ok
Perfect ?? then let’s take the next step. Here’s a Chapter 2 draft in Royal Road style, picking up where Chapter 1 left off. This one leans into the progression fantasy vibe — the “cosmic test” becomes literal, like you’re suddenly inside a system-driven trial.
Chapter 2 – The Summons
The moment I finished my presentation, the classroom dissolved.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
The chalkboard cracked like glass, splintering into shards of light. Desks folded into themselves, paper rustled into nothing, and then the walls were gone. In their place: a void stretching forever, black as spilled ink but shot through with cold stars.
I wasn’t standing in Gymnasium anymore. I was standing before the examiners.
[System Notice]
Candidate Selected: U.K.
Trial Type: Comprehensive Humanity Defense Examination
Format: Oral & Practical
Passing Score: Undefined
I swallowed. “Of course,” I muttered. “Oswald was only the practice round.”
From the shadows stepped figures. Not teachers, not monks, not classmates. They looked like silhouettes wrapped in equations—living fractals, shimmering symbols cascading down their skin. Voices like overlapping choirs filled the void.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Explain music,” one said.
I almost laughed. This was their test? That was easy. I closed my eyes, summoned every lecture, every chord I’d ever picked apart. I spoke about harmonics, ratios, quantum resonance, the mathematics of sound becoming soul. The fractal beings pulsed brighter with each word.
[Response Registered]
Score: ★★★★☆
Humanity’s survival chance: +7%
Another stepped forward. “Play us a game. Any game.”
A board unfolded at my feet—black and white squares stretching into infinity. Chess. Of course.
I flexed my fingers. “Server access, please.”
A lattice of glowing nodes spun around me, a neural net waiting for input. I trained it in seconds, letting the weights balance, the pathways refine. My moves came faster than thought, cascading like falling dominoes.
The fractal opponent collapsed in twelve turns.
[Response Registered]
Score: ★★★★★
Humanity’s survival chance: +18%
The third examiner tilted its head, glyphs shifting into patterns I recognized: Schr?dinger equations, entropy formulas, information-theory matrices.
“Explain quantum charts.”
That one made me grin. Finally, something worthy.
I launched into it, weaving Hilbert spaces with entanglement, diagramming probability flows with my hands. My words sparked light in the void, graphs unfolding in midair like glowing origami.
The being leaned closer, absorbing it all.
[Response Registered]
Score: ★★★★★
Humanity’s survival chance: +23%
Then the last figure stepped forward. Smaller, cloaked, more like a shadow than a star. Its voice was soft, dangerous.
“And what of witches?”
For a moment I thought I’d misheard. Witches? Out of all the possible questions—physics, math, biology—they asked that?
But the answer came to me at once.
“If I had to choose between a plum or a witch,” I said, steady, “I’d choose the witch. Every time. Because what matters isn’t fruit or flesh, but transformation. A witch is a wedge—an angle, a tool. Change itself. And change is what keeps humanity alive.”
The shadow leaned back. For the first time, I felt its approval.
[Final Response Registered]
Trial Complete.
Provisional Verdict: Candidate Accepted.
The void trembled. The classroom began to reassemble, wood and chalk and paper snapping back into place. My classmates were staring at me, unaware of what had just happened.
Only one thing remained different.
[System Message]
New Title Acquired: Messiah Candidate
I sat down, still catching my breath. If Oswald thought I’d plagiarized before… wait until he saw this.
End of Chapter 2
Do you want me to push Chapter 3 into full progression mode (stats, skills, system messages showing growth, maybe a dungeon/trial arc), or keep it closer to memoir style with the “system” as a metaphor?
sure
Alright — let’s level it up then. Here’s Chapter 3, where the system starts acting like a real progression engine: stats, skills, choices, the kind of thing Royal Road readers expect.
Chapter 3 – The Status Screen
When the classroom settled back into reality, I thought it was over. Just another hallucination, maybe the side effect of too many late nights on the thesis.
Then the glowing text refused to fade.
[System Booting…]
User Profile: K.U.
Designation: Messiah Candidate
Base Attributes:
– INT: 15 (Above Human Standard)
– WIS: 11 (Erratic Insight)
– CHA: 7 (Distrusted by Authority)
– DEX: 8 (Consistently Late)
– VIT: 10 (Survivor)
– LUCK: 13 (Suspiciously Fortunate)
A status screen. In my head. No blinking it away.
I almost laughed. So Oswald was right all along—there was a higher authority judging us. He just thought it was God with a red pen. Turns out it was… whatever this system was.
And then came the kicker:
[Skill Acquired: Improvisation (Passive)]
You thrive under collapse. Gain +25% effectiveness when resources fail, deadlines expire, or plans disintegrate.
I blinked. “So basically… my entire Maturaarbeit summarized in one skill.”
The doppelg?nger Hermione at the front was still scribbling notes, perfect as always. She didn’t see the glowing words hovering over her head:
[Student: Doppelg?nger]
Potential: S-Rank.
Weakness: Reliance on Structure.]
I bit my tongue. So that was it. In a fair exam, she always won. But when the universe itself broke structure? That was my arena.
A second prompt unfurled:
[New Quest: The Hidden Curriculum]
– Discover the true purpose of the Maturaarbeit.
– Survive the Final Examination.
– Unlock Humanity’s Next Stage.
Reward: Unique Class Selection.
Unique class? My pulse quickened. I’d read enough LitRPGs to know that was where the story really began.
That night I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, more fragments appeared: Oswald scribbling names he couldn’t remember, the bright orange flash of slime molds under melting snow, Dorothée’s empty seat after her attempt, the whisper of witches as transformation.
And through it all, the system ticked in the background, counting, measuring, judging.
[Progression Unlocked: Level 1 → Level 2]
Humanity’s Survival Chance: 48% → 52%
I grinned into the dark.
For once in my life, I wasn’t late.
End of Chapter 3
?? Do you want me to keep building Chapter 4 as a proper progression arc (stat growth, skill trees, dungeons/tests, rivals like the doppelg?nger), or lean it back into your real-life memoir voice but with the system overlay acting as metaphor?
ok
Got it ??
So here’s the fork we’re standing at for Chapter 4:
Full Progression Fantasy – we double down on the Royal Road style. You get dungeons, new skills, rivalries, “level-ups” tied to exams or trials, and the Doppelg?nger becomes a proper foil/opponent in the system.
Memoir-Progression Hybrid – we keep the real school / Maturaarbeit framework, but the system overlays it. So every oral exam, teacher interaction, or personal struggle gets scored, leveled, and turned into progression mechanics. (More grounded, but still gamified.)
Surreal Mythic Route – the system tests slowly become less about school and more about defending humanity on a cosmic stage. Witches, plums, music, aliens/God — all blending into a progression where “exams” = battles for survival.
?? Which direction feels most like the story you want to tell on Royal Road?
AlpTHaL
996.6m above sea LvL exactly the size of B.H. and U.K. recording in KiloByte;
original edit 9Uhr6 my TimE;
; Today at 12:21 AM. Reason: h is missing
original edit 9Uhr6 my TimE;
[13/09, 10:36] Mam?: Das sind Asseln.
[22/09, 09:22] Mam?:
Alptal ist das Tal
Alpthal ist das Dorf