I only wanted to retire, but I ended up becoming an extremely popular character.

A deafening roar erupted suddenly, and the entire artillery position was instantly engulfed in smoke.

Shells whistled across the sky, crashing down on the positions of the Holy Kingdom's "Black Sheep Holy Head" division.

The explosions lit up the defense line of Saint Petersburg, sending rocks, dirt, and even human bodies flying into the air.

The momentum was so strong that it seemed the imperial army was truly making a desperate gamble, launching a final, do-or-die charge.

On the Holy Kingdom's position, the soldiers were pinned down and unable to lift their heads.

Some people huddled behind bunkers, while others were half-buried by the mud kicked up by artillery shells.

The overwhelming explosions made them instinctively think that the Empire was going to fight to the death.

"Hold on! The Imperial army is about to charge!" the Holy Kingdom officer roared, trying to steady the troops.

However, they did not see the imperial soldiers arrive in droves.

There were only shells, round after round, seemingly an endless supply.

……

……

The sound of cannon fire is the signal.

At the very moment the first shell landed, the rear guard of the Imperial army had already begun moving toward the town of Segner.

They quietly withdrew from the front lines, quickly disappearing into the depths of the alleyways under the cover of smoke and ruins.

There was no commotion, no panic, only the sound of orderly and hurried footsteps.

Immediately afterwards, the troops further forward also began to move.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the imperial army quietly withdrew its battle lines, retreating in groups of three to five, taking turns providing cover, and in an orderly manner.

"Retreat! Retreat in an orderly manner!"

The junior officer conveyed the order in a low voice.

They dared not shout loudly, for fear of disturbing the Holy Kingdom people on the other side.

Once the Holy Kingdom's army realizes that it is retreating, it will inevitably launch a counterattack, and the retreat will certainly not be so smooth.

Fortunately, the artillery was powerful enough.

The overwhelming explosions, like a thick curtain, temporarily obscured the vision of the Holy Kingdom's people.

The explosions blocked out the noise of the battlefield.

……

……

In order to write a good fan fiction about Zod, Yu Feng spent more than a week watching the entire anime series "Empire of the Empire" from beginning to end, watching every episode that involved Zod.

After several rounds of catching up, he finally gained some understanding of the character Zod.

That's about it, I can start writing now.

At 11:18 a.m. the next morning, Yu Feng got up very early in order to write his novel.

For him, this was already the earliest he had gotten up in days.

11:18 is indeed a bit late for people who have to go to school or work.

But for a middle-aged person without a stable job and living alone, being able to get up at this point is already a kind of progress.

Living alone, without clear goals and direction, makes it difficult to maintain a regular sleep schedule.

Once you open Pandora's box of staying up all night, playing games, watching dramas, anime, reading novels... you'll find that staying up all night is fun for a while, and it's fun to keep staying up all night.

Then, I fell into a vicious cycle: I was too excited to sleep at night, and too tired to get up during the day.

Yu Feng wanted to break free from this curse.

As long as one is alive, one must always keep moving forward.

He can't keep "falling" like this.

Besides, his meager savings don't allow him to continue living a life of leisure.

He quickly washed up, went downstairs to his usual breakfast shop, ordered a bowl of bonito noodles, and specially added an egg.

This served as both his breakfast and lunch for the day, saving him the cost of a meal.

On his way back after finishing his meal, he stopped at a convenience store and bought a bottle of soda and a bag of potato chips.

Back at the rented apartment, everything was ready.

He sat down at the computer, pressed the power button, and the moment the screen lit up, he set himself a small goal:

"I'll write 8,000 words today, 4,000 this afternoon and 4,000 tonight. After that, I'll play some games and then go to sleep."

The goal of eight thousand words was not something he said on a whim, but something he had seriously considered.

If he still has a job and writing is just a side job, then three or four thousand words a day would be enough, or he could even write whatever he feels like.

The problem now is that he has no job and no income.

A few days ago, he specifically went online to check and found that writing online novels full-time might not earn him a single penny in the first two or three months.

Especially for Dianji.com, a contract is required to generate revenue.

Recently, a large number of "flexible workers" like him have entered the online literature industry, raising the signing threshold to a very high level.

As a novice, he really wasn't confident he could sign a contract in a short time.

Therefore, one can only make up for shortcomings through diligence and create opportunities by accumulating quantity.

However, when he actually sat in front of the computer and stared at the blank document, he couldn't type a single word for a long time.

Where should we start?

To be honest, his mind went completely blank.

When I read other people's online novels, all sorts of ideas keep popping into my head, and sometimes I can even give some unique suggestions in the book review section.

But when it came to actually writing, I realized that reading online articles and writing them yourself are two completely different things.

Even with the existing world view of "Empire Rising" to support him, so he doesn't have to build it from scratch, how can he write something with his own unique characteristics?

How did it manage to attract readers to click through in the first few chapters?

These few points alone were enough to stump him.

We can't just copy the original plot verbatim without any of our own elements, can we?

"Right... Zod needs a cheat system first!"

The moment this thought crossed his mind, a series of options immediately popped into his head: Time stop? Daily check-in system? Attribute point allocation? Grinding proficiency? Simulator? Completing system tasks and getting rewards...

As he pondered these ideas, he tried to apply them to Zod, and finally began writing.

The first thing we tried was time stop.

After all, the "Zawarudo" meme is quite interesting.

But after writing only about 500 words, he discovered a problem: the time-stop skill was too overpowered.

If Zod could stop time right from the start, what would be the point of writing anything later?

All the techniques and growth become meaningless; I might only get the first few chapters of fun before I can't write anymore.

Not only will he be unable to write any more exciting moments, but readers will likely also quickly become bored with the story.

The sign-in system? It's too mindless and seems outdated.

Attribute points? The problem is that other characters in the "Empire Rising" anime don't have attribute points, so there's no unified standard for combat power, making it impossible to compare strength...

While browsing the trending lists on the website, he jotted down any inspirations and ideas that came to him.

I sat there from 1 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.

The draft for recording was nearly two thousand words long, but the actual text was only eight hundred words.

He forced out those 800 words, just like he was constipated.

Fortunately, after all this trouble, we've finally made some progress.

The cheat system he gave Zod was a proficiency system.

Although the skill proficiency system isn't exactly a gimmicky feature, he felt it fit the relatively pure combat system of "Empire Rising".

Two more days passed.

He gritted his teeth and managed to type six thousand words, which was already his limit.

In other words, from the first day he started writing until now, in three days, he has written a total of six thousand words.

During that time, he thought about giving up countless times. Writing 6,000 words in three days made him doubt that he was not cut out for this job.

There is nothing difficult in the world, as long as you are willing to give up!