"This scene isn't about you feeling sentimental because your daughter grew up," Marcus said.
"You have to show the pain of missing her entire life. Your face might not change much, but your eyes need to dim layer by layer—like a candle flame getting blown out by the wind."
Marcus was being precise.
Cassius tried the scene a few times and still wasn't satisfied.
He always fell a little short on this kind of ultra-subtle emotional work. His life experience just didn't cover deep father-daughter bonds—he'd never lived anything close to it in real life.
Romantic relationships or brotherly bonds? He could draw from real memories, layer in attribute orbs, and nail them.
Marcus watched Cassius struggle, then fell quiet for a moment. Suddenly he asked, "Have you ever had a pet? Dog? Cat?"
Cassius thought about it. Besides Kristen's lazy cat, he'd never owned one.
"Not really. Does a friend's pet count?"
Marcus shook his head. "Imagine your best friend had a dog. You watched it grow up from a puppy. You two were tight. Then you move away for years. When you finally come back, the dog is old. Dying. You pet its head and it still recognizes you, but it doesn't have the strength to wag its tail anymore."
"You loved it, but you missed its best years and you can never get them back. Feel that."
Cassius instantly thought of the wolf-gray dog his dad had when he was little.
The dog had already been around when his memories started and lived until he was in elementary school.
As a kid, Cassius hated eggs. He'd hide them in his mouth, walk over to the doghouse, and spit them out for the dog to eat.
Cassius closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of holding that dog—rough fur, weak breathing, cloudy wet eyes.
A human life is so long. A dog's only lasts long enough to walk beside you for a short stretch.
He transferred that feeling to missing his daughter's entire life.
This time, when he opened his eyes and performed the scene, Marcus gave a slow nod.
"That's it. Nostalgia mixed with regret. Love mixed with helplessness."
The moment the performance ended, a silver orb rose from Cassius's body.
A silver attribute orb?
He'd never seen this color before.
[Father's Bond +100]
Holy shit—one hundred points in a single orb.
He absorbed it instantly.
A warm current far stronger than any previous orb flooded through him.
This time it wasn't just technique.
Cassius felt his emotions sharpen, like a locked room inside his heart had a window cracked open.
The panel popped up automatically:
[Acting Realm]
Level: Standout Performer
Progress: 97%
[Skill List]
Practical Action Performance Essence (Gold): 72%
Street Vehicle Offense & Defense Instinct (Purple): 68%
The progress bar jumped ten percent in one go.
Only three percent left until the next level-up.
Cassius stared at the panel.
Right now he had only one thought: This acting class was worth every penny.
Twenty thousand dollars well spent.
Marcus noticed Cassius zone out for a second. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Cassius said quickly. "I just… felt something click."
"Emotional work is like that," Marcus said. "Sometimes you grind for a hundred tries and get nowhere. Then one little thing opens and the whole character comes alive."
He checked the time. "We're good for today. Go home and lock that feeling in. Same time tomorrow?"
"See you tomorrow."
When Cassius stepped out of the studio, Los Angeles was already bathed in evening light.
He didn't get in the car right away. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment.
He replayed the feeling the silver orb had given him.
It was beautiful.
He pulled out his phone and texted Kristen: "If one day I had to leave you to do something important—maybe never come back—would you hate me?"
A few minutes later she replied: "Depends on what it is. Saving the world? I could maybe forgive you. Going on a date with another woman? I'd have to consider cutting something off you [knife emoji]."
Cassius smiled and put the phone away.
The next few days he kept going to Marcus's studio.
Ten thousand dollars a session hurt, but the results were massive.
No more silver orbs appeared, but the drop rate for purple and gold orbs was noticeably higher.
Cassius felt himself getting closer and closer to Cooper.
It was like the astronaut trapped by time had moved into a corner of his heart.
On the final session, Marcus walked him to the door.
The moment Cassius stepped outside, text floated in front of him:
[Acting Realm]
Level: Standout Performer
Progress: 100%
The lessons had filled the bar completely in just a few days.
Cassius glanced back at the studio sign.
This guy is a gold mine.
High output.
Compared to the attribute orbs, the class fees were basically nothing.
He still had over seven million dollars left after the three-hundred-thousand-dollar skill fusion, so money wasn't an issue.
Every level-up brought new changes.
He wondered what this one would be.
Cassius drove home, sat on the couch, and stared at the glowing 100% on the panel.
Nothing happened for a minute.
"Maybe I have to tap it myself?"
He focused on the full progress bar.
Sure enough, the entire panel interface started rearranging—font sharper, layout cleaner.
The process lasted about thirty seconds.
[Acting Realm]
Level: Reputation-Building
Progress: 1%
[Core Traits]
Role Conviction: 0/100
Cultural Influence: 0/100
[Skill List]
Practical Action Performance Essence (Gold): Mastery 74%
Street Vehicle Offense & Defense Instinct (Purple): Mastery 70%
[Dream Experience Space]
Cassius stared at the new panel.
"Reputation-Building" had a nice ring to it.
Unlike "Standout Performer," which focused on personal skill, this stage seemed more about building reputation in the industry and with audiences.
The new [Core Traits] confirmed it.
Role Conviction was clearly about personal ability.
Cultural Influence had to be about how the industry and audiences saw him.
But the most interesting part was the brand-new function:
[Dream Experience Space]
Function: The system provides a fully immersive dream environment. The host can live out an entire character's life inside the dream with complete realism and perfect detail. Upon waking, acting progress and any attribute orbs/skills learned in the instance are directly settled.
Enter "Plot Instance World" in first-person perspective and experience the character's full life, gaining authentic emotional memory.
Additional notes:
- Can learn physical instincts (boxing, dance, firearm handling).
- Can master accents, micro-expression control, and other micro-skills.
- Deepens script understanding.
- Initial use requires system currency to unlock new instances. Starting price: $1,000,000 per run.
- Dream time to real-world time ratio is adjustable—typically 6 real hours of sleep equals decades inside the instance.
- Later, as the host's fame and achievements grow, higher-difficulty character instances will unlock.
Final warning in red text:
[Warning: Dream experiences create real emotional and memory residue. Choose instances carefully.]
"One million dollars per run? You might as well rob me."
Cassius stared at the floating panel and felt more and more like the system had been designed by some cutthroat capitalist to bleed him dry.
But then he thought—if he could actually live an entire character's life in one night and wake up with genuine experience baked into his bones, the price started to make sense.
Top acting coaches in Hollywood cost tens of thousands a month.
Living the life for a role—going out on a fishing boat for months to play a fisherman, or visiting prisons to play an inmate—took real time and money.
This dream space could do it in one night.
Even Marcus couldn't give him real-life experience.
Cassius sat on the couch and studied the new feature carefully.
Tapping the [Dream Experience Space] text brought up a new menu called "Dream Instance Library."
It was empty except for one line: "Please select a target character or script. The system will generate the corresponding instance. First-time users receive a new-user discount: $800,000."
Not bad.
Eighty thousand dollars off the first run.
He was still thinking about it when his phone rang.
It was Rob.
"Cass, Friday's audition details are locked. Ten a.m. at Warner Bros. Burbank, Stage 3. Be there half an hour early for makeup and prep. Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, producer Emma Thomas, and two casting directors will all be there."
"Big guns," Cassius said.
"Means they're taking the role seriously," Rob replied. "I also heard three other actors made the final shortlist: Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, and Matthew McConaughey."
Cassius's eyebrows rose.
All heavy hitters.
Especially McConaughey—he was the one who'd played Cooper in the original timeline and earned an Oscar nod for it.
"Competition's stiff," Rob said. "Matt just wrapped Bourne 3 and he's hot. Fassbender has huge European cred. McConaughey's been quiet lately but his acting is still elite, and Jonathan Nolan seems to like him."
"What about me?" Cassius asked.
"Same story—they still think you're too commercial and worry you can't carry heavy emotional weight. But Spielberg's recommendation carries serious weight. It's still your shot. Depends on Friday."
Cassius hung up and leaned back on the couch, eyes closed.
Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, Matthew McConaughey, and him.
Four very different actors fighting for one role.
It was impossible not to feel the pressure.
This wasn't like the smaller parts he'd landed before.
Thor had been a supporting gig with lower expectations.
Green Lantern had been a project already in crisis mode; they chose his version after comparing screen tests.
Hunger Games had been Lionsgate's big swing, and they picked him because of his proven box-office pull in Asia—they needed a safety net.
Fast & Furious 5 had been a last-minute save, plus Justin Lin's personal favor.
Now he was fighting for a true male lead in a massive prestige sci-fi film directed by Nolan.
And the audition was in just a few days.
He glanced at the time—9:30 p.m.
No schedule tomorrow. He could sleep in.
If the new Dream Experience Space worked the way it claimed, eighty thousand dollars for a single night suddenly looked like a bargain.
He opened the Interstellar script file on his laptop again and replayed the final version he remembered from his past life in his head.
Then he made his decision.
He focused on the [Dream Experience Space] and selected the option to generate the instance for Cooper in Interstellar.
The panel flashed.
[Generating instance…]
[First-time user discount applied: $800,000]
[Confirm payment and enter Dream Experience Space tonight?]
Cassius took one last look at the warning about real emotional and memory residue.
Then he tapped confirm.
The panel lit up with a soft white glow.
He leaned back on the couch, closed his eyes, and felt the world fade.
Tonight he was going to live Cooper's entire life—from the dusty cornfields to the black hole.
When he woke up, he would know exactly what it felt like to be a father who had to leave his children behind to save the world.
And he would be ready for Nolan.