what is once upon a time about

Six years ago, Fred Steel, once the president of the World Neurology Association, walked away from invitations from the world’s top medical circles to live incognito in River City. His only mission: to ensure the awakening of one man—a man whose salvation he regarded as the crowning achievement of his life. That man is Felix Quaid, CEO of Peak Group, who has remained unconscious in a top-tier medical ward for six years. Now, the very man who reshaped the world six years ago is about to wake, and his return will once again send tremors across the globe.

As a successful businessman, John Chandler had many regrets. A bullet he fired as a teenager struck him between the eyes years later, when he became a middle-aged man.Exhausted both physically and mentally, he had an accident and was brought back to 2008. That year, he was in the 12th grade. After he was reborn, John realized the meaning of life. He let go of his pursuit of material wealth, embraced life, and devoted his time to what really mattered.Later, he became the world's most famous angel investor, a figure on the world's rich list, a godfather of the financial industry, and a leading expert in the medical field.In an interview, he said, "You can never have both youth and the wisdom to cherish it at the same time."

You're a university student who's just taken on a part-time job during summer break, yet you've somehow triggered the military's maximum alert. Seeing as you're someone who has once modified a tractor into a tank, you're commanded by Commissar Gilbert Lane to repair J-10, a fighter jet that has been retired from duty, so that it can be displayed at an aerospace exhibition.You intend to craft a replica that looks realistic, but little do you know that you'll end up awakening the Omni-Tech System that allows you to breathe life into everything that you make.Some of your inventions now include nuclear-powered engines, a technology that allows aerocrafts to perform vertical take-offs and landings on the spot, as well as advanced technology that allows aerocrafts to go invisible.On the eve of the aerospace exhibitions, even the most leading experts in the industry are stunned the moment they see your blueprints. After all, these blueprints feature technology and innovations that are considered core secrets of the nation.Witness what it feels like to transform scrap metal into treasure with your hands and build exceptional inventions that shock the entire world.

Six years ago, Vivian Yeo basked in the lap of luxury as the pampered heiress of a wealthy family, while Tristan Starling grappled with the challenges of an impoverished life.Little do they expect their fates to take a surprising twist six years later. Vivian, once surrounded by opulence, now stands as a single mother confronting life's hurdles. Meanwhile, Tristan has risen to prominence on the global billionaire list.

Jiyoung dreamed of becoming a pilot, but an unexpected pregnancy led her to give up her captain’s seat to her husband, Min-gyu, and become a housewife. On their seventh anniversary, she catches him cheating and dies in a plane crash. However, fate has other plans. She wakes up before the tragedy—and this time, she’s ready to take back the sky.

Ethan Dalton was once a squeegee kid, washing cars on the street—until Richard Harrington changed his life with a single act of kindness.Fifteen years later, Ethan comes back as a rising aerospace tycoon—only to discover Richard has been betrayed by his adopted children, stripped of his company, and pushed to the brink. Now that Ethan is back, can Richard’s ungrateful family survive the revenge of the boy they never saw coming?

In her past life, Cindy Quinn sacrificed everything for her father and three brothers, only to be cast aside when her long-lost sister returned and stole all their affection. This time, she wakes up at the moment of her parents' divorce—and makes a different choice. Instead of staying with the ungrateful Quinn family, she follows her mother into the powerful Shane family, where a brand-new life awaits…

In the year 2399, all of humanity is drawn into a game known as Doomsday Hotel. Every player who enters is given a basic hotel. The higher the level, the larger and more powerful the hotel becomes. In his previous life, Ryan Charles sold his hotel for $30 million. Little did he know that 30 days later, the Earth would descend into a doomsday, and the hotels within the game would manifest in reality as shelters. As a result, Ryan fell into slavery and met a miserable end. Who could have imagined that when he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the very day he was pulled into the game—and this time, he was bound to the strongest system. Trash men and scheming women come to provoke him? They only end up getting slapped in the face. While other players are still trying to figure out the game's mechanics, Ryan has already built a top-tier luxury hotel, gathered four beautiful maidservants, and is comfortably lying back, waiting for Doomsday to arrive.

Three years ago, an earthquake struck. Lydia's husband and son died saving everyone in their building. Their neighbor Eleanor gradually forgot their sacrifice in the years that followed. For three years, Lydia has quietly honored her loved ones' memory, while Eleanor has come to see Lydia as a symbol of bad luck. Now Eleanor's son Marcus is about to hold his wedding. Lydia decides to make everyone understand in her own striking way that honoring the departed is honoring life itself, and that remembering an act of kindness keeps warmth alive in people's hearts.

Female CEO Claire Stein goes undercover as a beggar with a quiet promise: give her money and she'll return ten million, enough to change anyone's life. She sits for three days. No one stops. Then Jason Parker gives her a hundred dollars without hesitation. She pushes back and asks for another hundred, just to see. He gives that too,without irritation, without expectation. Claire decides immediately: a man this decent doesn't get away. She asks what he needs. He says he needs a girlfriend to bring home for the New Year to get his mother off his back. She considers this for approximately one second.Done. As of today, she is his girlfriend, and somehow, neither of them seems to be pretending.

Elite lawyer Kylin Taylor walks into a cafe and finds her fiance Zane Walker attending tenderly to his mistress. She doesn't make a scene. That night, she slides a condom into a legal contract and hands it to Zane's closest friend, David Evans, Eryland's most talked-about playboy. "Hotel tonight? It's on me." What begins as cold, surgical revenge becomes something stranger: she uses David to deliver Zane a humiliation; David plays along with every sign of enjoying himself.But as the game deepens, he drops the act entirely and and starts betting everything he has on her instead of the thrill. Kylin realizes, with a jolt, that she never had control of this board to begin with. Someone laid these pieces into position ten years ago, and it wasn't her.

At the graduation ceremony's class change, when the 3S-rank pillar of light—symbolizing the strongest talent—engulfs me, the entire venue falls silent. My awakened profession is actually "Dragontamer," a class that vanished a century ago along with the dragon race! Amid the mocking laughter, I touch the dim dragon crystal in the principal's arms. In an instant, the crystal shatters, ancient dragon roars echo through the heavens, and legendary skills never before recorded materialize in the void. The next day, I enter the forbidden zone and use my blood as a catalyst to awaken dragon spirits that have slumbered for millennia. Nine massive dragons burst through the sky, their wingspans blocking out the sun. In a globally broadcast ultimate showdown, I softly chant in dragon tongue, and the enemy's million-strong army retreats like a tide. It turns out that what dragontamers tame isn't just dragons—it's the wildest power in this world, the immortal war spirit of the dragon race!

For seven years, Kelsey Dale ran a business empire from the shadows and called herself a housewife. She gave up her name, her position, and eventually her health to prop up a husband who needed her more than he admitted, including nursing him through a near-fatal illness with everything she had. On the day their infant son turns one hundred days old, Gaige Hamilton walks through the door with his mistress and their child, backed by his parents, and offers Kelsey a choice: accept them under her roof and keep managing the household, or leave without her son. Seven years. That is what they thought they were owed.

One hundred years after the extinction of all dragons on earth, Matthew manages to awaken as an SSS-rank Dragon Tamer—only to become a “useless genius,” considering there are no dragons for him to tame. As a result, his girlfriend abandons him; his sworn brothers look down on him; and even his usually amiable mentors cast cold, disdainful glances his way. But what no one knows is that Matthew also awakened a power known as the Dragon Rearing System. Under his care, a fiery-red dragon egg quietly hatches; and now, the legendary Five-Colored Dragons are making their return one by one!

Xavi, the estranged son of Atheron's wealthiest magnate, leads a double life as a janitor and fortune teller, all while harboring the secret of being the War God. Five years after a chance encounter with the renowned actress Wilma, she reveals that her mute daughter, Xamira, is his child, prompting Xavi to embrace his responsibilities as a father. When Wilma is coerced into marrying a dying patriarch and Xamira endures mistreatment, Xavi intervenes to save them both.

Jones Sean witnessed her beloved daughter fall from the building and die. The culprit was her ex-husband. To avenge her daughter, she changed her identity and transformed into a female entrepreneur worth over a hundred million. In this way, she manipulated those driven by greed.

Nina Grant has spent five years of marriage chasing the highest honor in dance, a promise made to Ethan Blake’s mother before she was ever truly accepted as his wife. The finish line is finally close. But the marriage that was supposed to be waiting at the end of it has gone quiet in ways Nina can’t name. Ethan is there. He is warm enough.Something essential is simply no longer present in the way he looks at her. Nina keeps dancing because stopping feels like admitting it. But the music is harder to hear over the silence between them.

Quinn Edith was an ordinary office worker, enduring daily workplace bullying. But his real identity was the young genius who founded a company in his teens, and built the national corporate giant, Wright Group. Three years ago, a betrayal by his subordinate cost him his memory. Since then, he had lived as a bottom-tier salaryman.