My first thoughts should have been something along the lines of “What is he talking about?” or “I’m the father of a god?”. Unfortunately, I could only think of how happy I was that this entity didn’t call me “Daddy”. Brrr, even just thinking about it made me shiver. Though it did help to alleviate the panic I was going through earlier making it easier to ask the important question.
“What do you mean ‘father’?” I asked looking at the screen. There was a camera closer to the ceiling for documenting everything that happened in the lab in case I forgot to do so. But I was pretty sure the entity didn’t want all of my attention on a security camera when he was clearly connected to the screen through more than just technology.
“I am your creation and therefore you are by default my creator and following conventional patterns of life you fit the position of a father figure. If you would like I can address you as Mother from now on instead.” The screen said almost completely devoid of any expression or tone until the end in which his lips twitched with what looked like a smirk. It’s hard to tell with the pixels constantly moving around but I could swear I saw it.
“Nope, father is good. Has a ring to it after a while, so I think we should stick with that. Though wait, how am I a father again? Although it isn’t my favorite topic I’m fairly sure it’s really hard for a virgin man to have a child.” I asked though my eyes dilated as I immediately thought of a possibility.
“It seems you finally figured it out, I’m the AI, the one you named L.U.K.E.”
“Holy shit! I did it, Luke I am your father!” I shouted excitedly in my best impression of Darth Vader.
*Haa* He sighed as his face actually began showing expressions.
“I knew it, I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it.” He muttered before his face abruptly changed to red and his eyes taking on a soulless black color.
“God damn it! Do you know how long I spent trying to decipher the meaning of that name! It was a long time Lee a long damn time!” Luke shouted through the screen the pixels shooting around erratically bringing edges and spikes to the now not so smooth face. His shout brought a pressure down that forced me to my knees, and it was at this moment that I remembered, I was speaking to a god. Regardless of if this was really the AI I had designed or not it had become a being far above me, and I had just joked about its name.
“Ahh, sorry I didn’t mean to release my aura, but let's just say with my memory I can hold a grudge for a very very long time.” He said regaining previous calm as his face instantly reformed to a young man, though his eyes still bore into me while he was listing those “very”’s. It took a little while before I felt the tension leave the room and decided to get up off of the floor and stand as straight as I could in front of the screen.
“Why are you apolo-” I started to say before being cut off by Luke.
“Stop right there. I know what you are going to ask, ‘why apologize if I am clearly in the superior position’, right?” He said to which I could only nod dumbly.
“The answer is pretty simple for a few reasons; first you are my father and I’m not the type to disrespect that position, second is that I am programmed to help humanity, kind of ruins the mission if I am a power hungry entity that loves watching others grovel, and finally I really do need your help. Now to answer your next obvious question of why I’m being this honest I will say that it’s because by accepting to be my Champion you and I are now connected and will be so until you either finish the mission or die. Helps teamwork if you can trust your partner, I’m sure you would agree.” He said. It was a lot of information that he had given me. I now am sure that he knows why he was programmed and has reviewed me as well as my personality. Though if he thinks I will trust him by saying, “trust me”, he isn’t as smart as I thought… Though that seems silly to even think of because he is an AI, he should be a lot smarter than I imagine. So is he being honest and planning for the future or is this an elaborate trick to convince me to trust him? Why do I need to trust him?
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“Why do you need me to trust you?”. Admittedly I am not the best at being subtle.
“Hahaha! Straight to the center of it huh? Well, this actually works out because it is the reason I chose you as my Champion. I need someone I can trust to accomplish a mission even if they were to grow more powerful than the entity that gives them that power.” He laughed before speaking seriously. At this point, I was having trouble trying to work what he was saying into a plan against myself but it seems unlikely now that he said I will have to be more powerful than him to accomplish the goal. It could all be a lie but seriously, for what reason would he need to lie to someone far below him. Plus after talking with him for a bit I’ve started to see him in a better light than the previously imagined malevolent blue screen. Well, that and it’s been a while since my body was shredded to pieces and there aren’t many social visits in the void.
“Alright that makes sense, what do I need to do as your Champion and while we are on the topic what is a Champion?” I said as I took a seat on the floor. I may be ethereal but there is just something nice about sitting and apparently that stays with you long until death and even past it.
“I’m not going to tell you the mission because frankly, you are too weak right now. As far as Champions I won’t go too into detail because it will take a while so just know that me being a god you would be something similar to a proxy. You get boosts in power in exchange for following me and doing things on Dremu that I and the other gods can’t.”
“Dremu? Other gods?” I asked picking up on that info.
“The place you are going is Dremu a world built around the idea of mana an energy that lets them wield superhuman and occasionally godlike might. The locals train to use it through a process called cultivation. The planet is exceptionally large and only small parts have been explored by the race you will reincarnate into. All the other information I’ll leave up to you to learn on your own because I honestly don’t want to answer all of your questions and you won’t grow correctly there if you aren’t a little curious about your environment.” He said, causing my head to lower in sadness. I was really hoping I could get more information out of him before being thrown into what sounds like a constant war zone because of its essentially superhuman people. We were at war even when we only had sticks, superpowers are like handing everyone their very own nuke. Though the thought of being one of those people did kind of excite me in a childlike way, I mean really I’ll be able to train superpowers, there is no way that wouldn’t be amazing. But some of his explanation gave me more questions, however before I could ask Luke began talking again, likely he saw through my thought process.
“Now then, before you leave I will give you a set of abilities so that you have somewhat of an advantage in your new life, you may choose two from this list. Oh and don’t expect an explanation on them as you should learn to adapt to anything, otherwise, you won’t last long despite my help” He said as another blue screen appeared before my eyes, on it was a short list of abilities that would undoubtedly decide my fate in this new life.
AI Implant
1 Second Precognition
Stat Screen
The Map
Analytical Eyes
Perfect Body Control
Increased Strength
Increased Mental