“Please stand by”, said a robotic voice Felix already heard once. The frosted glass panel slid, and, after removing the plastic tube from his throat and the electrodes from his torso, he set a foot outside of the vertical capsule, fitted inside the wall.
Watching himself at the mirror, he found that he was a bit taller than before, and his arms and legs were larger. Even the room was different since the last time. A bubbling sound was coming from the middle, where steam rose from a small pool. Its fluorescent glow and the blinking lights of the buzzing cabinets along the walls were the only sources of light.
“Felix”, said a familiar voice, making him gasp. His lips had been closed for the whole time, but he was sure that it was his voice who spoke.
“Here!”. A dark shape of his height was reflected on a large glass slab protruding from the wall.
“Who the hell are you?”;
“Take a guess”;
“There’s no way you can be me”;
“Why not? You’ve already died many times, but you’re still here. Why can’t there be two copies of us at the same time?”.
Felix rubbed his eyes, but the shape didn't answer to his movement as a mirror would do. Things were getting even more absurd, but it could only be a program which imitated his voice.
“If you’re speaking the truth”, said Felix, “Then you should know something about me only I do, don’t you think?”;
“Let’s see”, he said, “What about the time you stole your father’s debit card to buy one-hundred dollars of gold in that VRMMO?”;
He shuddered, not knowing if he will ever forgive his twelve-year old self. “It doesn’t matter”, he said, “You could have extracted my memories during my sleep”;
“I could, but I didn’t need to. We are the clones of the same person, Felix, completely identical and different at the same time”;
“What do you mean?”. He was Felix, and nothing else.
“It’s easy, think about it. Has the original Felix ever seen a dragon? But you did, and has the person who died three days ago seen me?”;
“But who are you then?”. His fingers touched the cold metallic slab, but a jolt of electricity made him retract them.
“A different kind of you”, the same said, “You can call me Felix-AI. I do not have a real body, and I have been built only to help you to get stronger”;
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“Built by who?”;
“I cannot tell you because I do not know it”.
Felix narrowed his eyes on the shape. He was getting tired of things being kept away from him, “There’s something that must have happened during my past life that I don’t remember anymore”;
“I would like to know that myself”.
Felix sighed. He wanted to believe that he was himself and nobody else, but things were different now, and he was still far from the truth.
“I have installed the new HUD 3.0 inside you when I prepared your body”, said Felix-AI, “And I have even pumped it a bit to raise your stats”.
“That’s some good news you’re giving me”. Felix grinned and opened the main menu, as he already knew how to use it.
STATS SKILLS EQUIP. SETTINGS STORAGE
He opened the STATS menu:
Total Physical Stats Rank D+ Strength 110 Endurance 130 Agility 150 Perception 150 Constitution 100
This new body suited him better, but it wasn't anything special, as he was only a bit stronger than an average male of twenty-five years old. But there were other stats he had never seen before:
Total Magical Stats Rank N/A Intelligence N/A Willpower N/A Faith N/A
Overall Rank D HP 115 Regeneration Lv.0: 1%/10 min; only in Recovery Mode. MP N/A
He moved to the SETTINGS to see if anything had changed:
Overdrive mode Lv.1: +10 to all stats; +20% HP; Standard mode / Recovery mode Lv.1: -20 to all stats; -99% HP
It was pretty standard, so he moved to the SKILLS section:
Class Champion Lv.1 Active Skills
Boost Lv.1: +50 STH for 20 sec, Cooldown: 1 min; (Active)
Untouchable Lv.1: You gain +2 DMG to your weapon for each hit you land on your opponent without being hit. (Passive);
Perks Lv.1: +10 AGI/PER; + 5 END;
“What’s this magic thing?”;
“Sorry, but I have no contact with the outside world and no access to the source code of the system. Someone else will have to explain it to you”. He didn’t expect that nobody ever managed to reverse-engineer the system in five hundred years, but even in his past life it was one of the greatest secrets.
The system chose a new class for him this time, and that meant something, as it never acted on chance.He had been too weak and too scared before, pushed by forces he believed were much greater than him, and this was why Colin killed him. But now he understood that things could be different, and that he could be the force who pushed changes.
“I got everything wrong”, he said, “My only enemy is the bastard who locked me in cell for two weeks”. How could he have been so blind? He fought for the system he was meant to destroy.
“What will do you now?”;
“Doing what a real champion would do, destroying a tyranny and saving its people”. He'll do what Timur tried to, but failed because he was coward: he'll burn the arena down and the Young man with it.