[ Awakening works the same way as before. Professions technically exist as well, but they're mostly just labels people give. However, now that I have the money to access the internet, there are no records of Grand Pantheon being merged with this world. My own existence isn't even on the timeline! And I was alive for a millennium! ]
"What the fu—?"
Kaymelin slapped himself before he could finish his sentence. He had made a promise long ago to a lover he once had. No profanity. He had to speak and think like a proper academic... Whatever that was.
He himself knew that academics swore a lot. With how much stress they had? It was inevitable.
Nonetheless, that promise still mattered to him.
Kaymelin thus continued to write. He wrote of his observations and only his observations, making sure that not a single assumption appeared in his notes. He went through the days he had spent here, not missing a single detail.
He spent an entire day on this, hiding within the corner of a discreet and sketchy bar, too cautious of the fact that he would be discovered by some unknown variable.
When he was done, he put down the pen.
Yet just as he did, a chime rang in his ear.
Ding—!
And a screen appeared in front of his face.
[]=[]=[]=[]=[]=[]
! NEW SKILL UNLOCKED !
Skill: Countdown of Inevitability (Profession: ???)
Level: N/A
Cooldown: N/A (Passive)
Description: Shows the wielder a countdown for significant events in their surroundings.
Experience: N/A
------
207 Years : 1 Month : 22 Days : 18 Hours : 34 Minutes : 11 Seconds
Event: Universal Digitisation
------
2 Months : 4 Days : 2 Hours : 17 Minutes : 2 Seconds
Event: Spacial Fractures (Monster Gates)
------
3 Hours : 54 Minutes : 39 Seconds
Event: Monster Emergence
[]=[]=[]=[]=[]=[]
"...What kind of Skill is this? And what kind of conditions have I just met?"
At this point, despite his vast experience after more than a thousand years of life in the past, he was genuinely surprised. Probability was either skewed immensely towards his favour, or this 'system' of his had ties with certain strings of Fate.
Although Kaymelin was not well versed in the Laws of Fate, he was definitely leaning towards the latter possibility—
"Gah!"
There he was again, making assumptions. The more assumptions he made, the more likely he would be led astray.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Kaymelin ordered a beer. He had to calm his nerves. Using his bio-masking suit, he had already altered his appearance to look like any other middle-aged drunkard on the side of the road. He even stank the same way. The suit had to be able to do this at the very least.
Thus, he felt a bit consoled. Leon wouldn't be able to find him anytime soon.
Staring at the screen, Kaymelin sighed. He looked over the bar and saw the man standing behind it, going about his business.
"Why'a looking at me, ya old fellow? What's bothering ya?" The bartender spoke. From the man's name tag, Kaymelin saw that he was a man name Lefrad.
"Hello, Lefrad," Kaymelin spoke with a groggy bellow. "What would you do if the world was just about to change drastically in a few hours?"
Lefrad raised a brow.
"I would prepare a weapon or two. Maybe crack a bottle in a half and use it like a knife, just in case."
Kaymelin chuckled. "Perhaps I would do the same."
"Great. Same page. Though you speak quite formally, don'tcha? What are ya, a CEO or something?" Lefrad handed Kaymelin his glass of beer. A sly smile was on the bartender's face.
The latter accepted it without care for the man's expression, saying, "I wish I was. I have money, but it's gonna go to be useless in a bit."
Kaymelin glanced at the timer again.
[ 3 Hours : 53 Minutes : 44 Seconds ]
He then downed the entire glass of beer. Although his plans had been thrown off-course for a moment, it wasn't that hard to mend his obvious oversight. Just like he had done millions upon millions of times before, it was time to make a revision.
He had indulged in his human emotions enough by wallowing in his imperfection.
"Well then," Kaymelin stood up and scanned the QR Code on the counter to pay for his drinks. "I need to get back to work. Thanks for the beer. It's better than a lot of the beer I have sampled in the past."
Coming from Kaymelin, that said a lot.
***
4.8 billion base credits was easy for Kaymelin to spend. Especially since he was doing his best to avoid being tracked down.
For every second that passed, he spent millions of credits.
He was making purchases left and right with at least eighteen different devices and a couple hundred accounts. He controlled the entire system with an AI he had hurriedly built and programmed. Thus, it looked as if it was a large corporation making the deals, and not a simple individual.
In fact, after programming the AI, Kaymelin didn't make any purchases himself anymore. He trusted the AI completely.
The reason why he was so busy was because of all the cyberattacks coming his way.
"Which God of computers decided to send their entire following after me? I'm getting bombarded with data bombs every microsecond!" Even the Demon Researcher himself couldn't help but exclaim.
The hackers of this era and this world were much more terrifying than the ones he had during his time. Just because his 'organisation' popped out of nowhere, it had already piqued their malicious interests. However, Kaymelin was learning a lot more than he was losing. With every intricately thought-out virus came a lesson. Every ghost packet, every digital EMP, every ancient trojan — all of them brought about inspiration.
Kaymelin was learning something new, and he was addicted to its reverie.
***
At a certain foreign continent...
An entire building lost its electricity.
"...That bastard outsmarted me," A scientist in a lab coat raised his brows in surprise. "What kind of defence system was that? Alpha, Omega, status report please. How did you fail?"
Two fist-sized cubes flew over in the dim chemical lighting.
"Here is a log of our encounter, Professor."
***
In an old basement filled with different gadgets all piled up in chaotic order...
A group of youths cheered.
"It worked!"
They jumped in joy...
But then the lights flickered and suddenly went out. Only their watches were left alive.
A single word had appeared on their holographic screens.
"No."
***
In a maximum security facility, a prisoner was brought out to have a look at a screen filled with text that constantly shifted and scrolled.
He stared at it for a few minutes and his eyes swiftly turned bloodshot.
"...Don't mess with whoever made this. It's a peaceful program, but it can easily turn insidious if you rub them off the wrong way. In fact, the method to do so is hidden in here." The prisoner said after a few extra glances.
"You think so too? Is it that bad?" An old man standing at the side rubbed his balding head. "To think that we would be stumped by a program written in the language we created."
The prisoner glanced at his old friend.
"Times have changed, and will continue changing. Perhaps this is the end of a neuro-oriented programming language."
Suddenly, his eyes flashed. The prisoner tried to point at something on the screen, but it swiftly shifted out of his sight.
"Three lines! Just three lines of such ingenuity has given me an idea!" He said.
The old man had seen it too. His eyes were glistening.
"Our theories were correct, then. It is truly possible to create an inorganic-composite-chemical-neural-network!"
Or what basically amounted to a high-speed-expanding network of quantum dust clouds that could expand itself like Physarum polycephalum.
The old man seemed to revert to his child-like form. He then began an in-depth discussion with the prisoner beside him as they watched the ever-changing program fly past their eyes.
Meanwhile, the guard at the side could only stare. What she heard was jargon upon jargon upon jargon. Her brain had long short-circuited.
'This is most certainly not my field of expertise,'
She couldn't help but sulk.