I walked up and stabbed my finger into her chest. “You better believe it.” She didn’t flinch or move backwards, as it felt like I was poking a wall. “Last time we had a chance to talk, you distracted me by getting me to walk and run. Now, you will answer my questions. Starting with: why did I just pass out?”
Orange nodded and held up a finger. “That is easy. Your brain was overloaded with endorphins in a similar reaction to a sexual climax.”
My face instantly went flush. “But I didn’t, right?”
My doppelgänger shook her head. “No. Your brain simply created the same chemical reaction. But you have questions. Is there a place you wish to speak, or are you satisfied with an empty background to avoid distractions?”
I rubbed the back of my head. “I guess all this white is a little boring. Someplace small and quiet would be fine.”
With a nod, Orange snapped her fingers. With massive swaths of color, the world went from infinitely white into a small coffee shop I recognized from Earth. The small business only ever had ten tables available, but they always had a line out the door. The owners were a pair of Asian twins who made the best scones.
Orange invited me to join her in one booth as she sat down. “Is this acceptable?”
Through the wave of nostalgia, I nodded. “Yeah, but it would be better if we had a couple of their cinnamon scones.” As the words left my mouth, a plate with a cinnamon scone appeared in front of me, along with a small cup of honey and a spoon. I chuckled. “This whole reading of my mind comes in handy. It’s creepy, but handy sometimes.”
“We do not read your mind. We merely anticipate based on all collected information.” Orange waved her hand, and a ceramic mug filled with tea appeared next to the scone. “While these constructs serve no dietary purpose or provide energy, we can create them based on your memories.”
Aw. I picked off a piece of the warm and crumbly scone and dabbed a small bit of honey on it before eating it. At least they got the taste right.
“We are glad you approve.” My orange-haired double extended a hand. “Is there a particular question you wish to begin with?”
I swallowed another tasty bite. “Let’s start with what exactly you know. You knew about the system and told me about it, but you have left out some details, like the whole if I increased my quickness, the world around me would slow down because my brain is faster too. If I keep leveling up my quickness, which is over four hundred now, shouldn’t that be more noticeable by now?”
“While your quickness is high compared to the rest of your stats, you are not utilizing your entire quickness stat. To do that, you must train your brain to work at such a speed.” Orange tapped her finger on the table. “With Shadara’s magic, you experienced a fraction of what you are capable of. By our estimations, you perform only at twenty-five percent of your potential.”
“So what you’re saying is I’m fast, but I could be faster even without putting another point in quickness.” I took a sip of the tea. This tastes just like the tea Mr. Black gave me.
She nodded. “Correct.”
I paused to take another bite. “So, am I only acting like I have one hundred quickness? Will I really get four times faster?”
“Apologies.” Orange held up her hand. “We were talking about your mental acuity. Your muscle augments bypassed all training required to move them at their maximum capacity. It is your mind that requires training now.”
I took a deep breath. "Then, if my mind speeds up to ‘maximum capacity’, what will that look like for me?”
“The world around you will slow down, granting you a perception of eight seconds per second that passes.” My eyes went wide at her comment. “However, we would encourage you in saying you already operate at a two-to-one ratio at this moment.”
I shook my head. “Two-to-one? But then everyone seems to be moving fine. Yeah, things are a little slower than I’m used to, but it isn’t that bad, is it?”
Orange swept a hand at the rest of the small cafe. A collection of random people filled the place out. Each one was performing the usual tasks of ordering coffee and confectionaries, while a cacophony of conversations filled the air. But as I watched everyone, they seemed to be moving slower than I remembered.
“This is how much you’ve improved since arriving in the Soul Nexus.” She waved her hand again.
Everyone slowed down to a painstakingly slow crawl. The words people were saying were still understandable before, but now they drew every syllable out so long that I couldn’t understand them anymore. I watched the clock over the door. The second hand wasn’t moving. It stayed there for a while and then clicked over to the next second.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“This is a simulation of what you are capable of compared to the standards of average humans on Earth.” Orange waved her hand again, as if to wipe away the crowd. The small crowd blew apart like grains of sand in the wind. “It will feel less noticeable in the Soul Nexus because others are subjected to the same system as you. As they increase their quickness, their minds will increase in acuity. You have increased your quickness far too much in too short of a time to acclimate appropriately.”
I enjoyed another bite of the pastry. It tasted too good not to eat, despite it being meaningless. “So, more training when I sleep.”
“Correct.”
I hung my head and let out a sigh. Fantastic. “Fine. On to the next question: since manipulating mana might be necessary on this floor, is it possible for me to learn magic? Shadara said I should be able to.”
“Shadara is correct.” Orange spread her hands shoulder-width apart and created an image of the depleted mana battery I found in the dungeon on the third floor. “If you focus on your mana whenever you shoot your gun, that will be the most efficient method to learn how to identify your mana.”
“But that doesn’t teach me magic.” I held out my hand.
A frown cracked on my doppelgänger’s lips. “The first step to utilizing magic is learning to control mana. Mana is a capable energy source that can take many forms and alter everything in countless ways as long as enough mana is applied.”
I leaned forward. “Mana is energy?” Orange nodded. “Does that mean you could convert mana into energy for me? You’ve already used my mana when you did the upgrade on my arms to speed it up.”
She shook her head. “We can’t. We can only absorb mana from our environment, which is only you, but at a limited rate. We used the mana to break down your biological muscles faster instead of absorbing them into new matter to create your synthetic muscles. It was extremely wasteful.” She poked the mana battery. “We can move mana around, but we cannot influence it to alter states. You will have to do that.”
With a heavy huff, I propped my head up on the table. “Could you teach me magic after I learn to manipulate mana?”
“We can research it when we interface with the access point.” With a soft clap, the little mana battery disappeared.
I pointed at my copy. “And about that. Wasn’t Gary on the second floor?”
Orange nodded. “Yes. Gary is the name for all the access points in the Soul Nexus. Each Gary is aware of the others on levels below them. However, there is no access point on the first floor. So you met the first Gary, and we will interface with the third Gary to study combat records and magic manuals.”
“So his desire to not be trapped in his body will be shared by all of them?” I took another bite of my scone.
“We can speculate, but it serves no purpose until we meet the Gary of this floor.” She shrugged. “You may simply ask when the time comes. Since the Gary of floor two is unaware of those on floors above it, its feeling of loneliness may have been stoked by Bark’s attempts to find a way to take it with him.”
“So how do you know about all the Garys? And I believe Gary said something about you having greater access than him." I ate the remaining piece of my dessert. So good, yet I feel so empty after eating it.
There was a hesitation in her voice as she shifted in her seat. “That we do not understand ourselves. We are aware of it, but do not have permission to know why.” She shifted even more as she lowered her hands below the table and stared at the table. “We were also hoping that interacting with more access points would help us understand our purpose—our true purpose.”
“It’s not helping me become the ‘ultimate life form’, as you put it?”
She shook her head. “As we understood it at the time, that is what we believed. But after interfacing with Gary, we learned there is more to us than even we know. Information that’s deliberately denied to us. So we would like to ask you to help us learn more about ourselves. Helping you is still our primary objective. As our host, we need you, so any effort to aid you in a way that aligns with your wishes, both short and long-term, will be given without question.”
“So, you want my help?” I stared at the AI as she made herself even smaller in her seat. “When were you planning on asking? Or were you just going to find any excuse to lead me to the other Gary’s so that you could do your research in secret? Were you ever going to tell me about this?”
Orange’s body physically shrank a few inches. “We apologize. We had theorized that, unless it became pertinent to you, nothing we learned would matter. You already wish to seek out the access points without us needing to manufacture a reason.” Her body shrank again. “If you wish us to not investigate, we will stop.”
“Keep investigating,” I said with a hand extended. Orange snapped to her original size and looked at me, surprised. “Honestly, now that you’ve told me, I’m curious too. You’ve been helpful, and honestly, someone I’ve kinda taken for granted.”
“We don’t understand.” Orange tilted her head.
“Yeah, I’ve not exactly been the nicest to you.” I lowered my head. “And I’ve been focused on my friends that I’ve made out in the world. But I’ve never thought of you as a, uh, real person. You said you were an artificial intelligence. You know that on Earth, those AI don’t have any of the emotions you have.”
I rubbed my hands together. “Seeing you make a scone for me because it would make me feel better even though it served no purpose—a robot wouldn’t do that. Sometimes you can be cold and calculated, but you also look out for my well-being. You take better care of me than it feels like I do myself. I can only see you as a person. A person who is stuck in my head, but let’s just add that to the weirdness of my entire existence.”
I extended a hand to her. “Since I am an artificial soul, why can’t I be friends with an artificial intelligence? If there is something you want, or need to tell me, don’t be afraid to. We’ll see if we can figure out your purpose while I try to find mine. Friends?”
Orange looked at my hand and then back at me. She stood up and grabbed my hand. “Friends.” After we shook hands, she started talking again. “That is all the time we have. Your other friend, she’s trying to wake you up.”
I took a deep breath. Right. Now I have some explaining to do. Everything went black, and I woke up still in the massage chair, but someone was nudging my shoulder.
“Rina. Hey Rina. Are you alright?” Shadara’s voice sounded slightly muffled.
I blinked as I turned my head. “Yeah, I, uh, just took a little nap. That’s all.”
The panther beast woman grinned. “You too?” She turned in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. “That was by far the best message I’ve ever had. So, how much are you going to explain to me?” She turned and gave me a wink.