"I think this resembles a VR game," I said, my voice grounding her in the reality of the moment. "Have you ever played one before?"
Isabella's face instantly flushed with a sharp, defensive embarrassment. She was the type of person who viewed ignorance as a personal failure, a woman who had likely never walked into a room she didn't already dominate intellectually. "I... I've focused on my studies. I don't have time for toys."
"Don't worry," I said, reaching out to pat her shoulder. The touch was firm, meant to steady her. "I believe you'll adapt just fine. Let's check the system they gave us and see what features we have."
"Uhm," she nodded, her brow furrowing as she looked into the middle distance. "How can we activate it?"
I didn't answer immediately. I closed my eyes, letting the phantom interface hum in the back of my mind before opening them. "You just need to think about it. Focus on the word 'System' or 'Status,' and a window will appear."
I played the part of the talented novice perfectly. I was born with a system in my previous life; asking me how to open it was like asking a fish how to swim.
Open system.
The command was like breathing. The golden-tinted window flickered into existence, hovering over the smouldering remains of a hyena carcass.
[System of human: Hye][Status: Activated][Grade: 1][Available features: Quests, Inventory, Skills, Upgrade, Shop, Profile, Contact]
It was the basic, bare-bones architecture I remembered. In my past life, my system had eventually reached Grade 2—a pathetic, mid-tier rank that offered little more than standard combat data. This was the starting line. However, before I could dive into the sub-menus, a second window—a jarring, crimson-bordered notification—slammed into my view.
[Detecting anomalies in human: Hye...][Adjusting features now...][Adjustment is completed.]
"What the hell..." The words slipped out before I could stop them. My heart hammered against my ribs. Anomalies? Was the System detecting my time-travelling soul? Was I about to be deleted as a glitch?
"Everything is okay?" Isabella asked. She didn't look up; she was totally absorbed in her own window, her fingers twitching as she navigated invisible menus.
"Yeah," I lied, my voice steady despite the cold sweat prickling my neck. "Just surprised to see all these options. It's a lot to take in."
I focused back on my screen. Open system.
[System of human: Hye][Status: Activated][Grade: 1][Available features: Quests, Inventory, Skills, Upgrade, Shop, Profile, Contact... Memory Beads]
My breath hitched. Memory Beads. That single addition felt like a physical weight in my chest. I knew those beads. They were the artefacts the "crazy" old man had been obsessed over.
Open Memory Beads.
[Memory Beads: Exclusive Celestial Item][Bound to the soul of human: Hye][Privacy Lock: Active (Cannot be spied on, lost, or traded)][Activation Cost: Coins. (Note: One pre-paid usage available.)][Do you want to use the prepaid activation now?]
I walked a few paces away from Isabella, seeking the privacy of the deepening shadows near the dugout. The memory of the beads I once possessed was vivid—they had played recordings in a voice so loud they could be heard across a room. If this was a direct tether to my past, I couldn't risk the group hearing it.
Use it.
A voice crackled to life, but it didn't come from the air. It resonated directly inside my skull, vibrating through my jawbone.
'Hey, Hye. I'm sure by the time you receive this message, you've cleared the first part of the first quest. By now, you must have realised everything. You've been sent back in time—ninety-nine years, to be exact—to live through the apocalypse again...'
It was him. The old man. Hearing that raspy, jagged voice made the last years of my life feel like it had happened only yesterday. I reflexively looked back at the group, but they were still entranced by their own glowing screens.
'Don't worry about anyone hearing me,' the voice continued, as if sensing my paranoia. 'I made sure these beads are bound to your soul-system. Not even those dirty fallen angels or the "gods" watching from above can hear this. I've recorded the secrets I couldn't tell you back then, plus the logs you recorded yourself. They are all here. But I must stress one secret that even you didn't know...'
The recording continued for a few more minutes, laying out a series of truths so profound they made my knees feel weak. When the audio finally cut out, I was left standing in the dark, my mind reeling.
"Damn! So that's how they managed to survive so far!" I mumbled.
Open recording list.
[Access Fee: 1,000 Coins. Please confirm.]
"Sh*t!" I hissed. One thousand coins just to view the titles of the recordings? In this early stage, that was a small fortune. If it cost a thousand just to look, what would it cost to listen? Ten thousand? Fifty?
I had to put the beads aside for now. I had no money, and I had a more pressing concern: my own survival. I needed to see what the System had done to my body.
Open profile.
[Profile initialisation complete. Assessing attributes...][Name: Hye][Race: Human][Rank: Level 1][Titles: The One to Break the Shadow][Attributes: Time-Refined Physique (Celestial Grade) / Rebellious Soul (God Grade)][Stats: Strength: 10 / Intelligence: 10 / Stamina: 10 / Defense: 10 / Speed: 10][Skills: None]
"What the hell is that?" I stared at the screen, my eyes widening.
My stats were perfectly balanced at 10, which was unheard of for a Level 1 initiate. Usually, a human would start with a 3 or 4 in their weakest areas. But it wasn't just the attributes that stopped my heart.
Celestial Grade.God Grade. In my past life, I had never even heard of these rankings. Human attributes were graded like the rest of the world: Common, Rare, Special, Unique. Above those lay the realms of the legends—Immortal, Earth, and Heaven. My old attribute had been a pathetic Hunger for Success (Common). It was a joke, a minor buff to stamina when hungry.
But Celestial and God grade?
"The beads were celestial... and these attributes..." I whispered. I tried to click on the details, desperate to know what a "Time-Refined Physique" actually did.
[Error: Grade insufficient to view details. Higher level or specific Appraisal Skill required.]
"Damn it!" I clenched my fists. Even my own soul was locked behind a paywall. Still, I knew this was an incredible start. I was no longer a commoner; I was an anomaly.
However, the "Great Reset" of the System integration had only healed my body; it hadn't given me equipment. I turned my attention to the final, most dangerous feature of the apocalypse: The Market.
The Market was where the real power was brokered. It was a trans-dimensional auction house where you could buy anything from a rusty knife to a potion of immortality—provided you had the coins.
Open Market.
A scroll of items appeared. My face went pale as I scrolled through the prices. A basic iron sword—trash that would break after twenty kills—was 500 coins. A low-tier health potion was 300.
I checked my balance.
[Current Balance: 3,900 Coins]
"Only three thousand?" I felt a surge of genuine shame. I had killed dozens of monsters, had successfully navigated a localised inferno, and I only had enough for a few decent items. In the later years, three thousand coins wouldn't buy a loaf of bread, but right now, it was the difference between life and death.
I looked at the monsters I had slain—the scorched hyena carcasses littering the field.
"If you're going to be stingy with the kill-rewards," I muttered, a cold light entering my eyes, "then I'll have to do this the hard way."
I needed five thousand coins before the next stage started!
I looked at my metallic baseball club, then at the dead monsters. Every monster had a core—a small, crystalline fragment of dark energy. At this low level, most people didn't bother with them because they were small and hard to extract. But the Market would buy them.
"It's time to hunt cores," I said.
I would dig through the blood and filth of a hundred hyenas if I had to. I would sell their souls, their teeth, and their very hides to the trans-dimensional merchants. I had one hour before the next quest began, and I wasn't going into that fight with an empty inventory.