Chapter 52: 51. The Legion

‘Loki’ did something that made me lose consciousness, and I woke up feeling terrible nausea.

I opened my eyes, and I found myself submerged in a sticky substance.

Oh fuck, at least I am awake for real this time.

A system screen appeared in front of me.

- Host Jason Stubbs learned adequate information about [The Reign of The Uppers].

 

- ??? fulfilled a certain clause of his Personal Blessing!

 

I tried to read what the windows said, but I couldn’t concentrate at all.

I felt feeble as if I had been starving for weeks.

Moreover, some sticky substance managed to get into my nostrils when I tried to breathe.

I might suffocate at this rate…

I tried to untie my seatbelts, but I couldn’t find the buckle. I thrashed around, and I kept doing so for quite a while.

Suddenly, the liquid’s level around me started decreasing; it was being re-absorbed back into the pod’s inner walls.

I took a deep breath and wiped the viscous liquid off my face using my hands.

The upper hemisphere of the device parted into two portions, and I saw ‘Loki’ staring at me from the outside.

“Rise and shine, kid. It’s morning!” he said.

He snapped his fingers once, and the seatbelts untied automatically. I got up from my seat and walked out of the pod. I massaged my neck and cleaned the sticky substance that remained on my skin to the best of my abilities.

‘Loki’ chuckled and clapped his hands once. The sticky liquid disappeared from my skin, and I no longer felt nauseous.

I mumbled a ‘Thanks’ and kept walking to go back to the previous room that we had been inside.

My mysterious friend followed me at a brisk pace, then he said “It was a wild ride, wasn’t it?”

The events that I witnessed had a deep effect on me, and I still remembered a great portion of Johannes’s memories.

“Why is it that I remember too many of Johannes’s memories? Even the ones that I didn’t witness directly,” I asked.

The events of Johannes’s life seemed too vivid, and I was sure that I could recall most of his life if I tried hard enough.

“Well, that’s a drawback of using the Cerebral Resonance Connector. A copy of Johannes’s memories had been implanted into your brain, and that’s the only way to achieve the necessary resonance for the device to do its work. You’ll feel confused for a little while,” he replied, “It’s a good reason why this device is no longer available to the public. In addition to the fact that it prevents the host from breathing when the machine is running.”

“Woah! So, I could’ve died due to suffocation!” I shouted.

“Well, you’re still alive so there’s that,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders, “The device could’ve fried your brain too! But don’t worry, remember that you’re way stronger than a regular human.”

I gave ‘Loki’ a piercing gaze, but he didn’t even make eye contact with me.

This guy flabbergasted me and I wasn’t sure whether trusting him any further was a good choice or not.

He kept walking till he reached the center of the first room. He sat on the ground, a black marker appeared in his left hand.

What now? Is he going to give me a drawing lesson?

He started by drawing a large perfect circle with a radius of about one meter, then he drew a pentagram inside it.

He wrote many bizarre symbols around the circle and inside the pentagram, then a small transparent bottle and a brush appeared in his hand out of nowhere.

The bottle contained red liquid, and it gave off a strong metallic stench once he opened it.

Fucking hell! Now, he’s going to use blood instead of ink.

He dipped the brush inside the bottle, then drew a larger circle around the first one. He nodded when he was done, then he put away the items that he used to draw this masterpiece.

All of a sudden, he began speaking in a weird language as he touched the perimeters of the outer circle.

The drawing on the ground started glowing with crimson light, and it got brighter the more he spoke.

I had a guess about what he was trying to do, but I hoped that it wasn’t the case.

“Alright, I’m finally done,” he said as he dusted off his hands, “Come here, Jason. I need you to lay on top of this cute drawing.”

Shit.

“No, there is no way for that to happen,” I said as I shook my head to indicate my refusal, “This looks like a ritual to summon an Eldritch creature, and you’re asking me to stand on top of it?”

“Actually, that wasn’t a bad guess,” he said as he put his hand under his chin, “It’s a bit complicated, but the goal of this ritual is to disconnect you from the system temporarily and to forcefully establish a link between your latent ability and your record identifier.”

I didn’t know what a record identifier was, but I knew that this ritual was dangerous.

I was convinced that I would die the moment I stepped on top of that circle, it was self-evident.

“Can’t you disconnect me from the system using some kind of admin privileges?” I spoke.

He smirked and said that it didn’t work that way.

Left with no choice, I walked toward the Eldritch Summoning Array.

I stepped on top of it, and nothing happened. I realized that I was being overly dramatic earlier, and my anxiety disappeared.

Maybe this process will be soothing and comfortable.

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Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain surging throughout my whole body, especially my head.

I tried to get up, but I was paralyzed from head to toe.

I regret accepting this guy’s blessing.

Then, I lost consciousness.

I woke up to the noise of many people talking to one another, and they stopped speaking all of a sudden. I was looking at everything from above as if I was floating.

I took a look at my limbs, and they were translucent. My whole body was ethereal, just like the time when I met the cloaked figures during my first class evolution.

Wait a minute, I remember going through something like this…

The memories were jumbled up before, but everything was clear now. I remembered what happened after the Primordial’s attack rendered me unconscious.

If not for this ability of mine, I would’ve died back then.

I scanned my surroundings, and it was just like the previous time. There were many people, and each one of them had the same face as mine. Even their clothes were the same as the ones that I’d been wearing by the time ‘Loki’ forced me to go through the weird ritual.

I was about to introduce myself, but one of the ‘Jasons’ beat me to it.

“Oh! ‘Main Jason’ is here,” he said with a cheerful tone of voice, “Let’s give him a round of applause.”

Suddenly, everyone started applauding. I tried to count the number of people, but the lighting in this place was insufficient for me to make a good estimation.

There are more than a hundred ‘Jasons’ here at the very least.

“Does anyone here know where we are?” I said without much optimism, “Also, how is it possible for everyone here to look just like me? Are you Alter Egos of mine? Or some kind of imagination that my mind conjured?”

I asked too many questions, and I didn’t expect them to be answered.

However, their reactions startled me.

“We’re you,” blurted a certain Jason.

“And You’re every one of us,” said another.

“However, we’re not exact copies of one another,” added another Jason.

“Yeah… Our experiences differ somewhat,” mumbled Jason, “But we’re still the same, at least deep down.”

Then, one of the Jasons got up and he spoke loudly.

“For example, I am Jason Stubbs. I was born in a world that had a system for more than three thousand years, and I have an Epic class,” he said, “I was nurtured by my family to become a strong expert, and that’s what I am.”

“As for me, I’m from an Earth that has no ‘system’, and I don’t even understand what that’s supposed to mean,” another one mumbled, “I was a diligent student, and I managed to enter medical school. Now, I am a famous Neurosurgeon and I participated in discovering a cure for Rabies!”

Suddenly, one of my little friends got up from his seat and started shouting.

“Aye, How the hell did you do that bro? I am still in my first year of medical school!” he said.

“Bruh, I am still in high school.” Blurted another Jason.

The situation was getting out of control, and the chaos was too much. These people spoke randomly, and their conversations weren’t productive at all.

“Alright, Everyone,” I said, “Shut the fuck up for a minute! I have an important question to ask.”

I tried thinking of a suitable question, but nothing specific came up. Nonetheless, there was a single question that I felt compelled to ask.

What the hell is going on here?

*

This is weird…

Jason went through the ritual, and it was successful.

However, I can no longer read his thoughts. I even tried to increase the efficiency of my mind reading abilities through direct contact with his head, but it didn’t work.

His mind seemed completely blank to me; I found it eerily similar to a dead man’s mind.

I wonder if he could still think when he’s using the Latent Ability? Or if his ability makes his mind invulnerable?

I’ve never seen a mortal able to hide his thoughts away from me, so this made Jason even more interesting.

What was even more exciting was the nature of his latent ability. It was true that I couldn’t scan his thoughts in real time, but I could still see the flow of mana into his body and out of it.

At first, I thought that his latent ability was either a psychic one or a mental one, but I was wrong.

I didn’t have a mirror, but I knew myself well enough to guess my current facial expression.

It’s that ugly grin once more; the one that appeared on my face once I discovered something intriguing.

Everything was clearer now, and I had a good guess for the reason why I sent Jason back in time.

#

Special shoutout to:

chris

Water Dragon

GenericKane

Bladesunder

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