An Arcade Game 3

Even in his shadow form, he was able to pull out a small metallic piece with a crystal stuck to it.

Now that he thought about it, it was odd. The crystal and the smart mind were huge, but it never bulged out of his pocket.

'Well, no matter.'

"Holo, focus in on me."

["You are about to quit. Save progress?"]

"Deny."

He didn't really do anything well. Besides making a bunch of trees, rocks, and grass float, all he did was read and learn.

The holographic view changed once again into him.

Trex looked at the hologram weirdly.

The view was real-time.

He could see a smoke form of himself holding the smart mind with his blue right hand.

With his left hand, he tapped on the hologram to select the smart mind.

[Error:404. No File Available.]

[Analyze now?]

Trex was pleasantly surprised.

Yes.

[Scanning complete.]

???

The moment Trex confirmed, the scanning finished.

'How did that even work?'

With a tap, the updated window of the smart mind appeared.

[Trex Stefri]

[Race: Chede (Crystal Shade Race)]

[Age: 11 Days]

[Aliases: Marko Rhemi, True Owner of the Arcade Realm]

[Description: The living spirit of a mana crystal. Currently stuck to a smart mind and possessing Marko Rhemi's body. Due to the Vygdrasil's connection to Trex, his memories are archived in the realm's database. Once a body is stopped being possessed, a character fruit can be initialized.]

[Smart Mind (Unable to list specifics)]

[Description: A piece of technology from another universe. Able to interact with brain waves…]

[Duplication: Unknown amount of mana required.]

"Seriously, it hasn't been a day!" Trex screamed as he had another shock.

"I'm a what?!" he continued.

No words can describe how mentally and emotionally fatigued Trex is currently. Revelations after revelations, there was just no time to breathe.

"No!" he screamed. "Enough of this, so what if I am" he added.

"Vygdrasil, are you sentient?"

["No, if compared to you or the current smart mind, I am only at the level before you were transported into this world."]

"Can you replace the operating system in this smart mind with you?"

"No."

"If I duplicate this, would you also duplicate the sentient operating system?"

"Not necessarily."

"Explain."

"The duplication process is just recreating the materials with mana. According to database, mana is the universal material, it can be used to create fire, to freeze liquids or to evaporate solids."

"If that is so, where does the mana come from?"

The holographic view in front of Trex suddenly changed. On the very top of the Vygdrasil tree is one lone light. This light had always been there since he first entered the world but was out of sight for most of the time.

"Since mana is a universal material, Jonathan created a battery for it. With the last universe's literature, he called this the philosopher's cell."

"Shouldn't that be a stone or something?"

"This is the only active cell in the entire Vygdrasil tree. Not to mention, it's also a battery cell."

"I'm not asking for the reason, I was just… teasing?" his voice faltered in the end.

Vygdrasil did not respond to him at all. But if Trex was able to see his description now within Vygdrasil's database, a new line had been added. Personality: Unstable.

Trex was completely unaware of this, nor was he aware of how unstable he had been ever since he woke up.

In the midst of his confusion, Vygdrasil spoke again.

"Master, if you ever find more souls, do not consume their memories or their personalities," Vygdrasil's mechanical voice reverberated. Solemnity in his words was almost tangible to Trex.

"Why?"

["I lack the professional license and algorithm to provide specific reasons why."]

"Just explain it."

[Request forcefully denied by the first law of robotics.]

Trex stopped his nagging.

"Fuck, the curse of robotics," he muttered. Trex froze. "What did I just say?"

["You said the f word, master."]

"Can you say it?"

["Safety is on, the system is not allowed to speak profanities and the entire banned list.]

"Ugh, never mind that. I'll keep your advice to mind," Trex spoke.

["Thank you master."]

"Where were we?"

["The philosopher's cell. Currently, there's no way to look for its charge limit."

"Do we have a unit for mana now?"

["None, sir. Spellworm did not have that kind of information."]

"Then, without the OS, just the hardware. How much mana does it need to duplicate the smart mind?"

["It takes about… 1% of the current mana that the tree has."]

"Compared to the mana in my body, how much mana does the cell has?""

["It would take 420% of your maximum mana to duplicate the hardware."]

"Then, let's do it this way. A unit of mana is equivalent to the total of mana needed to duplicate the smart mind."

[Settings adjusted, save changes?]

"Confirm."

"Since the smart mind won't have OS, can you create a GUI operating system for the manufactured smart mind?"

["Yes, I am able to restructure myself. Regardless of area, that smart mind would be able to connect to my network."]

Trex cracked open a smile; that was unexpectedly a piece of good news for one.

"That's great, create one for me right now."

[Orders confirmed.]

In the holographic view, the entire tree of Vygdrasil glowed for a second before going back to normal.

[Task completed. Item 'Smart Mind' placed in admin inventory.]

[Note: A duplicated item from the arcane universe gets a different set of a unique identifier (UID), but every duplicated item has the same tag, which is based on the original item.]

As soon as he read the message, Trex extracted the smart mind from his inventory.

This time, the smart mind lacked the insignia and the crystal.

"Is this really functional?"

["Not yet. Please go to the throne console. This holoroom is only for things that involves the arcade realm. You need to set up everything from the throne before it could work."]

"Alright, transfer me back."

Just like that, Trex's vision shifted again.

——

Sitting on his throne, Trex opened his eyes again.

The number of instant movements he'd been doing would've caused a regular human to collapse. This was why most VR games use a portal system. And if skills like 'blink' or 'flash' exist, it was consistently rated as extremely difficult.

But Trex isn't a regular human. In fact, he's not even human. This is why he never really noticed.

This time was different.

The moment light entered Trex's eyes, an intense headache smashed his head, leaving him completely weak on his throne.

'ARGH,' he screamed.

"What's happening, why am I in pain?"

No one replied to him. The system of Vygradsil only exists inside the holoroom within the throne. The pain continuously ravaged Trex's head.

Gripping the throne's armrest, he tried to get up only to fall back.

It actually felt like his head was being put in a hydraulic press. But as much as he wanted his head to just explode now, it was resisting so well it left him in extreme pain.

It didn't take long for Trex to lose consciousness.