Chapter 3. Second soul Remnant

He then equipped the monocle onto his right eye, immediately all kinds of indicators lit up. He saw a two-thirds full red bar at the left upper corner of his vision, and an almost empty yellow bar beneath it. Looking at the numbers, he deduced it was his HP bar and Stamina bar. He also saw a round radar-like interface in the right upper corner; several red dots appeared on it. The red dots were approaching the center of the radar.

While he was pondering what this signified, he heard noises. He turned and found several more zombies coming toward him. Comparing the positions of the red dots on his radar with the approaching zombies, he realized that the red dots represented them. And there were many more red dots approaching from within the building.

'I can't take them all on!' Jack thought.

He turned around, deciding to flee the building, but he halted when his newly equipped monocle began making pinging sounds. At the same time, his vision through the monocle showed a bright purple color enveloping an object on the floor. It was the round thing that had been dropped by the white cloth  guy. He saw text above the object.

*

Second soul Remnant (legendary consumable)

*

Legendary! He had read some basic introductory information for Second World and 'legendary' was the highest grade for items and equipment. Assuming this current world was following Second World's rules, this was a top-class item.

He picked up the round object and ran toward the exit. He tried to store the object into his storage bag, but heard a notification instead.

"Object is unable to be stored."

Huh? He was surprised by it, but he didn't stop running. He just kept holding the ball while running through the courtyard and out to the main street. It still appeared empty, but he saw some red dots on his radar. The closest one was to his left. He looked left and saw a zombie some distance away.

'God, these things are everywhere!'

The monocle beeped and some text appeared above the zombie.

*

Zombie (Basic monster, Undead)

Level 1

HP: 150

*

'This monocle could identify enemies. Great!' With this, he could manage to avoid stronger monsters. Good thing this zombie didn't seem to register his presence yet. Maybe he needed to enter their range of perception before he drew their aggro, just like standard mechanics in VR RPG game. So he moved away from the zombie. Using the radar to navigate, he finally found an area where there were no red dots on his radar. Just to make sure, he entered a bakery shop that was nearby, and locked the door.

He dropped heavily into a chair in the corner of the shop.  Trying to calm his nerves, he took several deep breaths. Everything had happened too fast, he hadn't had any chance to process all that had happened. Now that he had time to think, he still couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

He took out his cell phone and tried to make a call, but the phone wasn't responding. The monocle on his right eye scanned the phone and spit out some text.

*

Handphone (junk item)

Can sell to merchant for a small number of coins

*

'Junk?! Are you kidding me?'

He made a few more attempts with the phone. It just didn't work. There was power, but it was as if everything was blank inside. None of the app icons he pressed made any response. It really had become just a piece of junk.

'Ah, forget it!'

He put the phone back in his pocket; instead, the holographic storage box appeared with the phone inside it.

'Did I stumble into some kind of parallel world by some fluke chance? Or did I lose consciousness and someone plugged me into a VR world?' He pondered for some more time before giving up on trying to figure things out.

'Argh! No use. I will just have to deal with things as they are for now.'

He turned his attention back to the strange ball he was carrying. He held it up close to his eyes to get a better look at it.  The monocle started scanning the object. It made a beep sound and some text floated out above the ball.

*

Second soul Remnant (legendary consumable)

Cannot be stored

Grants user with a second class

Grants user with innate ability: Immortal soul

Requires 10 minutes activation time to use

Disappears upon use

*

A second class? The Second World introduction material he received for being a Beta Tester said that each player could only choose one class. There was no mention of a second class. If this thing could really give him a second class, then it was a game-breaking ability. It would put him ahead of other players.

He stopped for a moment and looked around.

'Other players?' Hell, he hadn't seen anyone else at all, except the guy who had become that zombie's snack. For all he knew, he could be the only person here. And he was not entirely sure he was in a game, despite all the holographic systems and the announcement voice. It felt too real.

If he could use this object to be stronger, then he should use it, 'It's about survival now!'

With the intention to use it, he touched the ball. It made a clanking sound and a system voice announced from the ball, "Mental link detected. Do you wish to use Second Soul Remnant? It will take 10 minutes to activate. If you move or are attacked during time, the activation will fail."

No wonder the white cloth guy had just been holding it without using it. Apparently, he couldn't find a safe place to activate it.

"Use," Jack replied to the ball.

"Affirmative. Activation starts. Soul linking."

He felt a pinching sensation at his heart. A cold breeze spread to his entire body, and then converged inside his head. It gradually transformed into a warm feeling, before slowly becoming hot with innumerable tingling sensations all over his body. The sensation continued for a while. He could see a loading bar above the ball. When it filled up halfway, the ball broke into several floating fragments. They revolved around a ball of light energy that slowly moved into his body. When the light hit his body, he felt a stinging pain. He clenched his teeth and endured. Jack knew he couldn't move or else the process would fail.

'What kind of VR game was this? No one would want to play it if people knew they had to endure pain like this.' The pain made him more certain than ever that this was, indeed, not a game.

He kept on looking at the loading bar to see how much longer he had to endure this suffering.

'Why the heck does it feel so long?' He kept on cursing every time he saw how slowly the loading bar moved. After what seemed to be an extremely long torture, the pain subsided. The light ebbed away and the floating fragments fell to the floor, slowly became transparent and faded away completely.

"That was neat," Jack muttered.

He took a deep breath, and shook his arms and legs to get rid of the weird sensations that lingered. He didn't know whether his body was numb due to the invading light, or simply because he had been motionless for so long.

A small black chest suddenly materialized in front of him.

'Ah, that thing looks familiar,' he thought.

He knelt in front of the chest and opened it. As expected, it contained the same three sets of class choosing equipment. 'Well, time to reap the reward, he thought. But which class should he choose? Should he go with the Ranger class or Magician class? Or what would happen if he chose Fighter class again?

Just to satisfy his curiosity, he tried to touch the sword set. He was stopped by an invisible wall and heard a system sound.

"You cannot choose the class you already have. Please choose a different class. Or you can postpone the second class choice until you have acquired the advanced or elite class. Do you wish to postpone?"

'Oh? I can do that?' Jack thought. But after some pondering, he rejected it. He needed instant power to deal with the current situation, as he was still unsure just how dangerous it was.

"No," he replied.