The Memory Beads

I looked up at the sky where those dirty angels were just here. "I think this resembles a VR game. Have you ever played one before?"

Isabella's face flushed out of her embarrassment. Yeah, she was this type of person who hated to be defeated or to be ignorant towards something.

"Don't worry, I believe you'll adapt just fine," I patted her shoulders before adding, "let's check that system they gave us and see what features we have."

"Uhm," she nodded. "How can we activate it?"

I didn't hurry to answer as I closed my eyes and reopened them before waiting for a few seconds. "You just need to think about it and a window will appear to you."

I tried to act normal as if I didn't know how to use the system. I was born with one, so how couldn't I know everything about it?

The moment I said so she started to comply. I left her aside and began the real steps into my long journey here.

'Open system,' like breathing. I thought about this and the next moment the system window appeared in front of me.

[System of human Hye. Status: Activated. grade: 1. Available features: quests, inventory, skills, upgrade, shop, profile, contact]

It was the basic features of any system. My previous system grade was only grade 2, not much of a difference from this one here.

Both were pathetic and weak. However before I thought about any option to open, a new window suddenly popped up in front of me.

[Detecting anomalies at human Hye. adjusting features now. Adjustment is completed]

"What the hell…" I was startled by this message. I never heard of such a thing before.

"Everything is ok?" Isabella seemed to be totally absorbed in checking out her system like it was a new toy for her. She asked me without even turning her eyes away from her window.

"Yeah, just surprised to see all these things here," I lied before I turned to think about the system again. 'Open system.'

[System of human Hye. Status: Activated. Grade: 1 . Available features: quests, inventory, skills, upgrade, shop, profile, contact, memory beads]

It was just like the same old one but there was one addition here. 'Open memory beads,' I thought while my heart was fiercely bouncing in my chest.,

I knew these beads! They were the ones that old man kept insisting for me to have and bring with me each time we met. A screen opened while an image of the beads like the ones I had before appeared in front of my eyes.

[Memory beads: exclusive celestial item. Bound to the soul of human Hye. can't be spied on when using. Can't be lost. Can't be traded The beads can be activated by using coins. There is already a paid in advance single time usage. Do you want to use it now?]

"..."

I was totally shocked by this. It was the same beads that I once acquired from the old man. 'How come they appeared here?!!' I couldn't help but wonder, 'is this a gift for me?'

'Use it,' I instantly thought while walking a few steps away from Isabella. The beads I used before played the recording in a loud tone audible to those around. I hoped its volume wouldn't be too loud.

'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 realized everything. You've been sent back in time, ninety-nine years to be exact, to live through the apocalypse…'

It was the voice of the crazy old man! I couldn't believe it! Just hearing it made me recall many things of the past, things that seemed to just happen moments ago to me.

Reflexively I turned my head around just to make sure no one noticed his voice. But everyone seemed pretty much absorbed in checking the system options and didn't notice anything.

'Don't worry about anyone hearing me, I made sure these beads are bound with your system. So no one will ever be able to listen to my words, not even those dirty fallen angels, not even those mighty gods watching you from up there.'

His words reassured me before he added, 'I've recorded many things I couldn't tell you about plus the things you already recorded before. They are all in the beads now. Listen to them when you have time to refresh your memory. However I want to stress over one point, a secret most people in my time didn't know about, including you…'

He continued to speak. The more he said, the more shocked I became. "Damn! So this is how they managed to survive so far!!" I couldn't help but mumble to myself before the recording ended.

What the old man told me seemed unbelievable, but so far he never told lies. Even his crazy stuff from that time proved to be right now.

'Open the recording list,' I thought while considering what he left for me during this hour.

[You need to pay one thousand coins to access the list. Please confirm]

'Sh*t!' I couldn't help but drop this idea for now. 'One thousand coins? Just to view the list?! What will it cost me to listen to one recording then? Couple thousands, or even ten thousand coins? That's a sh*t load of coins for me right now!'

I knew one thousand coins weren't that much later on. But now, gaining coins was something hard, just like surviving the quests.

'Open profile,' as the next important thing to view, I decided to see what my current stats were.

[Profile is opened for the first time. Human Hye stats are being assessed. Assessment is complete. You can view the profile now]

It was something I didn't recall again, but it made quite sense. 'Open the profile,' I thought again and this time, the familiar window appeared for the first time since arriving here.

[Name: Hye

Race: Human

Blessing: None

Blessing slots available: Zero

Rank: lvl 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 noticed the presence of two strange attributes that I never heard before and a weird title.

"Come to think of it… The beads of memory are also a celestial grade. I only know Earth grade is the highest among humans of my time. There are higher ranks than I ever thought…"

"Let's see what this is all about…" I mumbled before thinking about viewing the details of each weird thing I had in my profile.

But the next moment I received strange messages that were just copies of the same text.

[you can't view details on your profile. Your grade isn't sufficient plus a skill you don't have is needed for that]

"Damn!" I clenched my fists before relaxing them the next moment. It wasn't that bad, after all I got things that looked cool in this life.

I never had a good attribute before. After all the attributes weren't things acquired easily.

The basic attributes came from analysis of the human body by the system. During my past life, I didn't enjoy anything remarkable so my attribute was: Hunger for success (common grade)

There were grades for attributes like anything else in this world of apocalypse. However things didn't come cheap and if one wanted to upgrade or obtain something higher, he had to pay for that either with his effort and pain or with coins.

And the latter was the most accepted way in the world of the apocalypse.

Common grade was the lowest, then rare, special, and then unique. After that would come the realm of those freakingly strong and extremely lucky humans who everyone envied; Immortal, Earth, and heaven.

But now I had two strange grades popping up in many things I had here. 'I hope this won't turn out to be bad.' I knew this wasn't possible.

Celestial grade might come above heaven, and god must come above all. I knew everything about the secrets of this apocalypse, and gods were an important piece in here.

'Time for the real deal,' I was just wandering around the bush when it was finally time to face the harsh truth; the market.

The market might seem a normal place, but for me it was the tool I'd use to turn on tables here. But despite having such knowledge and desire, I knew what made the market such a terrifying place.

'Damn! I never thought the prices would start this high!'

I opened the market and there were many things in front of me. Like any market, there were normal goods being sold like weapons and gears, potions and even skills. But the cheap ones were trash and useless and the good ones needed a lot of coins.

I looked up at my current balance and my face turned pale in shame from it. 'Only three thousand and nine hundred coins? Even after killing all of these monsters?'

The reason I didn't hold back even when my body was cracking was for this. Each monster I killed should reward me with coins. In fact the monsters would also have cores, things I didn't want from such lowly ranked monsters before.

"As you acted this stingy with me, it's time to hunt the cores then," but not anymore. I would get my hands on the f*cking five thousand coins to get what I wanted before the next stage started.

Even if it meant I'd have to dig the flesh of such low ranked monsters and sell their souls to the devil, I meant the market, then I'd gladly do it!