"Hey, wake up!" Jack shouted.
Whether Jack was shouting, whispering, or talking normally, Zhinen was only able to hear Jack's voice in a normalized volume. Still, it was enough to break his stupor.
"What is going on? Who are you?" Zhinen asked loudly.
Jack could swear that he saw the undying man's brow to twitch.
"My name is Jack, Jack Hemmons. Captain of the prism seven and the space pirate king of the year 960,719. You might have heard of me?" a sad attempt to brag and break the eerie atmosphere.
"N... No... That's like... what?" Zhinen answered absentmindedly.
"He lost his mind," Jack thought. "Maybe I should change my way of interacting with this guy."
All of a sudden, the orange glow in the necklace turned blue, Jolting Zhinen.
It was the living version of "try turning it off then on again" as Zhinen had to pass out for a millisecond before coming through.
Afterward, Zhinen's state of mind cleared up. His mind was finally able to organize what happened.
Staring right in front of him, a graphics user interface appeared in his eyes.
To the upper right side, a bunch of words is displayed.
[Mission: Death is Also a Form of Salvation]
[Let your necklace absorb the man. Hold the gem of the necklace with your dominant hand and touch the subject to be absorbed.]
[Reward: 20TW energy crystal.]
[Failure: Death]
[Accept] [Deny]
...
"What is going on?" Zhinen blurted out. Shock after shock is just too much for his young mind.
Once again, that same sonorous voice sounded in his mind.
"Hello, host. I'm the spirit in the stone. My name is Jack Hemmons. The quest you received came from the Universe's End System. Also, you just need to think about your words to talk to me. You look stupid in front of that man."
Zhinen's eye twitched. Undying, immortal man? A man who can talk to his head directly? Universe's End system? Failure means death?!?!
"So many grand f*cking things happening, yet here you are worrying about how I look stupid in front of another?" he thought.
Zhinen isn't a greedy person, he's just terrified of dying too young. That's why, in the face of the rewards and failure, the first thing he noticed is the punishment.
"Why is the difference between the reward and punishment so drastic? He couldn't help but complain in his mind.
"What do you mean?" Jack asked. "Isn't that what you're doing now? Risking your life to find hope for your future?"
Zhenin fell into contemplative silence. Jack was right.
Ever since their parents died, they've been putting their life on the line. It was for the sake of living on.
And even then, his parents had told him about the glorious days where peace is the norm. Having to go to school, eating delicious food, clean smell of whatever you like. No one is devouring anyone, and the beasts aren't as terrifying as they are now.
Those who have experienced it then lost it will long for it. Those who haven't can only dream of it. Such a desire for something that existed just before you had the chance to is beyond frustrating.
"A.. Alright then," Zhinen answered. Jack was right. This is the hope they were looking for all along.
"Tell me, will there be more missions that reward energy crystals?" Zhinen asked.
"Yup, and depending on the difficulty of the quest, you'll receive greater rewards," Jack replied.
"How much greater could it be?" Zhinen felt more hopeful now.
"Enough to revitalize this dying universe," Jack answered.
Zhinen's body trembled. "This is too great!" he thought.
To be honest, Zhinen wasn't really into all of that revitalization and what not. But, he did read a research paper that he found on the surface of the Buvire institute. The research title was "Revitalizing the universe through an anti-blackhole.
It only needed the total energy of at least a supermassive black hole. An anti-matter material capable of withstanding the pressure of a black hole, and a blueprint that came with the paper.
Obviously, such grand requirements can only be a theory.
No one knows where a supermassive black hole is right now. Every galaxy had dissolved a long time ago as the cosmic entities kept on drifting and drifting through the universe.
This is why, on planet Buriean, or any planets for that matter. Looking up at the night sky is just as empty as a poor man's pocket.
Even a moon is impossible as all of the stars larger than a red dwarf had long since gone. Every habitable planet in a red dwarf star is too close to be able to rotate. The concept of a moon will just end up getting swallowed by the star.
Hence, besides the constant solar flare that actually terrifies people, there was nothing to see.
Of course, space travel is still viable. But the planning stage alone takes 5 years. 4 years and 11 months of data gathering, looking for the sun where one wanted to go to, creating a prediction of its universal path, and using the warp technology to go to the estimated target.
Even during Jack's time, almost everything can be done with technology. Technology at the deathbed of the universe is just better. There are no adjectives in any dictionaries that can describe that gap.
Suddenly, an idea popped into his head as he stared at the man.
"This man... are they trying to create some sort of immortal carbon as a material?" Zhinen deduced. It sounded so farfetched, but if the undying man's body remained after being subjected to all that torture, isn't this considered a small milestone?
Jack contemplated for a second before answering.
"Reality is far more complicated than you think. Such things are trivial in my... I mean the system's eyes. If you want to find the truth about anything that the system finds unnecessary, you must do it yourself as the system doesn't have the answer for everything that happened in this universe." Jack answered as a matter-of-factly.
To be honest, the mission is so easy that failure is impossible.
Jack actually just placed it because only the stupidest of beings will fail such a mundane task. It's literally just holding the necklace and the man for a second and poof, done.
"Is there some sort of binding into this?" Zhinen asked.
"Yup, once you finish the quest, you can receive your reward by dripping a drop of your blood into the necklace. It'll bind me to you." Jack answered.
"Last question. Did you offer the same thing to my parents?"
"I wasn't fully awake at that time, so no. But I did protect them at one time, that's how they were able to come back to you for one last time. Thinking about it, it must be why they gave me to you." Jack answered.
So far, everything Jack had said, Zhenin took with a grain of salt. It was these exact words that Zhenin let go of all his doubts and accepted the quest.
"Confirm quest," Zhenin spoke in his head.
"Good choice," Jack replied.
The [Accept] and [Deny] button moved away. Seeing that nothing else changed, Zhenin held the necklace with his right hand and the man's head with his left.
The moment he touched the man, he, himself, began to glow orange while the man shone white.
Gradually, the strong life force Zhenin felt from the man slowly declined.
From the feet upwards, the man turned to dust. Only the barbless feather, dried blood, pus, shit, and shed dead skin was left.
For a moment there, Zhenin did not notice, but Jack did. The man's lips curved into a smile before his entire body turned to dust.
With how little muscle strength left in that man's body, such a smile really took all of his willpower.
Zhenin broke into a smile; for the first time in his life, he had helped someone. No one deserves that sort of torture.
DING
[Mission Complete]
[Reward distribution requires a drip of blood.]
Zhenin looked at his hands and felt a little helpless, his scales are too tough for his teeth to bite through.
"Hey, those scapulas should do the job," Jack spoke.
"Oh, you mean xcapula?" Zhenin replied by instinct.
"Xcapula, scapula, what the hell is the difference."
"a scapula is a surgical knife, tilting, curving, or any kind of cut requires precision. Xcapula can conform to the body it's being worked with, it's also smart."
If Jack had a mouth, it would've been open wide.
Oh, wait.
...
Somewhere else outside of the dying universe.
In an area covered in boundless white without any floor, walls, or ceiling. A man is floating in its dead center.
The man had a muscular, mesomorph body, tall with a height of 6'4''. His sharp face, along with his stubble, exudes a very strong yet gentle aura. The man is undoubtedly a pure human.
His fair skin revealed as his perfectly chiseled body wore no clothing. That is beside the fact that he's actually translucent.
Behind him are nine floating flames, eight of them were white and a single red one. One of the white flames, however, had an erratic movement as if it's broken.
In front of the man is a screen displaying the very same scene that is currently in Zhinen's eyes.
After hearing Zhinen's reply, the man had his mouth wide open.
It was Jack Hemmons, the same Jack Hemmons from the failed Black Mirror experiment.
After a full five seconds, he finally spoke, "What sort of bullshit naming is this."