On the screen, Jack could see Zhenin getting an xcapula on the table.
Pricking himself, Zhenin let his purple blood drip towards the white gem in his necklace.
At the exact moment, the purple blood hit the gem, the boundless white space where Jack currently is, became purple.
Jack himself turned purple.
Then as if a sponge, the gem began to absorb the purple blood on the gem.
Once the blood was absorbed entirely, another flame came out of Jack's body. But instead of purple, the color of the fire is red.
Alongside the nine other flames, there's another one that's red.
Then, Jack clapped his hand as a blue crystal materialized in front of him. It was the 20TW energy crystal that he promised Zhenin.
Then he looked towards the floating flames. Looking at it closely, these "flames" weren't flames. Instead of a flickering, the flames form faces.
Six of those faces were his crew members back then: Annie, Nina, Li Xuan, Miko, Connor, and Carmen.
Then a pair of flames, one red and one white, came into view. If the Leiman twins were to see them, they'd probably cry as it was their parents. The red one was their father.
Then the other new flame that just came in today, unlike his physical appearance before he was absorbed, this man's face looks to be about an 83-year-old human. That is except for his pointy ears and feathers for hair.
All of these faces had their eyes closed, except for the last one.
This was the flames birthed from Zhenin's blood. It was also the one Jack wanted, so he grabbed it as soon as he placed the energy crystal into the fire.
Zhenin's soul shook; it felt like someone shoved something inside his innards. Then suddenly, Zhenin realized that his hands were clenching something. Opening it, he saw an energy crystal the size of a grain of rice.
A message appeared at the corner of Zhenin's eyes.
[Quest reward received.]
"There, go on. Your brother should be looking for you by now." Jack stated. "Oh, and the "device" you're looking for that absorbs radiation. It's me. I'm not sure if you'll find something inside that lab, but your goal has always been redundant."
"Lastly, I'm only partially awake, go back to the surface so I can absorb more radiation. The rad levels here in this place is actually null. That'll be your new quest for now."
[New Quest Received.]
[Needs More Radiation]
[The system is still too weak, let it absorb more radiation and stop worrying about it. Go back to the surface.]
[Time Limit: 10 Hours]
[Mission Rewards: A secret.]
[Failure Punishment: Losing that "secret" for good.]
[Due to the blood binding, you cannot accept or deny missions from the system. It's not like you ever could deny it anyway.]
At this point, Zhenin had been shocked too many times in a single hour to care anymore. He just nodded, took all the tools that were still usable, placed it in his bag, and left the room.
"This place isn't as important as I thought," Zhenin said as he went back to the great door.
...
"Can you wake up?" Jack spoke, but not towards Zhenin.
Floating in the air just like the other flames, the undying man suddenly opened his eyes.
"Yes, thank you for saving me." a clean male voice sounded, "my name is Hjuutza Milan."
"Yutza? Alright, have you completely regained your sanity?" Jack asked.
"Yes, even my memories have been restored," Hjuutza answered.
Jack nodded, "Alright, I'll be borrowing your memories. In return, once I build this universe, you'll reincarnate into a new life."
Hjuutza nodded.
Jack opened his hands in front of him, and tendrils of blue light shot out and connected to the Hjuutza's soul.
While Jack said memories, he was actually absorbing knowledge.
Absorbing memories may result in a terrible side effect where one might forget themselves. Copying the knowledge has the benefit of one just needs to watch it, and since memories can be triggered by words, actions, or anything really, it can be quickly sorted only by looking for the right tags.
This way, one can immediately throw the tag "masturbate" away to avoid awkward moments. Not to mention it cleans up over 10% of the memories.
This way, besides taking way too long compared to just absorbing the memories, it's risk-free.
After thirty minutes, the copying is done. On the screen, Zhenin and Ninzhe were climbing onto the vents that Ninzhe found. It was nothing interesting, so Jack didn't pay attention to it.
When the tendrils retracted from Hjuutza, they reconnected in a single point. There a yellow crystal formed.
Compared to the blue energy crystal, this yellow crystal contains a different essence that when one puts the crystal right in front of your eye, you'll be able to see a montage of scenes.
Jack called it a memory crystal. A dense formation of memory essence.
Seeing the entire process, Hjuutza felt surprised. Technology that can transfer memories isn't new. In fact, it was invented quintillions of years ago.
But the efficiency and cleanliness exceed that of what the peak of science was able to offer.
Besides being painless, it did not leave any residual side effects on the target. While lacking the physical body, Hjuutza's soul form still has all of the senses a living person has.
This was, of course, due to Jack's settings.
"Aaand, we're done. How are you feeling?" Jack spoke suddenly, breaking Hjuutza's train of thoughts.
"I feel like time just passed," Hjuutza answered, still feeling unbelieving. "If you don't mind me asking, where are we exactly?"
"Oh, we're inside my body right now," Jack answered nonchalantly.
"Huh? Aren't we inside that boy's necklace?"
"Yup, that's my body. Or at least what became of it." Jack answered. A tone of sadness laced his words.
"I'm very sorry for my insensitivity." Hjuutza bowed.
"It's fine. I'll tell my story in due time. All you need to know for now is that it all happened when we failed an experiment."
"What experiment?"
"The Black Mirror project."
"You mean the very first attempt at extracting energy from a supermassive black hole?" Hjuutza asked inquisitively. Shock apparent in his face.
"That's the one," Jack answered monotonously.
"Then congratulations, you and your team paved the way for the future that we once had," Hjuutza stated excitedly, in front of him is a figure still written in the history books as a pioneer.
Hearing the part about his team, Jack's face turned a little sullen. Hjuutza was ignorant of the slight change in Jack due to his own excitement.
Actually, even when Jack's team had a problem, their warp scientist was able to send back the results and the situation inside the lab before everything went to shit.
Because of that, their legend lived on.
"Pleasure to serve, but I am beyond that now," Jack spoke with a smile.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you see, I seem to have become a god," Jack spoke as he raised his hands. In between his hands, a miniature sun appeared.
"And from what I found out over the years is that, the white gem, my body, is actually a universe.