In his last world, Trex was a virtual assistant for a space engineer. Every time a soldier or personnel dies, they would be placed in a medical bay if they could recover the body. Usually, the functioning ones are used to heal, but those who go way past their intended efficiency are downgraded into high-tech morgues.
The golden liquid inside those medic bays could preserve the body until they reach their homes to be awarded as fallen heroes.
The fruit in front of Trex right now contains that same liquid and a body he's very familiar with. Viden Zastan's body is currently floating in what Trex assumes as the preserving liquid.
Trex had absolutely no connection towards the man in front of him, but somewhere in him, a strange feeling bubbled. It was a feeling of regret. He didn't have any single bit of Marko's memory. Seems like this was something the former owner of his body felt.
It was also the reason how they found all nine dog tags with Marko's ravaged body. It was something the original Marko promised. It wasn't just said to protect himself, but something he carried to his heart.
Recalling that there were eight other fruits, Trex began to check each one.
Hinter Vega, Somir Manema, Eimir Melori, Bren Draec, Eagor Phelan, Berlotte Vega, Jyn Lee, and Lora Stein. From lowest to highest, every single party member from the hired mercenaries was here.
Each time he sees them, Trex felt immense regret, and every time he sees another, his heart hardened.
This world. The arcade realm. Left by his father. A newly made heaven for someone like his father. A gamer, and more than that, deceased.
His mind fell in turmoil. Emotions he never felt before keeps invading his heart in such a short time.
He hasn't even been awake for longer than twenty-four hours at this moment.
Regardless, the number of things he felt like he needed to do had become taller than the tallest of mountains discovered on a rocky planet.
No one actually forced him to do anything. All of the things he was told were just promises and oath. But something within Trex denies that bullshit.
It was… a sense… a sense of responsibility.
Inheriting Marko's body, shouldn't he inherit his will? Inheriting Jonathan's memories and talents, shouldn't he inherit his wishes? What about him?
"What about me?" he mumbled once again.
Looking at the bald metallic tree, his heart faltered.
"Why am I here?"
Since he awoke, OS already invaded his thoughts and distracted him with things around him. Forcefully injecting Jonathan's memory into his head and claiming he's going to lose himself if he didn't find a way.
In retrospect, what would he even have to lose?
Memories? All of his memories came from his time being a virtual assistant. Personality? He just awoke less than a day ago. What personality? Life? He never asked for it.
But in one single day, he gained Jonathan's memories. Meeting people made his personality bud, something he never knew he had in him. And now, his life has a goal. To create a heaven for his father.
Looking at Viden's body once again, he began to touch the fruit. New information entered his mind.
Character Template: Viden Zastan.
That was all the information that the HUD gave, but it gave Trex a whole lot of ideas.
Looking over to the green land at the border of the arcade realm, a thought arrived in his mind.
With some expectations in his head, Trex began to float towards the plane.
In an area splashed with lush green life that formed mini hills that lacked trees. Just a few kilometers are a place that seems to sing the song of nature. Each leaves dance within the sound of the air as various tall trees held them tightly. Compared to when he first left, the current Spellworm plane looked like actual heaven on Earth.
Except that there was no single life signature in the entire plane, besides the plant lives that had no thoughts, of course.
Staring at the seemingly lively plane, Trex was lost. "What now?" he thought. It wasn't like he could touch every single inch of the plane to trigger something now, could he?
Helpless, he flew back. "Maybe it's in the leaf?" he thought.
Checking at the leaf, besides compiling, there were no changes. This leads to Trex's confusion.
Once again, he went back to Viden's fruit. Besides saying it was some sort of character template, there was nothing.
Then his hand that he was about to take back froze.
"What… What if I pluck the fruit…? And eat it? That was the logical way to interact with a fruit, right?" He thought to himself.
Then looked at Viden's face with his expressionless face.
"Nope."
Running out of options, Trex's young mind began to wander.
"I… I wanna know, is he made of flesh or fruit…"
In an impulse, Trex forced his hands towards the fruit.
Trex failed to react as he got sucked in by the fruit.
Being sucked by the fruit, he felt like screaming, but he couldn't. Not until his vision darkened.
Suddenly, he felt himself standing in a peculiar position. His feet were a foot apart. His hands stretched to his side, and his head stuck, looking forwards.
When he tried to move, he felt all of his sensations disappeared. When he looked back, he saw Viden Zastan's body dressed in a white tank top and brown shorts.
When he looked down at his hands, he realized he'd become translucent. A word that could aptly describe his current form right now is a spirit, as his Chede form is much more solid than him right now.
Looking at Viden's face, he suddenly recalled his urge to touch the skin. The moment his finger stuck to Viden's face, it began to morph.
When he pulled, Viden's cheeks grew plump. When he pushed, it shrunk.
Trex's first thought was, "He really is a fruit!" as he felt the smooth but solid skin of a peach. His next thought was the function. With his game's first objective, he realized that this was something akin to character creation.
With that thought, he began to model Viden's face. While he could transform every part of the body except for the nether regions, the amount he could sculpt was around 20%. Stretching too much would do nothing so does compress.
After doing the extreme and compressed and stretched Viden's face, while he remained human-looking, it was far from being aesthetic. Even then, if one were to look at Viden then and Viden now, one would think they were siblings instead.
20% for body morphing sounds a lot, but it could barely affect the overall appearance.
Fortunately, after morphing, Trex was given the option to increase or decrease his weight, fitness, even the colors of his eye, and every strand of hair.
Trex felt like his experimentations were complete. After his final touches, the man in front of him now is an entirely different person as he also found out he could edit finer details such as eye size or ear position.
Now what?
Looking around, he finally noticed a small translucent panel to the right.
There were options to change the environment, which was currently only one, which is the studio lighting option. A large empty space seemed to indicate there should've been features here but weren't finished. Lastly, a confirm button.
Tapping the confirm button, Trex was suddenly sucked to darkness, as if he was thrown into a loading screen.