Jack noticed his voice was uncannily feminine and high pitched. Although a slight bit of masculinity could be heard, it was definitely the sound that a girl would make.
The partially artificial human put a stern and unamused face after looking at every angle possible to the surroundings.
"Sephiroth, did you just seriously, artificially reincarnate me by an egg, and on a bloody desert!?"
[I have no Reality Fragments or any kind of fuel to transport your soul from this area without the both of us perishing.]
The genderless child made himself comfy on the bottom part of his sticky eggshell's interior, knowing that stepping on the searing sands was the same as walking on burning coal.
"So it's mostly our luck, huh." Jack leaned his head, caressing his soft chin as he showed a grin of distraught. "Strangely enough, my voice is more girly than my daughter's in her younger days. Do you have anything to let me see my own appearance?"
[Emulating mirror to host's convenience_
[Now feast on your own genetic abomination of a face, Jack.]
A holographic reverse cylinder mirror appeared in front of him. He then tried to balance himself as he stood, letting his waist-length, jet-black hair get caressed by the windy breeze. Just like what had the system forebode, his crotch was as smooth as his rear.
Speaking of it, there was no hole in the valley between his buttcheeks either.
"... Sephiroth, did you know human anatomy at all?"
[I forcefully mutated your digestive system to fully process everything within your body, corresponding to their materials—because of unforeseen circumstances. There won't be any excess matter, even the liquid. Everything will be utilized eventually for your growth_
[Your stomach is now a black hole, Jack.]
Jack crossed his arms, showing an unamused face. "That is definitely the mutation that led you to remove my 'precious'."
[I extracted your memories and most of them had corrupted with time. My main processor can't replicate the exact genetic code of the original without a clear graphic schematic.]
"Hooo, so you also don't have any service then?"
[I'm not connected to the Mother Roots anymore, hence why I need naturally gathered data to even do anything_
[Not to mention, I'm lacking in resources to brute force my work.]
"The rice had turned into porridge by a drunk entity called fate. Can't fret over every uncooked grain, can we?"
[We'll be able to make more kernel related food soon. I have enough Reality Fragments to create an improvised 'Roots Feature' if you say the word. Although it's permanent and can't be changed, so choose wisely]
Basically, Sephiroth was a featureless system with no distinctive service. Jack listened to the problem but he got distracted by his own new vessel.
"Hey, Sephiroth. Is this just me but I have rather wide shoulders and masculine proportions, as if I'm a healthy boy, but my face is that of a princess. Care to explain?"
[It's your genetics, Jack.]
"Definitely not! My face is manlier than a lion back in my day!"
[From the data gathered, it seems like your whole body below your neck is that of a male, and the opposite above it.]
Jack then sat on the platform of the giant egg, not minding the sticky liquid as he had experienced something worse. With his brain working, he continued to caress his chin, tilting his head, and closed his striking red eyes to heighten his imagination.
"Seems like I need to exercise again."
Jack then snickered to himself. "Although, thanks to the almighty wonder of fate, it's not the opposite. Ahahah! It would be really awkward if I had mountains with the face of a man. That would've been silly.
"Don't mind me, just the ramblings from this old man. In any case, you say that I need to choose my own 'Roots Feature' to get the most of your services. Give me the sitrep."
[Just like any Digilites, or System in your human tongue, we mainly implant ourselves with one or more Roots Feature to establish our theme of service to our host. As of now, I have all of my 5 Roots Features stripped from me after a dimensional collision_
[I have enough Reality Fragments to accommodate myself with a single Roots Feature, in which I'll give you the privilege to choose the object or things that I can extract to form my service mainframe.]
"Yeah." Jack amusedly sneered. "We definitely need something to get me out of this place. I'm on my way to reach 'well done' in terms of cooking with this searing heat."
He then gazed at the sand and eventually to the surroundings. Jack felt enlightenment run through his brain as the dopamine coursed in and out.
"Sephiroth, can you extract the sand, or wind, or the sun itself?"
[The Reality Fragments available aren't enough to extract the whole sun. The light from it is plausible.]
"Time doesn't wait for feeble existences like us. Patience in finding something unique won't help me being not-so-cooked into a sunny-side-up egg."
[Are you sure? There won't be any turning back because the current mainframe of my Roots Feature Socket can only hold one. By deciding, you will be stuck with the same kind of 'System' until we find a natural source of Reality Fragments_
[This world is filled with anomalies and unrecorded phenomenons. Preserving you has given me the time to know that everything here is as absurd as your normal comprehension. It's better if we choose a more powerful object to extract into a Roots Feature.]
"Hmm." Jack glanced to the sky, imagining a flock of dragons from the one within his corroded memory. "Can you extract a monster part?"
[That action is plausible. You want to hunt something in that state?]
Jack shrugged. "Just asking, not like we would meet a giant worm monster in this suspiciously calm sea of sands."
A giant worm monster rumbled the earth before peeking its head 150-meters to the sky right behind Jack around hundreds of meters away from him, showing its countless serrated teeth.
Unrelated to his rooted system, a foreign digital screen with green text and edge appeared in front of his eyes.
<
[If there were an Achievement-type Roots Feature, I would've given you the title of {The King of Jinxing}, Jack.]
"You buffoon! This is not the time to show off your tasteless humor!"
Jack immediately stepped away from his sticky egg-nest and ran with full force in the opposite direction from the protruding parasite of this world's surface. Disregarding the painful heat of the sand with each step, he had never panicked this much in his former life.
He would be calm, if not for the fact that the giant worm monster was facing in his direction.
"O-oy! Sephiroth!" Jack huffed and puffed as he went full throttle with his weak legs, uncaring the physical trauma. "C-can you check this desert if there is any other monster in the area!?"
[There were three other massive entities within this vast desert. Located in the north, around 200 meters away from here.]
"Which one is the north!?"
[The one you're heading, Jack.]
"Shesh! No wonder—that the gigantic worm is approaching me at alarming speeds!"
The gigantic worm monster was approaching in his direction rapidly. The size was so enormous that it had travelled fifty meters in a matter of just a second.
Jack didn't plan to die right after he got freed from the disgusting and eggy prison. Using all of his remaining sanity and premature stamina, he led his own heartbeat to pump faster than a 30mm autocannon, making some of his veins go visibly red.
Eventually, at the very last second, he managed to get out of the Oo'zakha's path. The wind made by the giant then propelled him into the air.
"Ahahah, this won't end well, isn't it?"
[Prepare for impact, Jack]
The poor child suffered a painful jolt upon crashing into the hills of sands. Jack forced his body to immediately move and kept running into a safer distance because his experience told him that he is going to see a grand firework after this.
Jack threaded fifty meters roughly to the west, away from the giant worm as he could see the enormous body sunk in and out of the sands.
Maintaining his gaze to the surfing giant worm while trying to squeeze as much air at the same time, Jack decided to sit down. The searing heat from his rear won't stop him from being a temporary sloth.
[How did you know that the beast wasn't aiming for you?]
"Hahaha, it's simple! A giant predator would mostly get aggroed by something with half or more of their size. There is a notification that we're basically within a battlefield, meaning that they are going for a clash. Heh."
[I can't imagine that someone like you is so bad at playing chess.]
"Do you think I can out-math a calculator? I'm a perfectly normal human being. Thank you very much."
Not long after, parts of the sky around the north became dark. Numerous tendrils of tentacles descended from the darkness, bringing a giant Octopus-like monster with some gnarly and spiky plates covering its body part.
The giant worm stopped right in front of the multi-limbed beast. The supersized grub then began condensing a huge amount of energy into its mouth before unleashing it like a beam of destruction in many directions.
Most of them didn't pierce the carapace of the octopus, which then began conjuring a dark spear from its tendrils.
The battle of giants, something that only appeared within a fantasy or folklore that someone wrote in their head. Jack feasted on the view, showing his nervous smile throughout the firework of cataclysm.
"... I'm too old for this."