Well… This is strange. Never thought I'd wake up as a walking Moai head before. I back away from the water and sit down with a loud thud. My movements are incredibly slow and labored, but each step is heavy and powerful. I look around. The trees around me are mixtures of green, red, orange, and even purple. So I assume it's fall.
Earth never looked this pretty. Maybe in some eco-dome, but never on the surface. Not after those terror-ai's decided to plague the surface. Of course, your's truly had the brilliant idea of getting soil from Mars and mixing it with fertilizer to bring the planet back, but that would take decades to come to fruition!
However, what's before me is most definitely trees. I can only think of one thing that happened to me… Reincarnation…
I guess somehow it's real. Honestly, from the advent of the system, science has just made less and less sense to me. I mean, science has no explanation for how the system is able to create parts from nothing, right? Unless those coins I collect are some form of energy…
Oh wait!
'Store!'
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[Store]
[Balance: 0 coins]
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[Essential parts]
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[Weapon parts]
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[Armor parts]
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[Cosmetic parts]
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Yes! It still works! Alright, 'Essential parts!'
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[Lesser Weight Reduction Rune - 50]
[Lesser Weight Addition Rune - 50]
[Core shielding - 20]
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Alright, so my first order of business is to collect coins and get that weight reduction rune. I'm guessing it has the same effects as a gravity manipulator, just to a weaker degree. After all, I doubt it'd be able to take a five hundred thousand ton battleship and change it to the weight of a minivan. I guess I should go ahead and check out the other parts.
'Weapon parts'
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[Jagged Knuckles - 10]
[Lesser Rune of Conductivity - 20]
[Lesser Earth Magic - 40]
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Earth magic? Alright, that settles it. I'm in some kind of fantasy world. Or at least, I'm some kind of fantasy creature. I take it a golem is some kind of fantasy robot. Did they upload my consciousness into a machine that makes me think I'm in a fantasy world? If so, that's actually pretty clever. But, that would be impossible considering the fact that my brainchip would've been melted down by the heat of the reactor. That would've gotten hot enough to melt the snow in a good half-mile radius.
Well, no use worrying about it now. If I am, indeed, in a simulation, I'll be able to find out later. They'd be stupid to put me in one, because I'd be able to access their system through it. For now, I've still got one more thing to go through,
'Armor Parts'
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[Spring steel reinforcements - 30]
[Partial Mild steel plating - 20]
[Amethyst core plating - 50]
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It seems the upgrades are following a similar path to before, just a bit slower. When I was uploaded into an AI, I suddenly had this system in front of me. No other digitized humans had said anything about it, so I kept quiet. It awarded me coins for every enemy defeated, even if they weren't killed. Some were worth more, some less. As an example, a mining drone netted me one hundred coins, while an AI battlecruiser netted me one hundred fifty thousand coins. It led to me going from a standard digitized human/machine hybrid, into an android god of war that could punch through planets if I pleased.
The upgrades here match that of what I had at the start. The digitization program got the worst funding out of the entire military of the United Nations of Humanity. It was fair to say that my robotic body wasn't much better than what I'm in now. A little faster, though much more fragile.
I look up, observing the area around me, choosing to ignore the fact that I can see without eyes or cameras. The trees around me appear a bit small in comparison to before. My previous body was the same size as my human one, around 5'8". This one; however, appears to be a good 10 feet tall. I reach out, feeling slightly odd when my arm responds slower than I thought it would, and go to grab the tree. Only to find that my hands hold no fingers, claws, or any other grabbing implements. Just a solid rusty boulder.
I look at my hand for a second before putting it back down. I need to fix that asap.
*thum*
Suddenly, I feel a slight rumble in the ground below, the vibrations passing up through the dirt and into my body, allowing me to "hear" it. I turn around and face whatever it is making this rumbling noise, and come face to face with another of my kind, seemingly. Only much more shiny, with just a few signs of rusting around its joints.
As I look into it's empty, easter island eyes, I feel… Rage. A type of primal rage I've never felt before. A rage that nearly made me lose myself, and which has made my counterpart lose themselves. They begin speeding up their slow approach towards me, pushing away smaller trees that get into their path with ease. In the meantime, I try to get this rage under control, as it's clear that I'll stupidly attempt to swing my arms like an ape otherwise. I hold myself back as I see something appear above the one charging me.
[Rusty Iron Golem | Level: 5]
Shit, this thing's higher level. Luckily, I get my anger under control just in time for it to reach me. It slowly raises its hand and begins to bring it down towards me. I slowly lumber out of the way, barely getting out of the way in time to begin a counter attack.
I take my left arm and pull it up behind my body halfway, bringing it hurtling sideways in a haymaker that slams into the right arm of my counterpart. It shuffles sideways as the shock from the attack causes it to lose footing for a second. I take advantage of this by charging forwards and slamming my body into it, sending it falling backwards into the dirt below.
The impact causes a small tremor in the ground, causing my body to vibrate slightly. The shiny golem struggles to get back up, giving me an opportunity I absolutely have to capitalize on. I step forwards, on top of the iron body below me, and spot a single shining blue orb in the midsection of the body. I instinctively call my body to activate one of my two skills,
'SLAM!'
My arm goes flying down, slapping the air at a speed faster than the average man, and crashing into the gem below.
*CRACK!*
[Experience: 150 / 100]
[Level up!]
[Coins: 7]
I feel the energy of the experience flowing into my body as a blue mist begins to flow out of the core I've just crushed, and into my own. Following the fall of the shinier golem, the forest goes quiet once more. The sound of birds chirping and leaves rustling being the only thing filling my… Ears?
I look down to the body of the golem, and get an idea. This thing is rather similar to me, just with a more polished exterior. The iron in its body could be pretty useful in the future. I might even be able to melt it down and make my own plating to put over my core. The core, just like when I was a robot, seems to be the most important part of my body. As in, if it's destroyed, I die.
As I reach down towards the other golem, I realize the stupidity of what I just thought as… You guessed it… No hands. But before I can really stew on how stupid I was, a system notification pops up.
[Salvage Rusty Iron Golem?]
This is a new screen… Normally, any robots I used to upgrade myself in my previous life had to be dealt with by hand. The system would just give me coins for their deaths, and that'd be it. Maybe this is due to the influence of that second system? I give the system the go ahead, and flinch slightly in shock as the golem is covered in a layer of blue lights that seem similar to the experience of before. Once more, they fly directly into my core, but I don't get the same feeling as I did before. As in, I'm not getting experience.
[Coins: 11]
Ah, so they get converted into coins. That's definitely more useful than turning them into plates to cover my core with. I'd imagine, anyway.
With the amount of coins I currently have, I could go ahead and get the [Jagged Knuckles] upgrade, but I feel like that'd be a waste. While yes, doing some bleeding damage would be nice, I feel like either getting that [Core shield] or [Lesser Weight reduction rune]. During that fight, I definitely noticed the sluggish movements of my body. Anything smart enough to target my core would have an easy time killing me, so I think I'll go with the [Core shield]. While it'd be nice to move quicker, I have no way of knowing just how effective that [Lesser Weight reduction rune] will really be. For all I know, it'll make me five pounds lighter. The [Core shield] is a surefire way to protect myself for the time being. Not to mention the rune is way more expensive.
I had a habit in my last life to focus first on defense. After all, you can't kill something if it kills you first! People die when they are killed! I'll take a potato chip, and eat it!
Memes aside, I'll have to look into that unnatural anger I felt when looking at that other golem… That can't be good…