I existed in that enlightened state, suspended in the void with a clarity I hadn't possessed before. It was like seeing through water that had finally settled, the sedint sinking away to reveal sothing beneath.
Then I felt it.
An intensity. A pull so powerful it felt like being caught in a riptide.
Ti didn't just speed up—it exploded forward.
Hundreds of thousands of tis faster than before. Maybe millions. I couldn't asure it. Couldn't process it. I was flung from one perspective to another like a stone skipping across water, each impact a different life, a different mont, a different .
I was in Ancient Greece.
Stone walls surrounded . Scrolls everywhere. My hands—different hands again—carefully unrolled papyrus, ink staining my fingers. I was a librarian. I catalogued knowledge, preserved stories, maintained order in chaos.
And then I felt it. That familiar sensation. The interface appearing before , more refined now. Words. Greek words. A job title: Librarian. Rank C.
I was eighteen. Newly an adult. The System had awakened.
Then I was ripped away and brought sowhere else.
I stood on the deck of a ship, salt spray in my face. The Renaissance. The ocean stretched endlessly in every direction, and my hands gripped rough rope, callused and strong. A sailor. I knew the stars, knew the wind, knew how to read the water.
The System appeared. Sailor. Rank B.
Twenty years old. Just reached adulthood by the standards of my ti.
Gone again.
Surrounding now was what looked like a forge. dieval Europe, maybe. Heat blasted my face as I worked tal, hamr striking anvil in rhythmic precision. Sparks flew. My arms were corded with muscle, my back bent from years of labor.
Blacksmith. Rank A.
I was sixteen years old. Adulthood ca earlier then.
Another life. Another perspective.
A woman this ti. I—she—stood in a field of crops, dirt under her nails, sun beating down. I was farming, so that I could survive the upcoming winter that was brutal in this region. The System showed Farr. Rank C.
I was fifteen years old.
Then a soldier. I looked like so type of Roman or Spartan soldier. Maybe even Persian, I couldn't fully tell. Armor heavy on my shoulders. Blood on my hands. The clash of tal. The screams of n. The system interface flashed in front showing :
Soldier. Rank B.
This ti I was seventeen years old.
A rchant. Counting coins. Negotiating prices. The sll of spices and textiles.
rchant. Rank C.
Nineteen.
A healer. Grinding herbs. Tending wounds. The desperate hope in a mother's eyes as I worked to save her child.
Herbalist. Rank B.
Eighteen.
It kept going.
And going.
And going.
Hundreds of lives. Thousands. Each one a flash, a glimpse, a mont of awakening when the System revealed what they were. What they could beco.
I was a scribe in ancient China. A warrior in feudal Japan. A builder in the Aztec empire. A hunter in the African savanna. A priest in dieval France. A scholar in the Islamic Golden Age. A craftsman in Renaissance Italy. A explorer in the Age of Discovery.
Every single one of them reached adulthood—whatever that ant for their ti and culture—and the System appeared. Always. Without fail. Showing them their job. Their rank. Their potential.
The System had spread since I was that hunter. It had evolved to be hereditary and it had adapted to every culture, every language, every era of human developnt.
And I witnessed it all.
But it was too much.
Too fast. Too many. The lives blurred together, identities bleeding into one another until I couldn't tell where one ended and another began. There were monts were I forgot who I was. Forgot Reynard Vale. Forgot the penthouse. Forgot Alexis and the operating table.
I was everyone and no one. A singularity of humanity's collective usage of the System. I did not matter for I was but an aspect of this global embodint.
But then, sowhere in the chaos, I rembered. Maybe it was due to it being thousands of years passing so I regain my mory. Maybe it was Alexis doing sothing on the operating table or maybe it was just my subconsciousness taking over and saving , but I rembered.
Reynard.
My na was Reynard.
But the lives kept coming, kept pulling forward through history. I forgot again. Rembered again. Lost myself and found myself over and over in an endless cycle that felt like it was tearing apart.
I was on the brink of insanity.
The human mind wasn't ant to experience this. Wasn't built to hold thousands of lifetis at once. Every mory, every emotion, every mont of awakening crashed into like waves against a cliff, eroding everything I thought I was.
But sohow—sohow—I held on.
And then, finally, it stopped.
Not gradually. Just… stopped.
I found myself standing in a room.
Ti was flowing normally again. One second per second. Real ti.
The shift was so jarring I nearly collapsed.
My head throbbed. My vision swam. Lights—bright, harsh fluorescent lights—stabbed into my eyes like knives. I squeezed them shut, bringing my hands up to my face.
My hands. Were these mine? I couldn't tell anymore.
I forced my eyes open, squinting against the brightness so that I could see my environnt.
There were white and sterile looking walls. As if it was a lab of so sorts, maybe even a torturous white room. The room was really small, maybe ten feet by ten feet. A thin mattress on a tal fra in one corner. A plate of food—sothing gray and unappetizing—sitting on the floor beside it. A mirror mounted on the wall above a small sink.
I was definitely in an experintal lab or a psychiatric hospital.
The distinction felt aningless.
I stood there, disoriented, trying to ground myself in this new reality. My body felt wrong. Too light. Too weak. My limbs trembled, and I had to brace myself against the wall to stay upright.
What was I doing here?
Where was here?
I moved toward the sink instinctively, the sa way I'd moved in all those other lives. An automatic response. Muscle mory that wasn't mine but also was.
The faucet turned easily, cold water sputtering out. I cupped my hands beneath it and splashed it on my face. The shock of cold helped. Cleared so of the fog.
I washed again. And again. Scrubbing at my face like I could wash away the confusion, the disorientation, the thousands of lifetis still clinging to .
My hair felt different. Longer than I rembered. It hung past my shoulders, tangled and unwashed. I ran wet fingers through it, trying to smooth it down.
My face felt different too. Smaller. Smoother in so places, rougher in others. I traced my fingers along my jaw, my cheeks, my forehead. Scars. Multiple scars. Tissue that had healed unevenly, leaving ridges and valleys I didn't recognize.
This wasn't my face.
Or… was it?
I couldn't rember anymore.
I looked up.
The mirror was there, waiting. I'd been avoiding it without realizing it, so part of afraid of what I might see.
But I couldn't avoid it anymore.
I raised my eyes and t my reflection.
The face staring back at was young. Late teens, maybe early twenties. Gaunt. Malnourished. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes. Hair—brown, almost black—hung limp and greasy around a face that bore the marks of violence. A scar through the left eyebrow. Another along the right cheek. A third, smaller one near the chin.
It was a woman for sure but she looked like she was tortured or in extre pain and exhaustion. It was similar to experintal subjects that I had seen in the past.
But it was the eyes that hit hardest.
They were empty. Hollow. The eyes of soone who'd been broken and put back together wrong.
And in that mont, as I stared at this stranger wearing my consciousness, everything clicked into place.
I knew who this was.
Not through mory. Not through deduction. Through instinct. That sa deep, primal knowing that had guided through every life, every awakening.
I was Subject 3840.
The last subject of NovaCore.
The first person to ever receive the Jobmaster job title.
The realization didn't co with fanfare. Didn't co with shock or surprise. It was just… there. A fact as undeniable as gravity.
This was . This was who I currently was and this is simply the scenario that I found myself in.
Ti felt aningless again.
I stared at the reflection, at Subject 3840, at myself, and understood.
This was the origin. Not of the System itself—that had co first, with the hunter in the oil pit. But the origin of in so taphorical sense. Of what made unique. Of what made the only person in the world with multiple jobs. The man with the Jobmaster job title.
NovaCore had indirectly created .
And I had been their final experint.
Reviews
All reviews (0)