Chapter 727 - Heroes

“That certainly explains why this Jewel of Truth had such absurdly high scores,” Sofia answered the admin.

“Heh, easier when you designed the events yourself, right? Now give me a second…”

Jin used magic that Sofia recognized, a twisted version of her toybox freeze. It seemed to do nothing, but that was just a testament to how smooth the freeze had been.

“I see…” Jin mumbled to himself, “Anna’s not watching,” he said with a sigh. Catching a subtle change in Sofia’s expression, he addressed her again, “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sofia bluntly answered, “You might want to talk to Nex about it.”

“No,” Jin answered, “I just locked him out, actually. He can still watch, like the others, but nobody will be able to interfere in our battle now.”

“So you’re not going to try to help Anna?!”

“No,” Jin continued with a bitter smile, “She and I both always knew it would end this way. I’m nothing but an unstable clone, what good could I possibly do in the short time I have? I trust Nex will be able to solve the situation, in time. My duty now is to test you!”

“It’s your business I suppose… You’re lucky Life isn’t able to reach your here, she would probably strangle you before our fight could even start.”

“Ahah… That she would… We have a tiny bit of time while the terrain loads. Any more questions for a long dead man?”

“Long dead? As of the latest news you stranded yourself in space trying to reach earth, I think,” Sofia answered.

“Well, to the people here I might as well be dead, same thing, really. How long has it been?”

“Since you disappeared? Not sure, but the system has been running for a bit over 32 hundred years…”

“That long? Well, I didn’t really expect this hidden bonus to ever be found so it’s quite short, in a way. I had plans to leave around 500 years after we got it all running, so I must have been gone a while.”

“You can say that… Did you really need to ask for the date when you have enough control to lock Nex out of here, though?”

“Yeah,” Jin answered, “I’m not looking at any system data. No only do I lack many permissions as a clone, but our battle is going to be unfair enough, I wouldn’t want to give myself an extra edge by looking at your kit. I’m seeing plenty of interesting things already, though.”

Sofia looked back at the three skeletons behind her, “I wonder how much you can actually see.”

“Is that a challenge? Fine let’s play a little. Ah, do you want me to mute the sound for the public before I go through my analysis?” Jin confidently asked, looking Sofia up and down.

Sofia shook her head, “You can probably guess but I did not reach this point by holding back, they know pretty much everything already.”

“Alright, then let’s start with the basics,” Jin’s left eye lit up with a grey glow, “I see my blueprints for the saint class and… Necromancer. I’m guessing Nex dusted the dual class idea?”

“It was scripture who broke things by giving me the saint class as I unlocked Necromancer, actually.”

“Ah. Sounds like something that could happen… Only so many edge cases we could prepare for. Let’s push a bit further… I won’t analyse your spells right now… But Apostle, too? Strange stuff. You’ve got way too many essences… Your soul is absolutely fucked sideways, and your evolved race… Looks like something Clint would have made up after one too many pints. Ah, wait, your mana heart is a bit weird too… Hmm… Did you get the extra ranks?”

“All the way to Ultimate rank,” Sofia confirmed.

“No wonder you’d reach this far then… I wasn’t even sure that could even work. Did you use a compound Sun and Death essence?”

“Aphenoreth.”

“Oh. Oooooooh. Yeah. Alright,” Jin said with a series of nods, “Well, I’m not going to dig any further. I’d like this clone to at least live long enough to do its job. Let’s switch to your team. I see you got the twin ruleset with the big guy here… Demigod?”

“Yes. He cannot talk as a result.”

“Interesting penalty. Probably Knowledge, correct?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, good new, big guy, you just need to ascend and you should be able to speak. Easy fix. Hmm, then we have a manaless fae skeleton.”

“I’m Pesle!”

“Nice to meet you Pesle, I’m afraid you will not be able to have much fun in this on, sorry about that. And the third skeleton… Yeah no I don’t really understand you, sorry. Hero framework with Sun’s blessing is impressive enough, but your blueprint is uh…”

“Can you prevent the public from hearing us for a second?” Sofia asked.

“Sure, speak up.”

“Bookie here is Orator’s creation,” Sofia explained the origin of the skeleton hiding behind her left leg.

Jin’s expression froze for a second. “I- I see. Definitely a… Surprising group. Then again, it would take at least this to kill a trial prop set to be immortal.”

“Oh, we found your time magic notebook, too,” Sofia told him.

“That old thing? Ah, I see you got the ascended skill. Was the cake still good three millennia later?”

“Pesle leg cake!”

“I’m guessing that’s a yes. Well, let’s finish this, I’d go through your equipment too but the loading is almost done, glad to see someone got through Victory, though. Also please take care of Anna’s dagger, alright? It’d take a lot to break it but I can imagine the kind of things you must have gone through to get where you are now.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Good, then, since time is running short, let me give you a quick run through of what’s to come now. Since I see you’ve got all the pins, you lot will be fighting me for the perfect run and the extra reward. It’ll be quite a lot harder than the normal grand finale, which is just the ‘tournament master’ or a personality-less copy of me at level 299, basically.”

“I knew this would make getting the perfect run pin harder… Can we know what the extra reward we’re risking it for is?” Sofia asked.

“Of course, here it is,” Jin answered reaching up with both of his hands. He made a movement like plucking something out of thin air with each, and objects appeared between his fingers. His left hand held an gleaming and somewhat tear-shaped blood-red jewel, while the other held a long mithrium key. “In addition to the normal rewards, here is what you will be fighting for. This one is a key to somewhere useful that only Anna, my original, and whoever holds this key can access, a side reward. While the true prize is this. A dream of my former world, the ultimate human-exclusive item, the culmination of science and magic! The philosopher’s stone!” he declared, “It would have been a great loss for it to disappear with me, so I have long searched for someone worth giving it to, but as you can guess, I could not find that someone in time. But now, perhaps, that someone has finally shown up. As for what exactly it does… You will have to beat my challenge to find out! But I assure you, the juice is worth the squeeze.”

“Great. What is the challenge? We’re ready,” Sofia immediately answered, her eyes locked onto the strange gem that seemed to inexplicably draw her gaze.

Jin smirked, and the items disappeared from his hands.

He clapped, and the scenery completely changed, suddenly, they were floating over a vast sea of blue water, with nothing to be seen on the horizon, and, as Sofia immediately noticed, not a speck of mana in the air.

“Welcome to Earth,” Jin said with open arms.

“Earth?!”

“My home world,” Jin confirmed, “just how it was a few months before the mana sickness got the best of me.”

“Mana sickness? Is that what kills the heros?!”

“Yes. Mana sickness,” Jin answered, “A genetic deformity. People who are able to produce mana despite having none of the required internal components to handle it. Slowly, the mana will build up inside of you with no way out, and gradually, force your very soul out of your body. ‘Heroes’.” Jin paused for a moment. “But enough about that. As I said, welcome to Earth, this will be our playground… Before my death, I was Shin Jin, proud father of two lovely daughters, and supreme commander of the allied Earth defense forces.” 

Jin started flying higher up above the sea’s calm waves, his clothes changed to a simple but imposing military uniform, his chest adorned with countless stripes and medals.

“I was twelve when Earth was first attacked by scouts of the alien forces. This led to an extraordinarily fast growth of our military. And now, against this military… You will play the invaders.”

“I see… So this is it… Earth feels a lot more like Veliadren than I thought.”

“There are many similarities,” Jin answered with a smile, “War is one them.”

They have the Sundial, do they not… I know what to be on the lookout for. Thank you, Everelle.

Jin turned his back to the group and closed his eyes, savoring the moment, the calm sea breeze and the sound of the waves under the evening sun.

During this moment of silence, four system windows appeared in the corner of Sofia’s vision.

[Objective 1: Survive until I expire - Reward: Gold Star Pin & 500 000 000 TP]

[Objective 2: Locate me - Reward: Jin’s second spare key]

[Objective 3: Eliminate me - Reward: The philosopher’s stone]

[A friendly tip from the supreme commander: Cowardice is not an option.]

“Challengers!” Jin called out after opening his eyes, facing the group once more, “I am Shin Jin, Hero of Earth, and this, is your trial!”

In a bright flash of light, Jin disappeared.