by Pegaz
“Listen.” He stood up and made his way to Sarah, kneeling down and giving her a kiss. “I want to be with you whenever possible, for as long as possible. But we both need our own space. I want you to be strong enough to survive on your own. And speaking of which, after you absorb this system, it’ll be time for you to make your first human kill.”
“I’ve gotten used to killing the creatures with venom,” Sarah stated with certainty. “I should be able to kill a human now. When are we going back to the mausoleum?”
“We’ll teleport inside the mausoleum when it’s dark.” John stood up. “Which is in about three hours.”
The two buckled down to kill some time.
Three hours later, John and Sarah held hands. John used the map to teleport next to the body of the Sider. Checking the Scan, nobody was around. Perfect.
John instructed Sarah on what to do. She needed to damage the body enough for her system to find the other system’s brain. Showing no hesitation, Sarah rushed at the body and immediately smashed the skull in. She then went limp and collapsed onto the floor. John was by her side in an instant and caught her. Soon, they were back at the hotel.
She went limp because her system found the brain of the dead Sider’s system, right?
John put Sarah on the bed and sat down on the chair, waiting for her to wake up.
That was when it hit him.
How long will it take? I don’t know how long it took for me to watch Danny’s life... It could have been hours, weeks, or even months. When I got back, my master didn’t mention how long I was gone for since even years was a short time for him… All I can do is wait and hope she comes out of it remembering who she is.
When I woke up, I thought I was Danny for a few seconds, and even the killing intent I had generated from watching Danny leaked out. If she wakes up and sees me straight away, it might cause more confusion. I need to book the room next door so I can keep an eye on her from a distance.
After getting the new room key, John stepped into the new room and lay down on the sofa. With the Scan on, he could see Sarah still lying in the bed, asleep.
Six days and nineteen hours later, Sarah was still asleep but John’s Shrink Neurons first level had completed. As soon as the system completed it, John was rolling around the floor in pain, clutching his head with both hands and screaming. It was a good thing the rooms were soundproof.
The skill was shrinking all one hundred billion neurons at the same time. Normally, people shrunk a few hundred neurons at a time, but by the full 100%. Some people who could take more pain would do thousands at a time. But the system went the opposite way and did them all, shrinking them each by only 10% at a time. The pain lasted for half an hour, but it felt like forever. When it was gone, John was left panting on the floor of his hotel room, complaining about the pain immunity not working on his skills.
The second level came up at 14d 12h, double the amount of time of the first skill. John worked it out; the ninth and final skill would take him five and a half years to complete with two hundred twenty-seven Idlers; however, it would take over five years to start that level first.
John noticed his Toxin Pool amount hadn’t reduced by the 10% that the skill said it would. He checked the skill again to make sure he remembered it right.
Shrink Neurons:
Each level will shrink the neurons by 10%, but the amount of Life Power they can store will shrink the same amount.
Since the skill says Life Power, but all mine has transferred to Toxin Power... Does that mean I found a loophole? John smiled at this thought.
When the second level’s time was close to zero, John knocked himself out by hitting the pressure point Sarah had told him about. He didn’t want to experience that pain again. He woke up a few days later when the third level showed 26d 18h left. That level should have started at 1mo 1d, which was twenty-nine days total.
A few days later, Sarah woke up. John saw her standing up in her room, but he was unsure whether to go in the room or not.
Chapter 15
*Spoiler*
John stood outside the room in the hall, waiting in front of the door Sarah was behind. He assumed Sarah would see him with the Scan skill. When she remembered who she was, she would let him in.
Three minutes later, the door opened and Sarah smiled at him.
“You remember who you are? Who I am?”
Sarah nodded, so John walked inside and sat on the chair. Sarah closed the door and went to the sofa to lie down. John waited a few seconds before speaking again.
“How are you holding up?” he asked. “Any side effects?”
“I’m fine,” Sarah answered tiredly. “The memories confused me for a few minutes at first, but then it all came together.”
John sighed in relief.
“Did you see the past life of the Sider?”
“I did.” Her eyes lit up at the mention. “His name was Benigno Paiva, Portuguese, born in 1924. He died of old age in 1998. When he reincarnated here, he created the amusement park, built roads and houses.”
Sarah explained that Benigno eventually became king because he rid the kingdom of terrorists. He had nineteen children with different women but never reached immortality. The man died in his seventies.
“So you experienced killing the humans yourself?” John asked the question that he’d been most itching to know. “Think you’re able to do it for real much easier now?”
“Yes, he killed hundreds of people.” Sarah turned her gaze to the floor. “He had a system called The Puppet System where he could use different materials to create two types of puppets. One type was the worker puppet who built his creations. The other type was the fighting puppet, which he used as guards, assassins or slaughtering machines.”
Sarah went into detail about The Puppet System. When the puppet was created, you could upgrade the strength of the fighting puppet by infusing your Life Power inside new materials and merging the materials into the puppet while using a skill. The new system included skills called Create Worker, Create Fighter, Upgrade Puppet, and Telepathic Control.
John commented that the skills were self-explanatory. He asked Sarah to share the technique so they could try it out. Sarah laughed at this, correcting his assumption that the puppets could be made from scratch.
“To create a puppet, you need a body for it to take over,” she explained. “The puppet’s basic form is from the body. For a fighting puppet, the better the condition of the body, the better the results. It might be better to get an immortal rank body if we can.”
The skill caused the body to become unable to rot. The skill needed to be applied less than a minute after killing the person so as to trap the soul. It would wipe the memory of the person and make them completely obedient and loyal.
“So the skills don’t level up, the puppet does... All right, then.” John ran a finger through his hair. “Let’s go find two immortal sinners who deserve to die.”
The system notified John that Sarah had shared all four skills. In the fifth tab, on the right side, it had 7/20. There was no timer for adding the skills.
John smiled and activated Life Vision and Immortal Eye. He found hundreds of immortals with sins above 10,000. The highest nearby was a Rank 4 Level 6, which wouldn’t be too much of a threat if his sneak attacked the person. The higher ranked immortals had deserted the capital for some reason, it seemed. He told Sarah he was planning on kidnapping the two people. She would then have to kill them outside the city.
Agreeing on a safe location to create the puppets, John asked her to wait and then disappeared. He checked out the Rank 4 Level 6 candidate first, finding the person was a male. He checked out the other sinner, a Rank 4 Level 1 woman. Deciding to take the woman out first, he put the plan into motion, John appeared behind the woman and knocked her out with a blow to the pressure point that Sarah mentioned.
I need Sarah to teach me all about the human body’s anatomy. This pressure point alone is more useful than she realises.
>
He placed the unconscious woman over his left shoulder and held her in place. Teleporting with the unconscious woman, he appeared in the sky above the Rank 4 Level 6 male. He waited over fifteen minutes for the male to be alone. Teleporting behind him, John knocked him out using the same pressure point.
John appeared next to Sarah with both unconscious people over his shoulders. He placed them down on the ground. Looking at Sarah, he asked if they each needed to kill their own puppet.
“Yes, we do,” she answered. “I’ll kill the female and you kill the male. Then we’ll both use the Create Fighter skill on our kill.”
“All right, then.” John nodded. “We’ll both use poison on them so there is no appearance on the outside that shows they have died. You’re the expert in poison, which one will kill them without harming their appearance, damaging the brain, or hindering their movements?”
Sarah took a few minutes to figure out the best poison to use. Finally, she showed John her selection and instructed John to follow suit.
When the Create Fighter skills were performed, both bodies turned black and convulsed. Sarah smiled in recognition, confirming that the skill was working. She explained that it would take a while for the skill to complete. Since they had time to kill, John suggested they have one final training exercise. Sarah agreed.
“What do I need to do?” She stood up, stretching her limbs.
“Spar with me with everything you have,” John answered. “Aim for the kill and don’t hesitate.”
Sarah was a bit reluctant at first. How could she aim to kill the man she loved? But when she saw the serious look in John’s eye, she knew she trusted him enough to listen.
John took a deep breath when he got in position.
This is for her own good. This is to help her.
The spar began.
At the start, it seemed like they were warming up; there were no killing moves at all. John was the first to aim for the neck but missed. The blow that missed Sarah’s neck by inches shocked her; from that point on, she aimed for any vital points she could. If it was a weakness, use it. No mercy, no shame.
A few minutes in, neither had yet to deal a fatal blow. Abruptly, John stood up straight.
“The real thing starts now.”
Like a gush from a storm, John’s killing intent flooded the air. A thick, blood red veil covered him and the temperature dropped to freezing. Frost formed around John and spread outwards, rushing directly at Sarah, who couldn’t help from shivering not from cold but from actual terror.
The air was nothing but deadly silence. Each step John took towards Sarah made her heart pound faster and faster. The sound of his feet colliding with the frosty floor echoed in her ears until she couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from, despite staring directly at John.
Before Sarah could react, John was within arm’s length of her. He lifted his hand and touched her forehead with his index finger. Her heart stopped beating completely as she stared in utter horror at the proximity.
Abruptly, John’s killing intent disappeared. He looked at her plainly and smiled.
“You’re dead.”
Title: The Puppet System
Chapter 16
Fighter Puppets
Sarah’s knees were shaking. She collapsed on the ground not long after. John knelt down and put his arms around her, hugging her.
“Hey,” John whispered. “It’s over, you’re safe.”
Sarah cried on John’s shoulder as he rubbed her back.
Fifteen minutes later, she had stopped crying and calmed down. Sarah grabbed his hand and stood up, her knees shaking still. It took a minute for her to get her stability back. John was still holding her right hand.
“Not scared of me now, right?”
He could feel her hand tremble. He became concerned that she would be afraid of him now, but to survive in this cruel universe, she needed to feel killing intent aimed at her. In a real fight, she wouldn’t have the luxury to break down crying. What he didn’t see coming was Sarah’s left hand.
BANG!
She hit him on the right side of his jaw.
John held his jaw with his left hand, moving the jaw up and down.
“Ow, what did you do that for?”
“What do you think?”
“What? Ah...” John knitted his brows. “For using the killing instinct? I had to! What would happen if you were fighting and the first time you felt it caused you to freeze up?! It would be fatal! I’d rather have you angry at me now than die in a fight later. Unless you want to be one of those damsels in distress who only know how to scream for help?”
Sarah’s left hand was still clenched into a fist, but then the explanation calmed her down a little.
“Fine,” she growled. “I forgive you. There’s no way I want to become a princess locked up in a tower waiting to get rescued. I’d rather slay the dragon with you.”
Sarah looked over at the two bodies. They had stopped convulsing, but they were pitch black still.
“Do you think we did the right thing with the puppets?” she asked, eyebrows tilting. “They were still a man and woman before the skill took over.”
“They had sins over 10,000 which is four hundred lives worth at the bare minimum.” John frowned with a nod. “If they were alive, they might kill hundreds or even a thousand more lives.”
Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but John pointed to the two pitch black bodies on the floor.
“You have any idea how long this will take?” he asked.
“Well, if it was an hour for a mortal…” Sarah thumbed it over in her mind. “Maybe it’s an hour increase per rank? So a Rank 4 like these two could take 5 hours. That’s only a guess, though.”
John held Sarah’s hand and took her to a patch of grass a little ways away. He placed a blanket and two pillows on the floor, then lay down. He signalled Sarah to lie down next to him where he held her close.
“We’ve got hours to wait so we might as well relax.” He smiled warmly at her. “I remember on a TV show saying you should take time to just lie down on the grass. Take time for yourself or else you’ll kill yourself from stress. I never put it into practice on Earth, but we can try it here.”
Sarah let herself drift into a calm sleep.
Good, the experience of going against such killing intent could have driven her insane. She needed to sleep it off for a while. What show was it I heard the grass thing from anyway?
John put the question in the back of his mind and closed his eyes, too.
Four days later and the pitch black colour on the puppets disappeared. Both puppets stood up and waited for orders. John and Sarah had set up camp nearby. They didn’t know if there would be an explosion of Life Power when the puppets completed, so they couldn’t risk taking them back to the hotel. They couldn’t risk leaving them here alone either.
Both celebrated when the puppets stood up. John ordered his puppet to walk towards him with a psychic command. The male puppet approached John and stopped five feet away from him. John inspected the puppet; it was the first time John actually noted its appearance. The puppet was taller than John by a few inches but skinnier. He had black hair and eyes, bumpy nose, and full lips. A small black beard and a scar from the left side of the forehead, through his left eye and stopped at the top of the left side of his lips.
John activated Life Vision and Immortal Eye while looking at him. There was no data available.
This puppet could be the ultimate assassin. No feelings, presence, or consciousness… Damn.
He looked over at the female puppet which was standing in front of Sarah. It had brown hair, green eyes, and a hooked nose. She had a scar across her neck which looked like it healed years ago.
“You like the new puppet?” John asked Sarah.
“Yeah.” Sarah nodded. “In a head-on fight, she’s much stronger than me. They’re perfect guards for us.”
“I thought so, too.” John smiled. “Don’t forget, I’ve got plenty of
materials here that can upgrade their strength. How do we know which material is useful and which isn’t?”
“When you use the skill Upgrade Puppet and the material is on the floor, the material you need glows in your vision,” Sarah answered without hesitation.
John nodded, then brought out all the smelted metal, raw ores, blood, runes, swords, armours, and anything else that might be helpful. He looked at Sarah and suggested she upgrade her puppet, too.
Getting to work, John used the Upgrade Puppet skill and had enough materials for three upgrades. Sarah had better luck and upgraded her puppet eight times. John poked the puppet’s face after the upgrade. The feeling he got was that of human skin, which shocked him. It would be almost impossible to tell these were puppets, even while fighting.
“So do we just order them to guard us from now on?” John scratched his head. “How do we get them to not attack each other? Can we make it so my puppet won’t attack you and yours not attack me?”
“Yes.” Sarah nodded. “Just give the command to guard you from any attacks. Tell it that my puppet and I are friendly and to never attack us.”
John did just as she said. The puppet trailed five feet behind John and would follow him everywhere from that point on. Sarah’s puppet did the same. He opened the stats to check if there was anything different.
Life Pool: 1
Toxin Pool: 19.6B
Sin: 100M
Foreign Objects:
Rogues Key.
Fighting Puppet Controller: 4.9
Shared Skills:
Life Toxin.
Molecule Creation.
Molecule Storage.
Create Worker.
Create Fighter.
Upgrade Puppet.
Telepathic Control.
John noticed the new item in the Foreign Objects.
So that’s how the system sorted out the Telepathic Control skill, but what’s 4.9?
He kept thinking on it for a few moments when he had an idea.
I got the puppet when he was a Rank 4 Level 6 and upgraded it three times. Does 4.9 mean Rank 4 Level 9? That’s the only thing I can think of. Sarah’s puppet was a Rank 4 Level 1 and got upgraded eight times so it should be at the same level, too.
