Master of the System

Karta stared at Vremya. For the past two hundred years, the old man hadn’t moved even an inch away from his spot. He was still sitting in front of the same mound of dirt with a gourd by his side. Every year, he’d pour a bit of liquid onto the mound, and just three years ago, a green sprout had grown out of the dirt. Well, if the old man wanted to literally watch a plant grow, who was she to judge? Karta shook her head and opened up her system, a holographic display appearing in front of her face. She rubbed her chin with her front paw, observing the dozens of screens filled with text that had appeared. After a few calculations, Karta’s eyes lit up. She swatted at the hologram, and a bowl of sweet and sour ribs popped out. It landed in front of the dog’s paws with a clanging sound, causing Vremya to turn his head away from the mound.

“What is that?” Vremya asked, his nose twitching. He stared at the bowl on the ground, but soon, his attention was drawn by the holographic display. “And that?”

Karta narrowed her eyes, hugging the bowl of ribs to her chest with her front paws. “This is a bowl of sweet and sour dragon ribs.” She gestured towards the display with her nose. “This is my personal computer.” She licked her lips and lowered her head. Upon seeing her bowl, her expression froze. A rib was missing! “Old man! Did you freeze time and steal my food!?”

“No,” Vremya said, his breath smelling suspiciously like dragon meat. Without her noticing, the old man had taken a seat beside Karta and was reading the text on the holographic display. “So, that delicious substance came out of this … cooking system? Where can I get a personal computer with a system such as this?”

Karta blinked three times. With each blink, one more dragon rib disappeared from her bowl. “I’m calling the god of enforcement!” she shouted at Vremya with tears in her eyes. “This is robbery! Do you know how hard it is to save up enough money to treat myself?”

Vremya patted Karta’s head. “Calm down,” he said. “Didn’t you want to stay here longer? I’ll extend your stay by five hundred years for every piece of meat I just ate. With that, you can stay here for five thousand more years.”

Five thousand years? Karta tilted her head. Did the old man not understand how math worked? He only ate four ribs. Unless…. Karta’s stomach dropped as she glanced down at her bowl. As expected, all ten pieces of meat were gone—even the sauce was licked clean! If she had known this was going to happen, she never would’ve extracted a meal from her system in front of the old man. Then again, she didn’t have to find another place to stay for the next five thousand years, and it only cost her a bowl of ribs. If she sublet the place to someone else, she’d easily make enough money for a hundred bowls of ribs. However, she didn’t think Vremya was kind enough to let her sublease the land to a stranger.

“So?” Vremya asked. “What are these systems? Where do I get a personal computer?”

Karta wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t the god of enforcement deliver a package to you? I told you to check it out two hundred years ago, but you said you weren’t interested. There’s definitely a personal computer in there.”

***

Johnson exhaled as he stared up at the tribulation clouds brewing over his head. Despite the loss of his system, he still continued to grow. Instead of waiting to offer the Sun Heaven Flower to the system, he devoured it and absorbed its energy for himself. Two hundred years had passed since then, and the number of his previous sect members he had killed totaled over a thousand. His path had been filled with blood and thorns, but which expert’s path wasn’t created by laying down corpses? The road to immortality was built upon countless lives.

Thunder rumbled above, and glimpses of red lightning could be seen amongst the pitch-black clouds. Johnson narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists, concentrating on the energy surging within his body, hoping to bring it to a peak before the lightning fell. If he succeeded in this tribulation, he’d become an immortal battle god; however, if he failed, then he’d die. Having seen a future as an immortal, there was no way he’d be content with dying! Johnson roared and an orange aura surged out of his body, wreathing him in flames. Thunder boomed and lightning crackled. A red bolt split the sky and struck Johnson’s body, dimming the flames surrounding him.

Johnson screamed in response and punched towards the clouds, intercepting a second lightning bolt with his fist. Flames dispersed from around his hands, and his fingers were scorched black. It was painful, but Johnson acted as if he hadn’t noticed. He was completely focused on defeating the tribulation lightning, scanning the sky, analyzing where the bolts would strike next, and punching them to prevent them from striking his vital points. If people from Johnson’s previous life were to see him, they would say he was in the zone. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could break his concentration. Nothing could prevent him from becoming an immortal!

[The system is back online. Thank you for holding.]

[Is it working?]

[Yeah, it’s up.]

[Why can’t I see anything?]

[It’s not calibrated. Take your hand off the broadcasting button.]

[Hmm? Which button is that?]

[This one.]

Huh? Johnson’s brow furrowed. For a second, he swore he saw the translucent text from the system flash in his vision. Of all the times for it to return, why did it have to come back now? Where was it two hundred years ago? A sharp pain assaulted Johnson’s hand, and he gritted his teeth. The tribulation was still ongoing and—

[The system is back online. Please take the quest-completion chalk and draw a circle on the ground for some recalibration.]

Johnson ignored the text even though it was obscuring his vision. It was a bit harder to see where the lightning would strike, but a few lines of text weren’t enough to stop him.

[Hello? User, are you there?]

[User?]

[Helloooooo? Anyone home?]

“Shut up!” Johnson’s eye twitched as lightning struck his elbow. It had avoided his fist, but luckily, he managed to defend his heart in time.

[Maybe the user is busy? Don’t you think we should leave him alone?]

[How many systems do you own? Who’s the expert here, you or me? Don’t ask for my help and then backseat drive me, okay?]

Johnson pursed his lips. The tribulation was getting more and more difficult. That was natural, of course. However, the stupid system was making the tribulation even harder than it needed to be! It usually responded to his voice, but there seemed to be some problem that could only be solved by drawing on the ground with the quest-completion chalk, but where would he find time to do that?

[Hey! Wake up! Draw on the ground! I know you’re still alive!]

Johnson punched a lightning bolt.

[Ignoring me, huh?]

Johnson punched another lightning bolt.

[Let’s see how much longer you can do that.]

Johnson deflected a lightning bolt with his forearm. He focused his energy into his hands, and the flames that were burning out began to burn anew. He punched away another three lightning bolts and narrowed his eyes. It seemed like the system had given up on—

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“What the fuck!” Johnson shouted. Thanks to the blinding wall of text, he wasn’t able to see the lightning bolt that struck his head.

***

[The user, Johnson, has died.]

“Huh.” Karta took her paw off the broadcasting button and glanced at Vremya. “Maybe he was busy after all.” The Labrador Retriever cleared her throat. “Anyway, that’s pretty much how you use the system. You’ll, uh, have to find a new user though.”

Vremya scratched his head. “I see. Thanks.”