Second Genesis

Name: Polar Needles Rarity: Uncommon

Accepted Type: Branching

Rejected Type: Linear

Description: A set of ten needles split into a neat pairing of two each where every pair imposes the opposite charge of the other. Abilities:

>Polar Formation I: The retraction formation. Use needle pairings to sets where one is used to throw and the other is used to force a return. Easily retrieve your needles.

>Polar Formation II: The acceleration formation. Increase the speed with which needles fly by using combinations of pairings to repel.

—

Feeling the needles in his hands, Grey didn’t experience anything special like he might when he touched many other weapons. So, it seemed that Goblin Warlord Spirit wouldn’t give him much of a boost to his usage of these needles at all.

But what about his new metal abilities? Would any of them be useful here?

’This guy was using an ability that’s not listed here, though. Where did that defensive expelling ability come from if not the needles? Is it a coincidence?’

The abilities the dark-skinned man exhibited were too closely correlated to the needles.

Grey didn’t find anything else of consequence on his body, or so he thought. He had been about to leave when a last pass of his hands across the man’s corpse sent a small jolt up his fingers.

By now, he was all too familiar with that sensation. That only happened when he touched something that interacted directly with the system.

Was it the Nexis Suit? No, that shouldn’t be it.

Grey looked at the location his hand was frozen over. It was near the dark-skinned man’s waist.

Grey was already sighing. ’Alright, well maybe this means they won’t be able to accuse me of being a misogynist. Maybe I’ll just be a pervert without boundaries now.’

Despite his thoughts, his hands didn’t pause as he pulled the Nexis Suit off of the corpse’s body and he found both an object and why he hadn’t found it before.

A small transparent leaflet that almost looked like a blue electrical circuit embedded into a flat piece of clear silicone was hidden on the corpse’s inner thigh.

Contrary to what the Producers might try to paint him as in the future—especially if he ended up wearing those pink panties under extenuating circumstances—Grey didn’t swing that way. So when he was feeling the corpse for items, he had, in general, avoided that whole area.

’Damn, doesn’t that mean I would have if it was a woman?’ Grey chuckled at his own dark joke. It was nonsense, but that was about all that could make him smile these days. ’This must be a Cyber Warp.’

—

[Cyber Warp Detected]

[Status: Slightly damaged. Download process was recently interrupted]

—

From the tutorial, Grey had learned that Cyber Warps were essentially the same as patches to software. It triggered a change in your Nexis Suit that altered your Neural Frame such that you could comprehend something with greater ease.

However, the odds they would drop from a monster or a Loot Box were incredibly small. Usually, if you wanted one, you would have to spend quite a sum of money on it.

Could this man have just gotten lucky?

’The problem with this is that I don’t have a Nexis Suit and they take forever to download. The poorer the quality, the longer it takes. Since this one is damaged, even if I did have a Nexis Suit it would take at least four or five days. But maybe the Looping Necklace?’

Grey’s eyes flickered and he pressed the Cyber Warp to the back of his palm.

The blue circuits running through the transparent, flexible material flickered with life. It almost looked like the protective plastic covering one would get right after a tattoo. But this tattoo was far more invasive.

Blue patterns of perfectly perpendicular lines crawled up the veins of Grey’s back-hand, rising up his wrist until they vanished behind the thick meaty fabric that formed his Chad Suit.

As Grey was feeling the electrical pulses run through his body, there was a sudden flash in the skies.

—

[Breaking News]

—

Grey’s eyes narrowed. The last time he saw that, he ended up getting chased down by a chaotic mob and had his head chopped off in the middle of the city square.

—

[Genesis Candidate—Grey Temolt—has defeated a Territory Boss]

—

Grey raised an eyebrow. Is it talking about the witch? He was surprised they didn’t try to give that credit to the corpse at his feet instead.

Was the delay because he hadn’t accepted the rewards?

—

[The Favor of Her Holiness has descended upon him]

—

[Grey Temolt will be awarded the Title of Knight]

—

A notification popped up on Grey’s screen.

—

[Canon Event Pending]

—

Right below it, there was a place and time. The place was reflected in his map, the time, however, seemed scaled to this place. But they measured time in sun and moon phases, creating the most annoying manual clock in existence.

It took Grey a bit, but he just managed to translate it roughly to about noon tomorrow at the city square where he had ironically lost his head during a loop he’d rather forget.

’Canon Event... Meaning, I can’t skip it? How... great.’

Surprisingly, though, Grey wasn’t getting a bad feeling about this. The more he learned, the more he realized just how restrained the Producers had to be.

Why hide his rewards instead of just erasing them entirely? Why didn’t they just ping his location to every participant? Why didn’t the captain douchebag kill him when the opportunity was right there?

There were checks and balances to this place, and rules even the Producers and the Great Udon couldn’t break.

And that also meant one other thing: if they really wanted to mess with him that bad, why would they ever give him the opportunity to revive like some spawned character?

The answer was that they didn’t. From the start, his loops weren’t some technological machination by the Producers. It was just yet another variable outside of their control.

Looking at this bit of breaking news in the skies, Grey had a feeling that they weren’t ready for this. However, that didn’t mean that between now and noon tomorrow they couldn’t get ready.

Grey looked toward the blessed bracelet, hesitation evident in his eyes.

BOOM.

Grey jumped, immediately pulling out his chainsaw, ready to rev it at any moment.

But when the smoke and debris cleared from the sudden explosion, what he found was a tall outpost standing where the cabin had been just moments ago.

’What is that?’

He had hardly asked the question when a light appeared at the top of the outpost and swept out. Then a notification appeared.

—

[First Outpost of the Wilds]

[Enter Safe Room?]

—

[Achievement Unlocked: Explorer of Lands, Conquerer of Natives] [Description: Congratulations! You are a dickhead. You’ve swept in, killed those that called this place home, and established yourself as the harbinger of light. It’s a good thing for you that the world rewards cruelty and hypocrisy, so here you are. A pat on the back.]

[+10 PER]

—

This time, Grey actually got the stat points he was owed and his Perception skyrocketed...

Just enough to tell that his Cyber Warp had actually finished downloading already.