Chapter 2 (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Clack, clack, clack…

Zhang Heng heard the clacking sounds as if they were right against his ears. The clacks weren’t crisp, nor were they bass-like. They definitely weren’t something that could come from any musical instruments, yet the clacks were eerily pleasing to the ear as if the sound was capable of reaching deep into one’s soul.

Those sounds didn’t come from the outside, but deep within his brain—his eardrums vibrated from the signals sent from his cerebral cortex. It was a sound that no one but Zhang Heng could hear.

“Host is confirmed.”

“Calibrating host’s neurons. Host’s neurons connected.”

“Begin scanning brain areas. Brain area functions normal.”

“Initiating AI support program.”

“AI support program initiating. Please wait…”

All those messages flashed in Zhang Heng’s consciousness all of a sudden.

To be precise, the messages didn’t appear in the form of either text or voice. It was instead some kind of consciousness signal. But the signal was comprehensible enough for him to interpret them as specific words and phrases.

But that was hardly the point; the point was that strange and nonsensical messages were somehow appearing inside Zhang Heng’s brain.

His face was unable to help but twitched for a bit, an instinctive physiological reaction resulting from his nerves being subjected to startle, shock, and some other similar stimuli. He was frozen stiff at the moment, unable to move a muscle, and the air around him seemed to have stopped circulating, frozen in place.

He felt as if the world would come crashing down at any second in the midst of that utter dead silence. He had no idea what was happening, only that his mind was being assaulted by some kind of vicious storm that was about to come.

But his mind calmed once again as those messages passed and disappeared, making it feel like what he had experienced moments ago was just some kind of illusion that had appeared out of nowhere.

Am I seeing things? Or is my brain really out of whack?

He forced himself to stand upright and move his legs about a little bit, confirming that he wasn’t feeling unwell anywhere at all, before letting out a sigh of relief.

But, just when he thought that all of those messages flashing in his head had to be some kind of illusion, he heard those strange clacking noises once again.

“AI support program initiated. Virtual personality setting up… Please select virtual personality. Options available for virtual personality are: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, true neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, chaotic evil.

“What the f**k!?” Zhang Heng leaped almost three meters into the air, as if he had been subjected to an electrical shock, and dropped onto his bed. His bed had a hard time cushioning his hard fall and creaked loudly in protest.

“Host’s mental conditions are currently unstable. The system shall determine the choice of virtual personality through random selection. Selecting…”

“Selection complete. Virtual personality set to chaotic evil.”

“Please select an image for the virtual personality.”

“Image generating in accordance with preferences found within the host’s memory…”

“Image generation complete.”

“Thank you for using ‘Dimensional Star’. To all remaining humans, good luck.”

Zhang Heng was sweating profusely by then, with both his heart rate and breath extremely elevated. Conventional logic dictated that there was no way he would be able to receive messages under such conditions, yet every single line seemed to be imprinted in his mind, and he didn’t miss a single word.

“Okay, okay, calm down!”

He took deep breaths right away, trying to force himself to calm down.

He took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket with shaking hands, putting a cigarette to his mouth, before snapping his lighter with hands still shaking and lighting the cigarette. A spicy, choking feeling went to his lungs. The carbon monoxide and nicotine bonded with his red blood cells through his alveoli, and he was finally able to calm his raging mind somewhat…

Pufff… He went dead silent right after throwing out a puff of smoke from his mouth. He felt as if he had trouble telling reality from illusion even at that very moment.

But there wasn’t a sliver of doubt that the flurry of messages that had appeared in his mind out of nowhere was real.

Just when he thought that he would be able to find some reasonable explanation for all that had just happened to him, he heard the crisp, clear voice of a little girl, speaking directly into his mind.

“Hey dude, are you the one who set up some kind of magic contract and summoned Yurianne to this world?”

His eyes were thrown open wide. He was sure that the voice definitely hadn’t appeared like the stream of messages that had flashed in his head before; it was an unmistakable, speaking voice that played in his mind. He scanned his surroundings for a bit and confirmed that there was definitely no one around him.

It was only then that he finally confirmed that there was some unknown being inside his brain.