[Checkpoint Selected]
—
[Welcome, Prometheus]
—
Grey gasped for breath, taking a strong step back and nearly collapsing. He touched at his body, only to feel a familiar blade-like cutting in his throat.
He rushed over to the fireplace and heaved, but nothing came out.
In the depths of the flames, he barely caught sight of a few chunks of metal in there already and a strong bout of déjà vu overwhelmed him.
’I came back. I really did come back.’
Grey exhaled a breath of relief, taking a look at his status page.
—
[Name: Grey Temolt]
[Frame: Prometheus]
[Frame: Magnetic Hero (Proving Class)]
[Pending Quests: 2]
-
Stamina: 10/10
-
Sync Rate: 0.01%
Energy Reserve: 0.1/10.1
-
Sync Rate: N/A
Energy Reserve: N/A
-
STR: 33 (+15) SPD: 25
DEX: 27 INT: 11
END: 21 PER: 23
-
Harmonic Stats: N/A
Free Stat Points: 0
-
Abilities:
Body
Resistances: N/A
Combat: N/A
Enhancements: Lv2 Metal Body; Lv2 Metal Digestion; Lv2 Metal Fusion
Mind
Resistances: Lv3 Mental Fortitude
Combat: Lv2 Magnetic Pull; Lv2 Magnetic Push
Enhancements: Lv5 Goblin Warlord Spirit; Lv2 Metal Affinity; Lv2 Magnetic Resonance
—
’It’s the same...’
The only difference was that his Energy Reserve was near zero.
It was just like the introduction had said. So long as he had 10 units of energy, he could come back.
But what did it mean by checkpoint? Did he have the ability to actively choose his own checkpoint?
Honestly, Grey had been somewhat hoping that he would return to the very start again. At least that way he wouldn’t be stuck here.
But now what good would coming back to life do him? He would just die again and again and again.
It was impossible to make progress here. It was like he was a toddler and someone had handed him a PhD thesis on quantum mechanics and now he was supposed to figure out a way to understand it all.
If he could at least decipher which blueprints were real and which ones were fake he could have a better time of it, but he couldn’t even read half these blueprints.
And even if he could read them, so many of them were so far beyond the Proving Tier it was a worthless endeavor to attempt any understanding.
’Fuck!’ Grey roared in his head, looking up and glaring at Esmeralda.
The witch didn’t seem to have any recollection of having only just killed Grey earlier, so her very same gentle smile was there. But seeing Grey’s glare, she was hardly moved. In fact, he could practically see the sneer in her eyes.
’Dammit. If I provoke her any more she’ll just kill me even faster this time.’
Grey took a deep breath and walked back to the table.
’Come on, come on. Set checkpoint.’
—
[Set Checkpoint?]
—
’Yes! Yes dammit!’
—
[Please select Checkpoint]
—
Grey was eager to do exactly that, but then he froze.
He found himself looking at a timeline in physical form, a long line of images that represented his life until this point.
The problem?
Everything but the last two minutes was completely greyed out.
Grey almost cursed up a storm.
He could only set a checkpoint within the last two minutes and he had a feeling he knew exactly why.
He had already died and Prometheus chose his checkpoint for him. Now that he had been revived, he could choose a checkpoint beyond that. That meant that no matter what, everything to this point was solidified. There was no getting out of this.
’If I had known I would have set my own checkpoint earlier you piece of shit! Why didn’t you tell me!?’
There was no response from his Cyber Space.
Grey gritted his teeth. There was no way he was going to subject himself to just dying over and over again. There had to be a way out of here.
He placed his hands down on the table, looking at the piles of materials and the blueprints, his gaze flashing with crimson he had still yet to notice.
’Calm down. Anger isn’t going to get you anywhere, but I’ll be damned if I don’t cut this woman’s head off one day.’
Grey picked up the Cyber Core to the side and topped himself back up to 10.1. Then, he started to stare at the blueprints. There had to be a better way to do this.
He had spent hours looking from blueprint to blueprint, searching for a clue.
’Wait.’
Grey’s eyes glossed over once again and he appeared in his Cyber Space. Then, he pulled up his introduction to Prometheus.
From what he had seen the first time, there were many things he hadn’t been able to learn about Prometheus because he was still limited. Opening a Cyber Space should have awakened some more stuff for him to read about.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t as much as he was hoping.
—
[Tier 1 Proving Class Cyber Space]
[>Store]
[>Document]
—
The only new things were explanations about both of these abilities. Store allowed him to store any Proving Class mech directly tied to his body into the Cyber Space at any time. He was also able to call it back out with a small time lag.
Document, though, was more interesting. It didn’t just scan items like a Cyber Mat did. It actively documented them for future reference.
’Maybe?’
Grey’s gaze flashed and he came back to the real world. He reached forward for one of the blueprints and communicated with his Cyber Space.
—
Blueprint: Able Eye
Weight: 0.2kg
Faces: 20,749
Grade: Vanguard Class
Raw Materials:
Tempered Crystal Lattice: 10,750 Faces
Violet-Gold Mesh Alloy: 5,000 Faces
Synaptic Flexweave: 4,989 Faces
Ulminum Nullite: 10 Faces
—
[Error. Blueprint Documentation Failed]
—
Despite seeing this, Grey’s heartbeat started moving faster. That was because he knew he had stumbled into something all too important.
—
Blueprint: Keen Navy Eye
Weight: 0.3kg
Face: 24,112
Grade: Vanguard Class
Raw Materials:
Fractal Resin: 12,300 Faces
Crimson-Gold Weather Alloy: 6,400 Faces
Halo Mesh: 5,392 Faces
Woundkind Nullite: 20 Faces
—
[Error. Incompatible Blueprint]
—
Grey grinned from ear to ear. He had been hoping to see exactly that.
With the Cyber Space, he could categorize all of the blueprints into three piles.
Trash blueprints that weren’t real.
Real blueprints that were too high level.
And blueprints that were just right.
’Call me Goldilocks. Just you wait until I put a ticking time bomb in your skull.’