Chapter 3 - 3. Second Soul Remnant

He then equipped the monocle onto his right eye, all kinds of indicators lighted up. He saw a two-third red bar at the upper corner of his vision, and an almost empty yellow bar beneath it. Looking at the numbers, he deduced it was his HP bar and Stamina bar. He also saw a round radar-like interface in the other upper corner, several red dots were seen on it. The red dots were approaching the center of the radar.

While he was pondering what this signified, he heard noises. He turned and found several more zombies appearing. Comparing the positions of the red dots in his radar with the appearing zombies, he summarized that the red dots represented the zombies. And there were many more red dots approaching from within the building.

I can't take them all on! Jack thought.

He turned around and decided to flee, but was halted due to his newly equipped monocle discharging pinging sounds. At the same time, the monocle showed a bright purple color enveloping an object on the floor. It was the round thing that was dropped by the deceased man. He saw a text above the object.

Second soul Remnant (legendary consumable)

Legendary! He had read some basic introductory for Second World, this was the highest grade for item and equipment. Assuming if this current world was following Second World's rule, then this was a top-class item.

He picked up the round object while running towards the exit. He tried to store the object into his storage bag, but heard a notification instead.

"Object is unable to be stored."

Huh? He was surprised by it, but he didn't stop running. He just kept holding the ball while running to the courtyard. He then continued out to the main street. It still appeared empty, but he saw some red dots on his radar. The closest one was to his left. He looked left and saw a zombie some distance away.

God, these things are everywhere!

The monocle made a beep sound before some texts appeared above the faraway zombie.

Zombie (Basic monster, Undead)

Level 1

HP: 150

This monocle could identify enemy. Great! With this, he could take care to avoid stronger monsters. Good thing this zombie didn't seem to register his presence yet. Maybe he needed to enter their range of perception before he drew their aggro, just like standard mechanics in VR RPG game. So he moved further away. Using the radar to navigate, he finally found an area where there was no red dot in his radar. Just to make sure, he entered a bakery shop that was nearby, and locked the door.

He found a chair at the corner of the shop and sat upon it. Trying to calm his nerve, he took several deep breaths. Everything had happened too fast, he didn't get any chance to process all that had happened. Now that he got time to think, he still couldn't make heads or tails about it.

He took out his cell phone, tried to make a call, but the phone wasn't responding. The monocle on his right eye scanned the phone and spit out some texts.

Handphone (junk item)

Can sell to merchant for a small amount of coins

Junk?! Are you kidding me?

He made a few more tries on the phone. It just didn't work. There was power, but it's as if everything was blank inside. None of the icon apps he pressed made any response. It really became a junk.

Ah, forget it!

He put the phone back in his pocket, instead, the holographic storage box appeared with the phone inside it.

Did I stumble into some kind of parallel world by chance? Or I lose consciousness and someone plugged me into a VR world?

He pondered for some more time before giving up on trying to figure things out.

Argh! No use. I will just have to go along for now.

He turned his attention back to the strange ball he was carrying. He took it up and placed it at the center of his sight. The monocle started scanning the object. It made a beep sound and some texts floated out above the ball.

Second soul Remnant (legendary consumable)

Cannot be stored

Grant user with a second class

Grant user with innate ability: Immortal soul

Require 10 minutes activation time to use

Disappear upon use

Second class? In the Second World introductory he got for being a Beta Tester, it was said each player could only choose one class. There was no mention of a second class. If this thing could really give him a second class, then it was a game-breaking ability. It would put him ahead of other players.

He stopped for a moment and looked around. Other players? Hell, He saw no one at all, the only person he had seen had become zombie's snack. For all he knew, he could be the only person here. And he was not entirely sure he was in a game, despite all the holographic system and announcement voice. It felt too real. If he could use this object to be stronger, then he should use it. It's about survival now!

With the intention to use it, he touched the ball. It made a clanking sound and a system sound was heard from the ball.

"Mental link detected. Do you wish to use Second Soul Remnant? It will take 10 minutes to activate. If you move or is attacked during usage, the activation will fail."

No wonder the man who had this ball before was just holding it without using it. Apparently, he couldn't before finding a safe place.

"Use," Jack replied to the ball.

"Affirmative. Activation starts. Soul linking."

He felt a pinching sensation at his heart, and then a cold breeze spread to his entire body, and then converged on his head. It gradually transformed into a warm feeling, before slowly started to become hot with innumerable tingling sensations all over his body. The sensation continued for a while. He could see a loading bar above the ball. When it filled up halfway, the ball broke into several floating fragments. They revolved around an energy light that slowly moved into his body. When the light hit his body, a stinging pain aroused. He clenched his teeth and endured, he couldn't move, or else the process would fail.

What kind of VR game was this? No one would have wanted to play it if people had to endure pain like this. This made him more certain that this was indeed not a game.

He kept on looking at the loading bar to see how much longer he had to endure this suffering. Why the heck does it feel so long? He kept on cursing every time he saw how slow the loading bar moved. After what seemed to be an extremely long torture, the pain subsided. The light ebbed away and the floating fragments fell to the floor, before slowly became transparent and disappeared completely.

"That was neat," Jack muttered.

He took a deep breath, and moved his limbs to get rid of the weird sensation that lingered. He didn't know his body was numb due to the invading light, or simply because his body was staying in the same position for quite a while.

A black chest suddenly materialized in front of him.

Ah, that thing looked familiar, he thought.

He went to the chest and opened it. As expected, the three sets of class choosing equipment. Well, time to reap the reward, but which class should he choose? Should he go with the Ranger class or Magician class? Or what happened if he chose Fighter class again? Just to satisfy his curiosity, he tried to touch the sword set. He was stopped by an invisible wall and heard a system sound.

"You can't choose the same class. Please choose a different one. Or you can postpone the second class choosing when you have acquired the advance or elite class. Do you wish to postpone?"

Oh? I can do that? Jack thought. But after some pondering, he rejected it. He needed instant power to deal with the current situation, which he was still unsure of how dangerous it was.

"No," he replied.