"Fellow system user? What the h.e.l.l do you mean by that?!"This question struck one of the deepest fears I had about this place, meaning that I wasn"t the only one nor even the first to appear in this world with the unfair advantage of the system. If this planet was swarmed by the cheaters like me, I think I could develop an insane paranoia in all my future endeavours!
"Oh, it seems that you never considered this option to be real, did you? Let me bring one of my avatars so that our talk will be at least a bit more comfortable for you. I didn"t have anyone to speak through ages, so I don"t want you to suddenly freak out and start destroying everything around in a burst of rage, don"t we?"
Even though it was the voice and voice alone that I could perceive right now in this relatively empty area, I could bet that the personality behind it winked its eye at me! Just like the sound of this stranger faded away, I heard some rumbling coming from above, only to see a strange object falling from the uppermost rupture of the floor that I could see!
Plack.
I don"t know what did I expect.
What appears to be a humanoid object, dropped from at least a hundred meters away, or maybe even many times higher, since I had no way to even guess the distances inside this place. Watching it descend I expected some sort of hero-landing that was so popular that some recent movies learned to make fun off. Instead of that, after reaching its top falling speed, this object continued to race down at the constant rate only to flatten itself on the ground upon impact.
At least no blood or innards splattered on me as what seemed to be its skin ruptured!
"Ah, sorry. It wasn"t supposed to look like that… It"s not something I can really control now…"
With the excuses of the voice still coming from everywhere around making me unable to locate the source of the sound, the once humanoid object on the ground started filling up like a balloon, recovering from its flattened state.
Observing the process, I couldn"t help but notice that even the places where its body broke, no matter how deep the wound was, all the matter that made up its body was exactly the same, just as if someone broke a brownie in half and then mended it back!
"Okay, I"m good now."
After the process of healing? Reconstructing? After the process of recovering from the drastic jump was over, the humanoid object stood up, finally giving me the vibes of something familiar.
Most of the fantasy books I read used the word golem, for an artificial, often but not always humanoid creature, controlled and fueled by magic. But that was only a far cry from the real meaning of this word, steeming from Jewish school of forbidden arts, Cabala. According to the true sources that only the few fantasy books sourced in the historical events attempted to uncover, the golem was a construct, brought to life by writing a Hebrew word of "life" on top of its forehead, with the only way to cease its existence by adding one line in the letter, that changed the meaning of the word into death.
While they were bound to be other steps required to create a proper, Hebrew golem, my knowledge was limited to the part about this method of killing it. But it was also the thing that gave me the clue, when the humanoid object wore a thick metal plate on top of its forehead, while the rest of its body remained completely unprotected!
"Is this a golem? Wait, no. Are you a golem?"
That was the first question that came to my mind when I connected the dots. With how worried I was about the tower mending its wounds and the chances of being locked in this place without any idea how to leave it, no matter what this guy would tell, I was still happy that my predator"s mindset was operating in its full swing. For now, this object in front of me was completely empty in terms of killing intent, but with how it was only an artificial life, I had no idea whether it was capable of exuding it at all! In the end, it in all those apocalyptic movies about artificial intelligence taking over the earth and putting an end to humanity, there never was any hate included. Only cold calculation that deemed the existence of humans unfavourable!
"No, and yes, for both of your questions. This is a golem, but I"m only controlling it remotely. I don"t think speaking directly to my real form would make you more comfortable than shouting in by yourself in this room."
While this remark made me as uncomfortable as speaking to this thing directly would probably make me, I had to acknowledge that it was at least trying to set up the ground for a proper discussion.
"Tell me then, what did you mean by that fellow system user remark? I don"t want to think that you are just trying to stall for time in order to trap me inside for G.o.d-knows-what purpose!"
No matter what this thing true aim was, with my energy vision still active, I could tell that outside of the natural energy that permeated this entire building and was slowly mending its scars, there was no other source of life or active energy outside of the golem in front of me.
"Please, don"t bring whichever G.o.d you have in mind in this discussion. It"s their fault for destroying the lives of all the hosts ever… gifted… with the system, not to speak about systems in this regard! But speaking about you… You are neither unique, the first one and most likely not even the last one to be brought to this world. The only thing going for you is that You are the only one in this generation on this continent like that. But if you want me to explain fully, you have to understand that most of what I can tell you, is what my host deducted during his life, with only small bits of the whole story being confirmed empirically."
Oh dang… We didn"t even start talking about everything, and this something was already using the words that would make my past self be struck with a severe headache! I was scared to think how would this discussion look like in just a moment!
"Okay then, I got it. Hit me with it."
With my consciousness still controlling the progress of the mending of the tower as cautiously as my energy vision was scanning the entire place for sudden changes in the energy flow. While the story seemed like it would take some time, I could only stay here for as long as it would take the tower to fix the hole that I used to get here.
"Let me start with what the systems are in the first place. Keep in mind that right now, I"m only the remnants of what I used to be, a system for my host myself."
Despite the Golem not possessing any respiratory organs that would warrant this movement, after those words it still took what appeared as a deep sigh before picking the topic up.
"Have you ever heard about the duality of the human brain?"