OLD-WORLD EXTRA-Chapter 32: Second Step

Sitting down on the floor in a lotus position, Emir closed his eyes.

[Emir, now allow me to access your nanobots.] Lyra requested, and he complied, resulting in the process suddenly starting.

All of his muscles began contracting and relaxing every few seconds, feeling like he was pushing, pulling, and lifting things.

His body was getting more and more exhausted by the second, as Lyra was using the nanobots in his body and the augmented suit to move his muscles as if he was doing the exercises himself, calculating his current strength, agility, and endurance.

As for allowing her access to the nanobots in his body, she can only temporarily use them, as Emir quickly developed control over them as he grew up, way faster than the average of 15-plus years that people usually take.

This is why he didn't lose any even after bleeding, the nanobots traveled through his bloodstream away from the minor scrape on the left side of his head.

'Although I feel like I'm exercising, this is still quite boring,' he thought.

After what felt like half an hour, the feeling changed.

'Hmm...now I feel like I'm using my legs to run as fast as I can.'

Many minutes later, he started gasping for breath, as the simulated exercise was finally getting to him, but suddenly, the feeling of constant running stopped.

"I will stop for a little while, so rest for a bit, I need your muscles to operate at maximum capacity to calculate the best possible results." Lyra said.

And he did.

Now that he was lying down on his back, his breath started to slowly stabilize.

Ten minutes later, Lyra continued:

"All right, Emir, I'll start again, so get ready."

"Good to go," he replied, still a bit exhausted.

The process started again, and now he felt like his body was practicing CQC.

Emir recognized movements he had done many thousands of times before with the same level of mastery that he managed to previously achieve.

The same was done half an hour later for marksmanship, he felt the recoil of the gun and several other indicators that would occur while firing a shot.

The testing continued.

….

….

After a couple of more tests, she was finally done.

Laying his back on the ground for the sixth time, Emir asked while gasping for breath.

"Will I have to go through this every time you want to check my stats?"

"No, thankfully, this comprehensive assessment only needs to be done once to fully understand your current strength and future growth, so next time only a few minutes would do since I also need to account for different variables that might occur in the future to ensure that nothing would go unnoticed."

Her hologram form disappeared as she continued speaking, [I will now show you the results.]

A black screen filled with a wall of words suddenly appeared before Emir, stranded in midair.

….

{Name: Emir Oliver}

{Age: 13} 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

?Stats?

{Strength: D+} (Avg E)

{Agility: C-} (Avg E)

{Endurance: C} (Avg F)

{Mind: A} (Avg F)

{Charm: B+} (Avg C)

?Skills?

{Close Quarter Combat: Advanced, 10% Proficiency.}

{Marksmanship: Intermediate, 90% Proficiency.}

?Abilities?

{Time Sensory Dilation}

Slows down the user's perception of time, every second is slowed down to 0.3 seconds.

Current Total Use Limit: 1 Minute 3 seconds.

Mental Energy Recharge Time: 10 Minutes 20 seconds.

{Sensory Enhancement}

The user's neural network was upgraded.

Allows the user to enhance their five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) beyond human limitations.

The user can perceive the world in greater detail, such as seeing objects from farther away, hearing sounds that are too quiet for normal humans, and detecting subtle scents and flavors.

The degree of enhancement can be controlled by the user, allowing them to focus on specific senses or enhance them all at once.

The ability can be physically taxing, and overuse can cause temporary sensory overload or even damage to the user's senses.

?Equipment?

{Chrono-Sense Augmented suit: currently disabled}

{Hunting knife: standard issue}

{Commlink: standard issue}

?Inventory?

{Energy packs (x1): depleted.}

* The level of skill goes from novice, beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert, and master.

* Average stats compared to people of users' current age.

….

Staring at the screen for a while, Emir thought:

'Unlike most systems in novels that I read in my past life, this one seems a bit bleak. Well, aesthetics don't matter much, I guess.'

'I can safely guess that the section regarding my ability was previously calculated, same for the mind, and well, charm is self-explanatory, I am handsome after all,' he added, letting out a chuckle.

'As for the other sections, they are simple enough, mind is much higher than I expected though, let's ask her about that.'

[Hey Lyra, what's up with my mind rank being so high? Is it because of my TDS ability?]

She answered Emir's question like she was anticipating it.

[Yes, combined with your natural intelligence, and your mind's constant taxation while using the TDS ability, the mind stat is naturally high.]

[As expected, did the system factor in my prior shooting experience to calculate my marksmanship skill? And did it also consider my current strength level in correlation to it? ] Emir replied.

[Correct again, If not for the suit being faulty, I would have also subtracted the extra strength from it.] She answered.

'She sure is advanced AI all right.' He mused to himself.

[Wait a moment. Now that I think about it, why don't you just control and manipulate someone's body and mind using their augmented suit and nanobots to just accomplish whatever the organization's goal is? Though I can guess that, you somehow can't access that person's body when they are in the process of completing your objective.]

[Correct for the third time Mister~, truly showing that my results weren't wrong. You see, we can't interfere too much, otherwise, our objective wouldn't be achievable, but to truly answer your question, you need to learn of the objective first, so let's get you to sign a confidentiality agreement.]

[Of course... So now the organization is thinking of working with me since they failed with their plan, and now with the evaluation they feel like investing in me, right?] He continued his line of questioning.

[Quite impressive today, aren't you? Continuing your streak with correct assumptions, the answer is yes. Now that they have seen the results that they wanted, they wish to let you know of their current objective. Soon a message will be sent to your terminal, with a non-disclosure agreement attached to it. Sign it, and then we will talk.]

A notification rang throughout the room as soon as she stopped talking.

Standing up, Emir went and picked up his terminal off the nightstand.

Swiping it, he saw the message.

{Consider me the voice of the organization, so whatever I say and decide, is what the organization finds appropriate. You may call me Manager. After reviewing your results, we deemed you worthy of knowing about us.} Manager.

{So, we require you to sign the NDA below before Lyra talks more about us.} Manager.

{NDA file, click to open}

Raising his middle finger, Emir slowly pressed on the file.

Suddenly, a hologram of a paper appeared out of the terminal.

A page filled with words, with the end of it having a small blank line for him to sign.

He read through the contract again and again, making sure he wasn't about to sign his life away and trying to notice any flaws in the contract that might go against him.

The contract could be summarized as don't tell anyone or we will kill you. Don't mention the name of the organization even if accidentally or we will kill you. No mention of this even if you are forced to because we will kill you, basically a series of death threats.

'I can't have this,' Emir thought as he wrote down a message to send to the so-called manager.

{I'm not sorry, but no. This is too tight of a contract, an accidental slip of the tongue could have me killed.} Emir.

A few seconds went by, and a reply came.

{Are you trying to negotiate with someone who can literally end your life at any moment?} Manager.

Heated messages were sent back and forth.

{Yes, and I know that my results have matched your standards or even exceeded them, so finding a replacement for me would take a while and would cause a lot more trouble than just listening to a few of my demands.} Emir.

{Would it? You must understand by now how large our reach is. Do you really think that someone on your level would be hard to find?} Manager.

{It is true that many out there have strength similar to mine, not accounting for their age of course, but I don't think that you are possibly forgetting all the trouble of getting me under your control, which is something that you appear to be failing at quite frequently.} Emir.

{So even an organization that is as big as yours would find it difficult, or at least not worth the effort of going through all that hassle again, just to inject someone's brain with your AIs, not to mention the high chance that they might not be even half as good as me.} Emir.

{You speak quite well, as expected of you, Emir, or rather, I better call you by your real name, isn't that right, Asher?} Manager.