Chapter Text
He wakes up in darkness and can hardly move. The smell of wet musty earth, clay invades his mouth and nose as he tries to breathe.
Sephiroth is buried. How did this happen??
『Active Mission Alert!』a feminine voice announced with the abruptness of an oncoming train,『Mission “Escape Live Burial! Try this TikTok Challenge!!” auto-accepted! Reward: 200 B-points.』
Clearly he was hallucinating. Sephiroth shoves the panic and frivolous questions down, lets his thoughts flow razor sharp, determines ‘up’ from down because he’s sinking farther into the goop, can feel the sensation of gravity but no equipped materia. His mana flow was unaffected at least.
『Failure to complete mission will result in Punishment Protocol engaging!』
With a burst of raw strength, he shoves his arms down and calls on his inborn magic. In a moment, a percussive amount of fire blasts him out of his heavy prison. His ears ring from the force of the blowback and he can’t see but he can breathe now, coughing and choking on clay-mud. But now he’s realized he’d overdone it because–
『Active Mission Successfully Completed. 200 B-points awarded!』
He’s airborne and falling, so he ignores the nonsense words of an artificial announcer in his brain. His body feels numb and sluggish, not responding the way he expects. It was yet another negative status effect to pile onto the list, a paralysis status effect in addition to blindness. He looses another jet of fire from his palms, though it streams out a poisonous green he can see through his eyelids.
It slows his momentum and sets whatever it touches on fire. He manages to tuck and roll the rest of his momentum out as he hits the muddy ground haphazardly.
He hopes it is a riverbank to wash himself off, but only smells the mire of a bog under the choking smoke of a now smoldering-fire.
His surroundings are too damp to set aflame so easily then. Good. One less danger to worry about.
In his Blind and Deafened state, he takes stock of his situation.
He has nothing equipped. He is naked, save for the flaking mud clinging to his flesh in an itchy way. The length of his hair surprisingly isn’t right, having been shorn at shoulder length and matted it was still making a nuisance of itself.
He carefully rubs at his face, drawing the filth away, while his eyes water, but it’s useless. The filth is too thick. Without materia, he can’t summon water forth. His natural element is fire, and his control isn’t good enough to bake the mud just enough not to burn his skin.
Instead, he focuses inwards to sense out the living things around him. For now, he is alone beyond the soggy plant life and bugs. Not a single monster nearby.
He takes a deep breath and calms himself now that there’s no immediate danger.
The last thing he remembers was laying down in the lab for his usual mako injection and the usual burning, but then it didn’t stop as the pain seemed to feed on itself. His body seized and his heart went out of rhythm before it stopped completely… and then…
He frowns when he senses something unusual, drawing him from useless memories. Clearly, he is nowhere near the labs. He couldn’t imagine his body being dumped out with Hojo’s propensity for hoarding… But this place couldn’t be Midgar Marshes. The air smells differently, not to mention not a single Midgar Zolom juvenile is near.
Sephiroth carefully stands and walks unsteadily across the mud-sucking grounds towards the hollow of a… tree? A sword infused with life sat inside the flow of a tree, a beacon drawing him forth. He’s never sensed something so… out of place.
『Side Quest “Retrieve Su Xiyan’s Treasured Sword, NuoXiong” activated. Reward: One (1) Spirit sword. Punishment for failure: Lose 500 B-points.』
He carefully picks his way across the long roots before he reaches into the hollow. His palm crackles as he touches the pommel and wraps his fingers around the hilt. Something other presses against his mind, questioning wordlessly.
This sword is alive. He wonders if this sword was what that auditory hallucination of a mission operations specialist meant by a Spirit sword?
He’s never encountered such a thing before. It’s fascinating! It’s threading through his own life-force curiously, gently plucking at him in a way that the professor never had, in places he was unused to but not painfully, before the sensation of it curls up in his chest like a comfortable cat.
“NuoXiong?” Was this a special Wutai-made sword? The name doesn’t mean anything to him.
『Side Quest Successful! Please continue making strides to achieve better plot complexity!』
Ignoring the strange voice for now, Sephiroth follows the swordspirit’s prodding and sticks his other hand deeper into the hollow. He finds a sheath and a small pouch. He carefully sheaths the sword before opening the pouch, his hand slipping into a large space. Ah, an Inventory Bag. How unexpected.
He draws out a leather waterskin and finally washes his face clean. He inspects the hollow of the old gnarly tree and doesn’t understand why these things were placed here.
『Spend 50 B-points on a hint?』
Sephiroth startles at the appearance of a UI screen floating unhampered beside him. Had the professor finally followed through with his threat of a brain implant for technological augmentation? Then it wasn’t a hallucination. Hmm.
He inspects the floating screen blankly. Since his hand passes through without a problem, he decides more firmly on brain implant.
So a technological hallucination. Lovely. Of course, no manual or tutorial was provided. Why would the professor’s perfect specimen ever need such a thing?
No hints, Sephiroth thinks at the screen and the blue screen closes abruptly.
He surveys the landscape and absolutely no recognition follows. It is sunny and the blue sky is clear, but that is the only familiarity. As he suspected, he’s in a bog, though it’s much more colorful than he expected with tufts of bright pinks and orange here and there. The flora is alien and he can’t recollect anything that looks like it.
This place… couldn’t be a hologram room, right?
The UI pops up obnoxiously in front of his face again.『Answering User, this is not a hologram room. If you die, it’s Game Over!』
The conversation style reminds him of Zack Fair, upbeat despite its Genesis-like sarcasm. In a moment, Sephiroth decides the fastest way to get information would be through the nameless UI. Interesting. And I’m User…?
『User 002, Shen Yuan is currently assigned ‘Unnamed Original Character’ role after growing a body from the seed of the Sun and Moon Dew Flower. User’s body is something like a Plant-Mushroom! Too bad User abandoned the previous role and high mission payouts from self-destruction. As penance, User is starting from the very bottom! This System wishes User good luck!』
Sephiroth is not Shen Yuan, but he doesn’t bother correcting the UI. The fact that the body he’s in was grown isn’t what bothers him. At the moment, it’s superfluous to care about anything other than survival.
Even with a living sword equipped, he’s largely lacking in knowledge in an unfamiliar place. He doesn’t know if he can even trust this floating screen. Regardless, any information is worthwhile until the mission specialist proved itself useless.
I see. Do I have any special stats or skills? Anything else that’s important to note?
『Answering User, Special Passive Skill: Photosynthesis. ‘Love Interest’ Halo is active and cannot be unequipped. To unlock details, User may spend 1000 B-points.』At his annoyed frown, it helpfully adds,『 User’s Current Balance is 1005 B-points.』
As he ruminates on the nature of these ‘B-points’, he looks at his surroundings properly, though the screen annoyingly follows his field of vision. Why is there even a point system? Was the region uninhabited and this Shen Yuan the sole scouting force requiring some tangible reward for meeting mission goals?
So far, it appears he could purchase information, but he still had yet to determine if doing so was worth it or even reliable.
He can already guess that this ‘Photosynthesis’ skill means he won’t need to eat as long as there’s sunlight and potable water. Or did any water work? He would experiment to find out.
The bit about the 'Love Interest' Halo wasn't as nonsensical as it seemed at first glance. The artificial mission specialist effortlessly described the Curse affliction with the way strangers always fawned over him or desired him in ways that always seemed to make Genesis jealous.
He shrugs at the 'Halo'. As the redhead loved to say, forewarned is forearmed.
What is your designation? Sephiroth asks the screen.
『The System is a Self-Saving System, guaranteed to allow User many opportunities to create a better story than the original plot hole-ridden farce of “Proud Immortal, Demon Way”! User 002, Shen Yuan, does not have the authorization to access more information.』It answers crisply.
He isn’t sure what that objective of ‘creating a better story’ means exactly.
Is he supposed to believe that any actions here would ‘create a better story’ and disconnect any responsibility for murder and mayhem these missions instructed of him? It certainly would be one way to take the ordinary psychology of any isolated soldier to absolve them of any actions taken on the UI’s behalf.
Sephiroth’s long life under the every whim of the professor had inoculated him against propaganda. He knows exactly his purpose is to be the perfect living weapon, that is, Shinra’s perfect weapon. He stares down at the sheathed spirit sword, whose entire purpose was as a living weapon. It hums to him, and he finds it strangely… warm? Ah, comforting. How strange.
The professor would be endlessly fascinated if he ever saw it, and so Sephiroth strives to never reveal any such existence to that greedy man. The professor would destroy this precious sword’s warmth and hollow it out like he had done to Sephiroth.
He looks down at the new sword that hums silently in his hand.
The sheath is unadorned and weathered. The pommel and guard are similar to Wutai style moreso than the style Shinra prefers, but not the same. The golden metal guard is very small, just enough so that should his hand slip upwards he would not grab naked blade. The guard and pommel are wrought into the fierce gaze of some simplified beast.
Despite gently setting it against the trunk of the tree, it continues to hum in a gentle way.
Meanwhile, the Inventory Bag doesn’t contain any materia, but it does contain many more waterskins, clothing, a bedroll, some kind of jerky, a hunting knife, and a large scrap of oiled cloth to make a primitive shelter.
He discerns no gil or any other kind of currency, though there’s a stack of thick, rectangular papers with crimson scrawls on them that throbs with dormant magic like traps do. He senses they are something equivalent to a magical grenade but created with paper and imbued with the same lifeforce as the sword. So, he leaves them at the bottom of the pouch, untouched.
Since he cannot trust the so-called System’s intel yet, he doesn’t ask what they are and plans to test them out later.
His first self-given task is to clean up and dress, but there is only stagnant, sulfurous water surrounding him. He frowns.
『Would User like to purchase a One-time Use ‘Cleansing Token’ for 50 B-points?』
Yes, he answers warily.
『50 B-points have been deducted from User’s account.』
A wooden token with a scorched scrawl appears in his hand. He inspects it curiously before he discovers he can channel magic into it. The token glows brightly, and then water magic splashes over him drawing away the caked-on earth and then wind magic whips around him, blowing him dry.
His dark brown hair is shoulder length and very fine without any kind of curl to the ends. He wonders if his eyes are as brown as his hair, but dismisses it as unimportant for now. At least his eyesight doesn't require correction.
He pulls out one of the sets of small golden robes and a pair of gold-painted sandals from his inventory and carefully pulls them on. He’s surprised it fits and is hit with the realization that he’s much smaller than he had thought. He looks at his lithe hand curiously. Perhaps it was not a paralysis effect, but the simple fact the body is unused to movement in general, having been grown in the soil.
So, he takes the time to optimize his movements and fighting style. The soggy ground doesn’t make it easy, but he manages to readjust his reach to something barely satisfactory.
NuoXiong lacks any curve and is much shorter than Masamune. At least, he is quick and strong and after going through rote training movements this new body has much better reactivity than when he had first awoken.
As soon as he finishes, he judges that only a few hours have passed from the sun's movement and decides to explore the region.
System, do you have a map?
『User may purchase a Regional Map for 200 B-points!』
Sure, he thinks, and then the points are deducted.
A heavy scroll falls into his hands. He unwraps it and is massively disappointed at the details. There’s no indication of where he is beyond the clearly marked BaiLu Region where one major river flows easterly.
The legend marks out that there are several villages spread out, but the names are faded and illegible. There’s several roads leading to one place. Probably the capital city? It is labeled, The Golden City of Overflowing Wealth. He snorts and shoves it into his inventory. The amount of points given for the low quality map seems obscenely high. He wonders if he could ask for a sample before making a judgment next time.
System, can you make an indicator on the map for my present location?
『User may purchase a personal indicator for 10 points! A compass would be an additional 10 points!』
May I see the state of the compass?
『Certainly!』A three-dimensional, rotating image of the very sad state of the compass is projected.
How much more for a useful compass?
『User may purchase a Useful Compass for an additional 50 points!』Without any prompting, it projects the image of said compass.
Very well.
『70 points have been deducted from User’s account!』
So, he has 685 B-points left now. He’s careful not to muse on things to have in hand because the UI is all too eager to offer him something for B-points.
He makes note of his relative position to the settlements and judges it wise to steer clear of possibly hostile inhabitants for now.
Instead he asks the UI for monster extermination missions, and the UI provides.
His total B-point amount swells after killing a monster he comes across during that first monster extermination mission. He is a bit perturbed that he does not gain any EXP energy or items or currency as monster drops.
Even more shocking, as he completes several of these missions, is that the monster bodies don’t ever fade away. So, he burns the carcasses instead, knowing the dangers of un-faded monsters raising themselves into Undead Types. All the while the System is notifying him of completed ‘quests’ and ‘bonus missions’ and tallying up more and more stingily awarded B-points to his total.
He can’t seem to do Limit Breaks, but he finds that his usual sword techniques are usable and he’s slowly reclaiming Sword Skills he developed for himself. He’s had to adjust them to the shortsword, but the sword easily accepts and amplifies his mana into devastating area-of-effect attacks. It makes him feel alive in a way he never had under the professor’s thumb.
It’s exhilarating to have a true partner in battle, an extra set of ‘eyes’ and ‘will’ to draw his sword-hand to defend his weak spots. NuoXiong is a delightful depth of dimension to the battlefield, and Sephiroth never resists its desires which makes him even deadlier in any Encounter. The previous reach he had is replaced with viper-strike quickness. Nothing can touch him, and he laughs breathlessly when the giddiness and excitement becomes too much to hold back.
The System, despite its so-called Punishment Protocol, never punishes him. But he has yet to fail an accepted mission, so the threat hangs over him unpleasantly in moments when he’s not tired enough to sleep.
The body only desires sleep if it doesn’t receive enough sunlight in a day, and he’s determined that’s only two or three hours at least.
Of course, the golden robes become stained beyond recognition after so many missions. He hardly thinks about it after his latest mission of routing out an entire den of spider-horse-lizard-like chimera monsters.
He finds an abnormal amount of loot inside the rotten-meat smelling cave and stores whatever looks useful into the Inventory Bag. He doesn’t see any human remains, so he exits the foul space.
Once he’s in a Safe area, free of enemies, he goes through the loot. He finally finds precious coins but it’s definitely not gil and also discovers mana-laced stones that seem a little like Materia.
Proto-materia? He holds it up towards the sunlight watching the mana swirl inside. His senses tell him that the glowing white-bluish stone is an Ether-equivalent item with a bonus of EXP energy. How bizarrely useful.
He keeps the mana stones for dark, rainy days or times that he might find himself trapped in sunless areas. No doubt this body would eat the stored mana from the stones like food. Useful because he didn’t have to bother wasting time collecting food, preparing it, and preserving it to consume later. He wonders if he could make such stones if he ever had an excess from exceptionally sunny days.
On the other hand, he is constantly thirsty, and, while brackish water didn’t cause any deleterious effects, it tastes foul. If fresh water is readily available, then he stores as much of it as he can until the next source can be found.
As a result of testing the limits of his new body, he discovers that he doesn’t tire much as long as the sun is bright and uncovered. At night, he’s sluggish and hungry but he has yet to pass out from exhaustion. It’s been a week, but he only feels as if he's missed a day or two of sleep.
He tries the preserved jerky from the inventory but it doesn’t have any effect on his hunger at night. He simply doesn’t need that form of sustenance, though it’s helpful to know he can pretend to need it if he had to.
The biggest problem arises when it starts raining and doesn’t stop for several days. He forces himself forward, taking every monster extermination available though the B-point rewards are much smaller than the effort suggests it should be. Hm.
He keeps killing the aggressive monsters that are constantly badgering him. Perhaps they sense his weakness from the lack of sunlight. He tables the thought for another day. He absorbs the energy from a single mana stone and it's enough to tide him over for the rest of the week.
The System’s monotonous voice begins to sound smug as he slows down as the heavy rain drags into the next week It offers to give him 3-use Sun Tokens for outrageous prices when before it had cost fewer B-points.
So, clearly he needs to stockpile them when the price is low because the UI seems built to extract his ‘B-points’ in more dire situations. He doesn't find the price gouging behavior all that strange considering how basic unfettered macroeconomics works.
However, it simply makes no sense in the microtransaction, one-on-one set-up unless the true purpose is to force him into a more malleable position to induce him to make terrible decisions. He thinks Shen Yuan might have fallen into that trap multiple times.
The price gouging proves that the System has arbitrary rules that consistently change to his detriment whenever stressors heighten for him. This was not unlike the professor making sudden changes to courses and tests to make them more challenging for his perfect specimen. Stress tests must regularly be performed to ensure failure won't occur during normal operations after all.
NuoXiong is the only reason he’s able to press forward, feeling sorrow that the loyal sword had been abandoned for whatever timespan. He doesn't want the sword to be abandoned again if he falls.
He has managed limited conversation with its sentience but the understanding of ‘time’ isn’t something it can grasp. Which is fine.
It shares a wealth of Sword Skills from its previous swordsmaster of similar build, which Sephiroth quickly absorbs and adds to his fighting repertoire.
Its emotions taste of deep worry towards that same master, a kind of keening want. Sephiroth promises to go find that master and reunite them, even if it leaves him weaponless once again.
After regular communion, the sword becomes even easier to use and Sephiroth relies on it even more when he is too tired to think. He decides to go to the nearest village, unable to continue as he is.
The UI screen seems to vibrate with suspicious excitement.