Master of the System

Vremya stared at his holographic display with a deep frown etched in his face. Hums of displeasure escaped his throat as he rubbed his chin. The sound was grating and repeated without pause. Eventually, the Labrador Retriever lying beside him turned her head away from her personal computer. “Alright, grumpy old man,” she said and rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m trying to make sense of this,” Vremya said.

“Which part?” Karta asked as she climbed to her feet. “Are you still trying to find a user for your system?”

“No,” Vremya said. “I can’t seem to—”

“Old man,” Karta said, her eye twitching upon seeing a familiar symbol on the display. “You have to charge these things.” She went to the base of Vremya’s personal computer and removed a side panel. She bit down on the spirit stone that was inside and removed it before glancing at Vremya. She swallowed the spirit stone and licked her lips. “It takes one heaven-grade spirit stone to power your computer for a year. This one was running out.”

Vremya nodded and looked down. He was wearing a red fanny pack that belonged to Pozhar. It was a dimensional storage tool, and everything the god of fire had accumulated was contained inside. Vremya reached into the fanny pack and pulled out a glowing stone which he shoved into the battery slot of the personal computer.

“Alright,” Karta said and walked back to the front of the display. “Which part were you stuck on? Finding a user?”

“No,” Vremya said, taking a spot beside the dog. “I’m still reading the user manual.”

“What the hell?” Karta asked, staring at the old man with wide eyes.

“Hmm?” Vremya raised an eyebrow. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve never met anyone who actually takes the time to read the user manual.”

Vremya frowned. “If you don’t read the user manual, how do you know how to use the personal computer?”

“You just know,” Karta said and rolled her eyes. “Everything’s user-friendly. If it looks like a button, then you press it. If there’s a red notification, then you click on the icon. It’s intuitive.”

“My ass,” Vremya said, and the Labrador Retriever beside him couldn’t help but take a peek at Vremya’s backside at his words. “How can something with a user manual that’s 14,465,982,347 pages long be intuitive?”

Karta tilted her head. “Maybe you’re just not very bright?”

Vremya kicked Karta, but his foot was stopped by an invisible barrier. “Why is violence amongst gods banned?” he asked with a grumble. “Such a dumb rule.”

“Well, that’s because we have to be unified to suppress the titans,” Karta said, not minding Vremya’s attempt at attacking her. “Wait a minute.” The dog’s eyes narrowed at Vremya. “You went to sleep before the titans even showed up.”

“Titans?”

“You can Poiskle it.”

“Poiskle?”

“It’s this app over here,” Karta said, gesturing towards Vremya’s holographic display with her nose. “Poisk, the god of searching, created a search engine that compiles information from all over. You just type in what you’re looking for and hit enter. Like this.” She nudged Vremya to the side and swatted at the display with her paws; they moved like black lightning, and if Vremya weren’t a god himself, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her actions.

Vremya’s eyes brightened upon seeing the results on the display. “I can search for anything?”

Karta glanced at Vremya through the corner of her eyes. “Explicit search results cost you ten spirit stones per image. Don’t be like the god of lust and bankrupt yourself, okay? I’m still counting on you to rent your land to me.”

Vremya slapped at Karta’s head. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“Say that after wiping the drool off your mouth!”

Vremya cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There wasn’t anything there, and after examining the dog’s expression, Vremya realized he was tricked. “Nonsense. I’m an upright person.”

“Whatever you say,” Karta said with a sneer. “If you can’t figure anything out, just Poiskle it. I’m going to tend to my chickens.”

“Why do you…, never mind,” Vremya said and shook his head as he watched Karta walk away. The dog told him to Poiskle anything he didn’t understand, so he would do that. “What was it? Dog tending to chickens….” Vremya scrolled through the search results, and a strange expression appeared on his face. “So, dogs can tend to chickens by eating their poop. I see….” Vremya scratched his head. Well, it was a good thing he put that anti-odor tool on her.

After satisfying his curiosity about dogs and chickens and titans, Vremya went back to reading the user manual. Ten years passed in relative silence. Every so often, Karta would come by and check his display to see if he was still reading the user manual. One fateful day, the Labrador Retriever came by and saw Vremya standing in a different position than usual. In front of the old man, there was a display with an app Karta had never seen before. Her eyes widened, and she came up next to the old man. “What’s that? Did you make it yourself?”

“That’s right,” Vremya said. “After reading the user manual, I compiled my own system. Come, let’s test it together.”

***

Smith lay on his back, chewing on a piece of hay. He was a scrawny young man with frizzled black hair. His skin was tan, and his hands and feet were covered in callouses. He was wearing a pair of blue suspenders without a shirt. Clouds drifted over his head, and his eyes were glazed over as they followed one cloud as it crawled across the sky.

Ding!

Smith nearly fell off his bench from the sudden sound. He sat up and looked around. What the hell was that?

[Congratulations, user! You’ve been chosen by the Ultimate God of Time Everything System Alpha v0.1.0.]

“The Ultimate God of Time Everything System Alpha v0.1.0?” Smith mumbled and rubbed his eyes. What the hell was going on? Did he eat something bad? Was the sect under attack by an illusionist? No, perhaps he was the only one being attacked. However, he was just a mere laborer! Why did the illusionist have to target him?

[To accept the Ultimate God of Time Everything System Alpha v0.1.0, please draw a circle around yourself on the ground with the quest-completion chalk. You can find it in your right pocket.]

An unfamiliar object touched Smith’s leg from inside his pocket. In response, Smith stripped naked and threw his clothes to the ground. Then, he ran away. He’d have to be a fool to accept something with such a shady name, and Smith was no fool!