Chapter 5: The System Finally Appears!

The barrier suddenly faded away in a fine, golden dust. Isaac had done it. He had erased the scripture. And, as it would turn out, succeed in his gamble. But as he laid down in a puddle of blood, bones sticking out from random parts of his body, his joints dismembered, he knew that he didn't have much time left.

'This hurts way too much...' Isaac thought as he coughed out blood. 'Well, at least I was able to defeat the scripture. That's definitely something at least.'

Isaac could feel himself getting weaker and weaker as his consciousness slowly started fading away. 'Straight out of a battlefield only to die like this, huh? Ironic, I guess.' He joked, trying to suppress the fear welling up in his heart.

He thought he had been prepared for any type of death back then, but now that he was facing it head on, he realized that the truth couldn't be further. Dying alone was completely different from dying in a fight, almost to the point where Isaac wished he had just let the scripture crush him. At least that would've been easier to face than the feelings overwhelming his mind.

In those moments, when it felt like time had frozen over, Isaac thought about his family on Earth. The kind expressions of his loving parents, his godawful yet strangely lovable siblings, they spread through his mind, he could already picture them, arms open, welcoming Isaac back home.

He then thought about people who were just as close as his family to him. He thought about his three loyal best friends who had gone through thick and thin with him. Despite their vastly different personalities, one thing all four of them shared is their love for fishing. It wasn't exactly a popular hobby among kids in that time, but the four friends loved it anyway.

He even saw his annoying rival who kept challenging him everyday, despite fully knowing that she would lose every time. Sure Isaac had found it annoying, but without it being a part of his daily routine, his morning had felt a little empty.

Isaac chuckled in an attempt to stop tears from welling in his eyes. However, it didn't work. "I'm sorry...guys..." Isaac muttered weakly. "I won't be coming home...this time..."

Isaac had envisioned his own death many, many times, whether it be getting caught by Them, or maybe on the battlefield, fighting till his last breath. He had even envisioned himself peacefully dying of old age in a warm, cozy cottage in the middle of some overgrown forest. But never had he even imagined that he would be dying all alone inside of a barren cave.

"Lady luck really does not look down upon me, huh?" Isaac whispered under his breath as he chuckled. The chuckle was once again meant to stop the now full streams of tears flowing from his eyes. After all, if he was going to die anyway, he didn't want to go out with tears covering his face.

By now, Isaac was just barely holding onto his consciousness, holding out hope of a miracle. But he didn't get one. "Well...at least...I went on one...one last journey...and all the way to another world at that..." he muttered as he felt his eyelids get heavier and heavier until he could no longer keep them up. On that day, in the middle of a desolate dirt cave, Isaac Elrod closed his eyes one last time.

Or at least, that's what should've happened. Suddenly, all the blood around Isaac vanished and his bones mended themselves back together. All the torn muscles on his body were patched together, leaving him laying on the floor in a daze.

'I...I'm sure I died just now, so how...' Isaac was confused. He knew a normal human shouldn't be able to survive getting crushed, or having their body badly mutilated. So how was he still alive?

Then, as if right on que, a transparent, blue screen pops up in front of him.

[I can't believe you almost died! Again! You haven't even been in this world for a whole day! Why do you keep dying?]

"Wait is this...my system?" Isaac muttered at the walking, well, floating cliché in front of him. Although he didn't have time to do too much reading on Earth, Isaac had dabbled into his fair share of popular light novels, and he was no stranger to the system.

As the story goes, someone would get reincarnated into the body of some worthless young master or the weakest human, but one day, a magical system prompt appears in front of them, giving them game breaking abilities and then they'd steamroll everyone with little effort.

Isaac had always felt it was a little boring. Sure, he sometimes enjoyed the ruthlessness of the main characters, but after some point, it just felt ideal. Their systems made them There was no way such a perfect device could ever exist. Never in a million years did he expect one to be right in front of his face.

[Yes, I am your own, personal system! Now, could you please stop dying, sir? Doing so makes it harder for me to manifest my assistance.]

By this point, Isaac was fully alert, but he didn't let it show on his face. He couldn't. Alerting an unknown opponent about his doubts could end up especially bad for him. And so he didn't. Having been on the battlefield for so long, having control over the expressions shown on your face was something you needed to pick up, and Isaac was no exception.

Isaac masterfully shaped his face to form an excited smile, as if he was a normal transmigrator, excited that his cheat was awakening. Inside, however, he was vigilant. There was no way he could trust this system, especially when he has yet to fully comprehend the situation.

Without doing so, it could be potentially very dangerous to interact with the system...

[Alright, sir, I will now explain the situation to you!]

As this screen popped up in front of Isaac, he got almost jumped in fright.

'Can this system read my mind?' He wondered as he got an idea. However, he instantly realized that it would be stupid. If the system could read his mind, it would know what he was going to try, so trying it would be pointless.

He wanted to try to think up more ideas, but couldn't find any. His best idea was to threaten suicide, but there was no guarantee that the system would be phased at all.

'It never said it needed me to live for it to survive, but only manifest.' Isaac noted the unique phrasing of the system beforehand, which, to him, proved that it didn't need him to live; it would just be easier for it to live.

'But there's also the probability that the system predicted that I would think like this and purposefully used those words to mislead me...' Isaac sighed. 'No. let's not think that deeply about this. I'll just have to follow along with the system until I better understand the situation.'

With that, Isaac turned his attention to the floating screen in front of him.

[In truth, the user possesses the ability to regress infinitely! At least, whenever you die! Of course, such an ability is not without its drawbacks, and it also draws a huge amount of energy from the user's bronze core, but it is still useful nevertheless!]

'Wait this is incredibly useful info!' Isaac was shocked. He believed that even if the system were lying, there would definitely be at least some truth to what it was saying. 'Then I can confirm that the dream I had was definitely real...but what are the drawbacks the system is talking about? And what is this bronze core he was talking about?'

[Sir, if there is anything you would like to ask of me, please do go on. I will answer with my best capabilities.]

'This system reminds of a butler...' Isaac remarked in his head as he thought about the system's offer. On one hand, being fed incorrect information would create a complicated mess in the future, but at the same, this was currently the only source of information Isaac had with him.

Deciding that this was the best opportunity to learn about his predicament, Isaac barraged the system with questions without taking even in a breath of air in between. "Well, don't find if I do then. First of all, what are the drawbacks you mentioned before? Are they something that'll harm me in the long run? Also, what is this so called bronze core that my regression takes energy from? And what energy is it taking? And why-"

Suddenly, a system prompt showed up in front of Isaac, interrupting him. However, he didn't say anything about it because he was just too stunned about the shameless message he saw in front of him.

[Excellent questions sir! However, to answer these questions, I need to bind with your soul. Would you like to bind your soul to the {Name Work in Progress} system?]

[Yes/No]

He chuckled lightly. "If you were going to make a scam, why not make it at least look believable?" He said in between his chuckled. He just found the advertisement in front of him too comically obvious.

Then, ignoring the system, Isaac sat down with his legs crossed on the cold, soft dirt that was still dyed with his blood under him. Closing his eyes, Isaac put his hands on his lap and began meditating as a strange energy surrounded him, coating his body.

What he was truly doing was not in fact meditating, but ponder over a special technique he had obtained. This was the special technique that had been printed in the scriptures on the wall. He had made sure to memorizing the things on it before trying to erase them.

This technique was the Infinite Dawn Hearth Core technique.