Mornn
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Chapter 727 - Heroes
🕑 Added 2025-07-30 16:00:20 +0000 UTC“That certainly explains why this Jewel of Truth had such absurdly high scores,” Sofia answered the admin.
“Heh, easier when you designed the events yourself, right? Now give me a second…”
Jin used magic that Sofia recognized, a twisted version of her toybox freeze. It seemed to do nothing, but that was just a testament to how smooth the freeze had been.
“I see…” Jin mumbled to himself, “Anna’s not watching,” he said with a sigh. Catching a subtle change in Sofia’s expression, he addressed her again, “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sofia bluntly answered, “You might want to talk to Nex about it.”
“No,” Jin answered, “I just locked him out, actually. He can still watch, like the others, but nobody will be able to interfere in our battle now.”
“So you’re not going to try to help Anna?!”
“No,” Jin continued with a bitter smile, “She and I both always knew it would end this way. I’m nothing but an unstable clone, what good could I possibly do in the short time I have? I trust Nex will be able to solve the situation, in time. My duty now is to test you!”
“It’s your business I suppose… You’re lucky Life isn’t able to reach your here, she would probably strangle you before our fight could even start.”
“Ahah… That she would… We have a tiny bit of time while the terrain loads. Any more questions for a long dead man?”
“Long dead? As of the latest news you stranded yourself in space trying to reach earth, I think,” Sofia answered.
“Well, to the people here I might as well be dead, same thing, really. How long has it been?”
“Since you disappeared? Not sure, but the system has been running for a bit over 32 hundred years…”
“That long? Well, I didn’t really expect this hidden bonus to ever be found so it’s quite short, in a way. I had plans to leave around 500 years after we got it all running, so I must have been gone a while.”
“You can say that… Did you really need to ask for the date when you have enough control to lock Nex out of here, though?”
“Yeah,” Jin answered, “I’m not looking at any system data. No only do I lack many permissions as a clone, but our battle is going to be unfair enough, I wouldn’t want to give myself an extra edge by looking at your kit. I’m seeing plenty of interesting things already, though.”
Sofia looked back at the three skeletons behind her, “I wonder how much you can actually see.”
“Is that a challenge? Fine let’s play a little. Ah, do you want me to mute the sound for the public before I go through my analysis?” Jin confidently asked, looking Sofia up and down.
Sofia shook her head, “You can probably guess but I did not reach this point by holding back, they know pretty much everything already.”
“Alright, then let’s start with the basics,” Jin’s left eye lit up with a grey glow, “I see my blueprints for the saint class and… Necromancer. I’m guessing Nex dusted the dual class idea?”
“It was scripture who broke things by giving me the saint class as I unlocked Necromancer, actually.”
“Ah. Sounds like something that could happen… Only so many edge cases we could prepare for. Let’s push a bit further… I won’t analyse your spells right now… But Apostle, too? Strange stuff. You’ve got way too many essences… Your soul is absolutely fucked sideways, and your evolved race… Looks like something Clint would have made up after one too many pints. Ah, wait, your mana heart is a bit weird too… Hmm… Did you get the extra ranks?”
“All the way to Ultimate rank,” Sofia confirmed.
“No wonder you’d reach this far then… I wasn’t even sure that could even work. Did you use a compound Sun and Death essence?”
“Aphenoreth.”
“Oh. Oooooooh. Yeah. Alright,” Jin said with a series of nods, “Well, I’m not going to dig any further. I’d like this clone to at least live long enough to do its job. Let’s switch to your team. I see you got the twin ruleset with the big guy here… Demigod?”
“Yes. He cannot talk as a result.”
“Interesting penalty. Probably Knowledge, correct?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, good new, big guy, you just need to ascend and you should be able to speak. Easy fix. Hmm, then we have a manaless fae skeleton.”
“I’m Pesle!”
“Nice to meet you Pesle, I’m afraid you will not be able to have much fun in this on, sorry about that. And the third skeleton… Yeah no I don’t really understand you, sorry. Hero framework with Sun’s blessing is impressive enough, but your blueprint is uh…”
“Can you prevent the public from hearing us for a second?” Sofia asked.
“Sure, speak up.”
“Bookie here is Orator’s creation,” Sofia explained the origin of the skeleton hiding behind her left leg.
Jin’s expression froze for a second. “I- I see. Definitely a… Surprising group. Then again, it would take at least this to kill a trial prop set to be immortal.”
“Oh, we found your time magic notebook, too,” Sofia told him.
“That old thing? Ah, I see you got the ascended skill. Was the cake still good three millennia later?”
“Pesle leg cake!”
“I’m guessing that’s a yes. Well, let’s finish this, I’d go through your equipment too but the loading is almost done, glad to see someone got through Victory, though. Also please take care of Anna’s dagger, alright? It’d take a lot to break it but I can imagine the kind of things you must have gone through to get where you are now.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
“Good, then, since time is running short, let me give you a quick run through of what’s to come now. Since I see you’ve got all the pins, you lot will be fighting me for the perfect run and the extra reward. It’ll be quite a lot harder than the normal grand finale, which is just the ‘tournament master’ or a personality-less copy of me at level 299, basically.”
“I knew this would make getting the perfect run pin harder… Can we know what the extra reward we’re risking it for is?” Sofia asked.
“Of course, here it is,” Jin answered reaching up with both of his hands. He made a movement like plucking something out of thin air with each, and objects appeared between his fingers. His left hand held an gleaming and somewhat tear-shaped blood-red jewel, while the other held a long mithrium key. “In addition to the normal rewards, here is what you will be fighting for. This one is a key to somewhere useful that only Anna, my original, and whoever holds this key can access, a side reward. While the true prize is this. A dream of my former world, the ultimate human-exclusive item, the culmination of science and magic! The philosopher’s stone!” he declared, “It would have been a great loss for it to disappear with me, so I have long searched for someone worth giving it to, but as you can guess, I could not find that someone in time. But now, perhaps, that someone has finally shown up. As for what exactly it does… You will have to beat my challenge to find out! But I assure you, the juice is worth the squeeze.”
“Great. What is the challenge? We’re ready,” Sofia immediately answered, her eyes locked onto the strange gem that seemed to inexplicably draw her gaze.
Jin smirked, and the items disappeared from his hands.
He clapped, and the scenery completely changed, suddenly, they were floating over a vast sea of blue water, with nothing to be seen on the horizon, and, as Sofia immediately noticed, not a speck of mana in the air.
“Welcome to Earth,” Jin said with open arms.
“Earth?!”
“My home world,” Jin confirmed, “just how it was a few months before the mana sickness got the best of me.”
“Mana sickness? Is that what kills the heros?!”
“Yes. Mana sickness,” Jin answered, “A genetic deformity. People who are able to produce mana despite having none of the required internal components to handle it. Slowly, the mana will build up inside of you with no way out, and gradually, force your very soul out of your body. ‘Heroes’.” Jin paused for a moment. “But enough about that. As I said, welcome to Earth, this will be our playground… Before my death, I was Shin Jin, proud father of two lovely daughters, and supreme commander of the allied Earth defense forces.”
Jin started flying higher up above the sea’s calm waves, his clothes changed to a simple but imposing military uniform, his chest adorned with countless stripes and medals.
“I was twelve when Earth was first attacked by scouts of the alien forces. This led to an extraordinarily fast growth of our military. And now, against this military… You will play the invaders.”
“I see… So this is it… Earth feels a lot more like Veliadren than I thought.”
“There are many similarities,” Jin answered with a smile, “War is one them.”
They have the Sundial, do they not… I know what to be on the lookout for. Thank you, Everelle.
Jin turned his back to the group and closed his eyes, savoring the moment, the calm sea breeze and the sound of the waves under the evening sun.
During this moment of silence, four system windows appeared in the corner of Sofia’s vision.
[Objective 1: Survive until I expire - Reward: Gold Star Pin & 500 000 000 TP]
[Objective 2: Locate me - Reward: Jin’s second spare key]
[Objective 3: Eliminate me - Reward: The philosopher’s stone]
[A friendly tip from the supreme commander: Cowardice is not an option.]
“Challengers!” Jin called out after opening his eyes, facing the group once more, “I am Shin Jin, Hero of Earth, and this, is your trial!”
In a bright flash of light, Jin disappeared.
Comments
Peter Smith
I think that was before. Most of the new tech was probably based on the alien tech. Also jin wouldn't really want to be pulled back like this, he would believe that anna deserves the truth version. As stated he is an exchampion and a father of daughters, he would definitely understand needing a real bersion and not a copy. Its also why he probably went for earth after creating a variant of time magic, he's hoping to fall back in time so he can have his daughters back. The only way i can see that working is if he goes through the deep. In fact i wouldn't be surprised if the phageid invasion is a side effect of his travel. But more importantly if he can generate his own mana and doesn't require absorbing it then he's just being forced to take it slow because you can't absorb what isn't available in deep space... And he would definitely need to be careful returning if he did get his daughters.
E
Based on what we've observed of the Deep so far I wouldn't be surprised if they could pull something from a Toybox into reality. Or, at a minimum, stabilize Jin's clone and let him act as the System's admin while confined to the System's Toybox. Uncle Ed said there is "much to do" and pulled one of the scions, or whatever he called Nex, back into existence. If Nex is valuable to him, then Jin probably is as well. I wonder if Aphenoreth's observation of Earth aligns with the timing of the simulated Earth event we're about to see.
Cinnamon Toast
She got it after killing the unkillable sea God, but it wasn't read out until the white void after the casino
Draxas
When was the clue for Sofia to unlock the Jin clone mentioned
Chance Rose
So what was Jin? A fencer, wing diver, air raider? I doubt he was a ranger. Lmao and the invasion clearly started with giant mutated ants and then moved on to full scale alien ships invading.
Matt Grayson
Yes.
A.V. Anderson
I'm wondering if Sofia will be part of an alien force or is to be the alien force?
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter! God damn.
Songy
We need a commission of chibi-pesle anyway.
Jonathan Wint
Lots of Lore! WOW YOU DID NOT DISSAPOINT!
Sanetless
Absolute cinema. As always.
Emily Gurnavage
But what kind of aliens invaded? Maybe they had mana, and so Earth has since countered for it in their war machines. Could go either way. Dunno how mana fucks it either, maybe its similar to an EMP and shielded tech would be fine.
Lazy Monster
TFTC. The lore drop is great. Also interesting that he would mention compound essences. When I first heard of the essence wager I remember thinking “can Sofia wager all of them” Let the Skeleton army’s world conquest begin for real! MwaHaHaha!
Mornn
No censor this time :p
Phsteven
It was a giant nuke if I remember correctly.
steamrick
Clones getting locked out of core functionality seems more of a 'by design' thing, rather than seniority.
Matt Grayson
Remember, Mana fucks electricity. This could be fun!
Mornn
Break? It's not breaking anything, it's just giving her a chance :p
Emily Gurnavage
Holy shit that was way more hype that I could have ever imagined. Bravo, bravo indeed.
Mornn
Didn't sleep well last night, sorry x.x
Matt Grayson
“Pesle leg cake” T-shirt incoming!
Cyclone001
The censor is going to be working overtime. But wow - just casually dropping hero origins like that. Can't wait to see how Earth of this time period looks like. Sounds like a Macross style invasion is happening.
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter! I think this is an amazing take on the situation, a lot of people will have access to censored info as a result, unless the toybox freeze is still in effect. It’s amusing how you separated the eliminate and locate objectives since, as shown, can be done without the other. Like if Sofia starts throwing nuclear bomb sized bolts, kills Jin, but only finds out bc the system alert, which doesn’t sound like “locating Jin” to me. Ps what is Sundial again? I recall it was mentioned in the Word-manifest battle but not what it did. Ironically I remember the “paperclip” more
Karnevale
Ah, the Philosopher 's stone... Or perhaps, 'the Great Work', 'the Celestial Ruby', 'Pandora', 'Radicea arboris solares', 'Adam', 'lapis occultis' or even my personal favorite, 'VITRIOL- visita interiora terra rectificando invenies occultum lapidem' - roughly translating to "visit the depths of the earth and return with the magic jewel" (sorta) This one wonders what strange and awful powers such an item would have in Sofia's hands.
Kennyevilmonkey
Time to go blow up Ohio.
OmniGlitcher
Oh my. That's a chapter. Jin's reactions to Sofia's shenanigans are pretty neat. The tidbit about double essences is pretty cool. Hero lore, yep, that's interesting. Earth was *not* what I expected, but it's a damn cool setting for a finale. Infinity Engine is going to break the fuck out of this no?
Tom Asciola
Bruhhhhhhh There's a LOT to take in here
No Name
Firstly, why are there so many spelling errors suddenly? Secondly, time for the logical conclusion of "Necromancer invades earth": SKELETON ARMY ON A PLANETARY SCALE!!!
Dan N
Huh, wasn't expecting high stakes hide and seek. Can't wait for Sofia to facetank a Sundial while creating her own personal zombie apocalypse.
Vettu
TFTC The idea of compound essences is certainly interesting... Imagine what Mr. Scribe could do with that and VPPV
BOT
Jin really knows how to hype up his own fight huh, can’t wait for more
Daemion
Sofia would be screwed if she didn't have Infinity Engine. Even so this is going to be difficult. Her mana senses are not going to help her much since Earth technology doesn't use it. At best she might be able to find Jin with them. Luckily Sofia has some prior knowledge about technology, which means she knows that mana can destroy electronic devices. Maybe that'll give her an edge.
Alexander Andrews
So I'm guessing that Nex is the "junior admin" of the 3. Since he got locked out so easily and just in general he seems less powerful.
Wolfknap
OK, this is the best way to do the last fight. A god damed alien skeleton invasion.
