Chapter 3: AEGIS
The butterfly resting on the tulip flapped its wings, adjusting its position on the tulip to a more comfortable one.
One after another the items, weapons and artifacts in the
shop dimmed, almost as though something was suppressing them and their light.
Glancing around the shop, Lars looked at the shopkeeper who also seemed to be very baffled by what has just happened.
A short moment later, a small portal appeared and through it, a
modest pale-yellow crystal point appeared in front of Lars. A silver necklace
started to form, and it attached itself to the top of the crystal point. The
artifact levitated in front of Lars, waiting.
Lars looked at the artifact before him in awe. The crystal point looks exceedingly old, with cracks and its sides scratched up, the silver necklace plain and simple. Unlike every other item in the shop with responded to him earlier, Lars could feel no trace of magic or power coming from this artifact. Yet, right before his eyes, it's levitating, waiting for an answer.
Lars raised his hand with the intention to point at another artifact in the shop when the necklace holding on to the crystal shot forward and wrapped itself around Lar's finger.
"…" Lars.
"…" Shop keeper.
"…" Every other item, weapon and artifact in the store.
"I guess I have to choose this crystal then!" Lars felt very stifled, but he selected the crystal in the end.
Without waiting, the crystal flew towards Lars, it's necklace reforming around his neck. If silica life forms could show joy, the ancient crystal looked to be very happy, hanging on Lars's neck.
A slight rumble shook the store, as though the other artifacts were feeling indignant that they were not chosen. Following which the other items, weapons and artifacts slowly stopped glowing.
The shop keeper looked on in amusement, it felt as though the artifact was the one that chose its owner, not the other way around.
"You must have had your fun here now, it's about time you head back to where you came from. We will meet again, I trust you will be working hard yes?" The shop keeper looked at Lars intently.
Lars nodded, recalling his initial intent to find a way out and get back to his own world.
With a snap of the youth's finger, the shop keeper sent Lars back to his own plane.
The marble skinned youth turned to look at the butterfly and sighed.
"It's been a long time without you, my friend." He took another look around his shop, before closing his eyes to rest. "I will tell you all about it when I see you again."
Back in the courtyard of the Cornell estate, a cool wind blew across his forehead. Lars removed the book on his face and set it down beside him. He looked at the sky, a shade of crimson with the sun just hanging over the horizon. Alfred was staring at him, hopping over to rub his plume against Lars's cheek. Petting the albino owl, he recalled the strange dream he had just experienced. Alfred flew up and perched itself on a nearby root from the yew tree.
"Hey Alfred, I just had this really cool dream you know, where I traveled to a really weird place." Lars narrated to the owl as he sat up, patting off the leaves that were stuck on his shirt.
Lars froze, his hand was in contact with a cold object hanging from his neck. Lars lifted the object and took a good look at it. It was the same modest pale-yellow crystal point that he received as a gift in his dream.
Lars felt a tremor in his head and his vision blanked out for a split second. Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out the faint signs of a heads-up display in his vision. On it was his name, his level and some other information that he could not understand.
"Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see."
The crystal on his neck started to glow faintly, Lars was then engulfed in a bubble of light. The small crystal has generated a small pocket dimension. Holographic projections of what appears to be a keyboard appeared before Lars. Multiple blank displays orbited Lars, displaying information in an unknown script.
"System initialization complete, soul imprint verified, system user verified, new biometric data captured, automated login successful." A mechanical and calm voice sounded in his mind.
"System anomaly detected, default configuration applied. New language database English has been uploaded from biometric data. Display language preference Akkadain has been updated to English."
"As a safety precaution, system capabilities and functions are restricted until refresher tutorial has been completed."
A popup in the form of a small floating panel appeared in front of Lars. Instead of showing the pictographic protowriting that the other displays had shown earlier, this simple pop up showed a question in English. Begin Refresher Tutorial, Y/N.
Initially paranoid, Lars kept looking around the space he was in, ignoring the pop up. Only when Lars was fully confident that he was in a safe area did he lift his finger and gingerly tapped on the Y that was shown on the popup.
"Initializing refresher…"
Lars heaved a sigh of relief and started to focus on the contents of the tutorial, the last thing he wanted was to miss out any crucial information that this weird system was going to give him.
Anima Extracting General Information System, AEGIS. The system runs on the user's anima and provides a database of world knowledge that is linked to the immaculate machine. The system assists the users that have been chosen by the immaculate machine in completing their job of recording the knowledge and history of their species across the ages.
The user account has the clearance of Immaculate Archivist of the First Age, as a result of incompatibility issues with the updated biometric data, the system has granted the user a provisional clearance of scribe third class of the Fourth Age until such time where the user acquires the required Book Points (BP) to regain the original title.
AEGIS runs in two modes. In database mode, time is compressed. Current Time compression ratio is two minutes in the database being one minute passed in real time. Outside of database mode, the system will overlay information to the user in the form of a heads-up display in the user's vision.
The user currently has access to the Record, Database and Status function. AEGIS is commencing final Anima Circuit optimization.
Another progress bar appeared on the floating display in-front of Lars, looking to his left, three new tabs appeared in the system. Lars felt that since the system was still in the midst of optimization, it would not hurt to see what his current status was.
"Stats." Upon instruction from Lars, a new popup appeared.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone