Chapter 4 — Two Cores and a Chatroom
Azren looked at the glowing screen floating near his face. It was the System again.
System, he thought, 'why did only one of my spirit cores wake up?'
[THE HOST COMES FROM ANOTHER WORLD. THE CORE THAT AWAKENED BELONGED TO THAT PAST LIFE.]
Azren blinked.' So... I had Asi in my last life?'
[CORRECT. IF ETHER EXISTED IN YOUR OLD WORLD, YOU WOULD HAVE AWAKENED THAT SAME SPIRIT. THE GODDESS AWAKENED IT HERE TO KEEP YOUR SOUL STABLE.]
'Okay... but what about the second core?'
[A BABY'S BODY CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE OF SPIRIT AWAKENING. THAT'S WHY THE GODDESS MADE YOUR OLD SPIRIT DORMANT. SINCE SPIRITS FROM YOUR OLD WORLD DON'T EXIST HERE, SHE HID IT TO PREVENT REJECTION.
BOTH CORES ARE ASLEEP—ONE HASN'T AWAKENED YET, AND THE OTHER IS DORMANT. YOU CAN FEEL THE DORMANT ONE A LITTLE BECAUSE OF SMALL BOOSTS.]
A helpful list popped up in his vision:
> Ways to awaken the dormant spirit:
Use 1,000 karma points
Reach Ruby Realm
Wait for the Spirit Awakening Ceremony
> The second (local) spirit will awaken during the ceremony on its own.
Azren groaned. 'So I have two sleeping lions and a stick?'
[CLARIFICATION UNNECESSARY.]
---
He rubbed his tiny forehead and opened the group chat. A flood of 99+ messages hit him right in the face.
"Wow," he muttered. "Did I miss a baby war?"
He scrolled through the madness. People were panicking, throwing random theories, and yelling at the System like it was their grumpy uncle. Then, suddenly, one calm message stood out—it explained everything clearly. The sender? Spear of Longinus.
Azren looked at the baby girl in the crib next to him. Her sleeping face had a weirdly smug vibe.
Figures, he thought.
From what he could gather, everyone had brought a spirit from their past world. Just like him, their old spirits were also sleeping. And because being low-key was apparently illegal, everyone had named themselves after their spirits.
He read the list:
Asi (that was him)
Dark Dragon Bahamut
Shadow
Nine Dragons Heavenly Tripod
Epirus Bow
Ring of Solomon
Ame no Habakiri
Spear of Longinus
Eye of Horus
Tamamo no Mae
Arcane Tome of Merlin
Hephaestus's Hammer
He stared at the names.
"We sound like a team of legendary boss monsters," he said to himself.
And those weird "network error" messages he got earlier? That was Bahamut. Of course it was.
Azren got curious and asked where everyone ended up after being born. Most answered: big cribs, soft beds, silk blankets—definitely royal. All of them... except one.
> Bahamut: I'm outside. A huge guy in armor is holding me.
Azren blinked. What?
Bahamut explained everything like he was live-streaming from an action movie. He'd woken up during a battle. Real monsters—goblins, trolls, orcs. Then ten more showed up, even bigger and scarier.
But the guy holding him didn't even flinch. He casually shifted Bahamut to his left arm like a loaf of bread, then raised his right hand. A giant glowing greatsword appeared.
Then he laughed.
Not a scared laugh. Not a crazy laugh. A happy, thrilled laugh.
Bahamut said the man moved too fast to follow. The monsters couldn't keep up. Whenever one tried to stand, he smashed them right back into the dirt. And between the fighting, the man would just stare at the monsters, like he was enjoying the challenge.
By the end, the battlefield was wrecked, the air thick with mana, and monster pieces were everywhere.
The man?
Not a scratch. Still holding Bahamut. Still laughing.
> Bahamut: For some reason… I didn't find it gross.
Azren blinked. "Yeah... same."
He closed the chat with a quiet sigh.
Two sleeping spirits. A weird group of overpowered babies.
And now, one of them might be getting raised by a sword-swinging maniac who thinks monster-slaying is a good time.
This world is going to be insane, Azren thought.
And strangely... he was looking forward to it.