I existed in that enlightened state, suspended in the void with a clarity I hadn't possessed before. It was like seeing through water that had finally settled, the sediment sinking away to reveal something beneath.

Then I felt it.

An intensity. A pull so powerful it felt like being caught in a riptide.

Time didn't just speed up—it exploded forward.

Hundreds of thousands of times faster than before. Maybe millions. I couldn't measure it. Couldn't process it. I was flung from one perspective to another like a stone skipping across water, each impact a different life, a different moment, a different me.

I was in Ancient Greece.

Stone walls surrounded me. Scrolls everywhere. My hands—different hands again—carefully unrolled papyrus, ink staining my fingers. I was a librarian. I catalogued knowledge, preserved stories, maintained order in chaos.

And then I felt it. That familiar sensation. The interface appearing before me, more refined now. Words. Greek words. A job title: Librarian. Rank C.

I was eighteen. Newly an adult. The System had awakened.

Then I was ripped away and brought somewhere else.

I stood on the deck of a ship, salt spray in my face. The Renaissance. The ocean stretched endlessly in every direction, and my hands gripped rough rope, callused and strong. A sailor. I knew the stars, knew the wind, knew how to read the water.

The System appeared. Sailor. Rank B.

Twenty years old. Just reached adulthood by the standards of my time.

Gone again.

Surrounding me now was what looked like a forge. Medieval Europe, maybe. Heat blasted my face as I worked metal, hammer striking anvil in rhythmic precision. Sparks flew. My arms were corded with muscle, my back bent from years of labor.

Blacksmith. Rank A.

I was sixteen years old. Adulthood came earlier then.

Another life. Another perspective.

A woman this time. I—she—stood in a field of crops, dirt under her nails, sun beating down. I was farming, so that I could survive the upcoming winter that was brutal in this region. The System showed Farmer. Rank C.

I was fifteen years old.

Then a soldier. I looked like some type of Roman or Spartan soldier. Maybe even Persian, I couldn't fully tell. Armor heavy on my shoulders. Blood on my hands. The clash of metal. The screams of men. The system interface flashed in front me showing me:

Soldier. Rank B.

This time I was seventeen years old.

A merchant. Counting coins. Negotiating prices. The smell of spices and textiles.

Merchant. Rank C.

Nineteen.

A healer. Grinding herbs. Tending wounds. The desperate hope in a mother's eyes as I worked to save her child.

Herbalist. Rank B.

Eighteen.

It kept going.

And going.

And going.

Hundreds of lives. Thousands. Each one a flash, a glimpse, a moment of awakening when the System revealed what they were. What they could become.

I was a scribe in ancient China. A warrior in feudal Japan. A builder in the Aztec empire. A hunter in the African savanna. A priest in medieval France. A scholar in the Islamic Golden Age. A craftsman in Renaissance Italy. A explorer in the Age of Discovery.

Every single one of them reached adulthood—whatever that meant for their time and culture—and the System appeared. Always. Without fail. Showing them their job. Their rank. Their potential.

The System had spread since I was that hunter. It had evolved to be hereditary and it had adapted to every culture, every language, every era of human development.

And I witnessed it all.

But it was too much.

Too fast. Too many. The lives blurred together, identities bleeding into one another until I couldn't tell where one ended and another began. There were moments were I forgot who I was. Forgot Reynard Vale. Forgot the penthouse. Forgot Alexis and the operating table.

I was everyone and no one. A singularity of humanity's collective usage of the System. I did not matter for I was but an aspect of this global embodiment.

But then, somewhere in the chaos, I remembered. Maybe it was due to it being thousands of years passing so I regain my memory. Maybe it was Alexis doing something on the operating table or maybe it was just my subconsciousness taking over and saving me, but I remembered.

Reynard.

My name was Reynard.

But the lives kept coming, kept pulling me forward through history. I forgot again. Remembered again. Lost myself and found myself over and over in an endless cycle that felt like it was tearing me apart.

I was on the brink of insanity.

The human mind wasn't meant to experience this. Wasn't built to hold thousands of lifetimes at once. Every memory, every emotion, every moment of awakening crashed into me like waves against a cliff, eroding everything I thought I was.

But somehow—somehow—I held on.

And then, finally, it stopped.

Not gradually. Just… stopped.

I found myself standing in a room.

Time was flowing normally again. One second per second. Real time.

The shift was so jarring I nearly collapsed.

My head throbbed. My vision swam. Lights—bright, harsh fluorescent lights—stabbed into my eyes like knives. I squeezed them shut, bringing my hands up to my face.

My hands. Were these mine? I couldn't tell anymore.

I forced my eyes open, squinting against the brightness so that I could see my environment.

There were white and sterile looking walls. As if it was a lab of some sorts, maybe even a torturous white room. The room was really small, maybe ten feet by ten feet. A thin mattress on a metal frame in one corner. A plate of food—something gray and unappetizing—sitting on the floor beside it. A mirror mounted on the wall above a small sink.

I was definitely in an experimental lab or a psychiatric hospital.

The distinction felt meaningless.

I stood there, disoriented, trying to ground myself in this new reality. My body felt wrong. Too light. Too weak. My limbs trembled, and I had to brace myself against the wall to stay upright.

What was I doing here?

Where was here?

I moved toward the sink instinctively, the same way I'd moved in all those other lives. An automatic response. Muscle memory that wasn't mine but also was.

The faucet turned easily, cold water sputtering out. I cupped my hands beneath it and splashed it on my face. The shock of cold helped. Cleared some of the fog.

I washed again. And again. Scrubbing at my face like I could wash away the confusion, the disorientation, the thousands of lifetimes still clinging to me.

My hair felt different. Longer than I remembered. It hung past my shoulders, tangled and unwashed. I ran wet fingers through it, trying to smooth it down.

My face felt different too. Smaller. Smoother in some places, rougher in others. I traced my fingers along my jaw, my cheeks, my forehead. Scars. Multiple scars. Tissue that had healed unevenly, leaving ridges and valleys I didn't recognize.

This wasn't my face.

Or… was it?

I couldn't remember anymore.

I looked up.

The mirror was there, waiting. I'd been avoiding it without realizing it, some part of me afraid of what I might see.

But I couldn't avoid it anymore.

I raised my eyes and met my reflection.

The face staring back at me was young. Late teens, maybe early twenties. Gaunt. Malnourished. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes. Hair—brown, almost black—hung limp and greasy around a face that bore the marks of violence. A scar through the left eyebrow. Another along the right cheek. A third, smaller one near the chin.

It was a woman for sure but she looked like she was tortured or in extreme pain and exhaustion. It was similar to experimental subjects that I had seen in the past.

But it was the eyes that hit me hardest.

They were empty. Hollow. The eyes of someone who'd been broken and put back together wrong.

And in that moment, as I stared at this stranger wearing my consciousness, everything clicked into place.

I knew who this was.

Not through memory. Not through deduction. Through instinct. That same deep, primal knowing that had guided me through every life, every awakening.

I was Subject 3840.

The last subject of NovaCore.

The first person to ever receive the Jobmaster job title.

The realization didn't come with fanfare. Didn't come with shock or surprise. It was just… there. A fact as undeniable as gravity.

This was me. This was who I currently was and this is simply the scenario that I found myself in.

Time felt meaningless again.

I stared at the reflection, at Subject 3840, at myself, and understood.

This was the origin. Not of the System itself—that had come first, with the hunter in the oil pit. But the origin of me in some metaphorical sense. Of what made me unique. Of what made me the only person in the world with multiple jobs. The man with the Jobmaster job title.

NovaCore had indirectly created me.

And I had been their final experiment.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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