MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

In a chamber with a pristine white floor and a ceiling covered in glowing, intricate patterns, a man with a light scruffy beard and shoulder-length pitch-dark hair that appeared messy and rough sat motionless.

A thin layer of dust settled over his body like he had not moved from his meditation position in weeks, and the only thing that made him look alive was the slow breaths he took every twenty to thirty seconds.

'It looks like those two are settling well in their roles,' Alex thought, as his mental perspective shited from an arena to the frozen tundras.

Aeon and Hidden One were not merely two chosen individuals pretending to be his impersonators in different empires. Instead, those two were clones of Alex and not just any ordinary clones, but they were living, breathing individuals who could act and think independently.

The two clones could act, think, and learn, and they even had their own personalities and ways of acting in situations, just like normal individuals, so they were clones just in name, but in reality, they were wisps of Alex's soul placed inside the bodies of clones.

This was all possible thanks to one of the abilities he acquired from the Abyssal Resonance Spirit Art, 'Wa Ba, Senu Khat,' which translates to One Soul, Multiple Bodies.

The skill allowed Alex to split his soul into wisps, create split personalities in his mind that could all think independently, and he could even place those wisps in clones to create independent individuals solely linked to him.

The best part of the skill was that when the wisps returned to him, so did all their experience and knowledge, while Alex could also monitor them any time he pleased or take over them.

The limitation was that as the primary consciousness, he could not go unconscious or die because, in both cases, the soul wisps would immediately return to him.

It was an ultimate skill, but Alex was still far from having mastered it, as at the moment, he could only create two wisps, and even then, he could not freely move around because it was mentally draining to have two of his soul wisps thousands of kilometers away from him.

It had taken Alex almost seven months to get to this level, and while it could have possibly been two months quicker if he had picked the Abbysal clone skill at his recent Rank promotion.

But because he did not pick it, he had gotten his hands on a much better skill, even though it was also a much more challenging skill to master.

The path to learning the secrets of Abyssal Resonance Spirit Art was time-consuming but not very challenging since Alex was able to use the law token to enter an enlightened state, where the law of spirit was far clearer to him than he could achieve on his own.

However, once Alex had learned the ability to create soul wisps and learned their true worth, he was hit with the dilemma of not having the skill to create a vessel capable of holding his soul wisp, and even learning a legendary grade cloning skill did not help.

The skill that could help him create a vessel was a mountain of challenge on its own, as it would require at least a year's worth of effort if not more before he could reach the level needed to create a perfect clone.

But fate seemed to be on his side as he acquired the skill he needed the most through sheer luck from the source he was least expecting.

---------------

"Two Months Ago"

Alex sat cross-legged in the dimly lit chamber, the ancient runes on the floor before him glowing faintly with an eerie red light.

A mere moment later, blood and ivory bones began to manifest above the magic circle that radiated a crimson glow dense enough to pain the chamber in a crimson shade.

As seconds passed, flesh became visible, fibers layering atop one another, and slowly but surely, the skin began to cover the bulging muscles with everything rearranging to take the form of a tall human.

Minutes later, a handsome man with long dark hair and a chiseled frame stood amidst the red blood mist, his eyes as hollow and dead as an old corpse.

"This one is better, having 34% of my base stats, but still no good," Alex said, clicking his tongue as he opened his eyes.

"Even when we three work together, the result might only improve by a mere 2% from you doing it alone."

"But this was only our twenty-second try of the day, so I say we try again, as we can do better with the next try." A voice identical to Alex's sounded in his mind, barely disappointed but more eager.

"We are a part of him, and there is nothing he already does not know that we know, so besides a little more concentration, we will achieve nothing with this method," Another voice, bland of emotions and carrying pure reason, interjected.

"Shut up," Alex said, as he stopped using the parallel thinking skill and returned the wisps to their original state before closing his eyes.

The room fell silent, the blood mist dissipating and the lifeless figure crumbling into dust.

Alex's mind felt exhausted from all the work he had been doing the past month after having earned a skill that he needed from an Apex Conquest as his reward.

But now that he had reached a Greater mystery of the skill, he could not grow the strength of his clone, no matter how perfect he made it, nor did his ability mystery grow to Superior, let alone perfect.

'My luck seems to be complete garbage these days,'

'I can not win the Apex Conquest game that could get me direct knowledge of the Sanguine Avatar skill, and the ones I can win are no good,'

'The Intell I have on the four tokens is no good, as that old man has his conditions and won't give me the piece of entry token before I clear them,'

'While one of the tokens is in the treasury of Dekith merchant house set to make its appearance in the monthly auction, and the final pair of are in the possession of some lunatic who is prisoned in the dungeon of Mystic Moon Sect for butchering their sect disciples,'

'A year and a half has already passed from the three-year deadline, and I have yet to collect a single token required to get the sword, let alone figure out a certain way to earn a victory against that bastard,' Alex thought, feeling frustrated by the constant troubles of his life.

Alex had grown a lot in the fast seven or so months after his rank promotion and believed that if it was not against a twisted ability that might one hit him, he was confident of his victory.

Even if he was against an Elemental Ruler who might take him by surprise, he was confident of winning that battle, but unfortunately for him, his opponents had similar broken abilities that defied logic.

Alex was resting with his eyes closed, not thinking about what he would do next, a rare thing with his routine of the past few months, but his rest was cut short by a ringing of the system and the sudden message that popped into his mind.