In a world of steel, and concrete, where technology has advanced to make human lives easier, taking over most aspects of everyday life, making the world a near utopia. Even with all the advancements in technology and medicine, Erin was dying.

Erin lay in an operating room, he was the first in line for a new experimental procedure, granting him back the use of his legs, and prevent a rather horrifying death, as he slowly became a prisoner in his own body. Erin was born with a very rare degenerative nerve disease that, as he aged, degraded the parts of his brain and nervous system that controlled his body. They had yet to come up with a cure for this disease but they believed that the new AI implant would intercept the interrupted signals from his brain, and send them where they needed to be, and he would be able to move again. The implant would also work using Erin’s body, and signals to help heal the damaged tissue until it was completely gone. From then on the implant would work as an interface, that would allow him to directly access information anywhere in the world. He would still need, months if not years of rehab to learn to reuse his muscles, but to him, it would be worth it.

Erin was not some prodigy stuck inside a body with endless money. Nor was he a selfless person, always dedicated to the betterment of man. No, he was just a boy who tried to be normal. All his life, Erin just wanted to be normal, but life had another place for him. He was loved by his parents, as he slowly lost everything that made him who he was. Little by little the boy felt he was getting closer to death.

At eighteen Erin, on a bad day could barely sit up anymore, even on his good days, he could only slightly move his legs, no longer able to walk or stand. He knew he only had a few years left before he might not even be able to move his arms. This was hell for a boy who just wanted to be normal, to hang out with friends, go on a date, and do anything everyone else could do without getting stared at, or seen as a freak.

Then one day a doctor showed up, claiming to have studied his case thoroughly, and thought the boy would be a perfect candidate for a new procedure. The man wanted to implant his new experimental AI to combat the effects of Erin's paralysis. Although he gave them no guarantees.

It was like giving a drowning man a raft, as Erin eagerly agreed, it was his chance to have a normal life. At first, his parents were reluctant to trust this strange man until they did their own digging into the man himself and his so-called procedure. What they found astounded them, the man was on the leading edge of tech having introduced numerous advancements to the scientific and medical community. After hours of searching and cross-referencing, they realized this might be the best chance for their child.

The doctor laid out a complete roadmap and timeline, showing Erin when he would have the procedure, and what steps they would take beforehand, and after. It would take a full year of testing before they would receive the all-clear, to ensure their best possible chances. They followed the plan and everything went smoothly up until the surgery when an unseen complication arose, and Erin began to bleed out.

Needing to be awake during the surgery, Erin knew he was dying, as he saw the look of horror on the face of the surgeon. He wasn’t scared, having long consigned himself to death, rather than be stuck inside his own body. He was just confused. We had done so many tests and preparations, shouldn’t this have gone smoothly?’

As the world was fading to black Erin heard one final thing. “AI 18463 implanted initializing soul integration….integration successful.”

——

In a place far away, on a massive world filled with all kinds of people, monsters, and creatures. Erin slowly opens his eyes, waking from what should have been his final sleep. He sits up confused looking around the little hovel he suddenly found himself in, trying to figure out what was going on. I was just dying, how did I survive?

Lifting his hand to his face, Erin froze, and pulled his hand away, looking on in shock at the small hand. That’s not my hand. With that thought Erin instinctively pulled his knees to his chest, he froze, as he realized what he just did. Tears began to bubble in his eyes, Did I die? He could feel everything he had lost in the last few years, and it was almost to much. Was the surgery a success? Then what is this place? And why is my hand so small?

Erin’s racing thoughts were suddenly brought to a halt, by a strange mechanical voice. “Initializing complete. Establishing a baseline.”

Erin’s mind was flooded with memories of the original owner's body. His name was Shui Feng, an orphan taken in by the flowing mountain sect over a year ago when an inner disciple had felt a strong potential from the boy. They had taken Feng in and given him this little shack and instructions on their sect flowing rivers cultivation technique, and like many sects left him on his own to sink or swim. If Feng could enter the world of cultivation by, entering the first stage, they would pull him into the inner sect, giving him all the resources he needed. He just had to do it within a year.

Feng was only eight years old but it was every orphan's dream to be picked up by a sect like he was, so he had diligently attempted to cultivate every day, pulling the energy of heaven into his body and cycling it like he was taught, but instead of growing stronger, he found himself, becoming weaker every day. Then the day came, only had a few months left before he would lose this opportunity, and be stuck in mediocrity for the rest of his life. Refusing this ate Feng attempted to break through to the first level, without being ready, killing himself.

Erin came back to himself and looked at his new body, “I transmigrated?” Erin was familiar with the term having read many of the stories in his life that spoke about this very thing, and to cap it off he had an AI to help him. Those were his favorites because they could store and analyze any information given and help him drastically making him appear to be a genius. Erin didn’t know if that was what he really wanted but in a world of magic who wants to be normal?

——

Del and Ge were outside a hut, in a world of cultivation, Ge looking through a broken window at a boy who should not have woken, having lost all his energy in an attempt to ascend, a dangerous thing in the best of conditions.

Staring in through the window, Ge noticed the boy talking to himself, when she realized the AI was still attached to the boy, curious she asked, “Hey, how did you move the AI with him, to this other world anyway? I thought you could only transmigrate souls.”

“I can only transmigrate souls,” Del answered, while on his knees looking for something around the hut. She didn’t know what he was looking for, as he had yet to bring it up. All she knew was once they arrived he began searching the ground around the hut.

Moving away from the window she watched him looking through bushes, and brushing dirt away, in an attempt to see what he was looking for when she followed up, “Then how did the AI go with him?”

“I moved its soul with him.” He said matter of factly, as he made his way to the back of the hut, finding nothing from the sideyard.

Can machines even have souls? Not sure she wanted to know but too curious not to ask, “Wait the AI had a soul?”

“Not the one they were giving him.”

The implications in that one sentence horrified her. “Then was the AI a soul from a different hero?”

He shook his head letting out a small laugh. “No, I made a deal a long time ago, from a dying world.”

Everything went silent, and as it dragged on DEL had to stop his search to look back at Ge. He was expecting a follow-up question, not silence. When he saw her face he found her horrified and confused. So he decided to clarify, “Have you ever wondered why so many Heroes have a system?”

It took a moment for her to shake herself, “Isn’t it just the rules of their new worlds?” She had always just thought it was how the Hero thing worked. She had never thought there was any deeper meaning, to worlds with systems.

“Sometimes it is, but the ones without a system?” Del tapped his forehead. “This gives these Heroes something to contextualize and understand their new world. It’s also why some of their systems are so snippy or sarcastic.”

“So the AI is spliced into their souls?” It was making her feel better about the AI’s soul but it was still bothering her.

“No actually, the souls always stay separate, but are linked in other ways.” Answering matter of factly, returning to his search of the hut.

Her eyes narrowed, “Are they, slaves?”

“No.” He said emphatically.

“Then are they free?” She asked pointedly.

“No.”

“Then they are slaves.” She didn’t understand why he was saying this was different, if they had no choice, then they were essentially slaves.

Del let out a long sigh, knowing it did seem a lot like slavery but it wasn’t the same, “No they are…what they have become, guides to Heroes.” He was struggling to explain his solution to save a world on the brink, a world that had killed its own Gods. “They all take different, yet similar forms, ever since they came along the Heroes have become much stronger, and able to live better lives. They were a budding race, and I couldn’t take their bodies. I could only take their newly born souls. Many of them are still waking up. The rest are in my care until such time.”

“What happens when they do wake up?” The fight slowly drained out of her, finding the explanation making too much sense, and her not knowing what she would have done, or what she could have done.

“The same as everyone else.” Del smiled, “They live. A few leave their host, some stay, and some spread, granting the system to a world, and a couple had come back to me for new hosts, enjoying guiding the Heroes. They are not what they once were, but are something else entirely. So not slaves.”

“I always thought the system worlds were weird. Wondering, how the Gods kept track of it all to give out rewards.”

“Yeah. The system worlds are usually the ones where the AI’s are working with the Gods themselves helping.”

She looked back towards the hut, smiling thinking of the boy with a bright future in this new world before something else occurred to her, “Why don’t all Heroes have a system?”

“Actually, that's simple. The Gods themselves reject it.” He answered just as Del caught sight of something green buried in the dirt. He reached down pulling out a small jade disk no bigger than his palm with intricately carved symbols, that the longer Ge looked at it, the more she could feel it trying to pull something from her. “Ah-Ha!” He shouted in excitement, then explained. “It’s what caused the original boy to die. Drained all the energy from him when he slept would set him back in his progress, and slowly kill him.”

“That's horrible. Did someone put it there?”

Looking over the disk, he couldn't find signs that it was newly buried, “It looks like it's been here for years, also explains why there is no grass around the hut.” The man thought for a moment, “No I don’t think he has a powerful enemy. Hmmm…”He smiled and put the disc back where he found it.

She could only look on confused as he began to place the disk back in the hole. “Why aren’t you taking it?”

“It may have killed him, but with the AI and a new lease on life, it could be a life-saving treasure or something. Kinda how cultivation works.”

She didn’t know how to respond so she changed the subject back to the system, “So Gods can block the system?”

“Yeah, it’s rare but they do sometimes. The ones that do it’s usually because they think the Hero will grow too strong.”

“Challenge them?”

“Pretty much. I mean Heroes sometimes kill Gods.”