"What's wrong with this boy?"
Loud rubbed his head with an awkward expression. Quiet spoke up this time and explained.
"He has various symptoms of severe brain damage. Forgetfulness, schizophrenia, anxiety, the list goes on."
Quiet thought for a moment and added, "You can just watch the live footage of the Death Row inmates and see it for yourself clearly. You'll probably notice something right away sir."
The warden nodded and clicked on the camera icon that was at the bottom of James's profile.
The scene on the projection changed to James pulling on the pickaxe with his two hands and one foot.
The two guards and the warden happened to open the live footage right when James went flying after pulling the pickaxe out of the stone wall.
The warden found it a little amusing and chuckled. Loud and Quiet shook their heads knowingly.
About a minute later the three saw James stand up and say, "Why are stones gray? They don't taste gray. The stars are yellow. Do they taste yellow? Yes. Are they too hot to eat? No. I eat them all."
Loud was trying his hardest to hold back his laughter. Quiet was a little better and only bit his lower lip to catch himself.
The warden didn't need to see anymore. He understood that this kid definitely had some serious issues.
He didn't stop the live footage though. The three were too infatuated to shut the hologram off and continued watching with great interest.
They watched as James climbed out of the stone pit and approached the Death Row inmates steel gate.
James had too much on his mind and forgot to stick his arm in the machine for verification.
He ended up walking straight into the electrified steel gate and getting shocked greatly.
Loud and Quiet couldn't hold back anymore and burst into laughter. The warden was barely holding on but he managed to keep it in.
With an extremely agitated look, James yelled, "Fucker!" and punched towards the steel gate, getting shocked greater than the first time.
The warden lost his cool and joined Loud and Quiet in their bellicose laughter.
James thought that his acting should be more than enough and started following the regular procedure.
It wasn't much later before he arrived in front of the warden, Loud, and Quiet.
The three had already calmed down and were chatting casually.
When Loud saw James come within a certain distance he reprimanded him.
"James! This is the warden, you have to pay your respects before him."
James scratched his head and wore a silly smile.
"Warding sir? I have had bad dreams the last two nights. Can you help me?"
The three of them all turned away, trying their absolute hardest to not laugh at the boy in front of them. They would feel too guilty.
The warden turned back with a warm smile and played along.
"Sure. I'll get rid of those nightmares for you."
"Thank you sir!" James walked passed the three with an overjoyed silly smile.
He put his arm in front of the third door that had a scanner on it. This third door was the med bay.
The door clicked open and James walked in.
After the door closed, the warden turned to Loud and Quiet. He said, "You two did an excellent job. The three prisoners left behind definitely can't join the war effort."
The warden glanced in the direction of the door James just entered and added, "As for your request to not relocate that boy... I'll make sure it's seen through. I don't know if that boy can harm anyone but himself."
James took all of his clothes off and laid down flat on the plain white table.
The room was completely undecorated but the ceiling had a few hatches in it.
Out of these hatches came a few mechanical arms holding medical equipment.
One of the pieces of medical equipment was a scanner that shot a blue wave of light over James body.
The blue light contracted and focused on just his wounded left arm.
Another arm holding a ridiculously long syringe poked into his arm without hesitation. James's immediately lost all feeling in his left arm.
The third mechanical arm sliced the dead tissue off of James's arm and spread a disinfectant over it.
The fourth and final mechanical arm wrapped his wounded arm up in a tight layer of gauze.
After this, all of the arms returned through the hatch in the ceiling and disappeared.
James looked at his arm in wonder. "Technology really is too amazing." He thought. "But not as cool as a stone that can write on itself."
James now had no other thoughts than to go back and investigate the smooth stone further.
After all, it had to be the most amazing thing he had ever seen. Even more so than space travel, laser weapons, and automated food dispensers.
James walked out of the med bay and ignored the three people still chatting.
Loud, Quiet, and the warden didn't bother him either.
A minute or two later he arrived in front of the small pit and climbed back in.
He immediately disregarded everything else and stared at the smooth stone.
James was excited to see a new line of words appear.
"Good job James. Since you've made it this far by yourself, I imagine the things you'll accomplish in the future will be even greater."
The stone disappeared.
James's eyes widened as the smooth stone disappeared without leaving a trace.
Where the stone was, there was only an ancient silver antique pocket watch.
James reached down and picked up the pocket watch to observe it more closely.
Just when he brought the pocket watch closer to his face to observe it, the silver pocket watch phased into his palm.
James exclaimed in his heart. "Huh!?"
He looked at his palm and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
When he turned his hand around however, he saw a light green number five. The five turned to a six after one second. After another second it turned to a seven, then an eight, then a nine.
After the number reached ten, James understood that it was following how many seconds had passed since the pocket watch was absorbed into his palm.
"What the hell is going on?" James really felt that he had hit his head too hard when he fell.
James looked up to make sure everything else was still normal. However, it definitely wasn't.
In front of him was a light screen just like the ones from those fancy bracelets that the guards had. It didn't look any different.
On the light screen, James could see a myriad of different things.
He tried his best to calm his mind and started from the top of the page.
He saw:
[Name : James]
[Level : 1 ]
[Health : 9/10 ]
[Mana : 1/1]
[Stamina : 7/10]
[Age : 15]
[Time accumulated : 17 seconds]
James sucked in a cold breath and continued his gaze down the light screen.
[Time Mantra - Locked - One Day Remaining]
[Time is Healing - Locked - One Week Remaining]
[Time Enhancment - Locked - Two Weeks Remaining]
[Time Diminishment - Locked - One Month Remaining]
[Time Distorting Finger - Locked - Three Months Remaining]
There were more and more options as James kept looking down, but they appeared to be blurred out.
"So I have stats like in those virtual reality games? What's really going on? Will this thing keep blocking my vision?"
When James said the last sentence that was filled with some worry, the status window in front of him disappeared.
James swallowed his saliva and immediately thought of it reappearing. It did.
In out, in out, in out. James watched as the status window popped in and out of his hand repeatedly. He figured it out quickly.
It was almost the exact same as the virtual reality games he played as a young kid.
Just use your thoughts to pull up the status window and vice versa.
James thought that this made things much easier.
"Now the biggest question that remains is can other people see it? If they can, then I'll just have to waste time and study it in private. If they can't, I'll be able to study and understand it all the of the time."
James chuckled to himself and thought, "So what if it wastes time? Time is all I have."
The status window suddenly appeared in front of James.
He was confused and wanted to put it away, but he noticed a change in the screen right away.
The Time Mantra that previously required a full day to unlock, became available in 12 hours.