『Cloning』Rank 1

>You are able to create clones of yourself.

Clones created: 0/1

Clones? Like, St*r W*rs?

>Answer. Yes. Further explanation of the ability is not available.

WOAH! Something spoke in my head! Is that you?

>Answer. Yes. I am the Tower System assigned to assist Tower climbers with any questions that they might have.

…Tower System. By towers, you don’t mean those things that came from the sky.

>Answer. Yes. All 122 towers have been erected on Earth to be climbed by the ones possessing the Tower Systems.

It’s straight out of a Fantasy novel. And I’m guessing this ability of mine, cloning is part of having this Tower System in order to help me progress through the towers?

>Answer. Yes. Your unique ability,『Cloning』is currently at Rank 1. All Tower abilities start from Rank 1 and peak at Rank 10. The higher the rank, the stronger the ability gets.

And these towers that require these abilities to advance upwards. There’s a catch isn’t there.

>Answer. The towers are home to monsters, traps and puzzles. Ample preparation is advised before challenging each floor.

Not that I have any interest in risking my life, but… I still have questions about my cloning. But you won’t answer those questions huh.

No one would pass at the opportunity to live their fantasies out if they had a chance without risks. Deciding to just find out what the ability did, I activated the skill once.

〖You have created a clone!〗

>Clones created: 1/1

A picture-perfect me stood before my eyes as it parted from my body like gel. It looked like it came out of me, yet I felt nothing myself. The clone was staring emptily forward, as if it had no life. But when I drew near cautiously, I could feel its breathing. Subtle, but it was there, as if it was a living thing. I touched its chest, and felt a heart beat too. Even after all that, the clone did not react to my touch. It didn’t have a will of its own.

Next, I tried to talk to it normally. It didn’t respond until there were words that involved my intent for its participation.

Squat. Stand. Do a handstand.

Surprise. The clone actually did a handstand. …Well he fell over when I pushed it slightly. It didn’t bother getting up, until I told it to.

The clone simply follows orders. It also follows long orders and even behaviors.

For example, I told it to do 100 squats, and when it was done, change to 100 push-ups. Then 2 hours later, repeat this cycle. The clone followed these instructions exactly without looking at the clock.

I told it to give me the best smile it could muster. The clone gave me a really uncanny smile so I told it to stop and act friendly like how I would do it. This vague instruction turned out well, as it felt like the clone had gained a semblance of a personality. Of course, it was limited to onomatopoeias that weren’t actual words for a conversation.

It took me a while of configuring ‘human-like’ instructions, before I managed to make it talk to me. It somehow felt like training an AI model. However it never felt like it was truly outside of my control. No matter how sentient it appeared to be, anything about the clone could be overwritten with whatever I said.

And so after a whole week of experimenting, I found out five important things about the clone.

First, the clone cannot disobey or be unwilling towards me. It always listens and changes its frame of existence based on my words. Depending on how I worded it, I could also have the clone act hostile towards me. 

Second, the clone starts off with a biological body similar to mine. However, it can permanently modify its appearance through outward changes or muscle growth.

Third, the clone can technically die. When it suffers a mortal injury deemed to be unsustainable based on its physical condition, the clone melts and disappears completely. The clone limit goes back down to 0 once that happens.

Fourth, when the clone dies, I seem to gain everything that I could identify as ‘beneficial material’ which the clone previously possessed. For example, the clothes that I told them to wear. Those were returned to me intact. 

And finally, the clone can gain sentience if I will it to.

It was by accident that I found out about the third point, but the last part was accomplished after writing a bunch of exposition on my laptop and telling the clone to follow it word for word.

The end product was a clone who believed he was a presidential election candidate and had mannerisms befitting one.

"I want to build a wall, a great great wall and make **** pay for it, what do you think, son. Can it be done? I say, for the people, can it be done?"

Of course, to make it even more convincing, I had sourced a lot of material online. That’s right, the clone also absorbs video material in order to create its own interpretation of the character it was supposed to play. I had quite the laugh listening to the clone speak.

Why was I doing this? Well. I was an aspiring writer. Creating characters like these felt like so much fun.

Climbing the tower with such a cosmetic ability? It never occurred to me that such an ability could be used in combat. After all, a clone of an ordinary human is just that. Ordinary. Outside of the fact that no real damage would be incurred to the main body even if the clone dies, the clone wouldn’t really achieve much even if it was told to train to the human limits.

Not to mention the abysmal cooldown period of a full 24 hours before I could clone again if the clone was ever put out of commission for any reason.

But hey, when I had a clone finally gaining some level of sentience from my expositions, it seemed like my ability ranked up to 4 at some point.

『Cloning』Rank 4

>You are able to create clones of yourself!

>You can share senses with your clones!

Clones created: 0/3