Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

After the other things we had found while searching through the stores for supplies, I had high expectations for the final section of shops in the mall. I still realized that we would get a lot less out of this than we had found in the Spatial Fair - but I still hoped that we could find at least one or two good abilities for each of us. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel(ꜰ)ire.net

Due to the fact that this mall used ‘ability cubes’ instead of a surgery table, the selection was far more limited. There were only 130 different abilities for sale in the entire mall, since every single ability cube took up about one square meter of space. Despite the far more limited selection, we still found a few useful abilities.

The first one to stumble upon something useful was Sallia. The ability she found didn’t suit the rest of us, sadly - but it was perfect for her.

Timewinder’s Slice: Temporarily alter the laws of time while holding any bladed weapon. For no essence cost, force your blade (and all relevant muscles/body parts) to cut through time itself. (can only be used to empower one attack at a time.) Your cut will be instantaneous, making it nearly impossible to react to, and being cut by this blade will also separate the enemy from the regular stream of time. For one minute after being cut by this ability, they will move up 50% slower through time than they naturally would. (Note - the deeper the cut you inflict, the greater the impact. 50% is the maximum you can expect, and it is from a wound that is essentially lethal. Realistically, 30-40% is what you should expect to get from a decent but not life-threatening wound.) This ability may only be used while swinging a bladed weapon, and only once per year. While this ability is very difficult to counter, please note that some enemies may be unusually resilient against this type of effect. This may reduce the duration or impact of the ability. Glut Penalty - 8

This was the kind of trump card that would let Sallia perform terrifying attacks during fights where we were outmatched. Sallia was already incredibly strong in certain types of battle - especially particular, long, drawn out fights with an enemy that didn’t have a major advantage over her. Sallia consumed a lot less essence per second than the rest of us, since a lot of her strength was tied to her raw skill as a swordsman and her physical stats. However, up until now, she had lacked the ability to exhibit an explosive increase in strength when an emergency happened. She had no singularly powerful attack, such as Anise’s fireballs. If an enemy was a bit stronger and faster than her after she applied her physique-boosting spells, Sallia generally struggled to keep up with the fight. Now, Sallia had a bunch of consumable items we had gotten from the shop, and she also had this ability, which would patch up this weakness and allow Sallia a greater degree of explosive strength during important fights.

It cost her 10,000 Achievement and 8 glut penalty, which was a bit on the expensive side, Achievement wise. However, all of us thought it was a great investment for both the next world and the fight for more lives. With how much glut penalty we could handle right now, 8 was barely a drop in the bucket in comparison to how useful an ability like this was.

Later on, Ansie found an Ability that both she and I liked.

Empowered Spell You may empower a single spell while you are in the middle of casting it. (See instruction manual for precise details on what a ‘spell’ is). Empowering the spell does two things - it increases the speed at which you form the spell, and drastically enhances the power of the spell (approximately equivalent to increasing the skill’s grade by two grades). Note: This Ability CAN empower things beyond heroic grade, but the efficiency is drastically reduced. A Master-grade spell will only be empowered to a reasonably strong heroic ability, and a heroic-grade spell will not quite reach Epic grade. They will instead hit a midpoint between a proper heroic spell and an epic spell. This ability does not cost any essence, but may only be used once per year. Glut penalty - 5

This Ability was slightly cheaper, both in Achievement and glut penalty. It cost us 4,000 Acheivement. I spent a long time checking through the instruction manual for this ability before I bought it, because I wanted to make absolutely sure that it could empower my various attunement-based spells. Fortunately, according to this Ability’s definition of a ‘spell,’ I could easily empower things like Extinguish or Renewal with {Empowered Spell}.

Buying this Ability dropped me from 144,328.45 to 140,328.45 Achievement. It also cost me 5 more glut, meaning I was now using 112/320 Glut. I still had plenty of room, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

In the second to last ability store, Felix found an ability that suited his needs as well, although it wasn’t very useful for direct combat. However, after seeing the {Brand of Miria}, I had much greater hope for what he could accomplish with item creation.

Artificial Material Construction By using alteration Essence, you may slowly change the properties of even the most ordinary material to make it more magical, more reactive with different kinds of essence, and more capable of carrying different types of properties. (You can spend achievement to boost the speed at which this transformation occurs, but it is not necessary. There are some limitations on what grade of materials you can create using this ability. See instruction manual for further details.) Glut Penalty - 10

Currently, one of the biggest problems Felix faced when creating new items was a lack of suitable materials. Felix had been able to create the {Brand of Miria}, which had given me a huge power boost - but he hadn’t had enough materials to make similar items for himself, Anise, or Sallia. This was entirely because we had no good way to procure new materials. Going down to the surface of the planet had been so far beyond that civilization’s strength that it would have been suicidal, and the monster hive hadn’t sent us any good materials during the rest of the time we had lived on the sanctuary in our previous life.

This ability directly solved that problem - and it wouldn’t even cost Achievement to do so, even though Achievement could speed up the whole process. In practice, this ability meant that Felix would always have a way to translate time and essence into a power up for our group. Of course, the fact the ability had limitations on it was inconvenient - but after Felix thumbed through the manual, he confirmed that it wouldn’t hinder his item creation abilities, at least for now. It would be tough for him to create something like the {Brand of Miria} using materials from this Ability, since that was right on the edge of what was possible with the ability - but it could be done, it would just take a lot of time and essence.

Considering how powerful the {Brand of Miria} was, that information filled me with hope. Our current plan was to roll into the fight for more lives with an inventory full of powerful, long-cooldown items… but if we could return to the Market with only items as strong as the {Brand of Miria}, that would be just as good, in my mind. That might single-handedly save us during the next fight, if Felix had enough time to make full use of this Ability.

Finally, I also found one more ability that I ended up purchasing. This one was a bit more unusual than the ones the others found, but it fit my needs well.

Dangerous Currents: So long as you are in contact with water, you gain the ability to breathe underwater. Your body will grow more resilient, especially with regards to healing and regeneration. Also improves your fortitude by 1 grade. You will be able to transform your body into a drop of water for a short period of time (dependent on your mental stats, but typically about ten seconds for the average new transmigrator with perfect 100’s in every stat). While transformed into a drop of water, you will rapidly recover all types of essence and body damage. Transforming to and maintaining the form of a drop of water requires a great deal of mental energy. If you attempt to do so but cannot muster up the required mental energy, you will be forced to return to your human form, inflicting moderate damage upon your body and a significant amount of pain. Glut penalty - 10

This ability fit my needs quite well. It technically didn’t consume any essence, but it gave me a quick way to escape dangerous attacks and regenerate my essence quickly. I was always wearing my {Lake Gazer’s Dress}, so I was always in contact with water. With this ability, anytime a dangerous ability was about to hit me, I could just transform into a drop of water, retreat into my dress, and then pop out and launch an extinguish once I was ready. I thought it was a great addition to my ability repertoire. It cost me another 15,000 Achievement and ten glut penalty, dropping me to 125,328.45 Achievement. Sadly, this one wasn’t very useful for my friends, since they didn’t have ready access to water at any time. They decided not to buy it.

We didn’t find any other abilities that fit our needs, so after that, we decided we had raided everything we could from the mall. More importantly, we had probably gathered everything useful in the outer districts of the Market. If we wanted to keep growing stronger, we would have to go into the inner districts of the Market. It was time to see how much we had grown from last time.