Chapter 546: Return
| Death Statistics Report: Power: Gain a level in your first Spark (X20) +100 Achievement (X20) Gain a level in your second Spark (X20) +200 Achievement (X20) Gain a level in your Third Spark (X20) +300 Achievement (X20) Gain a level in a 3-facet Compound Spark (X20) +1,200 Achievement (X20) Gain a level in your fifth spark (X10) +1,000 Achievement (X10) Form your Eleventh Rune out of Absorption Essence +1,650 Achievement Skill: Basic Grade Ice Manipulation +1,000 Achievement Intermediate Grade Ice Manipulation +2,500 Achievement Advanced Grade Ice Manipulation +5,000 Achievement Born of Winter's Hold [Basic Grade] +2,000 Achievement Born of Winter's Hold [Intermediate Grade] +4,000 Achievement Basic Grade Void Mastery +7,000 Achievement Intermediate Grade Void Mastery +15,000 Achievement Advanced Grade Void Mastery +30,000 Achievement Basic Grade Void Magic +12,000 Achievement Slaughter Kill a Glacial Crawler for the first time +500 Achievement Assist in Killing a Tundra Rhino +600 Achievement Assist in killing a Frost Serpent +700 Achievement Kill a Talkite Swarmer for the First time +500 Achievement Kill a Talkite Swarmer for the First time +600 Achievement Kill a Tundra Strider for the First time +1200 Achievement Assist in Killing a Tundra Strider for the first time +200 Achievement Kill a Lightning Roc for the first time +3,500 Achievement Assist in Killing a Lightning Roc for the first time +1,200 Achievement Assist in Killing a Lightning Roc for the fifth time +1,800 Achievement Kill a Frost Wolf, Veridian Horror, Jungle Strider, Mud Maw, Flickerhound, Sun Tiger, Flamewalker, WorldSpine, DarkRoot, Brightmaw, Veldian Verryn, Callidian Eye Eater, and Veldrian for the first time. +14,200 Achievement Kill a Rodent of the Roots for the first time +300 Achievement Kill a Rodent of the Roots for the fifth time +500 Achievement Kill a Rodent of the Roots for the twentieth time +650 Achievement Kill a Rodent of the Roots for the fiftieth time +1,000 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the first time +200 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the fifth time +250 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the twentieth time +400 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the fiftieth time +450 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the 250th time +500 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the 500th time +600 Achievement Assist in killing a Rodent of the Roots for the 1000th time +750 Achievement Assist in Killing a Butterfly of Wooden Dreams for the first time +5,000 Achievement Assist in Killing an initiate of Roots for the first time +10,000 Achievement Kill a Hungry Fog for the First time +1,400 Achievement Kill a Hungry Fog for the tenth time +5,000 Achievement Assist in Killing a Hungry Fog for the first time +300 Achievement Kill a Porcuspike for the first time +1,000 Achievement Kill a Porcuspike for the third time +1,500 Achievement Kill a Porcuspike for the ninth time +2,000 Achievement Influence Assist in Defense of the Town (X2) +150(X2) Achievement Help Defend the Ember against a Monster attack +420 Achievement Help Defend the Village Ember (against the Lightning Rocs) +800 Achievement Help Defend the Ember against a Monster attack (X13) +8,000 Achievement Play a moderate role in a battle against extraplanar invaders +4,500 Achievement Play a Moderate Role in a battle against the Universal Tree +2,500 Achievement Play a Major role in a battle against the extraplanar Invaders +10,000 Achievement Play a Moderate Role in the battle against the Extraplanar Invaders (X8) +4,000 Achievement Play a moderate role in a failed counterattack against the Universal Tree +4,000 Achievement Play a major role in successfully fleeing from the Universal Tree +50,000 Achievement Play a Moderate Role in a battle that defines the future survival of (Unnamed Settlement) +5,000 Achievement Make a Major contribution to the future of (Unnamed Settlement) +20,000 Achievement Make a Major contribution to the future of (unnamed Settlement) +25,000 Achievement Play a Moderate role in developing a stable future for (unnamed Settlement) +10,000 Achievement Heal 20 Debilitating Injuries +800 Achievement Heal 100 Debilitating Injuries +1,500 Achievement Heal 500 Debilitating Injuries +2,300 Achievement Wealth Exploration Family/Disciples Misc: First time Achievements: Total at start of the world: 127,824 Taxes: N/A (Error - no tax skill detected. Please consult with your local city administrator for further details. Tax evasion is a capital offense, and trying to avoid paying may result in execution!) Maintenance: 171 Achievement New Total: 445,003
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I sighed, and glanced at the chaotic, shifting laws of reality behind me.
I had tried my best. I hadn’t given up hope. I had done everything I could for the people of our clans, in order to carve out a future for them.
I had failed.
The water elemental was too strong for me to fight against. It hadn’t even felt like any of its skills were overwhelmingly powerful - it just had the raw stats it needed to absorb everything our clan could throw at it, and we weren’t able to outrun it. The universal tree, which had come for us twice, was a problem that the four of us had no way to solve. We had barely escaped the first time, and the second time it proved too much for us to win against.
I hadn’t given up hope until the very last moment, but hope hadn’t been enough.
Even so, I felt like I had a better understanding of what ‘hope’ meant. Hope didn’t mean that I always had the tools to succeed. It didn’t mean that I could bend reality at will. It meant that I could tweak things a little bit to keep fighting. It meant that I could arrange the basic conditions for a sliver of success… provided that the enemy wasn’t too overwhelming. More than anything else, hope was about trying to find a path forward, even in despair.
Even though the eldritch half of me felt exhausted after draining itself over and over again to try to win the battle and constantly reviving me, I felt like I had a better understanding of the eldritch, and what my path meant. That would prove incredibly invaluable in the future.
At least, if we survived.
Time continued to pass as my friends and I floated in the ocean of souls. Meanwhile, the gentle pull of the Market gradually dragged us closer and closer to the Market. Typically, it felt like it took weeks of travel for us to reappear in the Market, but this time, it felt like it only took minutes. I wasn’t sure if that was an illusion, or we happened to be closer to the Market this time when we died, or some other reason entirely.
In a way, it was a relief. We were back in the Market for potentially the final time.
| Welcome newly Deceased!
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| You have been detected to be (dead), and your soul was no longer housed inside of a physical vessel. You have been returned to the Market, and one life has been deducted to grant you a (basic) physical vessel. Zero lives remain! Please visit a Renewal Center at the earliest possible convenience to stock up again! To make sure you don’t get lost, a guidance system will be implemented to guide you to the nearest one! Warning: Upon returning to the Market from another dimension, some of the ‘dimensional laws’ of your former world will remain attached to your soul. If you attempt to reincarnate before these dimensional laws are purified, you may experience severe injuries or death immediately after being born. The Market will automatically fix this problem, so long as you remain for at least 30 days. You may also pay a fee at a decontamination center to speed this process up. Or, if you have a Heroic Grade or above Ability, this time may be reduced, or removed entirely! Please consult an expert at a decontamination center for more details. Warning: Basic Physical vessels will begin to deteriorate within a few months. If you want a more permanent vessel, please buy or rent one. Otherwise, please enter a pool or river of reincarnation before deterioration occurs.
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If only it were still that simple.
Instead, it was time for the most important few months of our lives.
We had a few months to either grow strong enough to seize some more lives, or find a way to get better bodies that wouldn’t decay in a few months. I wasn’t sure whether there were any practical ways to acquire a body left in the Market… but either way, we needed to move.
Before I said a word to my friends or thought too much about it, I decided to first purchase all of the Abilities I had earned during my time in our previous world and had planned to buy.
I immediately bought {Space Mastery [Advanced]} first. It was too useful to ignore.
| Since you have trained Void Mastery to [Advanced] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Space Mastery (Advaned)] as an ability, for the cost of 30000 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:
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| Keywords: None Your ability to control space is enhanced by a drastic amount, and it becomes several times easier to raise any spatially-related abilities up to [Advanced] Grade in the future. Anytime you reincarnate or get access to a new body, you retain [Basic] grade spatial control. All spatial manipulation is moderately cheaper and slightly more effective, and you can stretch any spells or skills significantly further than before, such as distance for teleportation, portal size, et cetera. Each of your Essence stats get a +10 boost. Glut Penalty: 40
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Then, I bought the ability evolution for {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}.
| The Concept of Hope and Space Cost: 100,000 Achievement Glut penalty: 35 -> 55 You have used your rune magic to create hope in people, and saved nearly a thousand people from an interdimensional war when they should have had no hope of survival. Then, you took the very nature of this ability and began to twist it towards the ‘concept’ of hope, making this ability at least partially eldritch in nature. Your ability to create hope in hopeless situations has fed this ability like water and soil feed a plant, and it has changed and grown as a result. Effects: Your ability to manipulate space will be inherently an extension of your ability to manipulate hope. Instead of producing divergent effects based on what rune you have, this ability will now simply provide you with the three abilities you have currently assigned to your runes. Each rune will now give you +10 to every physical and mental stat, and will enhance your senses so that your awareness of space is improved and enhance your body so that your familiarity with and mastery over space will improve.
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Next, I bought {Embodiment of Hope and Death}.
| Embodiment of Hope and Death Cost: 15,000 Achievement Glut penalty: 15 -> 35 You have often used the effects of {Echoes of the Deep} to kill, and you have also used it to bring hope to your chosen people… at the exact same time. This evolution is a reflection of your focus on extinguish, as well as its potential as a weapon for both hope and despair. Effects: Your conceptual half becomes permanently locked into being an embodiment of hope and death. from simply an embodiment of hope into an embodiment of hope and death. The stronger your conceptual half becomes, the stronger extinguish will become, and the stronger your healing and conceptual manipulation abilities will become. (This upgrade will also pull any hope or despair you have created in previous worlds you have visited, so long as there is still some trace of your deeds left behind in that world and you have not been forgotten. This is a one-time action). Extinguish will become more conceptual. It will matter less and less what the local laws of physics and biology are, because your ability will now function entirely off of a fragmented conceptual framework, instead of a semi-conceptual, semi-physical framework. (This will still be inferior to the fully developed conceptual framework that all Heroic abilities operate off of!)
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| Since you have trained Void Magic to [Basic] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Void Magic (Basic)] as an ability, for the cost of 5000 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:
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| Keywords: None You now carry a watered down version of the laws of reality needed to support spatial magic, especially spatial spells related to cutting, crushing, and tearing. Spells built off of these fundamental characteristics have a moderate boost in essence efficiency and overall power, and are harder to disrupt. Glut Penalty: 15
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| Since you have trained Born of Winter’s Hold to [Intermediate] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Born of Frost and Snow] as an ability, for the cost of 20000 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:
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| Keywords: None Your eldritch side gains some moderates aspects related to snow and frost. Allows you to temporarily dissolve your physical body into snow and ice, along with temporary, high speed movement. Costs any form of essence. Cost increases significantly for each second spent in a ‘bodiless’ state. (Note: You can still suffer injuries or death if someone eliminates the snow your body has transformed into.) You gain total immunity to natural cold and all associated biological issues, and moderate resistance against magical forms of cold. Your control over water, snow, and ice is increased by a moderate amount. All magic based on water, snow, and ice is enhanced by a minor amount. Glut Penalty: 15 Note: Perk may be incompatible with other abilities such as any variant of ‘body of flames’ or other elemental-aligned biological changes.
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I looked at my friends, and saw that they were still considering their own purchases. I took a deep breath, even though my Market-made body didn’t need to breathe, and then moved over to a bench near the corner of the street we had spawned in. I needed a few moments to calm down and take some deep breaths.
Then, we would need to start moving. It was time to find out whether we would continue to live, or if this life had been our final one.