Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG) Chapter 314: Rebuilding

With a house secured, we spent a few hours familiarizing ourselves with our new bodies. At first, we had thought that would be enough ti.

We greatly underestimated how hard it would be to adapt to our bodies. It was nothing like integrating a new Grade of physical stats. It was almost as hard as adjusting to a totally different body plan. My balance, strength, and reflexes were all completely different from my previous aging body. Even for simple things, like dodging or swinging a weapon, I needed to relearn everything from the beginning.

In the end, we needed a full day and a half to finish getting used to our physical abilities. After a day, I started to feel anxiety. My Keyword abilities would disappear if I didn't buy them within 72 hours. But even though I wanted to rush, we needed to get used to fighting again. Last ti we had attacked a higher level shop in the Market, we had run into a fairly powerful magical creature. We needed to be ready for another big fight, just in case.

Of course, I didn't only reacquaint myself with my body. I also worked on building up my magical abilities again.

Power: Form a [Basic] Grade attunent

Achievent 100

Power: Condense your first rune out of absorption essence

Achievent 80

My first rune and my [Basic] Grade attunent weren’t too hard for to rebuild. After multiple lifetis of using both magic systems, I was very familiar with them. Thus, it only took a few hours to get both set up. I even managed to push a bit further with my attunent during our second day of training.

Power: Form an [Interdiate] Grade attunent

Achievent 200

Combined, this gave 380 Achievent, for a new Achievent count of 23,731.63. I had lost a little bit of Achievent for being in the Market, but it wasn't much. I was losing about one Achievent a day - just like always.

For my first rune ability, I decided to go with teleportation again. It was useful against projectile attacks, and I was also very familiar with the ability now. I was confident that I could use it well after spending an entire lifeti handling it.

At Sallia’s insistence, I also rebuilt [Basic] Grade one-handed Swordsmanship. After decades of disuse, my sword skills were quite rusty. Sallia relearned her combat skills much faster than I did... and then proceeded to chase all of us around our training room with her sword while constantly whacking us in the head. It had been a long ti since I had gotten beaten up by Sallia during training. It felt nostalgic, and also painful.

Skill: Gain [Basic] Mastery of a one-handed swordsmanship technique.

Achievent 30

This brought my Achievent from 23,731.63 to 23,761.63.

Due to your {Basic One-Handed Swordsmanship} Ability, reaching Basic Grade in one-handed swordsmanship gives extra rewards

Strength 5, Agility 5, Fortitude 5

The others also used this ti to rebuild their own strengths and abilities. Sallia went for her usual mix of body-enhancing spells for her manifestation spellcasting. However, she opted for sothing rather new for her first rune ability. According to Sallia's description, she was trying to create a sort of anti-magic rune ability. It was an ability aid at disrupting essence itself. She wasn't entirely sure how well it would work in real combat... but I felt it was a good direction for her. If Sallia learned how to disrupt essence manipulation, it could beco an incredible tool later.

Felix focused on acquainting himself with his new ability. Unlike , he had plenty of open glut penalty, so he bought his new ability the mont we returned to the Market. Then, instead of trying to make prosthetics, he started making electricity bombs. They weren't anywhere near as good as the bombs from our last world, but they were serviceable. Felix made them from the computer we had found in the house, before using an affixation to substitute actual gunpowder. The bomb that he tested ended up about as effective as a small, poorly made grenade.

These grenades were then handed off to Anise. After all, Anise didn't have quite ti to rebuild her spell maps. For now, Anise was going to lob bombs at enemies, and rely on her items. With her {Shadow Dryad’s Eyes}, {Phoenix Sword}, and {Finger of Magic Missiles}, she was set up to do sothing in a fight.

I suspected that we were actually a bit weaker than when we left the Market last ti, but it should be good enough for now. Since ti was ticking, after 36 hours of training and bomb-making, we set off. I needed to buy my stats and get enough glut for my ability before 72 hours passed. Otherwise, I would lose {Eldritch Soul} forever.

Our journey towards the less important districts of the Market was smooth. We found a few skeletons on the road, but now that we were familiar with our bodies again, they posed little threat to us. We took turns killing the skeletons, in order to maximize our group’s Achievent gain. The skeletons were sparse, but they were still enough for each of us to get a few kills.

You have slain an invading low-level troop. As defined in article two of the ergency city defense fund act, Eluxia distributes your rightful rewards.

(Error – Entity ‘Eluxia’ cannot be found.)

Achievent distribution failed. For further information, please contact the administrator of your current city.

Slaughter: Killed a skeletal foot soldier for the first ti. Assist in Killing a Skeletal Foot Soldier for the first ti.

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extrely negligible] amount.

Achievent 20, Achievent 2, Achievent 0.00

The extra 22 Achievent brought from 23,761.57 Achievent to 23,783.57. It wasn’t a substantial increase, but it was better than nothing.

Since we were in a rush, we skipped smaller shops. Normally, we would attack them and loot them for Achievent, but we weren't sure how much ti we needed to get {Eldritch Soul}. Smaller shops might not have Tier 2 and Tier 3 Soul Fragnts... in which case the essence we spent clearing out a small shop might cost us.

After a few hours of searching, we finally found a promising looking shop. It was on the smaller side, but it looked large enough to support Tier 2 and Tier 3 soul fragnts.

It was nad “Saul’s Soul Solace - the Emporium for the new, successful transmigrator!” It looked well off, at least for a shop in the outer district of the nursery. It was promising enough for our intents and purposes. Just as we had feared, it was guarded by an odd monster that we had never seen before.

This monster looked like a giant, moving colony of moss. I could see little bits and pieces of its body crawling around as it moved. It didn't look human at all - it looked like a mound of green. When I looked at it with soul-sight, I realized that I wasn't looking at moss. Instead, the creature was probably so sort of... animated fungus. There was also a chance that it was a golem of so sort. Either way, I had never seen anything quite like it. Rather than a single enemy, the creature was a colony of small creatures. Through soul-sight, it looked like billions of tiny little souls clumped together.

“It’s a colony of monsters,” I said. “Extinguish isn’t going to be very useful against it, since I can only target one living creature at a ti. I doubt it would even notice if I spent days hitting it with extinguish. I'm going to swap to {Breath of the Storm}. Lightning should cook a lot of the creatures with each hit," I said.

Sallia also grimaced. “If it’s a giant colony, I’m not sure how useful swordsmanship is. I wish I knew more fire spells." Sallia squinted at the creature, before she grinned. "Actually, it looks like essence plays an important role in its biology. Maybe my essence disruption ability can get its first proper field test.”

Felix frowned. "I only have tal manipulation right now. I don't think there's much I can do here. If we need to box it in, maybe I can whip sothing up?" Felix shrugged. "I'll see if there's sowhere I can help once the fight starts."

The four of us spent a few minutes trying to work out a battle plan. Since we didn't know what abilities the creature had, it was a bit hard. However, after a few minutes of planning, I felt that we had a reasonable battle plan. After that, the four of us marched up to the side of the shop, before we glanced at our surroundings one more ti. There weren't any other creatures in our surroundings.

I asked the others.