The interface for buying new abilities was bloated. It was ludicrous. It was so long that I would need days to read through the entire list. Heck, it would probably take a day to read the na of every Ability. While I was happy that there was such a huge collection to choose from, I was also a little bit worried. With that many Abilities, would I be able to choose the ‘right’ Ability before we ran out of ti? I hadn't forgotten that I was on a tir. Once my clone dissipated, we needed to be out of this building.
Luckily, after a bit of poking through the nus, I found a search option. I could tell the nu what type of ability I wanted, or what type of characteristics I was looking for. I could even tell the list about my current abilities and what I wanted to be able to do, and the list would recomnd Abilities for . There were also several buttons that let define my budget. There were even a few 'starter packages,' that listed Abilities such as 'the best spatial Abilities for a new Swordsman!' Out of curiosity, I clicked on it, and saw three generic, non-keyword Abilities that were all cheap. One of them was a slight variation of the one-handed swordsmanship Ability I had thrown away. The second Ability was a very similar one, but it helped with footwork, instead of raw swordsmanship. The third Ability was one that let the user strengthen and sharpen any sword they were holding by spending life force. That Ability seed a lot more situational than the first two, but I could kind of understand the logic behind it.
I shrugged, and stopped ssing around with the search features. I didn't have enough ti to waste on things that weren't relevant to . I started filling out all of the relevant search features. A few monts later, a list of useful-looking Abilities appeared.
This ti, the list was much shorter than the first, dizzying list. There were only two dozen Abilities left. Six of them were ‘recomnded,’ by the bed, while the other 18 Abilities were the ones that fit my search paraters. That was enough to give so options to look at, without being too overwhelming.
The first thing I confird was that the list didn’t include any Abilities that solved my lack of soul-related Abilities. I had added that as one of my ‘desired Abilities,’ since I had been holding out so hope that a non-keyword Ability would solve my needs. If I could find a soul-related non-keyword Ability, I could get the best of both worlds. I would evolve my Keyword Ability into an Eldritch Ability, and still have a soul-related Ability. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any relevant Abilities in the list. I wasn’t sure if that was because this was the Spatial fair, or if there was so other reason I couldn't find what I wanted. It was even possible that what I wanted was available from this bed, but way outside my budget. Either way, I couldn’t find an easy solution to my problem.
I also didn’t see any Abilities that worked like Anise's Ability customization, either. I had been hoping to find a way to keep Abilities from one life to another, without needing to rebuild everything. Sadly, there weren't any options for that. That was unfortunate, but not wholly unexpected. I would have to keep an eye out in the future.
The third thing I confird was that there weren’t any space-ti related abilities. I had seen the idea that Space and Ti were the sa thing tossed around a few tis in our last world, as a sort of ‘out there’ physics idea. It kind of went over my head, but lots of that world's scientists had believed it was true.
Either way, as far as magic and the Market went, there didn’t seem to be any sort of link between the two. There was spatial magic, and there were a few Abilities that referenced ti-related keywords. However, there were no Abilities that referenced 'spaceti'. I had been hoping to find sothing overpowered that controlled both in the list of Abilities. Sadly, my search results related to 'spaceti control' hadn't produced any results.
However, I had still gotten one rather interesting result when looking for 'spaceti control.' I wasn't sure if it was a good fit for , but it was certainly interesting.
Glitch Capsule (Advanced Grade)
Revert space and the minds of nearby living creatures.
Once per lifeti, if you take a fatal blow, use the power of space and healing to revert your body to a fully healed state, then revert all physical objects within five ters of your corpse to their previous states. Finally, if a living organism killed you, remove their mories of the last seven seconds of ti. (Deaths from things like diseases, old age, etc. will not revert).
(Note: this is an advanced grade ability, not a total override of reality. Creatures more powerful than this ability can usually resist the attempt to move them back in space and wipe their mories. You will still heal and rewind fine. However, the enemy might perfectly rember killing you and then seeing ti rewind. This usually requires that they at least reach Law Grade in a Skill, though, or have an item of equivalent rank).
Glut cost: 20
When we had spoken with the soul fragnt last world, it had told us a bit about the greater Multiverse. One of the things it had ntioned was the fact that ti travel was impossible. Or, at least, it was impossible to send yourself back into the past. However, it was possible to revert ti for objects. When Felix had asked about what the difference was, we had learned that ti travel was less 'impossible' than the soul had led us to believe.
With the right Ability, it was completely possible to revert ti for an entire dinsion. While very rare, there were dinsions where soone had re-lived the sa period of ti over and over again as they tried to change sothing. it was just that the rest of the Multiverse didn't go back in ti with them. If soone relived the sa decade 100 tis, the people inside of the dinsion wouldn't notice anything. However, an observer watching the dinsion would see the whole dinsion rewind every decade.
The other major thing we had learned about ti in that conversation was that ti did not pass equally across the Multiverse. Plenty of dinsions had ti pass a little bit more slowly or quickly relative to the rest of the multiverse. However, there tended to be certain limits to how different ti passage was - at least under natural circumstances. A natural-born dinsion tended to be, at most, ten tis faster or slower than 'multiversal average ti.' Of course, so Mages or civilizations had managed to go far beyond this 'natural limit...'
In any case, I found this Ability pretty interesting. It was pretty similar to a 'ti-reversal' type Ability. Obviously, it was far more limited in scope and utility... but it was, in a sense, reverting ti. But it was still a very potent ability in the right circumstances. It gave one a ‘free’ extra life, and it also ssed with the mind of whatever had killed the user.
The price tag for this ability was exorbitant. It was 5,000 Achievent. It was more expensive than so keyword abilities, and took up almost as much glut cost as a keyword ability. However, for so people, it would be worthwhile.
Unfortunately, the Ability wasn't a good fit for . The Ability would restore the BODY of the user... but not their essence reserves. Since I was focusing on being a mage-type fighter, that ant this Ability was way less valuable for . Still, soone like Sallia would get a lot out of an Ability like this.
I made a ntal note to remind my friends to look at {Glitch Capsule} later, and see if they were interested in it. Then, I continued scrolling through the Abilities the bed AI had recomnded to . Eventually, I narrowed down what I wanted. I found three Abilities that I ended up buying.
The first Ability was a simple one, which I usually wouldn’t have given a second glance to. However, it fit my current needs too well to pass up.
Space Capsule (Basic Grade)
Gain the ability to spend any essence to form a small, 1 m X 1 m X 1 m capsule of space which will maintain itself until destroyed. This can be used to hold anything and isolate it from the rest of the world. Strong physical force or mana will disrupt this capsule, causing it to ‘vomit’ its contents back into the world. This capsule cannot be moved. This capsule requires essence to keep functioning (it can store up to one week of energy.)
Glut cost: 1
This Ability seed pretty useless most of the ti. I was not worried about whether it was useful 'most of the ti,' though. It was exactly what I needed for creating a glob of mana attuned to a certain concept. It would also be useful if I wanted to create an Eldritch Ability Evolution. No matter what path I ended up taking, it would make it much easier. More importantly, it was cheap. The Ability only cost 30 Achievent. I only needed this Ability for my next Ability Evolution, so being cheap was important. This Ability was easy to pick up, and just as easy to throw away. When I didn’t need this Ability anymore, I would only need to pay 10 more Achievent to get rid of it.
The second Ability was more of a utility Ability than a combat-oriented one.
Inventory (Interdiate Grade)
Gain a 3m x 3m x 3m dinsional storage space. Ti passes at about a 1:10 ratio inside of this storage space compared to outside. Living things will die if stuffed inside of this storage space for an extended period of ti.
Glut cost: 10
Right now, I already had access to sothing like this in the form of my backpack. However, I had 105 Glut, while I only had 5 item slots. In my mind, Item slots were now more valuable than 10 Glut. Thus, exchanging 10 Glut for 1 free item slot was a decent trade. It also had a larger space than the backpack, aning I could store quite a bit inside. 3 ters was almost twice my height. It was practically a large closet. As long as I didn't try to stuff everything inside, I would have an easy ti storing everything I needed.
The Ability itself cost 500 Achievent, which was a bit pricey, but wasn’t bad.
Finally, the Ability I was most excited about.
Spatial Rifts (Basic Grade)
Whenever you manipulate space, especially for portals, eldritch warping of space, or direct tears in space, you may spend a bit more essence to leave behind a ‘tear’ in reality. Whenever other life cos into contact with this ‘tear’, it will cut through flesh and bone. It will also mildly warp the laws of physics, occasionally causing mild Eldritch contamination. Good for creating invisible, deadly tripwires.
Spatial ‘tears’ dissipate after about twenty seconds.
Glut cost: 15
This final Ability also cost a pretty penny, at 3,000 Achievent. With these three purchases, I spent 3,530 Achievent, dropping down to 2,705.00 Achievent and 6 free Glut. However, I was more than happy with my final purchases. I was already well versed in using portals to ‘dodge’ projectiles, and my clone inherently warped space in an eldritch way. This ability let spend a bit of essence to turn the connection between my clone and myself into a kind of razor-sharp tripwire. I could also turn my portals into miniature magic landmines. With this ability, I was heavily incentivized to keep investing into better spatial manipulation, but I was fine with that. This Ability had a lot of potential for letting weaponize my Absorption essence in new and useful ways.
After I purchased my third non-Keyword Ability, I looked over my Abilities again. I had about the sa amount of Glut and Stats as before. However, I was much stronger, I had an extra item slot I could swap out anyti, and I had a clear path towards my next Ability evolution. I felt like I had undergone nurous upgrades during our ti here, even though I had the sa amount of Glut used up as before. Combined with my other purchases, my three new Abilities cost 26 Glut in total. I was once again left with 99/105 Glut used. However, I was far stronger than before.
After I got off the bed, I told the others what I had bought, and then Felix started his final round of shopping.
After he finished up, it would be ti to make a final decision. We had a little over twelve hours before my clone dissipated, thus alerting whatever else was inside of the facility to our presence. In that ti, we needed to figure out whether we were pushing further into the building, or if we were leaving. But at the very least, either way, I was satisfied that we had benefited from this incursion into the inner district of the Market.
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