The first System ssage I was was the basic Achievent reward. It was massive. Best of all, it didn’t even seem like this was the ‘final’ result of our efforts - it was a smaller reward, with the potential to be much larger if things continued to work out.
Influence: Create hope in a Dying World
(Note: Since the outco of this ‘hope’ is undetermined, the current Achievent reward is much lower than it will be if your new ‘path’ is confird to work. In other words, this is the Achievent reward you get for creating a possibility. If that possibility bears fruit, expect a much bigger reward.)
Achievent 30,000
Despite the fact that this was the reward for creating a possibility, and not confirming whether it had worked, I had still gotten 30,000 Achievent.
That was a ridiculous amount of Achievent. In my first life, I had tried my hardest and barely scraped together 15,000 Achievent. In this life, I had earned 30,000 Achievent from the artificial sun project alone. Even more absurd was the notion that this wasn’t even the end. Based on my understanding of how Achievent worked, if our artificial sun truly changed the fate of this dinsion, we would rake in massive amounts of Achievent. Even better, our ‘contribution’ to the Artificial sun project would take a very long ti to dilute. After all, at the end of the day, Felix, Sallia, Anise and I had still been the ones to create the entire basic frawork for the artificial sun. Even if other people’s contributions would eventually make our hard work only a small part of the future, we should still be able to comfortably rake in Achievent for centuries after this, if things went well.
I smiled, and then sent a ssage via communication bracelet.
I asked my friends.
said Felix.
said Anise.
said Sallia.
I felt happy. The Artificial sun had been sothing we had spent decades thinking about and preparing for. We had spent years mastering odd magic systems, specifically to make sure that this project had the best chance at succeeding. I had been nervous about it until now - after all, decades of ti was a huge investnt. Fortunately, it had worked out. The 30,000 Achievent reward had brought from 62,071 Achievent to 92,071 Achievent. It had increased my total Achievent amount by nearly 50%. That was well worth the decades of struggle and preparation.
Best of all, that wasn’t even the most important reward. Not even close. Not one, both BOTH of my main keyword abilities could evolve.
I said, before I temporarily turned off my communication bracelet. Then, I looked at my first ability - {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}.
You have accomplished sothing exceptional with {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}.
Endless Hunger of the Ocean is able to be evolved.
You have (2) options for upgrades. If you would like to unlock other options, it is recomnded that you use this ability in new and interesting ways and acquire large quantities of Achievent using the Ability before you die.
Note: Ability evolutions must be purchased within 72 hours of returning to the Market after death. If you fail to purchase any available ability evolution within this ti period, you will forfeit this chance for evolution, and will need to earn an Ability evolution in another life.
The current text of {Endless Hunger of the Ocean} is written below.
Endless Hunger of the Ocean (Interdiate Grade)
Keywords: Ocean (1 Keyword)
Glut Penalty: 32
While you are subrged in water, your body will generate absorption essence, regardless of whether the local dinsional laws support the existence of absorption essence. Furthermore, contact with water will naturally remodel your body and brain to support absorption-essence spellcasting.
Absorption essence may be spent to create runes, which have the following effects:
The first three runes will grant you 20 to your ntal stats AND an ability. This ability MUST be related to space, and use the ocean or water as a dium. You will have significantly enhanced control over what ability is ford here.
The fourth through sixth runes will now fundantally alter one sensory organ, providing 10 Perception per level, and also giving you improved vision when trying to see space. Additionally, each rune will provide you with a significantly increased ability to resist external spatial manipulation targeting you or the area directly around you.
The seventh through ninth runes will now grant 10 to each physical Stat and begin attuning your body to the power of space, allowing your body to innately interact with the idea of space, regardless of which dinsion you are in. This will replace the standard fusion and condensing boosts that runes 10 through 12 would give you, and give benefits such as decreased wind resistance, the ability to teleport without reliance upon rune abilities at all, and increased ability to sense space using your skin.
Killing an enemy with Extinguish for the first ti in each body will allow you to form an enhanced skill related to that creature. You have a moderate level of control over what ability is ford, as long as it’s based off of a biological characteristic of the creature you just killed. (So ‘abilities’ may be unavailable if they require fundantally distorting your biological functions or shape). You may absorb this skill into your current body in order to permanently enhance yourself.
Note: Only Achievent-granting creatures can form abilities. Only five abilities from this effect may be ‘held’ at once. You may delete a copied Skill from this ability at any ti to replace it with a new one.
Held Abilities:
1. Unwoven Hands
2. Twisted Wings that Reach Toward the Sky
3. Death Rage
4. Fractal Rush
5.
Available evolution paths: 2
(Note: All currently available evolution paths will change your ability from [Interdiate] Grade to [Advanced] Grade unless they state otherwise.
Direction 1: Craftsman’s Heart and Soul
Cost: 25,000 Achievent
Glut penalty: 32 -> 41
You have often used the runes ford by {Endless Hunger of the Ocean} to create new items or alter existing items. Since these item modifications have resulted in a huge change for this world’s likely future, you can enhance your ability to produce items, if you so choose..
Effects:
This Evolution direction will slightly change your rune abilities. In addition to their previous effects, Rune abilities four through six will now ALSO provide pseudo-item slots. These pseudo-item slots will allow you to establish a link with any existing material or item. (To establish a link, you still need to spread your essence into the item and ‘control’ it for a mont. Items with higher quantities of essence may resist this process. Please keep this in mind before trying to fuse with an item that is far stronger than you are.)
A link with an item does two things. First, it allows you to feed essence INTO the item, which can permanently upgrade or alter the properties of the item. To make substantial changes, you may also need other materials as extra costs for improving an item.
Second, you may temporarily ‘pull’ the abilities of an item into yourself, allowing you to temporarily take on unique and altered abilities based on what items you have established links with. These abilities may be stats, new abilities, or anything related to the abilities of the item itself.
Be aware that these links are permanent (until the end of your current life). If the item is destroyed, then you will not free up a slot for a new item link - you will simply lose access to an item until your next death. Any modifications you make an item you have established a link with are permanent - even after your death, they will remain so long as the item is not destroyed.
You may establish new item links each life.
My first ability evolution direction was odd, but interesting. As far as I could tell, in practice, the evolution would basically give three more ability slots. Of course, these ability slots would be far more conditional than my first three ability slots - but I could also use these slots to help power up an item and leave it behind as a ‘legacy.’ That was a potential goldmine if I wanted to do things like we had done in this world, where we had created an artificial sun out of nothing. Of course, this ability was quite a bit more limited. Since this ability had nothing to do with alteration essence, I suspected that any item I created would need to follow the dinsional laws of the world we reincarnated into. However, leaving behind three super-items for a civilization would probably an that I could hang out in the void for a few years after each death and rake in so achievent. If I found a way to leave behind soul fragnts in future worlds, I could probably even produce a steady stream of inco from dinsions we had left behind. It was an ability evolution full of potential.
Direction 2: Hope for the Hopeless
Cost: 10,000 Achievent
Glut penalty: 32 -> 35
Previously, this world was in a hopeless state. No matter what you did, it was unlikely that you could have realistically reversed its course - a gradual decline, ending in the extinction of sentient life in this world. However, you used your rune abilities to bring hope to a world that had none left.
This will add the ‘Hope’ keyword to your Ability (you may avoid adding this keyword and leave it as a fragnted keyword, if you so desire. However, the glut cost will increase by 25 points).
Effects:
Runes will no longer cost any essence at all to maintain, but only so long as your actions are ‘heroic.’ The standards for acting ‘heroic’ are based on how much hope you inspire in the hearts of other people. In other words, if people believe that you will make the world better, or you have helped people in their darkest tis, you will be considered ‘heroic’ for the judgent of this Ability.
Furthermore, the more hope you have inspired, the faster and easier it will be for you to develop more runes.
My second ability evolution was also fascinating, although it went in a very different direction. My first ability evolution was full of ways to change the world, and leave behind hope for the future. This ability was clearly geared more towards personal developnt. However, its effects were simple and potent.
Rune maintenance costs were a major limiting factor on how much I could grow in each life, and part of the reason I needed to be so cautious about what rune abilities I ford each ti. Sallia and I had never even seen what runes did beyond a certain point - we had simply never developed beyond the 12th rune of the rune magic system. We knew that future runes existed, but we had no clue what they did.
If runes no longer had a maintenance cost, that ant I could theoretically keep adding more and more runes forever. Of course, in practice, runes still cost more and more ti to create as I developed more of them, so eventually, I would die of old age. Still, the ability was simple and useful. As long as I had more lifespan, I would always have sothing to work on, and a way to keep growing stronger. I also found the idea of linking inspiring hope to my developnt to be appealing. A small part of was always afraid of turning into one of the monsters of the old Market - people who would annihilate a world just for the sake of more Achievent. Explicitly incentivizing myself to help people would make happier - and this Ability took it a step further, by making grow faster the more people I helped. I loved that idea.
On top of that, the second ability had huge synergy with my usual behavior and the rest of my magic toolkit. One of my strongest spells was ‘renewal,’ which let heal most diseases and physical injuries with ease. According to this ability, that should be ‘inspiring hope.’ If I increased the growth speed of my rune magic every single ti I healed soone, I might be able to go absolutely wild in future worlds. I might not be able to leave behind powerful legacies for civilizations, the way I would with my first ability evolution direction - but I would be much stronger in each life. Furthermore, developing three ‘powerful objects’ in each world would require a huge amount of ti, focus, and resources, aning that it was unlikely I would succeed in every world. The first world had higher potential for earning Achievent, but was also reliant upon good conditions to actually do anything useful. The second ability direction was very reliable - it would probably work in every world with little issue.
Both were tempting. I was currently a bit more tempted by my second evolution direction, simply because the synergy with Renewal seed incredibly potent to . However, I would make up my mind once we returned to the Market.
After looking at my first Ability evolution and its potential future directions, I turned to my second evolution.
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