With some work, he was able to fill in sixty spots and couldn’t add any more, the feedback being some sense of fullness or uncomfortable ‘too much’ feeling similar to but not in any way related to eating too much. That made sense since he’d gotten his transporter to level thirty and the second upgrade to magical bag essentially doubled his ‘slots,’ as he was quickly coming to call them. It took a bit, but he was also able to figure out how to fill up a single ‘slot’ to a max of sixty by dumping in sixty slime cores. That was rather satisfying, until he looked back to see his nine or ten sacks of cores buried in the bottom of his backpack. He sighed. Feel like I’m in minecraft and mining through a crazy layer of stone and no more room in my inventory. Oooh. Wait. It is minecraft. I got stacks of sixty! Instead of sixty four. Heh… Wish it displayed something like…
Joe blinked, then grinned, and saw a five by six grid appear before him, showing the items he currently had in storage in miniature. Another quick thought had the number in each slot shown below and Joe smiled to see it, then frowned when he realized that it wasn’t exactly needed. The image before him wavered, then faded away, and what appeared to him in his thoughts was essentially the exact same thing, except as a simple ‘knowing’ of what was in his inventory. He frowned and focused again, and the image coalesced complete with a number of items in each stack. Don’t… really need the image then. I’ve got some kind of … direct input straight into my … what… cortex? Knowledge… thingy? A backup data drive? What’s going on? I just… know it, as if it’s another limb my brain has access to and can just ‘know’ it. Joe chewed his lips at the thought, wondering at the implications then decided he actually likee the display since it added a sense of physicality but immediately understood how it could become limiting if he had anything above a hundred or so items. Wonder if I could get trapped into the ‘can’t find the thing’ … thing… Joe sighed at his lack of vocabulary and continued. That sometimes hits people when they just can’t see the item in their inventory even though they know it’s there. But if I get used to just ‘feeling’ it out, I’ll always know.
He closed his eyes then opened them again in some surprise when the inventory stayed visible to him and so he willed it gone again. It faded and he asked for his tonfa but not to be taken out. It immediately appeared before him, not in his hand, but somehow zoomed in and much focused upon. It was somehow the feeling of actually holding it in his hand and carefully inspecting it despite it not actually being in his physical hands. He willed for another item in his inventory, and it did the same. He pursed his lips and brought up the GUI form and found the two worked very strongly in conjunction and with a little twiddling, he had the GUI become something like an unobtrusive icon completely out of his sight until he wanted to think of something.
As soon as he did, the GUI would zoom into view and he gained the physicality of the ‘in his hands and inspected’ feeling. He liked that, but also grew concerned for how it would affect him in tense or dangerous times so thought about… OK. That … was easy and quick… The GUI vanished even as he thought it and he considered carefully before adding a slightly more convoluted idea where the GUI only came in when he actively wanted so it wouldn’t disrupt his sight. He grinned, happy at the results and started to move on when he considered. Can I still … oh… I can… nice. His GUI came up, and when he thought of an item, it would instantly come into focus, even if he hadn’t seen it. So… automagic search function. Nice… but what if I don’t know what I have…
He found that wasn’t much of a problem either, as he did something similar to the search function, but this time each item rippled through his mind, becoming known to his awareness for a split second before the next came. Huh… useful… but too fast, especially if I’m trying to think of something to do once I’ve found an item… The ripple slowed, each item staying longer, and he soon saw he could control it and even control it in conjunction with the GUI, the item in the GUI zooming in and showing itself. The GUI proved useless at full speed, a blur of meaningless color, but at slower speeds, it seemed to help his cognitive process. He played with this another couple minutes before deciding he needed to move on, his grin still very much on his face.
Joe sighed in happiness then paused in wonder. What… could I cut down a tree and put in a stack of sixty tree trunks!? Although… Joe turned back to figuring out how the stacking thing worked, and almost frowned when all his cloaks stacked into a single slot and even allowed him to still pull out the cloak he wanted based on a color. He started adding other cores, and found his spark and slime cores stacked together just fine, as did the few goblin, snow, and mukfrog cores they’d collected. He also could pull out what kind of core he wanted by their type, but damage seemed to separate the cores, with cores that were damaged not stacking with any perfect cores. In fact, they rarely stacked with each other, which made Joe wonder if there was a stacking based on damage as well. However, double core perfects would not stack with single core, but all double cores could stack with each other regardless of the monster they’d come from and the same was true of triple cores. So… damage will separate… and the power of the monster core… but types don’t matter? That seems… maybe they’re a lot more similar than I realized? Or… something else… Or just weirdness in the skill? Man… I can’t figure this one out.
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What really threw him and made him begin to wonder was that when he tossed coin in, each denomination took up one slot, even the bits, regular, and great versions all took one slot but what it returned was the total value of all the coins added together, not the actual number in the slot. Therefore, if he had sixty great copper, all sixty would go into a single slot, but the number under it would come out as six thousand. Sixty copper in a single slot would be numbered six hundred and sixty copper bits would labeled with sixty. Variations simply added them up together, so he could get odd valuations like six hundred forty eight if he had eight copper bits, four coppers, and six great coppers. He only had eighteen objects in the slot, but the number came back the valuation. He could also only pull out eight bits. It wouldn’t allow him to take out nine, as he’d only put in eight bits.
It was both nice and annoying. He knew how much value he had, but not how much space in the slot. Maybe… Joe frowned and concentrated very hard, but his desire for a secondary count to show up didn’t occur and he frowned with some frustration. Right… so… now you refuse… nice…
The discrepancies irritated him simply because it made no sense. He spent a few more minutes of time playing with it, noticing one other interesting piece of information. It cost almost no mana. The space added and kicked out objects with ease and the cost seemed negligible, which actually kind of concerned Joe. Conservation laws here, guys. This… isn’t good! There was a dip in mana, but only something like a single mana point which instantaneously refilled and Joe grew concerned for the stability of the universe. His frown remained only a moment before it quickly morphed into a smirk. Magic insane storage!!! Right… just be happy…
Joe turned to the next skill, and found that intriguing as well. It said it gave him four cubic meters, which was huge! And Joe quickly wondered at the apparent doubled skills. Granted… it’s nice that the weight is canceled, but… why? He enacted it then frowned.
Before him, a rectangular door appeared. It was perfectly shaped as a door, if a bit narrow for his taste. Gonna be annoying with the width of my shoulders… The door opened into an empty… something. He stood up from his bed and stood before the door, taking a look inside, but not even putting his head in either, nor really even touching it. Just simply gazing in from outside.
It seemed about right to be four meters cubed; an absolutely huge space, considering, about the size of a large if very tall single car garage. Maybe a bit short … hmm… just barely hold a car… a small car… lengthwise. The height is what threw him off, being quite a bit taller than most rooms he was used to. Still… nice… amount of storage! Especially if I can get some shelves in here?! And… no weight… that’s… kinda huge!
Joe walked around the door then paused in shock when he saw the door only had two dimensions. It had absolutely zero depth, actually disappearing when he was side on to it. The experience was incredibly disorienting. What made it even worse was that it was invisible from the back and because of its zero depth, from the sides as well until he at least passed the plane it was on, then he could barely see it as a thin line if he was at an extreme angle to it.
From the rear, it looked as if nothing was there. He even passed a hand through it from the back, and nothing happened. His hand continued on through space. He could lean through where he knew it was and touch the bed, and nothing happened. Looking back almost freaked him out as he saw the door bisecting his torso and his lower torso and legs disappeared. Right… right… I can feel my legs. Calm down… freaky things happening but I’m ok. Joe took a long shuddering breath to calm himself even as he shot upright in some concern. He took another long breath and relaxed when he came back out behind it.
So… what’s going on? Joe walked around to face it from the front and finally reached out to touch it. Immediately, he was inside. He blinked, kind of stunned. Wha… how?! He looked back to find his room empty and he was looking at the bed. Joe frowned. That’s… kinda freaky. He stopped to look up and around and found the room utterly dark. There was no reflection of any kind, nor any kind of visual reference to give him a meaningful understanding of the space. Looking back at the ‘door’ floating in space behind him, he saw the light outside this room, the glow of the gas giant still strong, but inside was an utter perfect blackness that he couldn’t parse depth at all. Despite that, he could see himself perfectly when he raised a hand up. The dichotomy was sending shivers down his spine even as the physics breaking reality existed around him.
How could I know the space when I was outside, but inside… I feel like… I can’t feel anything… or… see anything anyway. It’s… and why is the light only reflecting off of me, but … Joe stared at the door, eyes narrowing even more as he focused hard, and began to doubt that any light was actually coming in through the door at all. This realization gave him a shuddering pause because if no light was coming in, how was he seeing out. He ground his teeth and tensed up, breathing deeply to calm himself.