Far beneath the surface—in a world utterly devoid of the sun’s life-giving rays—it proved nearly impossible to gauge how much time had passed before Jun was, at last, finished with his spending spree. The gnawing pit in his stomach and his pounding headache the only indications he had as to the passage of time.
It’d been costly, but Jun expected the items he’d picked out to pay huge dividends in the days to come. First and foremost, though, food and water remained of the utmost priority.
Ironically enough, despite the globe spanning, interconnected network at his very fingertips—frequented by colossal trade unions, and every manner of independent merchant of worldly renown—the actual act of finding food for himself had, at first, proven nearly impossible.
The reason was simple really.
Plainly put, what savvy food merchant in their right mind didn’t sell exclusively in bulk? Especially one successful enough to have earned a merchant's title in the first place.
If his goal had been to buy two tons of stone hide rabbit meat, he’d likely have had an easier time of it, but the clearly diminishing returns of such a purchase ultimately made the idea borderline idiotic. He had no way to keep such large quantities of food from spoiling, and even if he did, he couldn’t have made such an exorbitant purchase and afforded the cultivation materials he was so desperately in need of.
He must’ve spent hours scouring the trading and auction houses for a food source that was both relatively cheap and in small enough quantities, only to come away empty handed every time. And messaging individual food vendors in hopes of making a specialized order had, thus far, only been met with dead silence.
Desperate and out of ideas, he’d resorted to sifting through the general store in hopes of a solution. With the knowledge weighing on his mind all the while that, should he fail here too, he would just have to bow to fate and make the bulk purchase. No matter how wasteful, it was better than the alternative.
Luckily, it never came to that in the end, as, many stress filled minutes later, he finally stumbled upon a solution.
High-Grade Fasting Pill (Common)—5,000 SP
3,750 SP (-25%)
It wouldn’t really do as a long-term solution. While asking around, he’d discovered that the side effects of consistent use ranged from acute sleep deprivation to degradation of the will—whatever that meant—and, in some rare cases, death by starvation.
So, not a product to be taken lightly by any means.
Though, for small stretches at a time it generally appeared to be safe. Apparently, two weeks was around the cutoff point—when most started to report experiencing severe side effects. A timeline which couldn’t have possibly lined up more perfectly with his own, in his opinion. He hoped to be out of this hellhole well before then anyway, turning his use of the pill into basically a non-issue.
And, in terms of their food supply, that was about all he ordered, having since come to terms with the fact that Ivory, for whatever reason, didn’t actually need to eat.
Oh, she enjoyed food as much as anyone—the image of a face full of tentacles stripping several street kababs clean in less time than it took to blink still firmly imprinted on his mind—it was only that, after some further questioning, it turned out her relationship with food was based more on curiosity than any instinctual need.
Given the circumstances it was fortunate enough that he’d chosen to believe her, for now, though he’d still be keeping a close eye on her just in case that situation changed.
Next came the water solution, which ended up being a lot simpler than he’d expected, especially after the whole food fiasco. It incorporated a concept he’d initially looked into when wrestling with the food conundrum. Unfortunately, the first storage device that’d come to mind proved far too expensive for his current means, even at the worst quality and rarity he could find.
Lesser Grade Spacial Ring (Epic) — 160,000,000 SP
For whatever reason, while the solution he’d found for his water problem was also crafted through the use of the highly coveted spacial concept, the price was far more reasonable than the spacial ring had been.
As far as he could tell, this severe dip in price was due in large part to a single fact. The connection between the pocket dimension and the artifact was strictly one way. Meaning that you couldn’t deposit anything inside of the item, only take something out.
In this case, water.
Add to that the fact that it was a shared connection—with each item connecting to the same pocket dimension filled with fresh water—and it made sense why the system would choose not to value it as highly.
Bottomless Water Flask (Common)— 100,000 SP
75,000 SP (-25%)
After securing his continued survival, in the short term at least, he’d turned to the matter of cultivation. Right off the bat there were a few things he knew he’d need from his years growing up among cultivators.
For one thing, he knew he needed a breathing manual.
The backbone of any cultivation practice, a good breathing manual would likely mean the difference between cultivating enough strength to swing back at his enemies or falling short at the first altercation. He didn’t know the specifics, but he’d hoped a good breathing manual would help to rapidly elevate him through the stages in record time.
The next thing he knew he needed was information.
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It was a novel sensation, feeling this utterly clueless and out of his depth. And while he typically enjoyed trying out new things, he felt it was a sensation best gotten rid of at the earliest opportunity. Firstly, he needed information on concepts. What they were and how to use them. And though he already felt an intrinsic affinity for them, he still figured the more informed he was on the topic, the better.
Secondly, he wanted to know more about the influx of new, at least to him, sheet info. More specifically, he wanted to know what the hell “insight” was and how he could both have an imperceptible amount of it, and simultaneously so much that he’d been actively rewarded by the system for the accomplishment.
Yeah, he hadn’t missed that odd little discrepancy, and now that the answer might hold the key to his survival, he would be making an effort to get down to the bottom of it.
By the time he was finally finished with his haul, his small fortune had been sorely diminished. But, looking over everything, he couldn’t help but feel content with that. You had to spend money to make money after all.
On Concepts, Cultivation, and Enlightenment Volume 1—240,000 SP
180,000 SP (-25%)
A Compendium on the Nature of the System and How it Influences our Daily Lives
by Daniel F. Clancy — 4,000 SP
3,000 SP (-25%)
High Grade Spirit Restoration Pill (Common)— 20,000 SP
15,000 SP (-25%)
Lesser Grade Spirit Condenser (Uncommon)— 800,000 SP
600,000 SP (-25%)
Leaf on the Winds Breathing Manual (Uncommon)—20,000,000 SP
15,000,000 SP (-25%)
Then, upon further reflection, he made a few more impulse buys.
Golden Radiance Chronicles: Trinity Bundle (Books 1-3) — 1,500 SP
1125 SP (-25%)
Golden Radiance Chronicles (Book 4):
Li Minghua and the Deep-Sea Empire — 600 SP
450 SP (-25%)
Golden Radiance Chronicles (Book 5):
Li Minghua and the Celestial War— 600 SP
450 SP (-25%)
It wasn’t much really, but he couldn’t imagine the next couple of weeks would be all that much fun for Ivory. And if this somehow helped, he’d sure as hell feel a lot less guilty about his choice to stay here. Besides, the books had fairly good ratings. He felt he might even read them himself once he found the time.
Although… now that he thought about it, a lot of this depended on an as yet unfounded belief.
“Ivory, can you read?”
“Can you?”
“Yes?”
“Then yes. I can read.”
“Oh… that’s,” Jun paused, considering. “Um, yeah, that’s not creepy at all.”
Ivory just shrugged, apparently unconcerned.
“Hey, just for the sake of curiosity, are there any more things you can do because I also know how to do them?”
“Lots,” she looked at him as if that much should’ve been obvious.
“I-I see… well, I definitely have questions, a lot of questions, but I suppose those can wait for now. I bought you some things.”
Ivory perked up at this—turning to face him fully with what he’d learned to recognize as her curious face.
“These are for you,” he slid the pile of books forward. “I’ve already made sure to stack them in order, so you need only read from the top down.”
Ivory eyed the stack of novels with suspicion—the short tower nearly topping her in height.
“But what is it for?”
“To help pass the time.” Jun took in her dubious expression. “What? You don’t like it?” he asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
Upon closer inspection, however, Ivory looked more confused than anything. After a moment, Jun thought he understood why.
“Oh! Well, don’t I feel like an idiot. Of course, you can’t see in the dark, can you? I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Dark?” Ivory looked genuinely surprised at this—turning her head this way and that, as if by catching it at the right angle, she’d be able to spot the impenetrable darkness that was all around them.
Well, scratch that I suppose. Mind reading abilities, and now, night-vision. I honestly can’t say I’m all that surprised that this point.
Still, something about Ivory and her ability to see in the dark struck a discordant note somewhere in the back of his mind. It was something she’d said at one point or another, he was sure of it. Only, when nothing came to mind after a few seconds more of trying, he let the feeling he was forgetting something important go.
“Look, as things stand, it’ll probably be a while before we can leave this place, and in the meantime, I’d hate for you to have nothing better to do than sit there and stare at the wall. It’s already bad enough that we’re trapped down here in the dark. I mean, anything is better than nothing, right?”
“I suppose…” she agreed, though still she seemed hesitant—as if the idea of merely sitting in idle purgatory wasn’t one that bothered her overly much, and she genuinely didn’t see what the fuss was all about.
Still, at his insistence, she eventually sidled over, slid the first volume off of the stack, and flipped it open to the first page. With a mix of relief, and a lingering feeling of uncertainty, Jun turned his mind back to more pressing matters.
Assuming the lotus position, Jun considered his options.
The mending pill and tonic had long since restored his body to peak condition, though it did nothing for the hunger still gnawing at his gut. If anything, it only seemed to have made the hunger pangs worse. Hurriedly, he reached out and snatched up a fasting pill. He immediately downed it with a swig from his bottomless flask—grimacing at its bitter taste.
Almost immediately he felt soothed as a tingling warmth traveled through him in an unhurried wave. The strange energy converged on his stomach in moments. And from there it wasn’t much longer before his hunger began to ebb.
First into a condensed, fist sized ball of acute need, then to one about the size of a marble, then finally to barely a pinprick, before the nagging sensation vanished entirely. It left Jun feeling perfectly at ease. Full even. Though he knew not to put too much trust in that feeling. All it really did was make it so that he could ignore his body’s needs for longer than he might have otherwise. It didn’t mean that those needs went away.
Regardless, content with his food situation for now, he reached for his uncommonly ranked cultivation manual next. He’d thought long and hard about what he should prioritize in the little time he had. And though a part of him was tempted to just dive headfirst into information gathering, as it was the thing he was most comfortable with, he knew that impulse could prove to be a fatal one.
He had no idea what the process of cultivation might entail, or if, in fact, he would be any good at it. And so it was, with an anxious lurch in his gut, he decided that the best course of action would be to go into it blind and finally see just what all the fuss was about.
Unrolling the aged scroll carefully, he slowly began to read.