We spent the next few weeks raiding lower-level shops. We had two objectives in mind - first, acquire a good stock of Achievement, in order to shore up any weaknesses in our stats or abilities. We could always make one final round of purchases before we reincarnated, and last-minute stat boosts were always welcome. However, our biggest objective was to replace our less useful gear.
The first shops that we hit made our group nervous. We found more evidence of other people hitting up the shops, taking items, and looting the cash registers. We even found another fresh monster corpse. However, we didn’t encounter any other people, which was a relief.
The lack of Achievement was less of a relief. We needed as much Achievement as possible in order to survive, and if the other members of the Market were taking all of the Achievement, that meant there was less for us. I didn’t begrudge other groups their attempts to grasp a path to survival - after all, we were all in the same boat. But I did think we needed to change our hunting grounds.
Because of this issue, we started moving west. After a week, we seemed to move out of the hunting range of the other group(s) of people. By that time, I also managed to regrow my legs, returning me to my previous level of mobility. Once we stopped running into looted stores left and right, we finally started raking in Achievement.
Last time we had been in the Market, we had only been able to safely hit up three or so shops a day. The limitations on our essence regeneration, abilities, and greatly hindered our Achievement gathering. This time, we had a bit more padding to our stats to back us up - and we also had a variety of new abilities to try out.
The first time I used my new {Spatial Rifts} Ability, the results caught me off-guard. A group of four skeleton soldiers dropped dead in seconds - and the cost was about a tenth of what I would have needed to pay if I had extinguished similar-power human enemies. Most interesting of all was the ‘eldritch pollution’ that the rips and cuts my spatial tripwires inflicted. This ‘eldritch pollution’ would stick to anything I cut, and then start to take over the rest of its body like a virus. I suspected that there were ways to counter that - after all, the ability was only [Basic] grade. However, against weak enemies like skeletons, a single cut was essentially lethal. Even more interesting, I could see that the eldritch pollution was trying to do something… else to the skeletons. However, they died before I could finish assessing its effects. Either way, my new Ability’s first test run was very pleasing.
Felix’s factory also constantly churned out new small grenades and ranged weapons for us to use, which Anise was given priority for. Sallia was as terrifying as ever at close range, and Felix tied up our group’s abilities by giving us occasional teleports and ranged weapons.
Any item that seemed vaguely useful but inferior to our current items, we tossed into Felix’s factory, in hopes that it would stick around between lives. Any item that seemed really useful, we equipped for ourselves, in case Felix’s factory did not keep items in between lives.
At the end of a few weeks of looting, we had hit up nearly one hundred and fifty shops in the outer district of the nursery.
As far as raw Achievement went, we had gathered around 16,000 Achievement - not bad, considering how many of the shops had been empty at the start of our search. We divided that up four ways, giving each of us a little over 4,000 Achievement.
Naturally, I also managed to get a fair amount of kills for Skeletons worked into the mix, along with a bone spider that showed up in one of the stronger shops we raided. The once-terrifying monster of bone proved far less intimidating once my spatial tripwires ripped apart half of its body during its first charge towards us.
Slaughter: Kill a warden of bone
Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.
Achievement +1,700, Achievement +0.06
Slaughter: Kill a skeletal foot soldier for the fifth time, Kill a Skeletal foot soldier for the 25th time, Kill a Skeletal foot soldier for the 100th time
Slaughter: Assist a fellow transmigrator in killing a skeletal foot soldier for the first time. Assist a fellow Transmigrator in killing a skeletal foot soldier for the fifth time, Assist in killing a skeletal foot soldier for the 25th time, Assist in killing a Skeletal Foot soldier for the 100th time
Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.
Achievement +60, Achievement +120, Achievement + 200, Achievement +2, Achievement +5, Achievement +10, Achievement + 25, Achievement +0.05
With these extra kills, as well as the slightly over 4,000 Achievement from looting shops, my Achievement reached a solid 8,203.02 Achievement. Not bad at all. Of course, most important of all were our items.
I saw no reason to replace {Breath of the Storm}, {Lake Gazer’s Dress}, or my {Friendship Bracelet With Distance Chatting}, so those three items remained unchanged. However, in the shops we found, I got decent replacements for my Tarot Deck and my dimensional backpack. The tarot deck was given to Anise, which she immediately used to remove her {Finger of Magic Missiles}, just in case Felix’s factory didn’t keep the item. At the very least, cursing one enemy every five years was far better than letting Anise cast a spell she would soon be able to cast with no assistance. Meanwhile, my dimensional backpack was tossed into the factory.
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The first item I got was an odd one, and at first, I hadn’t been sure how to use it. However, the more I thought about the item, the more excited I was about it.
Item: Dream of Hunger (nonphysical item)
Effects: Once per lifetime, you may enter a dream of ‘hunger.’ This will allow you to drag a single creature from anywhere into the world into your dream in a greatly weakened form. (note - this is a dream-related magic item, so creatures which have resistances against this type of effect may be able to resist it. Creatures above Heroic Grade also have considerably stronger bonds between their soul and their body, meaning it is almost impossible to separate their soul and drag it into a dream.)
(To activate this item, you must have some sort of medium related to the target. It is best to use things like blood, hair, or saliva - but other things, such as scales, straw from a nest, or other things can also be used. The more related the medium is to the target, the better the effect of this item).
Maintenance cost - 40.7 Achievement per reconstruction.
I wasn’t quite sure if I was understanding this item correctly… but if I was, this item let me basically drag something into a sort of dream-world in soul form, while also vastly weakening that creature while it was in the dream. This might be hard for most people to take advantage of… but my primary combat spell was extinguish. A spell that was built on the idea of cutting away the flame of ‘life’ of another creature. In other words, a spell that killed the body and weakened its connection to the soul.
I was willing to bet that this item would make extinguish hundreds of times stronger. Even if tt was a one-use only item, and I would need to wait until we returned to the Market before I could use it again, I could kill one very strong enemy every world. Then, with the help of {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}, I would steal part of that enemy’s abilities, giving myself a huge boost in strength. I could absolutely see how this type of item would be ridiculously powerful with the rest of my build. It would probably also work wonders against the guardian that stopped us from buying more lives, as long as I could find a medium to attack it. This item was far too useful to give up.
The other item I got was a bit more normal.
Item: Essence Core
Effects: Allows you to store extra essence, equivalent to the storage capacity of approximately Grade seven.
Note - can only store one type of essence at a time. Since this is an external object, it does NOT increase your essence regeneration.
Maintenance cost - 6.5 Achievement per reconstruction.
This item was pretty self explanatory. Extinguish’s biggest limitation was on how much ‘damage’ each drop of my essence did, and how much essence I had. Each time I used extinguish, if I wanted to, I could dump my entire alteration essence pool into a single attack. Having a bigger storage meant I could unload bigger extinguishes on powerful enemies. It wasn’t the most exciting item, but it provided a substantial boost to my abilities.
Sallia ended up keeping most of her items, since she hadn’t gotten to see all of the effects of {Wandering Robe of the Swordsman} last life due to her early death. However, she did end up replacing her boots with something a bit exciting.
Item: Second Heart
Effects: Give all of your physical abilities +20. Your body regenerates far more quickly - wounds that would previously take days to heal will now take hours to heal. Your stamina will also see a major improvement. Also improves the speed at which you gain stats from any other type of ‘training’ equipment, assuming those pieces of equipment grant you stat improvements.
To install, you must cut open your chest and then stuff this heart into your body. It will automatically connect to your new form and then heal the wound on its own.
Maintenance cost - 18.5 Achievement per reconstruction.
+20 to every physical stat was an incredible boost. After I helped Sallia put her new {Second Heart} into her body, Sallia’s already terrifying physical prowess took another leap forward. It might not have been flashy, but it was a major boost to Sallia’s abilities.
Finally, we found one new item for Felix. He ended up dropping his {Origami Kit} for a {Craftsman’s Hammer}.
Item: Craftsman’s Hammer
Effects: Whenever this hammer hits an item, it will leave a ‘craftsman’s mark’ upon the item. Each mark makes the item slightly more malleable to other alterations in its shape, form, and essence. The item will ‘shift’ to fit the user’s desired outcome, but the influence each can exert is limited. Only ten marks can be maintained at once, and each will fade after ten minutes have passed. (any object, material, or item can have multiple craftsman’s marks on it).
Maintenance cost - 14.9 Achievement per reconstruction.
This item had pretty obvious uses in crafting - but it also had high potential in combat. The hammer said that it would make any item struck by it more malleable to change, in whatever way Felix wished. That could help Felix make a really amazing gun or sword… or it could also help him make an enemy’s gun or magic sword into a useless hunk of scrap metal. Combined with Felix’s defensive spatial Ability and his teleportation spell, Felix was uniquely well situated to remove enemy items during a fight. Combined with Felix’s ability to serve as a mobile logistics base, his value to the team felt like it was growing with every trip to the Market.
Unfortunately, Anise didn’t find very many useful upgrades. At least, not until near the end of our searching, right as we were debating what we wanted to do for our next reincarnation pool.
At that time, we found a rather unusual shop. Its name was simple.
The Witch’s amazing accessory shop! Everything needed to become an amazing spellcaster! (manifestation and alteration essence users only - this shop does not focus on items for alteration or binding users, although you are naturally free to browse!)
The moment Anise saw the shop, she had stars in her eyes. I took one look at her, and then sighed, although I also felt my lips curl upwards into a grin.
Before figuring out our reincarnation pool, it looked like we had one more shop to hit. And hopefully, this one would fix Anise’s equipment.