Alexia

I end up pondering over the subject of my missing parents for at least half an hour before glancing at a timer as it appears in the corner of my vision. One stating that there is about an hour and a half left before the Shop closes.

Meaning I have another hour and a half to blow.

So I open the Shop again and begin searching for species changes just to see what Astrid might choose. Because I think she said she had about seven hundred points after killing the crown prince.

As I’m searching, I quickly find that all of the species change options in the Shop have affinity requirements to them. Or at least, most of them do.

With that in mind, I search up the ones with shadow affinity requirements, to which I find about three.

But one of them isn’t a humanoid species, and I know she isn’t going to pick a nonhumanoid species. So I immediately write that one out, leaving me with two species she might choose.

Then I realize that one of them is out of her price range, leaving the last of the three species as her only option.

A Shadowborne.

That is definitely a species she would enjoy the benefits of. The description says its racial skill lets them dive into shadows and move through them freely with very little mana expenditure. Although they seem to be vulnerable to light magic when they’re in a shadow, and regular magic as well, just not to the degree of light magic.

It doesn’t say the exact amount they’re vulnerable to them though.

That said… I’m not sure she can afford this one either. I think she can, but the species change costs exactly seven hundred points.

Whether or not she can afford it will depend entirely on how exact she was when she said she had about seven hundred points.

Either way, it’s a good thing I had her kill the crown prince before we came here. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any chance of her affording it.

Too bad she won’t be able to buy anything else if she gets the species change.

I wouldn’t mind if she got the species change since it would make her stronger, but at the same time, it’s abandoning her humanity to do it. While I don’t have anything tying me to humanity, I don’t know if she’s the same. She might very well be, but she could just as well be following me instead. Something she often does when I leave her behind in something.

A rather bad habit she’s picked up over the years.

She has gotten better at it though, and I think the habit has been starting to go away. But old habits die hard, so I’ll just have to see how she is afterwards.

Astrid didn’t seem like she was just following me from what I could tell, but I’m not perfect.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I do wonder what Aidan is doing right now though. We haven’t really spoken much since I got out of the dungeon, so I’m curious as to how many points he has.

The three of us used to be pretty much inseparable in elementary school, even if we split up during junior high with him going to hang out with a bunch of his guy friends at an arcade a lot of the time instead. And Astrid and I aren’t all that partial to arcades.

I like video games myself, but not really arcade games much. And Astrid doesn’t care much for either.

Astrid generally just reads in my room whenever I’m playing games.

And the other members of our groups… yeah I don’t really care about them. As long as they can hold their own and don’t drag Astrid down then they’re fine.

I do wonder what they’re gonna do with the people I killed after they’re brought back to the Block again, but that’s also assuming they’re brought back to the same spot they were killed in. And I’m pretty sure there has to be some sort of protection on them for a little bit after they come back. Otherwise someone who was killed by a user could just be killed again after the stasis ends and they’d pretty much be defenseless.

Just wouldn’t be a balanced System that way and would kinda make the whole stasis thing pointless.

And that’s not how the System works.

Then there’s the other nine of the top ten people on the leaderboards… will any of them try to traverse the Blocks to find me? From what I understand, there should only be a few people with Legendary Feats in each Block, so the chances that I’ll run into one of them anytime soon is rather low. But my luck tends to be all over the place, so I’m not sure what’ll happen.

I continue to stare up at the ceiling while fiddling with my polearm for the rest of the time in the Shop until the countdown finally strikes zero and nothing happens, leaving me confused until I remember that I was sent here earlier than others due to me having a clone. So I probably have another fifty minutes.

So I go back to fiddling with my polearm until eventually another notification appears.

The System Tutorial Shop is Now Closed!

This marks the end of the System Tutorial!

From here on out, all of the level 100 monsters in each Block outside of dungeons will be set free.

Furthermore, Dimensional Walls will now allow passage for the appropriate users, a Cataclysm Class monster will spawn in each Block, and the Blocks themselves will exit stasis and resume movement.

Welcome to the System.

Wait a second, what does it mean by the Blocks will be exiting stasis?

My question is quickly answered as I am sent back to Block #108, where I quickly feel a slight shift in the ground beneath me. And after just a glance at the sky where I find the clouds looking as if they were moving where they were just still moments ago, along with the loud cracking and shattering sound coming from the edge of the island where the bridge near us is, I come to a realization.

The island is moving.