After walking back into the elevator I went to the 11th floor which was marked down as skills. Now I don't quite know what to expect from this, possibly I can get these annoying colors removed from my vision since it distracts me a fair bit, or possibly upgrade it so that it was useful. Or if neither is possible I can maybe just go and get some different skills that exists, whatever it is that it may be.

After a relatively short period of time I ended up on the right floor, and when I exited I saw that it was nothing like the relatively blank room that the last one was, this one was like a very large... what is a good representation of this? I guess a flea market would be close but this actually looks organized with a woman sitting at a desk set between the market and the elevator.

Curiously I walk up to her since, as anxious as I am, these people are probably here to help and if I don't want, when she sees me approach she quickly puts on her business smile and talks to me, "Hi there, how can I help you today? Looking for a specific item, looking to sell, or something else?"

I rub the back of my head and give her a wry smile before telling her that I'm new here and was looking for some information. She nods and pulls out a clear piece of glass that reminds me of the table that was in the other room. After tapping a corner of it a lot of information appears on it, and after sorting through it for a few seconds it appears to be a blank slate once more, "Sorry, had to get the presentation ready. Alright well, first thing to note is that there are 3 different way to get skills, either by a mission as a reward, as a rare drop from enemies, or from buying it here at one of the stalls. After that the next most important thing is the rarities of different skills and different colors have different ranks, so for example F is White rarity, while S is at rainbow rarity." As she spoke about rarities the letters F, E, D, C, B, A, and S appeared in that order, and to the right of them were some sealed scrolls in varying colors, going in the order of White, Green, Blue, Purple, Red, Orange, and then a multi-colored one that I will assume is rainbow.

After seeing me nod in understanding she continued with a smile, "Now that you know how to get skills, and what different skills are ranked as the next important thing is what to do with them. Now hoppers typically like to synergize their skills with each other, for example a skill that lets you double jump while also having one that lets you jump higher works very well together, whereas a skill that makes you heavier with either of those skills will be detrimental. Now there are some exceptions to this but I'll get into that later. So since you are new it is important to note what you like to do, however if something happens later on, and so long as you have enough money, you can build an area in your base to change your skills and store them instead of selling them. Where was I? Oh yes, now you can also level up your skills, and as with every other checking of your status just go to designated areas to see your skills growth, if you get them to a high enough level there is even a chance that it will rank up. Ranking up your skill makes it stronger, gets rid of detriments, or various other things. There are even a few rumors that haven't been confirmed about skills existing about S-rank and various other ridiculous things."

I nodded to her which she took as a queue to continue, "Alright, let's see, how, what, with, leveling, oh selling and upgrading here! Alright, since you're new you likely don't have any skills you can sell yet, but in the future, if you want to sell a skill you can just come up to whoever is working here and they can either auction it for you which will likely garner you far more money if its rare, or less if its common, or they will just give you a straight price for it. On the note of upgrading however, if you have a skill that you think has amazing potential but is just a detriment to deal with right now you can actually ask whoever is here to search for it, and depending on the skill we can give you more details on its description. The reason I say it depends is we've had some mysterious skills we couldn't decipher for years due to lack of skill level. However that was for the rarest of rares so don't worry too much."

I smiled and thanked her before asking her about Aura Viewing above F-rank and some kind of enhancing perception ability. After searching for a moment she wasn't able to come up with anything for Aura Viewing which made me sigh. Something tells me I can't even sell it in that case, before she could start asking questions I asked her again about viewing abilities. Maybe I can get the Identify skill, maybe something that'd also help me when using guns since I'm already a decent shot it'd be amazing to be an even better shot. Hm, that's right I still have that gun the 'Company Man,' I should bring it to the Modern Weapons area afterwards to see what I can do with it.

While I was thinking about that she got my attention with, "Well there are hundreds of them, what type of fighting do you do?" Putting my hand to my chin I'm brought back to all the years I spent sniping, so I inform her of my status as a sniper, however I do tell her that I can fight improvised and with many other kinds of guns causing her to just nod, must not be that odd around here to hear that considering I passed by Leon Kennedy not long ago...

After another moment she pulls up on the hologram 3 different scrolls, one is white which makes me a bit sad, one green which is better, and a blue one. She tells me that these aren't all visual skills and that only one is while the others are there as good complimentary abilities I should either think about getting now or seriously consider in the future. Going from the right she says that this is the ability 'Eye's of the Hawk.' Then the middle one is 'Spider Sense' which I very well know is, and then the last one was one that made me sweat a little bit, 'Bullet Time.'

She then started explaining what each one is to me and what it does at the current rank. Currently the Hawk Eyes ability was at D-rank, and according to her at this rank there were no downsides unless I had one of my stats at 3 or below, and the positives were that I could see about 100 Meters away clear as a book in front of me so long as it wasn't obscured, this is further improved when magnified with a scope though that does require even greater care due to the sway. I was pretty sold on that ability, then she moved onto the Spidey sense, and when she talked about it I realized it really was fitting for the low ranking, it would only alert me of danger for around 3 seconds, no inkling of where it is coming from nor does it automatically have my body move. It just suits an alarm right now, and if it wasn't for the fact that I know how good this thing can be in the future I would likely not care about it at all.

The last one was the one I was the most excited for though, but holy crap did it have a lot of downsides. It had steep requirements for being able to use it with an extremely shortened cooldown and next to no downsides, and those were 15 in all the physical abilities I have. Right now, she said with all physical abilities at 5 it would let me use it for 5 seconds at .25 normal speed around me but all my abilities would be 1/5th of their usual state for 12 hours due to pushing my body, at 10 it would last for 15 seconds with it at .125 the normal speed with my stats only being halved for 3 hours. At 15 it would last for 30 seconds at .0625 around me and my stats only being reduced by a single point for 10 minutes. (A/N: So basically, 1/4th, 1/8th, and then 1/16th for bullet time.) Now it doesn't, sadly, let me move at normal speed however it does let me move much faster, especially my arms. She did also tell me though that with the right synergy and stats I could eventually move at my normal speed while in bullet time, and possibly much faster outside of it.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

I nodded and then had a thought, this is what it's at while it's just at the lowest rank? I shuddered at just thinking how monstrous this skill can get, especially if I could go and further lower the demerits of it while increasing how much it benefits me. God this will be great, but I bet it's expensive. I ask her what the price is for all of it, and when she says 20k I almost collapse, that's most of what I've collected... is that damned hidden title only worth so much? I just sigh and pay for it, 2k for the eyes, 7k for the spider sense, and then 11k for the bullet time. She smiles and hands me three scrolls that appeared in her hands before telling me that to use them all I need to do is read them and they're added to me and then put in my storage permanently unless they are sold to someone.

I nod slip them into a jacket pocket of mine and walk out of the gigantic room into the elevator for the second to last time and press the button to head to the modern weaponry floor.

When I got there it looked almost like the Gun store from Grand theft auto games save for the fact that it actually looked really well organized and put together. I walked up to the counter where there was another girl, this time unlike the standard outfits the other 2 seemed to have, she had a jean looking vest over a dark green shirt, I couldn't see what else she was wearing though because well I'm sure I would look like an extremely obvious pervert if I leaned right over the counter to look at her bottoms.

When I walked up she looked at me while chewing gum by gnashing her teeth before saying, "Sup. Welcome to... shit where am I today? Oh yeah, that's right Modern Weaponry. Wanna sell a treasure, buy a treasure, or something else since you probably didn't walk up here for me." She then leaned back and continued chewing her gum while I told her that I was new here.

She let the chair fall forward before setting her arms on the desk and taking what I assume to be a serious pose, however it was spoiled by the fact that all the silver hair that she had was flung forward and covering her face so she couldn't see anything. After pulling the hair out of her face she quickly stated that if I get a gun bring it here, it can be appraised, sold, upgraded, or auctioned off if she thought it was worth it. She also said that there are many kinds of guns here as well as thousands of types and calibers of ammunition. I nodded and put the pistol I brought from Aliens onto the counter.

After looking at it for a few minutes she smiles, "Ah so you either killed that annoying prick or let someone else do it? Man, it's actually pretty rare to get the situation where he has a gun since the Marines typically are pretty careful about right documentation. Hm, too bad its only F-rank, though it'll still fetch a decent price... 5k credits?" I shake my head and tell her I'm looking to upgrade it as well as get a decent rifle whether it is or isn't a sniper doesn't matter so long as it's not full-auto.

She looked a bit sad hearing that I wasn't going to sell and put a tablet like the others onto the counter then pressed a section to turn it on. The hologram was of what looked to be a dating site from what I saw before she smacked it around rapidly clearing it, "It was a joke my friends pulled on me, got it? You didn't see shit!" I just put my hands up defensively as I didn't want to deal with women at all if I could help it.

She then brings up a Holographic version of the gun before talking to me, "Alright well, about this gun first since you can do this while I look for a rifle that'd be good for a new hopper, you can fit one sight, one under-barrel attachment, looks like you can get specialized clips, and you can get a silencer of various qualities. Oh yeah keep in mind, some of the clips that you can get to store different ammo can't work with the silencer due to some issue I don't even bother dealing with, I just know people can turn to giblets." She then starts typing away before waving at me, "Kidding kidding, it just doesn't shoot if you have a silencer on."

I browse through the options for the sights that the pistol can have and, instead of something ridiculous like having a scope that zooms in 20x on this pistol I instead opted for a more reasonable Holographic sight. They aren't really like they are in call of duty normally, but the one I got was modified to have a opaque sight while also being much brighter so I could use it even during a bright day. Underneath the pistol I equipped a flashlight that never runs out of battery while also being extremely strong, something that is more advanced than LED's. I saw several different barrel attachments but decided upon a silencer that actually silences the shots, in fact it states that it guarantees 99% minimum is silent, though it is incompatible with Explosive rounds for some reason, not that I mind though as when would I use explosive rounds and be silent?

I also get a clip that has infinite ammo for normal .45 ammo (which is the caliber the pistol uses normally), and clips that automatically reload on a slight delay for Armor piercing, explosive rounds, and one that takes up a clip of its own called the destroyer. So far all of this for this gun had cost 5k, but most of it was for the clips and the silencer. As soon as I hit confirm I was struck in the face with a holster while hearing, "Here, we give out specialized holsters for people's guns so we don't get any accidents." I nod even though she's busy looking at her computer, and as I'm putting the belt through the last loops of my pants she walks over to me and tells me she found some guns I would like. I tightened my belt and put the pistol into its new holster on my right hip.

When I walk up there she shows me three rifles on the hologram, all of which are without scopes, however one is bolt action, one is semi-auto, and the last is lever action. I immediately told her no to the lever action since, while it can be fast, a bolt action can be as well while the lever just doesn't have as much power I have felt. After that I was looking at the differences between the rifles, I didn't care much for the calibers since I can get the specialized ammunition to do more damage should I desire it, thus it was down to other less important things.

I eventually decided on the semi-automatic rifle due to the fact that it would let me fire much faster. That cost me 5k since it wasn't a named weapon apparently, I then got a 4x scope for it, another almost perfect silencer like for the pistol, nothing for the under-barrel since I would want to use it for sniping and when I am in a pinch, then I get its normal clip as infinite ammo costing me a fair bit, as well as the auto reloading clips explosive ammo, armor piercing, hollow point, slug shots which are almost like the armor piercing except way more deadly to everything really, and then some tracking ammo. This brought the costs of this gun up to 12,000 credits. I would absolutely love to save credits, but money in the bank is money wasted... right? Well I am going to at least save a chunk of it but I do need to improve my status.

After that I was given the sling, and she asked me about buying some sort of pouch that can only hold ammo, but it can hold 20 sets of 5,000 rounds for any gun. It only cost 1k so I hopped on that and then spent another 2k just to go and get each slot filled up with ammo, well except for the base ammo since I spent extra just to make sure it was infinite. Oh yeah, another plus was that the clips automatically were stored here too and would pull ammo from it while it is inside the gun, all I need to do is think of what clip I want and pull out of the pouch, and to reload I just need to unslide it for a few seconds then pop it back it.

All in all, I may have spend over half of my credits in one shopping trip, but I feel much more set about going to any world it is that I end up getting when I go to the W.A.R.P place, wonder if I'll see Kenneth again there?