I eagerly put my hands on the store pillar to look at all the options. The cost to upgrade to the next level of the store was 10 million points like I suspected. The new material was called steel by the shop, with a sword and pieces of armor, costing 25 thousand points each. The new food option was animal products. Eggs, meat, and various organs, cost 100 points and went up to a 1,000 points per item.

Eating good food was not going to be cheap. That was for sure. Meat and anything made with animal products was clearly a luxury. There were two personal items available that piqued my interest before I moved onto the buildings.

The first option was the Rod of Minor Calling. The store indicated it would allow a person to place a call. There was some catch. Probably an insanely expensive data plan. The Rod of Minor Calling cost 1 million points. Phone calls were not cheap just to buy the phone, but they would be possible it appeared.

The second interesting personal item was the Rod of Taming. It would allow a person to tame any system generated monster and make them a pet. It also cost 1 million points. While I had 1.5 million in my health insurance plan, that was my health insurance plan. You do not mess with the health insurance, ever. No matter what.

I was never going to be at a store pillar ever again and helpless to get a restoration. That just wasn’t happening. The Ritualist had painfully etched that into my brain. Not having feet had been maddening. At least with Death and losing my arm, I wasn’t aware for most of it.

The new stat wasn’t a huge surprise due to consumption and the Astrologer, but it was the Sense stat, it was the ninth stat. Channeling was probably the tenth stat, but it hadn’t appeared in the store. The next upgrade and a level 5 store would have it appear most likely.

There were only four new city building options. Each of them wanted to make me cough up blood at their cost. While I could grind out a lot of points, these prices were trying to brutalize a person. The first a Small Airship Assembly building, cost 10 million points.

Of course we would need to buy a building, to pay for the airship, and then pay for its upkeep. Why did I expect anything less from the store and the Almighty System? The next was almost as bad, but in a different way. A Tier 1 Beam Cannon Assembly building for 5 million points. Beam cannons, of course. They would probably be like a point hose, similar to the City Shield.

The third new building option wasn’t even a new building really. Tier 3 Null Skill Walls for 50 million. We could upgrade the city walls so they wouldn’t get blown apart. Then pay to set up beam cannons on them. Then when someone attacked, we could literally kill them with an obscene amount of points.

The fourth option was just another wall upgrade. A cannon emplacement for 10 million points. Of course, we couldn’t just place cannons on the wall, they had to have an emplacement, or they would probably shoot backwards or something annoying.

The worst part was it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why there would be beam cannons in the store. It was to defend the stupid city for the next upgrade from a mega-monster. I hadn’t seen anything supersized, but I had always suspected there was a reason the walls were four stories tall.

They didn’t really stop people, but they would stop an oversized monster. Especially if the City Shield ran out or the monster was somehow able to breach the City Shield. I could already see a horde of rampaging nightmare level 5 monsters for the next store upgrade coming right for the city. That was something I was not looking forward to.

There was an upgrade possible for the Rod of Control, to upgrade it with a Rod of Calling. A superphone or a centralized phone most likely. That cost 10 million points. Everything was insanely expensive. I used to think that about the lower levels of the store, and I would probably think was cheap when I saw the next levels and my soul cried some more.

I stepped away as other people checked the store out including Clarissa. Once she was done she came over to me and we began to walk to the various city buildings to check them out and what options were available in each of them.

“You might not have noticed since you have no property, but there is a fourth-floor option available for buildings for 500 thousand and a building elevator for 1 million,” Clarissa told me as we walked. That elevator was key! It would be my weapon against the most heinous of all things, stairs. It would defeat them with its swift ascent.

I was going to have a private elevator as well. Just for me to my own private floor. With its own airship dock. I would never have to move again. Get a high Body stat person to carry me around. Now there was a crazy idea. Have one person carry another person, but then I realized that hadn’t worked with Fethee and Naran.

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The issue was the person being carried would get jarred around from the changes in acceleration and be injured. I wouldn’t want to be carried around and it just wasn’t practical. You couldn’t stack up stat points like that. Better to just have as many as one could have for themselves.

“You purchase any Sense?” Clarissa asked me.

“I will purchase a large chunk of that stat after the next grinding session. Just jump right into the deep end. If I get just a few stat points, it will annoy and distract me. Better to just keep my stat upgrades to specific times,” I answered.

“Make sense. Don’t want to ruin a good thing.” A guard ran up to Clarissa and handed her a piece of paper. She then put it away.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Just the possible upgrades with the Rod of Control. Historical purchase tracking and city registry for 10 million points each. City transfer for 25 million points,” Clarissa told me.

“Ouch, that means if people want to move over they would need to be grinding level 4 monsters at the minimum,” I replied.

“That appears to be the case. But if they need a fourth skill slot, then they will be high level combatants and grinders anyways.” I nodded at this statement. There really was no need for a lot of skills at a low level. Maybe they might give more versatility, but better to upgrade skills in my opinion.

“So, you kept the Rod of Control out of sight?” I asked Clarissa.

“It is hidden away. In a secure location. It can’t leave the city, but I am not about to make it easy for the Divine Empress to get her hands on it, or whomever she sends here,” Clarissa replied. We stopped at the Monster Processing building first.

A level 4 processing table cost 1 million points. A level 4 through level 6 processing rod cost 100 thousand points. I purchased the second item. I had no idea when I would be back and I wanted to get some level 4 crafting crystals to finally make some level 5 equipment.

That would hopefully help in leveling the playing field between me and the Divine Empress. I wasn’t holding out much hope, but I could always use the crafting crystals as part of a bomb. I would need to have a place on my belt for it, but that only required some minor adjustment. It looked like the lower level rod. Just a gray cylinder.

I let Clarissa take it and have a look. She handed it back to me and we continued on our tour. We went in order of what we wanted to know about the most first, not what was the closest. The Enchanting and Alchemical Hall both had level 4 tables available for 10 million points each. It was a shame we couldn’t bring them outside of the buildings they were in.

After that we made our way to the Training Hall. A level 4 training hall and upgrading to a total of 50 stored monster types cost 5 million points each. The Regional Map had a 1 million point option for a level 4 section of road. The Prison had nothing, but probably another upgrade if we had a level 3 upgraded cell.

The City Shield had no new upgrades, but it probably increases the current upgrades further for an obscene number of points since that appeared to be the trend. That was it for our walkabout and poking at the new upgrades. There was nothing game changing, just things that required a lot more investment.

“Going to get new armor?” Clarissa asked me as we walked make to my home.

“No. Until I get it enchanted it isn’t worth spending the points. Or the environment starts to mess them up. I am trying to change my mindset for maximum efficiency and point grind,” I said with a sigh. It was hard to go back to a fragile mindset after throwing around points like they weren’t a big deal for a while now.

“A level 5 enchantment?” Clarissa asked.

“Yes. It would the only thing that would make sense. But getting the right crystals would be a pain. How is the type chart going and working out combinations?” I asked.

“Slow. Doctor Katz is trying and while he thinks he has worked out most crystals and their effects, trying to figure out the layout of the type chart is a nightmare according to him. Like a drunk college kid with colorblindness rushing to get their homework done,” Clarissa answered.

“So it will take time,” I replied with a sigh.

“It will take time. When we lose the city, it won’t be simple anymore to conduct such research, you know that right?” Clarissa asked me.

“I know. But if I get enough stat points and connect back up with you, hopefully the good doctor knows the optimum armor combination. I have some ideas. But would be curious to see what he comes up with independently,” I said.

“Well, unless enchantments are stacked up and high level, it appears they won’t do that much. Also, there is a surprise waiting for you. Something that took some time to prepare, but it is our cutting edge of research and development,” Clarissa teased me.

“Oh, something exciting I hope?” I asked.

“Nothing as big as you are hoping. But utility items have been developed. It took a lot of work. But I will explain after you take a look at them. Our engineering team has been working quite hard,” Clarissa replied.

“I know they were doing stuff for summoning,” I said.

“Standardizing powder usage and making it super quick to make the required circles. Instead of spending a minute carefully pouring out powder, you can have a plate ready to go and easily summon a monster in under 10 seconds if you have the energy. Good for emergencies. But enchanting items isn’t just slapping enchanting an enchantment on an item it has to be usable.”

“So, we have engineers coming in?” I asked.

“Most are useless, but there have been a couple good ones. The good ones are on the short list.” I nodded at that. Losing human assets would be the biggest setback we could experience. Having competent people really was a challenge and it was the one thing Clarissa complained to be about. The fact she was willing to complain to me about this issue, showed how big it was.

Better to save the important people and leave the rest behind as distractions for the Divine Empress’s nonexistent mercy.