Roslyn blinked and she was in the vestibule, the place of preparation between Earth and the Realms.
It was familiar enough to send a jolt of energy down her spine.
The room was small, white and featureless. It was bright without being uncomfortable.
Ros gasped and checked her belt. She smiled. Her knives were there. She pulled out the roll to check each one. Chef knife, Japanese style chef knife, boning knife, paring knife, bread knife, ulu rocking knife, oil, stone and strap.
She rolled the bundle carefully and buckled it closed.
She focused on the status screen on her left, everything was the same as it had been. Oh. No. Not everything. She had her first spell, even though she hadn’t bought it yet.
Roslyn Atwood
Physique: Human(base)
Strength: 5
Endurance: 10
Recovery: 4
Soul: 9
Warrior’s Ease: Heals minor aches from training, up to 10HP per cast. Does not influence bleeding or wound damage.
Points: 134,500
The last line was different too. She had 55,000 more points than she should have had. She had an idea. She groped in her apron for all the money she’d collected that shift. Just like last time the money was gone. She was carrying more than she had the last time, and apparently carrying money could give you more points. That hadn’t even been postulated as a motivation for the variety of points assigned. Those who had more insisted it was due to sheer potential.
She closed her eyes, shuddered and sighed.
“Right.” She said out loud. She turned her head to the other side and looked at the shop screen on her right.
—Vestibule Shop—
All leftover points will be lost on exit
You have one hour to choose
Abilities- Traits- Artifacts
She smiled ruefully and opened the Artifacts first. She hadn’t even glanced at them the first time.
She’d loaded up on body traits and abilities she’d hated later. She blew out a long breath and chose an ‘A grade’ Spatial Ring for 1000 points. If there had been a better one, S, SS, or SSS, she would have forfeited the rest of her starting points for the best one she could afford.
It didn’t matter. She’d get one from the moon wurms soon enough.
It was a widely known fact that the rings available for purchase in the first few Realms (F and E grade) were vastly inferior to the ones available in the vestibule. Everyone who survived the First Realm used the best spatial object they could find, as soon as they understood what a spatial object meant: inventory you didn’t have to carry physically, stored in a dimensional storage space and instantly accessible through the status menu.
Ros had always considered it a vastly overpowered item, ridiculous even, but she definitely didn’t want to spend a moment without one.
For a total of 320 points she bought sharpness and durability upgrades for her six knives, plus return and unbreakable runes for her Ulu Knife, which she planned to use as a main weapon for a while. Upgrades were cheaper than she’d expected.
“Filter for mundane looking clothing.” She ordered aloud, knowing that many people had claimed the vestibule shop was searchable, despite the lack of search bar or other cues.
Roslyn chewed on her knuckle while she read down the lists of clothing available. All sorts of clothing would be available in the Realms, but Vestibule Shop clothes would come with a self repair and self cleaning attribute. Any time she put them in her spatial ring they would return cleaned, pressed and perfect, no matter how torn they’d been. Plus the Vestibule clothes weren’t especially expensive, less than ten points per object, but most people just didn’t consider normal clothes a need when faced with magic swords and mystical armor.
She picked jeans and a blue round-neck, long-sleeve t-shirt. She also got two changes of underwear and a ‘uniform armored jumpsuit.’ By the second month at the station everyone was wearing jumpsuits under whatever armor they had. The station would provide them free of charge. However, again, the Vestibule goods were acknowledged by all to be superior.
She only spent 30 points on clothes.
Ros stopped herself from extravagance, she firmly turned to the Traits List, filtered for what she could afford and scrolled down twice. She licked her lip. She was still wearing her glossy mint lip balm. She had all but forgotten the taste by the Eighth Realm. She slapped her apron pocket where the tube still sat.
She scrolled down one more time.
Ah, that’s what she was looking for:
Qui Cultivation (ArchDeity Tier/SSS) - 12,254,300,500 points
Qui Cultivator (Deity Tier/SS) - 2,450,860,100 points
Qui Cultivator (DemiGod Tier/S) - 490,172,000 points
Qui Cultivator (Scion Tier/A) - 98,034,000 points
Qui Cultivator (DemiScion Tier/B) - 19,606,800 points
Qui Cultivator (Master Tier/C) -3,922,000 points
Qui Cultivator (Expert Tier/D) - 785,000 points
Qui Cultivator (Adept Tier/E) - 156,000 points
Qui Cultivator (Apprentice Tier/F) - 30,000 points
Qui Cultivator (Novice) - 100 points
Nine tiers of mastery, each roughly five times as expensive as the last, plus the 100 point or 100 coin Trait Ros had started with in the Third Realm. Novice would impart just enough transformation to have detectable meridians, nodes and core.
In the Third Realm almost everyone got themselves upgraded to Qui Novice. The ghouls couldn’t smell the Qui Adapted as clearly as they smelled unmodified humans. Of course, a novice didn’t have as much protection as an experienced practitioner, but the Third Realm was where Qui energy bolts and Qui shields became objects that could impact the physical world. Physics itself had shifted.
Roslyn had a thought and closed her eyes. She sent her awareness towards where her meridians ought to be. She sighed heavily. Nothing. Right.
30 thousand was a lot of points. A lot of points for something she’d done before and could absolutely do again. It might even be easier this time. Plus it could stunt her growth to buy the level. In general those who bought their way to the apprentice- or it was sometimes called the mortal tier- could not advance to Adept without investing coins in the Adept trait. She might be able to overcome that, considering she knew very well what Expert Tier felt like…
Roslyn did the right thing and got the 100 point Qui Novice Soul Trait. The Third Realm was years away, at least five and hopefully more like ten.
The aura of a Qui Novice would be instant protection against whatever skill the undead used to track the living.
In the meantime, Qui would strengthen her mind, body and soul.
Picking a spiffy Body Trait was enormously tempting, the quick stat gains were very real early on. Picking one would be tricky, though, she could only have four total, and it was widely agreed that body traits were the one place the Vestibule did not have the best items, at least not for prices Ros could afford. All the best traits of the Hegemonic Unified Army were represented, but they were in the tens of millions of points.
The body traits Ros had chosen before: Uncanny Balance, Augmented Strength, Augmented Recovery and Adamantine Skeleton were all represented, here, as F grade traits, they cost between 9,000 and 14,000 points and she could have bought them all again. They had really boosted her effectiveness in the first three Realms. On the other hand, she didn’t want them again, in different ways they had all impeded her progress in her Qui Cultivation.
She could pick something else, a transformational type or a magical mastery. However, she knew what she really wanted:
Blink(F): 84,500 points.
She hovered her finger over the ‘choose’ button and winced as she pressed it. She had gotten that skill as a random monster drop halfway through her stay in the First Realm and it had been her best ability until at least the fourth and she was still using it regularly in the eighth. Range would be limited by her soul stat.
She eyed her status line.
Points: 48,550
Not a lot left. Wow that’s a lot.
She giggled at her simultaneous opposite reactions. Blink would have been about out of her reach the last time she did this, and it would have been the only significant thing she bought.
There were many kinds of person moving abilities: Portal, Shadow Step, Time Stop, Dimensional Step, Flow State Body, even Swift Step.
Blink was like those, in that it transported the user from one place to another in the blink of an eye, but unlike some of the more complicated transports it was a simple space manipulation trait. If she could visualize somewhere she had been in enough detail she could go there. It was limited to places she had physically been or could currently see. She could go through a window without having been on the other side but not a solid wall.
Ros had a lot of experience using the trait quickly and when under duress. It was how she got inside the guard of many an opponent and how she many times had retreated while actively being clawed or gored.
She could take her clothes, weapons and anything inanimate she was holding but no living beings. She could blink right out of the jaws of the Great Roc of the Sixth Realm if she had to.
Now that she’d spent most of her points she needed to do something to protect her fragile body while she was leveling through the Cultivation Tiers.
“Filter by what I can still afford.” Ros said aloud. The list in front of her went from 173 pages to 20 pages, but that was just the Traits.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Her most logical move would be a defense artifact, since body elixirs and magical fruits were not available in the Vestibule.
She switched tabs back to Artifacts. Her filter remained in place.
“Defensive artifacts only.” From 56 pages to 14.
She scrolled through the offerings. She nearly blew right past what she knew she needed.
Personal Energy Shield(A): 33,000 points.
Personal Energy Shield- a slow blade will penetrate. Best defense against concussion, projectiles, and energy beams.
It really was the best defense artifact available in the First Realm. They were available at any replicator, but the cost was 300,000 coins for a B grade shield. This one was better quality and cost less, although conversion between vestibule points and coins was not a straightforward equation.
When she chose the shield the number of artifact pages went from 14 to 3.
Then four lines below the top-
Mind Barrier(C): 400
Mind Barrier- Never wonder if someone is controlling your mind. Strong protection against Psychic Attacks and Qui Infiltration Attacks. Immunity to Wurm Suggestion Effects.
Such an important piece of equipment, such a tiny little price tag. The really good shit was like that: overpriced or basically free.
She took a steadying breath and looked at the shopping basket. She could still change her mind on anything.
Spatial ring(A): 1000
Knife upgrades(F) x6: 120
Return Rune: 100
Unbreakable Rune: 100
Jeans(F): 15
T-shirt(F): 5
Underwear(F) x2: 10
Jumpsuit(N/A): 0
Qui Novice Trait(F): 100
Blink(F): 84,500
Personal Energy Shield(A): 33,000
Mind Barrier(C): 400
Points Remaining: 15,150
Something on the list made her stop and stare.
Return Rune: 100
Unbreakable Rune: 100
Return Rune- Learn a helpful Rune that can be scratched, drawn or inscribed on any weapon, item or object. Selling a Return Rune Item transfers the Rune to the new owner.
Unbreakable Rune- Learn a helpful Rune that can be scratched, drawn or inscribed on any surface, making the surface unbreakable as long as the Rune is intact. Positive Consent required to place Unbreakable Rune on a living being.
“Yes.” Ros hissed. She had been under the obviously mistaken impression that she was purchasing a one time upgrade to her favorite knife, the one she’d been given by her Nana. It was a beautiful Damascus steel rocking ulu knife, one which Chef Carlyle had banned from use in his kitchen. The handle was wood and bone, it was technically an antique, having been forged for her great grandmother by a Japanese SwordSmith when she was a girl traveling with her parents. Nana had told some fanciful stories about the origin of the knife, but they were different every time, so Roslyn didn’t actually believe any of them.
Instead of a rune placed on one item, she had inadvertently purchased the pattern to place the runes wherever she wanted them. She just had to learn the lines and proportions of the rune by herself without the knowledge downloaded into her brain. Luckily, runes were simple enough to learn, she already knew a light rune she could carve into a piece of wood or bone to make a torch which would never dim.
Runes were supposed to be the sole purview of the limited number of purchasable Rune-Master(B) skill sets.
Each person had a limited number of modifications they could make to themselves, without earning all the steps one by one. The number of such modifications they could make by earning all the steps was not limited.
The same logic was what made Qui cultivating so important. You could buy abilities or you could use your Qui to learn Techniques. Most of the purchased abilities were shortcuts to techniques that could be learned slowly over decades. It was why she could still use her healing spell.
Repeated use over three and a half decades had etched the spell into her mind, and she easily remembered it. It had never required Qui to power it. If she was lucky, she could do the same with other abilities she had purchased before. Eventually. When her Qui matched the level of the spell, trait or ability.
You could make four Body Trait Alterations, four Mind Trait Alterations and four Soul Trait Alterations. So far, Ros had only chosen one Soul Trait: Qui Novice.
Blink, being an Ability, could technically be learned as well, except Ros only had a fuzzy understanding of how and why it worked, since it had never seemed important to her to learn.
Numerous people had ruined their progress by choosing to purchase successive ranks of Qui Cultivation, jamming their soul’s progression with the same thing over and over. While that was a viable strategy for fusible Abilities it was absolutely the worst thing you could do with Traits.
Abilities like Blink and RuneMaster were different. They were Tiered F through SSS and limited quantity per person and some were limited in the number of copies for sale to all of humanity. Abilities could be ranked up by purchasing the same ability at a higher tier. Traits could not, they could only be trained higher through hard work, luck and potions, very expensive potions.
A person can have up to five F Tier; four E Tier, three in the D, C or B Tiers, but only one A Tier Ability. To the best of Ros’s knowledge, the only humans who ever gained an SSS Tier Ability were Bone Crusher Andrew and Ice Maiden Kristín, the two First Wave DemiScion Tier geniuses who had marched with the great army into the Ninth Realm to be slaughtered. Even the Hegemon and the Imperator were only Peak Master Tier.
Some Abilities could be discarded and replaced, some including Blink, were permanent. Some abilities could be made stronger by fusing them together and all could be upgraded for an increasingly huge sum of coins.
However, a good Tier F Ability could be used through all levels of advancement. Ros had continued to use Blink at F grade all the way up to the moment she died, or would have died without divine intervention.
Skills and Techniques were something different entirely. There was no limit to the number of skills or techniques that a person could learn by extensive reading and tireless practice until it was mastered. Skills included individual kicks and punches, cooking, alchemy but not the Alchemist Ability (D) and things like individual spells and apparently Runes.
Techniques were learnable versions of any Ability purchasable and some Traits.
What had caught her attention was that she could learn individual Runes here. If she learned enough Runes she could train herself into the Technique Path of RuneMaster without purchasing the Limited Ability. She knew about one person who claimed to have done exactly that, and he had started with only one Rune.
According to him.
He was known as a braggart, so grain of salt. However other abilities were trainable, so it wasn’t impossible.
The runes were under the Artifact tab with other upgrades for mundane things.
“Clear Filters. Filter for what I can afford now.”
With iron willpower and an eye on the timer slowly ticking down her hour of choosing time, Ros turned to the Abilities and began reading the list. She paused a few times to read the descriptions, but there was nothing she wanted to clutter her Abilities List.
She switched to the Traits. Technically she had bought one Trait out of twelve so far, Qui Novice. She read the list and she paused more and more often on oddly inexpensive traits that seemed to have a huge potential, but none as huge as the one she already had. There were hundreds of much better Traits available in the higher Realms but she couldn’t buy them if she had already filled all her spaces.
She turned to the Artifacts.
“Filter out Runes. List most expensive first.”
She read the list of mid to low grade weapons, shields, armors… she blinked, but it was still there.
Face Shield Rebreather(SSS): 800 (8/30)
She chuckled almost inadvertently, half choking on it. That was an artifact that would make the Sixth Realm a literal walk in a park. It was also a higher ranked artifact than any rebreather she’d ever seen before. She claimed one. She smiled as the list in front of her got slightly shorter, a few pages shaved off the top.
Points Remaining:14,350
She continued and picked up a few more things:
Mag Boots(C): 600
Penlight(S): 50
Indestructible Sneakers(F):25
Mouth Sanitizer Attachment(S): 1
Hygiene Kit(S): 1
Variable Pigment Cosmetic Color Kit(S): 1
Notepad(F) x10: 10
Sketchbook(F) x50: 50
Pen(F) x25, one each color available: 25
Pencil (F) x25, one each color available: 25
Chalk (F) x25, one each color available: 25
Spray Paint (F) x25, one each color available: 25
Points Remaining:13,512
The list of things worth one point each was pages long. She got to the end and glanced at the timer, only fifteen minutes left.
“Clear Filters. Show all runes, any price.”
She flipped between tabs, just for fun.
RuneMaster Ability(B): 7,832,000
That made her giggle. She was giggling quite a lot, she idly suspected her younger self was as giddy as her reincarnation self.
Qu Scribe Trait (F) (mental): 17,000
That actually made her pause and consider ditching a few things. That would let her inscribe her runes on things using her actual Qui energy.
She shrugged it off. That was why she hadn’t wanted to look at anything above her price limit. She didn’t want to ditch anything, especially not anything that cost enough to get that. Now that she had them her spatial ring, energy shield and blink ability were non negotiable.
She turned to the Artifact Tab. The top of the list made her eyes bulge out.
Qui Channeling Stylus(SSS): 1000 (1/700)
She coughed lightly and blinked rapidly a few times. It was still there. That was the tool of the Qui Scribe without the Ability or the Trait. This was something she could learn to do the hard way. She smiled and bought the stylus.
Under the stylus were an assortment of related supplies. Blank formation tablets, books, transfer paper, scrolls.
Then the list of Runes, all 100 points each.
Connection
Exclusion
Flight
Frost
Fire
Lightning
Magma
…
…
She bought them all, 123 runes plus the two she already had.
That was close.
Points Remaining: 272
She went back to the list of rune crafting artifacts and spend all the remaining points on blank formation tablets and transfer papers and other such things.
Spatial ring(A): 1000
Knife upgrades(F) x6: 120
Jeans(F): 15
T-shirt(F): 5
Underwear(F) x2: 10
Jumpsuit(N/A): 0
Qui Novice Trait(F): 100
Blink(F): 84,500
Personal Energy Shield(A): 33,000
Mind Barrier(C): 400
Rebreather(SSS): 800
Mag Boots(C): 600
Penlight(S): 50
Indestructible Sneakers(F):25
Mouth Sanitizer Attachment(S): 1
Hygiene Kit(S): 1
Variable Pigment Cosmetic Color Kit(S): 1
Notepad(F) x10: 10
Sketchbook(F) x50: 50
Pen(F) x25, one each color available: 25
Pencil (F) x25, one each color available: 25
Chalk (F) x25, one each color available: 25
Spray Paint(F) x25, one each color available: 25
Qui Channeling Stylus(SSS): 1000 (1/700)
Runes x123: 12,300
Rune crafting supplies various: 270
Socks(B) x4: 2
Points Remaining: 0
With a flurry of excitement, and with three minutes remaining, Roslyn hit finished and immediately saw a prompt she’d awaited with great anticipation.
Last time she had picked Recovery, and while it had been extremely useful in the First Realm, Recovery was actually an easy stat to increase. The more cuts and scrapes you got, the quicker your cuts and scrapes mended, even if you used health potions and pills. (Especially if you used potions and pills)
Strength and Endurance could be trained using nothing more elaborate than body weight exercises, and every fifth floor in the residential areas had a functional gym with weights, cardio machines and training videos for all the major human martial arts and aerobic exercises.
Choose one stat for a significant upgrade
Strength/ Endurance/ Recovery/ Soul
She didn’t even hesitate a moment before she picked Soul and hit finished.
A medicinal looking, lavender colored, gel cap appeared in the air in front of her, along with a small glass of water, like a shot glass. She plucked both from the air and used the water to swallow the pill.
She looked at her status screen.
Roslyn Atwood
Physique: Human(base)
Strength: 5
Endurance: 10
Recovery: 4
Soul: 9 -> 27
Warrior’s Ease(N/A)
Blink(F)
Roslyn was not in control of the hissing squeak of shock and surprise that escaped her throat. Recovery had increased to 12. The amount seemed to vary from person to person, but she’d heard it was capped somehow.
She’d… no. She suddenly realized. There was a commonality. The pill multiplied the base by three. The variation must be due to people’s varied stats. Maybe she could get a consensus on the message boards if…
She was distracted by her items appearing in the featureless room in front of her. She didn’t stop to examine anything. She put on her spatial ring, which she bonded to her when prompted. The bond would return it to her unless she was dead. That’s how an A grade spatial ring worked. D grade and higher came with a return feature, even if she lost her hand, the ring would come back from whatever monster gut it lodged in, so long as she lived.
As soon as the ring bonded she started loading in all her stuff. She put on the new street clothes, stowing her skimpy waitress uniform. She was allowed to wear any black pants with her extremely low cleavage shirt. She could also wear black shorts or black tights under the tiny black skirt; girls who wanted tips wore the skirt by itself or with thigh highs. Girls with serious obligations directly after service wore pants. She could even button the white chef jacket with the embroidered ‘Intern’ on the breast over the skimpy uniform shirt and it would mostly cover the skirt too.
That shirt had been the cause of a categorizing error when she first showed up. She’d been sorted into what the hunters referred to as ‘the harem’ while the squishy pretty new people saw themselves as the support crew. They cooked, crafted, did laundry, ran errands in the residential area and generally stagnated while their leaders got wealthy and the hunters got stronger and stronger.
Ros was definitely going to be a hunter this time, even if she had to go off on her own from day one to do it. In fact, leaving the residential area should be her first goal. Human cultures varied wildly in the First Realm, mostly section by section according to the personalities of the first and second wave inhabitants.
There was no good reason to band together under Harry Ibsen’s controlling grasp. Food could be had for a few coins at any replicator terminal. Coins were automatically awarded for killing monsters, on some complicated contribution basis if you hunted with a team but without a party leader with the right skill — sometimes evenly across the party if there was a fair party leader.
The familiar pale blue shimmer of a Realm Gate appeared in the wall as soon as all her things were stowed or organized onto her person.
For nearly thirty years, Roslyn had kept the habit of leaving her main weapons in her spatial ring until needed. Technically spatial rings could be interfered with or denied access, but not until the third realm and only rings rated F or E would be affected by the abilities she knew about. With an A quality ring she wouldn’t need a new one until the ninth realm, if then. She would definitely have a better one by then though; they were common monster drops on the theory they couldn’t be digested and could get stuck in the guts.
Ros paused another moment while she made sure her ulu knife was at the top of her mental access list. She could equip her shield, but the Ibsen Group tended to confiscate artifacts if they felt like it. The shield was safer in her ring.
If they tried to steal her ring, it had a lock and a return. She’d just wait until she was alone and get it back.
She didn’t even wear the Mind Barrier, which was formed like a decorative metal headband with hair comb and a filigree butterfly. She would be wearing that the moment she passed whatever inspection they put the new people through.
The Gate slowly grew darker, from the center out. When it was deep sapphire blue all the way to the edges it shattered and began swirling. She stepped through eagerly.