Once he entered the newly-renamed champions’ foyer, he could immediately see the differences introduced to it.

The layout had changed, even if the smooth metal walls were the same. The floor plan had expanded slightly. There was a door to his left that, as the knowledge deposited directly into his brain told him, led to the lobby where he could meet other people. Right above it was a countdown clock that showed it would be almost four days before he could have his first official fight. Based on the missing minutes, he was sure it was exactly four days from when he declared he was taking the available spot.

Then on the opposite wall, there were buttons for both a store and a curated purchase list.

Tom smiled and wondered how close this was to his system room of old.

“Status!” he ordered in a confident voice.

He felt a brief thrill of excitement as the text populated the wall; then he frowned as he realised that it was not one created dynamically by the system, but rather the version he had compiled by hand with no new additions.

“Well, that sucks.” He muttered even though he had never truly expected that loophole to exist. If this had given him access to his system early, it would have been a massive unexpected bonus.

“What else can this room do?” he asked himself. He guessed it should have the same functionality as the pseudo-system room, at the very least. Tom shut his eyes momentarily and focused on the layout he had used for the weeks the assassins had trapped him in here. The room shimmered as the desired furniture came into being. There were large monitors to show what his body was doing, and a convenient couch to lounge on.

Absently, he checked the monitor - and then jumped in surprise.

His body was about to push the button to leave the room.

That was not something he could afford just yet. Hurriedly, he took back control and immediately went over to the ritual status screen. The presenter had said they were all going to get a title, and he was worried that, if he left it until his next session in an isolation room, he might not be able to find it again, as he had no idea of what it might relate to. He placed his hand on the ritual control, focused on revealing the most recent addition to his status sheet, then triggered the ritual.

Instantly, the text appeared:

Title: Divine Challenge Contender: Eligibility for classes reduced. Any class that you satisfy all but one requirement for can now be selected.

Awarded for: Being a contender for the Divine Champions Trial.

Legendary Title: Competition Rank 8th. 50 Ranking Points awarded

Tom first noted that seven other people had gotten as far as him in the competition. Given how long humanity’s reincarnators had been around, it wasn’t really a surprise when he thought about it. Then he re-read what the title gave him.

For someone in his position, it didn’t seem particularly useful, but he could see the immense value that it would give to a diminishing race. Besides, was clear, at least for DEUS, that her focus was on leveraging the most she could out of the Divine Champion’s trial. For them, the usual reason they became diminished was an inability to teach skills and spells to their young. Over time, it meant the newer generations would lose the ability to meet the requirements for classes, which would further reduce the quantity of abilities they had available. Those small effects would keep compounding, until the entire species were caught in a death spiral.

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Even if someone didn’t get in and get access to the additional resources, this title would be a huge help. It would explode the number of class options available to them, and hopefully enable them to seize an otherwise unobtainable, powerful class that could form a new backbone for their species.

It was, he had to admit, clever.

For him, someone in the competition who could buy most class requirements with experience, it had limited utility. On the margin, it could help. Who knows, there might be a perfect legendary class out there that he would only get access to because of this… but he kind of doubted it. The most likely outcome was that the best class for him would be something he qualified for anyway. After all, by the time he turned fifteen, he expected to be a powerhouse.

With a shrug, he returned his mind to the champion’s foyer. He flopped onto the couch and watched, amused, as his body left the room and, looking absolutely terrified, started the process of sneaking back to bed with a hilarious lack of skill.

A wry grin split his face, and, his mood recovering slightly after the disaster of the contenders contest, he turned his attention to the additional functionality that this new room granted him.

With a thought, the basic store interface opened up and displayed itself on the wall, ready for him to browse.

Tom got to work quickly. Since he was familiar with them from his training developing Spark, he checked the lightning spells first. From what he could see, it was identical to what had been available in the experience shop. With mounting excitement, he dug deeper into the myriad of options. He reviewed the traits, titles, bloodlines and items. Everything was the same as he remembered. apart from items being greyed out with a message stating:

Need a solution to teleport into the real world before physical items can be purchased.

Tom didn’t care too much about the restriction. The fact the message had come up at all meant that there would be a remedy. Plus, items weren’t that important. What mattered was knowledge, and this place had everything he needed for his advanced planning.

He would be able to map out every single spell, skill, and trait that he wanted in his final build, and create a plan for the optimal way and order to acquire them. It was amazing. He was getting the functionality he needed four years early.

So many of the grey areas in his knowledge could be cleaned up now. He could get hard data on issues that had troubled him since he was reincarnated.

In response to that thought, he had an idea. “Domains,” he ordered, and the interface responded instantly, showing five random domains.

“Show Multipurpose Domains only.”

A random selection came up. Tom leant forward from where he was still sitting on his couch, suddenly attentive. He hadn’t expected such a broad search term to give him what he needed, but he had anticipated that at least one of domains that would be shown would be partially along the lines that he was after. Instead, none of them advanced his understanding.

“I mean, show domains with multiple elemental types.” He clarified, leaning on specifics to dig into what he wanted.

Another eight domains appeared. They were all wide, general ones, with three constructed to boost magic and five focused on buffing.

He shook his head. While he now had effectively unlimited time in here, he was being careless with his word choice. “Show domains that support both Earth and Lightning elemental spells.”

He frowned when the same jumble of domains as earlier appeared. There was a lovely tier-ten domain.

Skill: Domain of Elemental Mastery – Tier 10

All Elemental spells originating within a hundred metres of the caster are ten times more powerful.

It did what he wanted, and a lot more on top of that. But Tom could tell that he would never meet the requirements to create something like that. It covered every type of element, and he didn’t have the time to build expertise in so many directions.

Impatiently, he flicked through the first few pages of the listed domains. None of them were a specific lightning and earth domain. They were all general ones. Annoyance and concern flared inside him, with an edge of panic.

This was not what he expected, and it was not good news.

“Show me domains that only have Lightning and Earth aspects.”