After we finished introducing ourselves to our new temporary teammates, we introduced our original plans for how to buy a bit more time in the Market and preparing for the confrontation we would need to win - getting high-end bodies to Valeksi and Kexley.
“The idea of manufacturing some more bodies seems like a good one, but… it might be expensive,” said Valeksi. “I suspect that any pre-made bodies will have long decayed into dust by now, so what we’re actually planning to seize is the production facility. While we could, indeed, use a production facility to make some new bodies and then swap out our old ones for better ones, I predict it’s going to be expensive. If this works at all, it’s probably going to be similar to the way creating new soul fragments works. We’ll be paying achievement to create a body from scratch - rather than just looting a few bodies and then swapping over. When I think about it in those terms, I’m not sure if that’s the best use for the limited amounts of Achievement we have.”
I paused. To be honest, I had, indeed, suspected that new bodies would cost Achievement. After all, the mass-produced bodies of the Market slowly decayed over time, and while I still wasn’t sure why this was the case, it seemed quite reasonable to assume that most bodies from the past were no longer usable. However, I hadn’t actually thought about price being a problem. Right now, my friends and I had a huge amount of Achievement laying around compared to when we had stared our journey. While we hadn’t gotten anywhere near as much influence Achievement last life compared to our fourth life, when we saved an entire dimension, the rewards for levelling up and training our Skills had been notably better than in usual worlds. The local System had been a huge aid in our Achievement and skill-gathering efforts, and we currently had a huge amount of resources to spend upgrading ourselves.
I seriously doubted new bodies would cost more than a few tens of thousands of Achievement at the higher end, and that was if the company we found charged truly extortionate prices. That wasn’t a very big dent in my wallet at the moment.
However, I was starting to get a sense that our new allies had invested a lot less Achievement into themselves. Their stats were lower, their Abilities seemed a bit weaker than ours, and they were a lot more wary of large purchases than we were.
Still, even if they had fewer resources than us, I didn’t think that the four of us changing our plan was the right idea. The potential upside of getting new bodies was just too significant - one extra grade of stats, longer training time in the Market, and whatever we could loot from the facility were all important rewards. Missing out on all three wasn’t the right way forward.
“I know that they might be expensive, but new bodies are just too potentially useful,” I said. “First of all, they’re a good way to test our strength against some of the stronger monsters in the Market with a bit less on the line. More importantly, new bodies can buy us more time in the Market. Normally, we only get a few months to train all of our skills back up and strengthen ourselves before our bodies start to decay.
“Not to mention, there are other important benefits besides just training time. You should probably also realize that a lot of the shops in the Market still have Achievement in them. The exact quantity varies, and somewhere between a third and half of them have already been looted - but that means the other half to two thirds of the shops here still have Achievement. If we hit enough shops per day, we might actually end up with a significant net positive amount of Achievement after investing in new bodies and much better odds of succeeding in our battle for more lives.” I paused. “Of course, that’s also somewhat dependent on the price and the actual bonuses a new body gives us. We’ll have to do some math when we see them. But surely you can see the potential here.”
Kexley and Valeksi both looked thoughtful at my words. Finally, Kexley stroked his faint half-beard and nodded.
“All right, you make a good point, and your argument is compelling. We can fight for new bodies first, and then determine whether it’s a good investment. If we can actually pull this off, our odds of survival probably are better, even if it’ll mean we’re going to be stuck in the Market for a while as we prepare.”
said Sallia.
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t actually considered abandoning our new allies if they disagreed on where to go, but Sallia actually made a pretty good point. If our team hadn’t been able to settle on a shared goal, there would have been no real point in trying to team up.
Kexley and Valeksi spent about ten minutes going through the shop, buying some more soul fragments, looting the place, and swapping out items, while my friends and I waited. Sadly, none of the items in the store were worth my time, so my friends and I just ignored the shop’s items altogether. Then, we set off again.
Our group then set out. The four of us helped the other two wipe out a few more monsters along the way, and twice, they also spotted shops that we ended up raiding. One of them had an ability Kexley wanted, which gave him a moderate boost to stamina, while the other shop had nothing interesting at all - not even Achievement. Sadly, my friends and I didn’t get any upgrades at all, although we did get some small boosts to our Achievement total from some of the stores we hit, even if it was now split six ways instead of four.
In total, I went from about 28,203 Achievement to 28,405 Achievement - which was a very small boost, but better than nothing.
After six hours of travel and the occasional fight, we reached the place the Market’s guidance system had been pushing us towards. Right after we turned the corner, I saw our destination.
It looked like a giant research facility that had been mashed together with a theme park. I was sure there was some kind of intentional style behind it, but I had zero understanding of what it was - it just looked like a mess of clashing themes to me. Several walls made of unknown metal lined the outer edges of the area, and the interior also looked like it was made of incredibly thick metal. However, dotted in between these giant meshes of metal were what appeared to be carnival rides, along with small patches of greenery. There were even little stands that looked like they had once sold food and other little trinkets, though they had all fallen into disrepair thousands of years ago.
I shook my head as I looked at the strange facility. The spatial fair that we had seen a few lives ago while in the Market had been much more aesthetically coherent, at least in my eyes. Still, the aesthetics of this facility didn’t really matter - all that mattered was what was sold inside.
The floating sign above the entrance proclaimed, in bright letters, that it sold everything an experienced transmigrator could need - including lives, bodies, abilities, and more. The area of the fair itself seemed to be spatially enlarged. I could feel a massive sense of distortion when I tried to access the area using my spatial sense. Even though I could see some parts of the facility, everything inside of the research-lab themed part of the facility was blocked off from my view. Unfortunately, that seemed to include whatever facilities were dedicated to selling transmigrator-specific items - since I certainly didn’t have much use for carnival rides, carnival games, or ice cream that had melted an unknown number of centuries ago.
The entire thing looked even more confusing through conceptual sight. It looked like a chaotic blend of different concepts, all woven together to create… something. I had no idea what that something was, though. Someone in the Market had clearly had some kind of idea in mind when they created this whole mess, but due to how weak my understanding of the conceptual side of reality was, I just couldn’t understand what they had made or what purpose it served.
“I can’t see what’s behind the doors of the lab. Something is messing with my scouting abilities,” I said.
“I see the same thing. Some parts of the facility look crystal clear to me, but other parts look… fuzzy. Almost like they’re jammed together via some kind of spatial distortion,” said Kexley.
I squinted at the research lab, and realized he was right. I hadn’t even noticed that some parts of the facility looked hazy and distorted.
“How many monsters do you think are lying just inside the entrance?” asked Sallia.
“Well, since whoever destroyed the Market seemed intent on breaking down any path for future Transmigrators… I’d say the odds are at least above fifty percent. This is a place where lives are sold, after all,” said Felix.
“I’ll use {Eldritch Soul} first to send in a clone and see what the monsters inside look like,” I said.
“You have a scouting skill?” asked Valeksi. His young-sounding voice was somewhat discordant among the group, just due to how out of place it seemed. “I also have one. How expensive is yours to activate?”
“Mine lets me send out a clone, but I can only use it once every few months comfortably. Beyond that, I have to pay some Achievement to use it again before the cooldown ends.”
“I’ll scout instead, then,” said Valeksi. “I can send out some wooden ravens and then look through their eyes. I might not get quite as much detail as you could, but all my ability needs is some essence and some basic wood chips. I have an item that provides an infinite supply of wooden chips, as long as I feed it some random garbage for it to break down occasionally. My ability is very cheap.”
I blinked in surprise, and then grinned. Having another scout in the group wasn’t a bad thing at all. I could see plenty using my soul sight, conceptual sight, and my spatial sight - but there were always things I could miss, as well.
Valeksi sent out a group of ravens. Right after they entered the facility, he frowned.
“Eight monsters inside, at least,” he said. “All of them ripped my ravens to pieces nearly instantly. They look like some kind of … tree spirit. They have acid and wood manipulation magic. There might be more enemies waiting that didn’t take action.”
I checked with my soul sight, but all I could see was blurred space. The facility evidently had something blocking my soul sight. I sighed.
“How strong were they?”
“Not too bad, but strong enough to kill my ravens quickly.” Valeksi said. “I’m guessing something like grade 12 or 13 in stats, and maybe intermediate grade skills? Obviously, I’m just estimating here based on what they showed me, though.”
I thought to myself. Grade 12 or 13 would have been a big threat to us a few worlds ago, but now, it honestly felt very manageable. Sallia alone could probably crush them all using her physical abilities. Then, I smiled.
“I have an idea,” I said.
Author’s Note:
At the beginning of next month, I will be getting surgery (again). It’s the exact same surgery as last time, just for a different area of my gums (they can only do a certain area at a time, basically, so this process is broken into three parts. This is part two.) We’ll see if that interrupts the chapter schedule or not.
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