Chapter 73: Shopping…spree?

[Congratulations! Shop function has been unlocked!]

"Finally..."

His sword disintegrated into golden fragments as the notification filled his vision.

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[Shop has been unlocked]

Would you like to enter it?

[Yes] / [No]

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"You’re really going to ask that?"

He subconsciously raised his hand and picked the [Yes] option.

The interface shrunk and another one popped up. The new interface was larger than the previous one spanning the size of a standard monitor.

"I can interact with it physically, huh."

The interface ran with boxed rows and columns many of which had a grey padlock sign inscribed above them and the level at which they were available beneath them written in tiny letters.

At the very top sat two unlocked items.

K’s eye twitched uncontrollably.

A pair of pants and a map.

Each costing the same amount of soul fragments.

20 soul fragments.

His inventory space had increased by 10 more slots too.

"For the love of the stars..."

He had two options.

Pick the map amd continue into the forest buck naked. Or pick the pants and wander aimlessly into the forest.

There was a third option but he was exhausted to take that one.

Pick the pants and farm for more soul fragments and also gathering experience points.

K sighed and shook his head.

How did a soldier like him end up in a place like this?

The aware Unascended was right. He didn’t belong here.

He didn’t even know what this place was—

"Wait."

He pulled up his stats.

[Attributes]

STRENGTH 10

AGILITY 10

VITALITY 10

ENDURANCE 10

PERCEPTION 10

INTELLIGENCE 10

WILLPOWER 10

And then below it was a text.

[UNALLOCATED POINTS: 10]

The reward he got from killing the first Unascended he had encountered at the beach.

If he wanted to know more about this place, dumping his acquired attributes sounded like a good choice but then again he needed to reinforce his stamina. It seemed this layer of the forest was swarmed with the lumped masses of Unascended and maybe a few Aware ones, but they might not be as friendly as the first Aware was.

He stroked at his chin before punching the air with his fingers.

[Allocation successful!!]

STRENGTH 12

AGILITY 12

VITALITY 10

ENDURANCE 12

PERCEPTION 11

INTELLIGENCE 13

WILLPOWER 10

"Hm, not bad."

He closed the stats interface and pulled the shop one.

The third choice seemed the most appealing at the moment.

[Host has purchased a pair of Basic Pants.]

The air pulled at a certain point in front of him and a dark material fragmented to existence and plopped at his feet.

He picked up the material and unfolded it.

The fabric dropped between his hands, revealing the full length of the pants. K inspected them for a moment, checking the waistband, pockets, and seams as though expecting some hidden trick.

He turned them around.

"Finally."

He shook them once to straighten the fabric before stepping into them, pulling one leg through and then the other. He tugged the waistband into place and fastened it securely.

K looked down at himself.

Better.

At least he no longer had to wander through the forest completely exposed. Dick swinging-a-wild.

He waved the interface off and summoned his short sword.

"Time to hunt..."

. . .

. .

.

The clearing was beginning to feel less like a safe place and more like a temporary pause between fights. The bodies of the Unascended he had defeated were already gone, leaving only disturbed earth and silver stains behind. The deeper forest remained untouched, its enormous trees standing close together beyond the clearing.

K swung his blade for what felt like the hundredth time that day and summoned the system’s interface and searched for his inventory.

[Soul Fragments x52]

"Let’s see..."

The shop interface came alive and he purchased the map from earlier.

[Host has purchased a map.]

Like the pants had materialized before him, the map did the same. Pulling together from golden fragments to flopping before him but this time K caught the map before it could reach the ground.

The piece of paper crumpled within his hold as he unfolded it.

"What the hell..."

He had expected something simple, a flat image showing the surrounding forest and a few marked locations, but the moment he touched the paper, the map expanded far beyond what he expected.

An interactive map?

It unfolded vertically, layer after layer appearing beneath the first until K was staring at what looked like an entire world suspended inside the blue structure.

This wasn’t a map...it was more of a blueprint. A layered blueprint.

He reached forward and dragged his finger across the display. The uppermost section responded immediately, rotating slightly until the terrain became easier to see. Forests covered most of the visible surface, broken apart by rivers, rocky formations and enormous stretches of unfamiliar land. A small golden marker shaped like a default computer cursor blinked near the center.

"Is that me?"

To confirm his theory, he rotated in the spot he stood. The marker turned with him.

This was a new development for K!

He could easily track himself in case he lost his way.

"Not bad."

He dragged his finger to the second layer and the blue interface suddenly went red.

[Host level is too low!! Host cannot access the selected area!!]

He hissed and folded the map.

"What level do I need to be to leave this place?"

[Host must be Level 15 and above to access other locations]

He pulled up his stats again.

[Level 11]

It didn’t feel like a hard achievement reaching Level 15.

He rolled his shoulder and summoned his short sword again but before he could march towards the area where the Unascendeds resided, his system’s interface popped a new message for him.

[To move between map locations, you must obtain the Eye Of All orb.]

"The eye of all? What is that?"

[The Eye Of All orb is an instrument used to commune between interconnected dimensions. It can be obtained by killing the guardians of the Orbs at each map location.]

"So the boss of each layer of this map guards the orb?"

[Yes.]

"What’s so special about it? Aside from granting me access to the next map location?"

[The guardians of the Eye Of All orb will drop large amounts of XP, soul fragments and memory fragments when killed.]

"What are memory fragments?"

[...Host level is too low to access this information. Please level up.]

"Of course." He rolled his eyes and summoned the shop interface once more.

New slots had unlocked. They weren’t really promising.

A basic shirt and a potion.

Well the first wasn’t promising but the second however...

He clicked the potion and its details appeared next to it.

[Enchantment Potion of Recovery:

Each consumption per bottle restores 15hp/s over 6 seconds.

Max hold limit: 0/10

Cost: 5 Soul Fragments]

"So a healing potion..."

[Soul Fragments x32]

"At least it’s cheap..."

[Soul Fragments x2]

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[INVENTORY]

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[01] U’Kan Ring ×9

Description:

Rings belonging to the deceased Vashki, U’Kan Luituka.

Their original owner has been terminated.

Residual spiritual energy detected.

WARNING:

Foreign biological composition detected.

Potential applications:

[craft]

[absorb]

[analyze]

[02] Soul Fragments x2

[03] Enchanted Potion Of Recovery x6

Storage: 17/60

Level up to unlock more space.

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"...or not."

He continued walking towards the area where the groanings of the Unascendeds became louder.

He had almost reached their camp when the ground trembled beneath him.

It came once.

Then it stopped.

Then it came again.

This time closer and heavier.

"What now?"

The trees of the forest swayed and gave way to something large, the large trunks bending as something wedged past them.

A tree close to the clearing bent slowly beneath an unseen weight.

Another snapped.

He tightened his grip around the sword.

At first, only a small portion of the creature became visible between the trunks. A thick, pale-green body pushed through the vegetation, its surface segmented into dozens of swollen sections that compressed and stretched as it moved. Each segment was surrounded by a dark ring, giving its enormous body the appearance of a living chain of armored cushions.

The creature was enormous.

Its body was thick enough that K could barely wrap both arms around one of its segments, and its length disappeared back into the forest. A faint yellow line ran along either side of its body, following the natural curve of its segments. Bright yellow spots covered its sides, each one surrounded by a darker ring and topped with tiny black bristles. Similar markings appeared along its back, though they were larger and more irregular.

Short clusters of fine hairs covered almost every part of its body.

They were particularly dense around the raised portions of its segments, where strange fleshy projections emerged like small knobs. Some were yellow, others reddish-orange, and several carried thin black bristles that curved outward from their tips. They trembled whenever the creature moved.

Near the front of its body, two thicker projections rose from behind its head, curving slightly outward like blunt horns.

K slowly raised his sword.

The creature’s head emerged from the vegetation.

It was surprisingly small compared to the rest of its body, but its dark mouth opened wide enough to reveal several rows of short, uneven teeth. Two black eyes sat beneath a broad, rounded brow, while smaller sensory pits dotted the sides of its face. Long feelers extended from its head and swept through the air, constantly twitching as though searching for something.

"What the fuck..."