acaswell
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Chapter 57: (Title is Spoiler) - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2023-02-02 02:12:10 +0000 UTCBefore I had time to catch my bearings, I felt something pull at me, dragging me off my feet and pulling me towards the angry Megailian man standing at the front of the boat. I started, not understanding what was happening until I was in midair again. A few moments later, the unnatural pull on my body disappeared, causing me to crash back into the wooden deck of the ship. My left arm bent unnaturally, before it snapped on collision with the deck. Luckily, I didn’t feel a thing from my ruined arm.
I looked back up at the angry Megailian man, before shivering.
He had thirteen runes. He had to be someone important. Maybe the commander. I had no clue what a thirteenth rune did, but I knew for sure it would be dangerous. Sallia, Felix and I were already injured and weak, and my father and Claus were the only others that landed on the boat. This wasn’t a battle we could win even at full strength, and in our current state escape would be nearly impossible.
The Megailian commander glared at me, and yelled something I didn’t understand because of his heavy accent. The other Megailian troops nocked arrows, pointing some of them at me, and some at Sallia, Claus, Felix, and my father. I winced. I didn’t want my father and Claus to die here, at least. I cared about them and wanted them to be safe.
But I doubted any of us were coming out of this alive.
The Megailian commander yelled something at me again, but his accent was too heavy for me to understand. This time, however, I did catch the world ‘island,’ despite his heavy accent.
I frowned, but I took too long to respond. An arrow zipped out of an archer’s bow and towards Claus. Claus, who was still shaking off the impact of being dragged out of the sky, seemed to realize the arrow was coming towards him, and his hands scrabbled along the wooden boards for a fraction of a second, before he found his spear. He threw it towards the archer, the bone spear enlarging itself the moment it left its hands -
And some other bone-user took control of claus’s spear, before it slammed itself into the deck of the ship. Claus’s spear didn’t deflect the arrow, or kill the archer.
A moment later, the arrow sped up and turned green, before it ripped through Claus’s head. He died with his eyes wide open.
I sucked in a breath, before the Megailian commander yelled at me again. This time, I could finally make out part of what he was saying.
“Where are the islands? Allius tha pligusu perissuteru tos filus sou!” He yelled. I had no clue what his second sentence meant, but the archer who had killed Claus gestured threateningly with his bow, pointing towards Sallia.
Sallia, who had broken a leg during the fall, was still moaning in pain as she tried to re-orient herself on the boat, but Felix and my father were glaring at the Megailians as they reached towards their own weapons. They were bruised and injured from the fall, but they had just seen Claus die.
A moment later, out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted something small in the distance.
It was a flying boat. The village chiefs had seen the great ocean monster finish destroying the ships of the outsiders, and had come to attack the Outsiders before they reorganized. But they would be too late to save us.
I gave the Megalian commander a grim smile, doing my best to look weak and placate him, and reached for a little bit of water with my ability. In seconds, it turned into a giant map. Since the Megailian commander wanted to know where the islands were…
I made a map from my vague memories of Earth, since that was completely irrelevant right now. The longer I could confuse them, the better.
The Megailia turned towards the map I had created with my illusion, before snorting. He took a step closer to me, and then slapped me as hard as he could, the force nearly physically lifting me up and throwing me back towards the deck. My head slammed into the wood with an audible crack, and I saw stars for a moment.
My father finally lost his temper. A gust of wind propelled him forward, and he raised his spear towards the Megailian commander. I immediately added the Call of the Ocean to my illusion, hoping it would distract a few Megailians and give my father a chance. The odds were terrible, but if we killed a thirteen rune commander here we could make the war much easier to win for the other islanders. This could be our final contribution to the battle.
Sallia and Felix, seeing the fight start, leapt to join us. Sallia picked up her sword, and ignoring her broken leg, did her best to charge forward. Felix battered down the first wooden planks that tried to assail us, beating them down with his own rune abilities.
However, there were too many Megailians here. The moment Sallia tried to charge, a bundle of ropes coiled around her, before tripping her. An arrow in midiar flew towards Felix before it quadrupled, then each arrow homed in on Felix’s limbs. I teleported one arrow attacking Felix towards the Megailiain commander, allowing myself to get hit by an arrow to my stomach, and the Megailian commander’s eyes widened in surprise as an arrow suddenly appeared right in front of him.
But it didn’t kill him.
The arrow suddenly halted in midair as the Megailian commander’s runes glowed. Some sort of pushing ability? Or the ability to harden the air?
I had no idea.
A moment later, the arrow dropped out of the air and clattered to the ground.
A pulse of blue ice stopped my father, chopping off one of his legs just below the knee. He fell over, his charge halted. At the same time, I saw Sallia drop to the ground, struggling with ropes that were coiling around her like a python.
The Megailian commander snorted contemptuously, before taking another few steps towards us. He was no longer focused only on me. Instead, he was eyeing Sallia. As the youngest of us, she probably looked the easiest to get information out of.
“Where are the islands?” He asked, again, even as Felix ignored the arrows in his body and tried to kill the commander with a splinter of airborne wood. A moment later, the splinter stopped in midair, before it turned around and sped into Felix’s chest. Blood started pouring out of his chest as he stopped moving, clutching his new injury.
Sallia shook her head, her mouth foaming as she struggled, but didn’t say a word.
The Megailian commander took one step closer-
And Sallia suddenly sprang into action. With a level of dexterity and power her broken body shouldn’t have possessed, she managed to fight her way out of the moving ropes for a moment and grip her sword again. Groaning with effort, she tried to kill the commander in a single moment of surprise.
He snorted, and Sallia’s body suddenly snapped backwards, completely deflecting her attack. Her sneak attack failed to accomplish anything.
“Fine then,” said the commander. He gestured towards one of his soldiers, who tossed him a sword.
Then, with a single, casual movement, he caught the sword and beheaded Sallia.
My cooldown for teleportation finally ended, a moment too late to save Sallia’s life, and I stared at the Megailian commander with hate. I scanned our surroundings, before looking at Felix, who wasn’t dead yet, and hoped he still had one more attack in him. Even if it probably wouldn’t work, I wanted to kill the commander for hurting Sallia.
Felix, who was wheezing and clutching his chest, saw me and seemed to realize my teleportation was ready.
He stopped worrying about his impending death, and shot another splinter of wood out, making it zip towards one of the archers.
Right as another plank tore itself off of the deck to block his attack, I teleported the wooden splinter right next to the Megailian commander’s neck. My aim was a little off, but it was still close enough that it might kill him if I was lucky.
For a single moment, I thought we had succeeded. A spray of blood ripped out of the commander’s neck, and I felt a savage grin form on my lips.
Then, one of the soldiers pointed at the Commander, and his runes glowed. The commander’s injured neck quickly restored itself. I felt a growing sense of frustration as I realized we had failed. I saw an arrow kill my father, and took one last look at the distant boats of the islands.
I hoped their raid on the outsiders would be successful, and that they avenged us properly.
That was the last thing I thought before an arrow tore through my brain.
I died.
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You have been detected to be (dead), and your soul is no longer housed inside of a physical vessel.
You will be returned to the Market shortly.
Warning: It has been detected that you are part of a large influence-based event, and have not yet collected your rewards. Once you exit a dimension, you may no longer connect to the dimensional laws of that world, meaning you will no longer be able to collect any Achievement from interacting with a certain world. Would you like to enter slumber mode for 20 Achievement? This will keep your soul safe from the corrosion of the ocean of souls for up to 1 year, and prevent you from exiting this dimension. This is advised to finish collecting rewards which are still pending.
Warning: You have one or more friends still connected to your current dimension, even though you are dead. It is highly recommended that you enter slumber mode until all of you leave a dimension at the same time. Otherwise, it may be difficult to time your births and deaths in each world properly, which has been statistically proven to increase the chance of your group breaking up sometime within the next five centuries!
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Would you like to enter slumber mode for 20 Achievement? Each purchase lasts for up to one year.
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Less than ten seconds later, before I even had time to process my surroundings in more detail, I saw another notification
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All members of your registered group of friends have been detected to be dead.
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I paused, taking a moment to consider my surroundings. I was in a situation I remembered quite clearly; I saw myself, as well as a stream of other, silver-colored souls starting to drift upwards. Just above us, I could see cracks in reality. And just beyond it lay a massive, endless ocean of black water. I tried to see where Sallia and Felix were, but I couldn’t figure out which soul was which. I had no clue which souls belonged to my fellow transmigrators.
I decided to stick around in this dimension until the end of this battle. It would be a shame to lose the rest of my rewards for helping this battle come to its final conclusion, whatever it would be.
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Slumber mode activated. 20 Achievement deducted. Thank you for your purchase!
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Darkness overtook me.
An unknown amount of time later, I was jostled out of my slumber by two notifications.
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Influence: Contributed to the battle of the ocean by a [Major] amount.
Achievement + 3,600
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My Achievement increased from 11,926.06 to 15,526.06. More interesting was the second notification.
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After your action of stealing a greater fragment of the Ocean’s heart and using it to inflict major damage on the Outsiders invading your homeland, as well as your contributions to the battle, you have formed the Keyword Ability ‘Endless Hunger of the Ocean.’
It may be purchased after your death for 5,000 Achievement.
This is currently a [Basic] Grade Ability, but like all keyword abilities, after being purchased it may be evolved depending on your actions in the future.
This Ability has the following effects:
Keywords: Ocean, Madness (2 Keywords.)
While you are submerged in water, your body will generate absorption essence, regardless of whether the local dimensional laws support the existence of absorption essence. Furthermore, contact with water will naturally remodel your body and brain to support absorption-essence spellcasting.
Absorption essence may be spent to form ‘runes,’ a unique magical structure created partially within the brain and partially within the body.
These runes have varied effects, mostly relating to strengthening the body and mind and allowing limited control over specific abilities. (This rune system is copied directly from the world you were just living in.) You will also recreate the relevant dimensional laws within your body.
Whenever you use water-related abilities to drive something insane, you will collect Achievement as if you had killed it. Madness-related keyword Abilities will be slightly easier to form and upgrade in the future, up to [Master] grade.
Killing an enemy with a water-related ability or with water for the first time in each body will allow you to form a skill related to that creature. You may absorb this skill into your current body in order to permanently enhance yourself.
Note: Only Achievement-granting creatures can form abilities. Only three abilities from this effect may be ‘held’ at once. You may delete a copied Skill from this ability at any time to replace it with a new one.
Glut Penalty: 20
Note: In order to use a magic system from another dimension, one must have three things:
First, they must have access to the essence in question. It’s impossible to use manifestation essence for spellcasting without manifestation essence, or use absorption essence type spellcasting without absorption essence.
Second, one must have the biological ability to process said essence. Attempting to use unique magic systems without the right brain structure and body structure may result in injury or death to your current body.
Third, one must have an ability that mimics the proper dimensional laws one wishes to use in order to cast spells. Trying to use a fire-related spell normally wouldn’t work in a dimension where fire physically cannot exist, for example, and using binding essence to cast spells would normally fail if a dimension doesn’t have any binding essence inside of it. With an Ability, one can make spells that cannot naturally exist in a given dimension.
Some abilities do not grant all three of these things. Please read your ability descriptions carefully!
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I read over the ability description, before I turned my attention back to the world below me.
Did we win?
I couldn’t see anything anymore. I was wrapped in a cocoon of golden light, and I could see two other cocoons nearby. However, I couldn’t see the islands or the ocean anymore. I couldn’t even see the ocean of souls - it looked like we were stuck in between the ocean of souls and the dimension we had lived in for a decade and a half. I looked down, trying to spot our home, before realizing it was a lost cause.
I had done my best to help the islands, but I would never know whether they survived the fight with the outsiders or not. I had no idea whether they fended off the invasion.
And I would probably never know. I had gotten a bunch of Achievement for a [major] contribution to the battle, which hopefully meant we had won. But I would never know.
I felt a small amount of sadness well up inside of me, before I accepted that I would never know the final outcome of the battle. I was dead. I just had to hope that my actions, and my wishes for a better future for the village and people I cared about, would come to pass. But now that I was dead I couldn’t do anything anymore.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the other two golden cocoons unraveling, releasing two other silvery souls. Those should be Felix and Sallia.
While there were still things left I wanted to do, and things I wanted to know the answer to, it was the end. It was time to leave. I turned back towards my System notifications and exited slumber mode.
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You have accepted exiting slumber mode. You will return to the Market shortly.
One life deducted. Four lives remain. Transportation has begun.
Please remember that any Abilities available for purchase will only remain available for 72 hours after your return to the Market. Make any purchases you wish to keep within that time!
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Death Statistics Report:
Power:
Successfully Condense your First Rune
+ 100 Achievement
Successfully Condense your Second Rune
+ 200 Achievement
Successfully Condense your Third Rune
+ 300 Achievement
Successfully Condense your Fourth Rune
+ 400 Achievement
Successfully Condense your Fifth Rune
+ 500 Achievement
Absorb a Fragment of the Ocean's Heart (and remain sane)
+ 200 Achievement
Skill:
Achieve [Basic] Grade one-handed Swordsmanship
+ 25 Achievement
Achieve [Intermediate] Grade one-handed Swordsmanship
+ 150 Achievement
Achieve [Basic] Grade Spearmanship
+ 25 Achievement
Achieve [Basic] Grade Archery
+ 25 Achievement
Slaughter:
Assist the Locals in killing a Great Fish for the first time.
+ 25 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing a Great Fish for the 10th time.
+ 120 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing a Great Fish for the 50th time.
+ 300 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing a Great Fish for the 125th time
+ 500 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing the Glowing Fish
+ 200 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing a Wolf of Writhing Mists (Land Beast) for the first time
+ 100 Achievement
Kill a human with 4-6 Runes for the first time.
+ 75 Achievement
Assist the Locals in killing a Transparent Fish for the First time
+ 85 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 4-6 Runes for the first time.
+ 40 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 4-6 Runes for the 5th time.
+ 125 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 4-6 Runes for the 25th time.
+ 220 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 7-9 Runes for the first time.
+ 125 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 7-9 Runes for the 10th time.
+ 200 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 7-9 Runes for the 40th time.
+ 300 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 10-12 Runes for the first time.
+ 400 Achievement
Assist the Locals in Killing a human with 10-12 Runes for the 5th time.
+ 700 Achievement
Influence:
Pass your First Adulthood Ceremony
+ 50 Achievement
Contributed to the defense of the Village by a [Negligible] amount.
+ 3 Achievement
Save one boat from the Glowing Fish
+ 250 Achievement
Contribute to the Battle of the Glowing Fish by a [Significant] amount.
+ 1,000 Achievement
Contribute to the Power of the Islands by a [Moderate] Amount
+ 800 Achievement
Contribute to the Power of the Islands by a [Minor] Amount
+ 500 Achievement
Contribute to the Battle of the Oceans by a Major Amount
+ 3,600 Achievement
Steal a Greater Fragment of the Ocean's Heart from Al'thalus
+ 700 Achievement
Wealth:
Possess 50 Fish Cores at once
+ 50 Achievement
Possess a Fragment of the Ocean's Heart
+ 200 Achievement
Posess a Greater Fragment of the Ocean's Heart
+ 500 Achievement
Crafting:
Craft 1 [Basic] Grade tool
+15 Achievement
Craft 25 Basic Grade tools
+40 Achievement
Craft 100 Basic Grade tools
+ 100 Achievement
Craft 250 Basic Grade tools
+ 200 Achievement
Craft 1000 Basic Grade tools
+ 300 Achievement
Craft 1 [Intermediate] Grade tool
+ 40 Achievement
Exploration:
Explore the Ocean of the Althala Islands and Live
+ 200 Achievement
Family and Disciples:
N/A
Misc:
First time Achievements:
(Market-Produced Achievements cannot be repeated in subsequent lives. They are paid for by Eluxia and the Market, as a means to encourage new Transmigrators, and are not linked to the dimensional laws of any world besides the market. Thus, they cannot be repeated in future lives.)
Gain [Basic] Grade Mastery of a combat-related Skill for the first time
+200 Achievement
Gain [Intermediate] Grade Mastery of a combat-related Skill for the first time
+500 Achievement
Gain [Basic] Grade Mastery of a crafting-related Skill for the first time
+200 Achievement
Total at start of World: 135.06
New Total: 15,546.06
Taxes: N/A (Error - no tax skill detected. Please consult with your local city administrator for further details. Tax evasion is a capital offense, and trying to avoid paying may result in execution!)
Equipment maintenance costs and other expenses:
Friendship bracelet: -1.3 Achievement
Purchased information on Abilities: -20 Achievement
Purchased Slumber mode (1 year): -20 Achievement
Final Total: 15,504.76
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Author’s Note:
Chapter title: First Death
My wrist really hurt yesterday. Not sure why. It feels a bit better today but still kinda hurts. But instead I have a headache. Very mild. but blehh.
🙁
Also, I realized while I was doing the death statistics report that Miria never actually got the Achievement for her first assist against a 4-6 rune human. Her first Achievement from it was a KILL, not an Assist, so I forgot to give her 40 Achievement. This has been added to last chapter. Miria got a whole lot of assists and almost no actual kills in this life. Lol.
A few corrections to earlier chapters also made. It is now clearer that Black Pearls naturally form semi-frequently in the ocean, for example.
There is still an epilogue chapter for this world left.
Any thoughts on Death Statistics reports? I am still debating whether I want to keep them in the story or just have them canonically exist but skip over them. Let me know thoughts so I can figure out if I want to keep this chunk of text for future worlds. I kind of wonder if there's a point to them, since readers are already kept up to date on Achievement totals... Anyway.
Comments
acaswell
That's an idea. I'll think about it, and if there are ways to make the whole list a little more concise.
Bryan D
I’m a ‘like’ also for the death report here. Some consolidation would be good but, in that, including the levels would be good. E.g. Crafting: Craft 1, 25, 100, 250, 1000 [Basic] Grade tools: +15 +40 + 100 +200 +300 Achievement
Jackson Ragland
I really like having a death report in full for at least Patreon/ royal road. It also seems to be a good way for you to keep track of what amount of achievement she has earned.
MinE
He did get healed so hopefully the first option, or he got captured to use as a hostage. I'm not sure how they would keep him contained, but it is possible.
Treviisolion
So no assist on killing the 13 runes guy, so either their attempts to kill him were counted as so pitiful that the System determined they had no significant impact towards his death, or he survived the battle. That doesn’t bode well for the survival of the village which honestly probably needs a whole two generations at least to recover their strength and to work on condensing more runes using the Heart of the Ocean fragment orbs to really have a shot at avoiding coming under the Megailan empire’s rule in the near term. Even then, that’d only buy the islanders some more time until some larger more powerful empire came along, though it’s possible they could be conquered peacefully through trade rather than conquest if the islanders held out long enough for a wiser king came to power and enough time had passed that the islanders were willing to give the Megailans a second chance. Either way, yea that’s a bit frustrating that we’ll never know, and that the fact that we won’t know is a natural part of being a serial transmigrator. Maybe there’s some tool the gang can find in the Market that lets the user spy on dimensions they’ve been to, to see how things are going, what the answers to certain questions are. Like what’s up with the islands, why are they floating cubes? What’s that big tentacle creature? What is going on with that ocean?
Treviisolion
After comparing the two, the new one seems to be a mostly upgraded version of the last. Contact with water now modifies Miria to be able to use absorption instead of her needing to use absorption essence to modify her brain and body, which would probably have been a painful initial process given that she’d be unable to use absorption essence properly initially to modify herself to be able to use absorption essence properly. Plus the other ability gave one non-rune skill that had a lot of caveats (need to be near water, and the illusion exposed to sunlight), and did not grant any bonuses to forming new keyword abilities, which could be useful initially as it could give Miria a greater choice of keyword abilities to choose from between every life. Though the keywords do seem like they’ll be more difficult to utilize fully than the previous ones (ocean is quite a bit more specific than water, and there are only two keywords instead of three, so less multiplying effect there), does seem to lock Miria into madness based abilities for potentially decades if not centuries, and does have a higher glut penalty, so there could be an argument to take the other ability if Miria wishes to avoid going down the madness route or finds something else that’s can better take those twenty glut. She might even be able to get both, which would be a pretty hefty boost to her abilities if she has the achievement for it.
Luboš Hemala
I was hoping for Sallia to get the kill :-)
Guthan
Great chapter.
MinE
Point taken, I find it odd she’s able to predict the future despite her suboptimal intelligence. Im not surprised she expects to die soon b/c it’s kinda obvious in that world, but she outsmarted people oddly often. P.s Im not sure how the life’s work either; I wonder if she’ll have to pay another life for one of those disposable bodies.
Arkeus
I think a big part of the issue of this arc to me is it felt like Miria already knew the end a lot of time when planning things/thinking, rather than make false assumptions/etc. Also didn't she have 9 lives left?
MinE
That new ability looks nice and it seems like a weaker and less focused version of the previous ability. Hopefully when it upgrades she”ll be able to replicate what the heart of the ocean fragments do. P.s Runes 13-15 seem to give healing abilities. P.s Never mind, it was one of the other guys ability.
Stephen Pearson
Likewise, I like to see those numbers zoom up! :-)
The Lost Pages
Alteratively, what if you had thresholds? So Basic Grade Crafting - 0th Threshold --> 5th Threshold (1000 basic items created). You could do that for a lot of the others too.
The Lost Pages
Thanks for the chapter. I like the death statistic report. I also feel like it could be condensed a lot. I imagine listening to this in an audio book and hearing "Craft 1 basic grade tool... craft 25 basic tool... etc" would be painful. What about something like Craft Basic Grade Tool (x5) - Highest Threshold 1000 items created. Total Achievement XXXX. Treat that as food for thought. I don't imagine we'll have these all too often though.
Joseph
I liked the death statistics report
