Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

After we all confirmed the way that rewards worked for the hero trials, Felix had asked us to wait until he ran some tests on what rewards we could get. After several minutes of questioning the AI, he confirmed a few things.

First, he confirmed that we couldn’t just ask for a small sun or star core, or anything of the sort. The rewards menu treated any variation of a sun as a ‘banned item’ and stated that we weren’t allowed to build them or request them as rewards. Furthermore, there was a warning… which, contrary to its original purpose, gave me hope when Felix shared it with us.

The warning itself wasn’t good - after all, it meant that the creators of this dimension were explicitly aware of the danger a transmigrator COULD pose to the artificial setup of this world, and they had some kind of countermeasure in place.

However, contained with the warning message were multiple error messages as well. The error messages made the four of us think that the System was supposed to have some sort of countermeasure in place - but that countermeasure might not be in effect right now. Plenty of things had been lost when the Market was destroyed, and it would make perfect sense for their ‘countermeasure’ system to have also been weakened during the collapse of the Market. In particular, the warning message said that if we violated the ban, a report would be sent to someone.

Since there weren’t a whole lot of people left in the Market, that meant that we basically had free reign to do whatever we wanted. A system of punishing people who tried to change the status quo had clearly existed at one point, but it had equally obviously collapsed. That was great news. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but if this dimension had some sort of trap hidden for people who tried to change it too much, and we had fallen afoul of it, that would have been catastrophic. I was still a novice at dimensional terraforming and complicated alteration essence usage - there were probably all sorts of ways this could have gone wrong, but it seemed like we had dodged them by virtue of corporate laziness.

It was also obvious that we probably would have gotten this warning if we had gotten close to our objective of creating an artificial sun. I just hoped that the System didn’t constantly spam us with warning messages when we were on the verge of success - I certainly wouldn’t want constant error messages clogging up my vision as I tried to work on a delicate object that even I barely understood.

<So, we’re safe, right?> I asked.

<Well, not entirely,> said Felix. <We should still keep an eye on things as we work. I suspect we’re probably safe, but we need to be wary of a careless mistake, or it could send us tumbling into the abyss. I don’t know how we could take precautions though… so just do your best, Miria. If the dimension has some sort of countermeasure for us changing too much, and we get killed by it, don’t beat yourself up. We’re trying our best, and sometimes that doesn’t work out. but it’s not your fault if things go wrong.>

I hesitated for a moment, before I nodded. <Got it,> I said.

<So we can’t ask for a regular star core,> said Sallia. <But we’re probably safe if we make one, right?>

<I think so,> said Felix. <So, here’s what I think we need to make an actual star. First of all, we obviously need a way to let sunlight out without letting dimensional laws in. I think some kind of spatial pocket makes the most sense for solving this problem. I can get that from my trial reward - we obviously need it, and it would fit well with my interests.>

<Are you sure?> I asked. <I was the one who originally had the idea of using our trial rewards to get physical objects to build this sun.>

<I’m sure,> said Felix. <Because all of us are going to do our best to put this artificial sun together, right? And when it works, all four of us are going to get an absolutely ridiculous amount of Achievement.>

<I don’t mind sacrificing my rewards for the hero trial either, if needed,> said Sallia. <I don’t think there’s a whole lot of hope of going down the original hero’s path in this world. Things are so far gone that even trying would be suicidal. The moment we touch the continent below these islands we’re going to die. Creating a sun is both good for the people here and good for us. It’s the only real path forward that I can see.>

<I want to help too! Everyone has helped me a lot, so… I want to help you guys out as well,> said Anise. <You can count on me! Just let me know what items we need!>

I felt my heart grow a bit warmer. I was glad that my friends thought so highly of my artificial sun plan.

<So, I’m going to get the insulated space pocket,> said Felix. <Here’s what I’m thinking for the other rewards for the group.

<Sallia, we still need a way to feed Essence into the sun. If we don’t have that, the sun will eventually collapse into itself - after all, we’re creating an artificial, pocket-sized sun, not a real sun. I just checked, and there is a reward we can get that solves this problem. It’s a type of object called a ‘dimensional wire.’ In essence, it allows for a very short-range teleport of essence from one spot to another, while teleporting ONLY essence - no dimensional laws pass through the wire, meaning there won’t be anything to destabilize the sun. That’s important, because this thing is probably gonna be fragile - especially at first.>

<I can get that as my reward,> said Sallia. <That’s why you mentioned my name first, right?>

<Yeah, that was my idea,> said Felix. <So I’ll get the spatial pocket we need, and Sallia will get the dimensional wire that we need. As long as the sun gets big enough and produces enough sunlight, it SHOULD become a net-positive source of essence for the sanctuary. Of course, I don’t think we can create a sun that big immediately - and we’re also going to need a way to actually get sunlight everywhere it needs to go. That is going to be much harder, if the sun is trapped inside of a spatial pocket - so Anise, this is where your reward comes in.

<There is another item we need, which, according to the System screen, is called a ‘distorted lens’. This thing will distort space around it in a pretty interesting way - it allows for rays of light, images, and other eye-based magic to spread out in ways that make no sense, at least according to the regular laws of physics. What we care about is its ability to spread out light. Since the sun is going to remain trapped in a little spatial bubble forever, it’s useless to grow the sun, right? The light it emits will grow more intense, but it’ll have a hard time reaching the main city on this sanctuary - and it’ll never hit the other two cities on this sanctuary, much less the other sanctuaries. The distorted lens will take the sunlight and spread it back out over the Sanctuary, thus neatly resolving the issue and ensuring all the mages here get enough sunlight.>

<Got it!> said Anise. <I’ll get that as my reward for the Hero Trial, then.>

<So we just need to find a way to actually make the sun grow just from people tossing more essence into it, right?> I asked, a moment later. I could already figure out what Felix would ask me to acquire.

<Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Any variation of that request gets dinged as a ‘forbidden item,’ and the hero trial refuses to give it as a reward,> said Felix. <So I think we’ll still need to solve this problem via education and our own effort. The four of us will create a giant magic core by ourselves, since we know what proper sunlight looks like, and then we’ll ensure that it can grow, as long as people feed it more essence. It’ll take a while before we hit the point where it’s a net positive amount of essence, but we should get there sooner or later. We have very long lifespans in this dimension, so we have time to make this work.>

I frowned. <Then what should I get for my reward?>

<A stat boost for your alteration essence stat,> said Felix. <Alteration essence is the core of our project here, and you are our alteration specialist. You should make the hero trial give you the biggest boost you can possibly get for the stat, so that we can cut down the time needed for the star to sustain itself as much as possible, and reduce the possibility for error as much as possible.>

My frown deepened. <Are you sure? If I’m the only one that gets to improve my stats, I’ll feel like I’m the one benefitting the most from this arrangement of rewards. That makes me feel a little guilty.>

<Miria… you don’t need to feel guilty,> said Felix. <At the end of the day, you’re the only one who can make this whole plan come together. You were also the one that came up with the idea of making an artificial sun in the first place. If it works out, all four of us will have enough Achievement to go absolutely wild when we return to the Market. It’s not a bad thing for you to get the best possible tools for that plan. This might seem like a plan where you benefit the most, but really, it’s just the most reasonable way to accomplish our goals.>

<If you’re sure…> I said, and repressed the urge to sigh. 

“How big of a boost to my alteration stat can I get if I focus every single part of the trial on that?” I asked out loud.

“Eight.”

Going from Grade 8 to Grade 19??? How powerful were the rewards for this trial?

I suddenly had a better idea just how powerful the rewards for previous heroes were. None of us had a perfect idea how much we improved from one Grade to another, but we were pretty sure it was some sort of compounding equation - before grade 10, at least, every single grade seemed to increase a stat by 50%. This number seemed to slowly ‘decay’ after Grade 10, meaning it wouldn’t be quite as absurd of a boost… but even so, I was probably going to boost my essence pool by nearly two orders of magnitude if I passed all three stages of the trial. Right now, Elder Veridian estimated that I had something like 5-10% of her essence pool. After this trial, I might have two or three times her essence pool. It was such a massive change that I couldn’t help but feel excited.

A moment later, I forced myself to calm down. All of this was dependent on me passing the trial. That wasn’t guaranteed. I needed to focus.

<Looks like I can go up 3-4 Grades of my stat per stage of the trial,> I said. <Are you guys sure I should be the only one taking stat boosts?>

<Yes, I’m sure. Do you two object?> Asked Felix. Sallia and Anise sent messages confirming they were okay with it one final time, and I winced. The trust of my friends felt very heavy… but if they trusted me that much, I didn’t want to let them down.

<All right, then it looks like we’re done planning. Let’s get the trial started,> said Felix.