Chapter 328: Spatial Abilities- Markets and Multiverses

Author Note -  HUGE error last chapter.

So, to explain what the issue is, I need to go into a bit of an explanation about how my editing process currently works. Obviously, I’ve changed the way I edit chapters a bunch of times, as I experiment with new ways to get chapters written, figure out what’s easier, what makes better chapters, etc. But right now, I start out by writing a rough draft for each chapter. It’s pretty freehand, kind of a relaxed ‘this is roughly how the chapter should go, here are some concepts I wanna touch on this chapter, double check this later in my notes, this is what this monster roughly does, blah blah blah’ kind of stuff. It’s not meant to be a perfect reflection of what the chapter will be. The idea is to get something onto the page so that I can start editing.

Then, I wait a day. Afterwards, the chapter goes through another draft. This time, I clean up most ‘incorrect’ references to the worldbuilding. I double check my worldbuilding notes, fix any contradictions between what the chapter says and what my notes say, extend any parts of the scene that feel like they lack detail, shrink any parts of the scene that feel bloated… basically, the content remains sort of the same, but it gets fleshed out and I go over it with a marker to fix any big issues. This also tends to make the chapter go from 'kind of weak' to 'readable.'

Then, for the third draft, I transfer the document into a  different program to check for grammar, spelling, sentences that are choppy or hard to understand, all the times I make a sentence way too long, the times I use a specific word way too often, etc. I also tend to go over a final round of revisions. Sometimes, I decide that a few parts of the chapter set up a certain direction that I don’t quite like. Maybe I have a slightly different plan for something twenty or thirty chapters down the line, and the way a chapter is constructed foreshadows things that I don't quite mean to happen. Or maybe I give away too much information for whatever the main characters have found. There's only so much info that logically should  be in a random shop ledger, after all. Sometimes I go a bit beyond that and need to reel it back in. There might even be a smaller contradiction between worldbuilding notes and the chapter, that I didn’t originally notice during the second draft. I tend to be sloppier with drafts that I know aren’t ‘final,’ okay? I know that nobody but me and my beta reader are supposed to see them, so I slack off a bit when it comes to checking worldbuilding notes and trying to make things ‘perfect’ T_T. As long as no one else sees it, it’s fine right?

Anyway, this third draft is where the issue cropped up.

The program I use to check for spelling and sentence structure does not have any way to record ‘boxes.’ So any System messages I copy-paste into that program and then copy-pasted back into my word doc are not correctly formatted. To deal with this, I usually copy-paste them back out one at a time, into whatever System boxes I already have set up.

While I was editing yesterday, I accidentally copy-pasted one of my System boxes into the wrong System box. More specifically…I started out by copy-pasting the bed’s first EDITED text box into the first box, just as I should have. Then, I copy-pasted the bed’s SECOND chunk of dialogue… into the text box where its first chunk of dialogue was contained. Without fixing the second text box. I then moved on, and continued editing the chapter. This also… means that the part of the text where Miria learns why she would even care about learning to extract Achievement from her soul was completely missing, and instead there was an ‘old draft’ and ‘new draft’ version of the same explanation in the bed’s first two text boxes. That was probably pretty darn confusing. When I was rereading it for today’s chapter, I spent a while trying to figure out why the first text box seemed so weird, and the second text box seemed so out of context with the first one. Both of them seemed correct, in that they were things I remembered writing for the chapter... but I couldn't figure out what was so weird about them until I really sat down and reread the paragraphs leading up to them and following them. That was when I realized that an important explanation was missing, and had been replaced with an old draft of a different chunk of text. Sorry about the mix-up, the chapter should be corrected now T_T. Oops.

The interface for buying new abilities was bloated. It was ludicrous. It was so long that I would need days to read through the entire list. Heck, it would probably take me a day to read the name of every Ability. While I was happy that there was such a huge collection to choose from, I was also a little bit worried. With that many Abilities, would I be able to choose the ‘right’ Ability before we ran out of time? I hadn't forgotten that I was on a timer. Once my clone dissipated, we needed to be out of this building.

Luckily, after a bit of poking through the menus, I found a search option. I could tell the menu what type of ability I wanted, or what type of characteristics I was looking for. I could even tell the list about my current abilities and what I wanted to be able to do, and the list would recommend Abilities for me. There were also several buttons that let me define my budget. There were even a few 'starter packages,' that listed Abilities such as 'the best spatial Abilities for a new Swordsman!' Out of curiosity, I clicked on it, and saw three generic, non-keyword Abilities that were all cheap. One of them was a slight variation of the one-handed swordsmanship Ability I had thrown away. The second Ability was a very similar one, but it helped with footwork, instead of raw swordsmanship. The third Ability was one that let the user strengthen and sharpen any sword they were holding by spending life force. That Ability seemed a lot more situational than the first two, but I could kind of understand the logic behind it.

I shrugged, and stopped messing around with the search features. I didn't have enough time to waste on things that weren't relevant to me. I started filling out all of the relevant search features. A few moments later, a list of useful-looking Abilities appeared.

This time, the list was much shorter than the first, dizzying list. There were only two dozen Abilities left. Six of them were ‘recommended,’ by the bed, while the other 18 Abilities were the ones that fit my search parameters. That was enough to give me some options to look at, without being too overwhelming.

The first thing I confirmed was that the list didn’t include any Abilities that solved my lack of soul-related Abilities. I had added that as one of my ‘desired Abilities,’ since I had been holding out some hope that a non-keyword Ability would solve my needs. If I could find a soul-related non-keyword Ability, I could get the best of both worlds. I would evolve my Keyword Ability into an Eldritch Ability, and still have a soul-related Ability. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any relevant Abilities in the list. I wasn’t sure if that was because this was the Spatial fair, or if there was some other reason I couldn't find what I wanted. It was even possible that what I wanted was available from this bed, but way outside my budget. Either way, I couldn’t find an easy solution to my problem.

I also didn’t see any Abilities that worked like Anise's Ability customization, either. I had been hoping to find a way to keep Abilities from one life to another, without needing to rebuild everything. Sadly, there weren't any options for that. That was unfortunate, but not wholly unexpected. I would have to keep an eye out in the future.

The third thing I confirmed was that there weren’t any space-time related abilities. I had seen the idea that Space and Time were the same thing tossed around a few times in our last world, as a sort of ‘out there’ physics idea. It kind of went over my head, but lots of that world's scientists had believed it was true.

Either way, as far as magic and the Market went, there didn’t seem to be any sort of link between the two. There was spatial magic, and there were a few Abilities that referenced time-related keywords. However, there were no Abilities that referenced 'spacetime'. I had been hoping to find something overpowered that controlled both in the list of Abilities. Sadly, my search results related to 'spacetime control' hadn't produced any results.

However, I had still gotten one rather interesting result when looking for 'spacetime control.' I wasn't sure if it was a good fit for me, but it was certainly interesting.

Glitch Capsule (Advanced Grade)

Revert space and the minds of nearby living creatures.

Once per lifetime, if you take a fatal blow, use the power of space and healing to revert your body to a fully healed state, then revert all physical objects within five meters of your corpse to their previous states. Finally, if a living organism killed you, remove their memories of the last seven seconds of time. (Deaths from things like diseases, old age, etc. will not revert).

(Note: this is an advanced grade ability, not a total override of reality. Creatures more powerful than this ability can usually resist the attempt to move them back in space and wipe their memories. You will still heal and rewind fine. However, the enemy might perfectly remember killing you and then seeing time rewind. This usually requires that they at least reach Law Grade in a Skill, though, or have an item of equivalent rank).

Glut cost: 20

When we had spoken with the soul fragment last world, it had told us a bit about the greater Multiverse. One of the things it had mentioned was the fact that time travel was impossible. Or, at least, it was impossible to send yourself back into the past. However, it was possible to revert time for objects. When Felix had asked about what the difference was, we had learned that time travel was less 'impossible' than the soul had led us to believe.

With the right Ability, it was completely possible to revert time for an entire dimension. While very rare, there were dimensions where someone had re-lived the same period of time over and over again as they tried to change something. it was just that the rest of the Multiverse didn't go back in time with them. If someone relived the same decade 100 times, the people inside of the dimension wouldn't notice anything. However, an observer watching the dimension would see the whole dimension rewind every decade.

The other major thing we had learned about time in that conversation was that time did not pass equally across the Multiverse. Plenty of dimensions had time pass a little bit more slowly or quickly relative to the rest of the multiverse. However, there tended to be certain limits to how different time passage was - at least under natural circumstances. A natural-born dimension tended to be, at most, ten times faster or slower than 'multiversal average time.' Of course, some Mages or civilizations had managed to go far beyond this 'natural limit...'

In any case, I found this Ability pretty interesting. It was pretty similar to a 'time-reversal' type Ability. Obviously, it was far more limited in scope and utility... but it was, in a sense, reverting time. But it was still a very potent ability in the right circumstances. It gave one a ‘free’ extra life, and it also messed with the mind of whatever had killed the user.

The price tag for this ability was exorbitant. It was 5,000 Achievement. It was more expensive than some keyword abilities, and took up almost as much glut cost as a keyword ability. However, for some people, it would be worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the Ability wasn't a good fit for me. The Ability would restore the BODY of the user... but not their essence reserves. Since I was focusing on being a mage-type fighter, that meant this Ability was way less valuable for me. Still, someone like Sallia would get a lot out of an Ability like this.

I made a mental note to remind my friends to look at {Glitch Capsule} later, and see if they were interested in it. Then, I continued scrolling through the Abilities the bed AI had recommended to me. Eventually, I narrowed down what I wanted. I found three Abilities that I ended up buying.

The first Ability was a simple one, which I usually wouldn’t have given a second glance to. However, it fit my current needs too well to pass up.

Space Capsule (Basic Grade)

Gain the ability to spend any essence to form a small, 1 m X  1 m X 1 m capsule of space which will maintain itself until destroyed. This can be used to hold anything and isolate it from the rest of the world. Strong physical force or mana will disrupt this capsule, causing it to ‘vomit’ its contents back into the world. This capsule cannot be moved. This capsule requires essence to keep functioning (it can store up to one week of energy.)

Glut cost: 1

This Ability seemed pretty useless most of the time. I was not worried about whether it was useful 'most of the time,' though. It was exactly what I needed for creating a glob of mana attuned to a certain concept. It would also be useful if I wanted to create an Eldritch Ability Evolution. No matter what path I ended up taking, it would make it much easier. More importantly, it was cheap. The Ability only cost 30 Achievement. I only needed this Ability for my next Ability Evolution, so being cheap was important. This Ability was easy to pick up, and just as easy to throw away. When I didn’t need this Ability anymore, I would only need to pay 10 more Achievement to get rid of it.

The second Ability was more of a utility Ability than a combat-oriented one.

Inventory (Intermediate Grade)

Gain a 3m x 3m x 3m dimensional storage space. Time passes at about a 1:10 ratio inside of this storage space compared to outside. Living things will die if stuffed inside of this storage space for an extended period of time.

Glut cost: 10

Right now, I already had access to something like this in the form of my backpack. However, I had 105 Glut, while I only had 5 item slots. In my mind, Item slots were now more valuable than 10 Glut. Thus, exchanging 10 Glut for 1 free item slot was a decent trade. It also had a larger space than the backpack, meaning I could store quite a bit inside. 3 meters was almost twice my height. It was practically a large closet. As long as I didn't try to stuff everything inside, I would have an easy time storing everything I needed.

The Ability itself cost 500 Achievement, which was a bit pricey, but wasn’t bad.

Finally, the Ability I was most excited about.

Spatial Rifts (Basic Grade)

Whenever you manipulate space, especially for portals, eldritch warping of space, or direct tears in space, you may spend a bit more essence to leave behind a ‘tear’ in reality. Whenever other life comes into contact with this ‘tear’, it will cut through flesh and bone. It will also mildly warp the laws of physics, occasionally causing mild Eldritch contamination. Good for creating invisible, deadly tripwires.

Spatial ‘tears’ dissipate after about twenty seconds.

Glut cost: 15

This final Abilility also cost me a pretty penny, at 3,000 Achievement. With these three purchases, I spent 3,530 Achievement, dropping me down to 1,702.00 Achievement and 6 free Glut. However, I was more than happy with my final purchases. I was already well versed in using portals to ‘dodge’ projectiles, and my clone inherently warped space in an eldritch way. This ability let me spend a bit of essence to turn the connection between my clone and myself into a kind of razor-sharp tripwire. I could also turn my portals into miniature magic landmines. With this ability, I was heavily incentivized to keep investing into better spatial manipulation, but I was fine with that. This Ability had a lot of potential for letting me weaponize my Absorption essence in new and useful ways.

After I purchased my third non-Keyword Ability, I looked over my Abilities again. I had about the same amount of Glut and Stats as before. However, I was much stronger, I had an extra item slot I could swap out anytime, and I had a clear path towards my next Ability evolution. I felt like I had undergone numerous upgrades during our time here, even though I had the same amount of Glut used up as before. Combined with my other purchases, my three new Abilities cost 26 Glut in total. I was once again left with 99/105 Glut used. However, I was far stronger than before.

After I got off the bed, I told the others what I had bought, and then Felix started his final round of shopping.

After he finished up, it would be time to make a final decision. We had a little over twelve hours before my clone dissipated, thus alerting whatever else was inside of the facility to our presence. In that time, we needed to figure out whether we were pushing further into the building, or if we were leaving. But at the very least, either way, I was satisfied that we had benefited from this incursion into the inner district of the Market.

Author’s Note:

Don’t forget: I will be taking the last week of December and the First Week of January off as a vacation. The last chapter for 2024 will be on December 20th (my time), and I will return around January 5th… ish. I mean, that’ll be the day I start working on rough drafts for chapters for the week, which will take a few days to clean up, edit, and release. The first actual chapter of next year is probably going to be around January 7th for Markets and Multiverses, and around Jan 10th for Budding Scientist. (I say around because timezones can make this a bit wonky, and sometimes I upload really late in the… morning, honestly. But you get the general idea).

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