As the bright blue light begins to fade Trystan sees the blue box of test results floating in his vision in front of him.

  It looked like he had lost some Style points for how he completed the Test, as well as some combat points for not actually fighting all of the Zombies. But still, all said and done he was still ending up with over four times the points he had originally started with. This would definitely help him for his first visit to the store, which, unless he was completely misremembering, was about to happen in 3, 2, 1.

  The world around him started shimmering into existence, a wooden room filled with shelves, glass display cases, and a counter with a strange-looking female standing behind it was revealed. She was one of the NPC races, one that had been forced into the Tower earlier and had lost it all. They weren’t all the same, and unfortunately, the Store wasn’t something you could summon at will, no they were actual physical stores inside of the Tower that had to be found and entered in order to spend the hard-earned points.

  It wasn’t just that each Store carried different items than the others, but the Stores were safe places, no combat could take place, no theft could occur, the System just would not allow it to happen. That stated, outside of the Stores were sometimes the most dangerous areas in each of the levels of the Tower. Not just because the worst of humanity would often reveal themselves by attempting to claim points from people before they entered, or claim items after they left, but because once you started getting into the levels of the Tower where multiple races were fighting they were locations where you could wind up coming face to face with the enemy before realizing it.

  The woman speaks up immediately as she watches him become aware of his location.

  “Sir, I am pleased to inform you that you have entered the System Store for the first time. From this location, as well as the various others within the Tower, you may spend your Points. Points may be exchanged for Equipment, Abilities, or Stat increases. The cost of each of these items is available for perusal at your convenience.” She smiles softly and blinks up at him shyly, “If you don’t mind me saying so sir, it looks like you may have come out ahead in your Test, you should be able to afford plenty of good items with that. As a first time customer, might I recommend that you also look into purchasing food, as well as the other essentials. I should warn you that this Store contains full stocks of all items, other Store’s visited in the future will have a restricted list based on their location, availability of Stock, and purchased items.”

  It was said, though never confirmed, that the Store merchants gained a small portion of the points from the items that they sold, something that they could save up to eventually earn themselves some level of freedom. It was certainly true that you rarely saw a storekeeper outside of the Store, and they always seemed to be available, no matter what time you entered. Trystan wasn’t even sure what their actual purpose in the Store was, sure, they made recommendations to the people who entered the store, and they provided the physical items, but most of the time when a person purchased something they would find what the wanted from the System lists and prompts that were automatically generated.

  Trystan smiles at the woman, “Thank you. I know I’ll only see you this once, but my name is Trystan, I was hoping I could get your name?”

  The woman tilts her head for a moment, her blue hair cascading over her shoulder as she blinks confused for a moment, “My name is Maria.”

  Trystan nods and gives her a smile, “Well, first thing Maria is I’d like to take a look at the available abilities, I’ll filter them with the System once the screen comes up.”

  Maria nods again, her large blue and green eyes blinking for a moment, “Of course, sir, let me send that over your way now.” She looks at him as if trying to pry secrets from him but shrugs and after a few seconds, the Store’s blue screen appears in front of him. He quickly reduces the list down to ones focus first on the baseline ability list, he already knew what he was going to choose, but he did want to review one last time before purchase.

  He looked over the short list, technically he actually had the points to immediately purchase above the Initiate level, but it was far more powerful if he actually trained it up himself. Trystan steels himself for a moment and makes his selection. He knew and understood Ki Cultivation already, he knew he could raise it faster, become stronger, but...that might not be enough. If he wanted to survive, he would have to change things up completely, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

  Trystan reads the prompt and blinks for a moment before his eyes go wide and he nearly shouts with joy. He takes a calming breath and, not trusting an internal thought to activate the System this time, says softly, “Show Mana Affinity Details.”

  Trystan reads over the ability and gasps in astonishment. If he had changed his mind last minute he’d have been screwed, but as it was he was definitely in a better place. Though this new restriction would mean he would have to rethink his initial idea of picking up a few Psionic abilities to add flexibility to his magic. He’d also have to figure out a new way to defend himself from the Psionic abilities of others, Psi Power not only enhanced the power of Psi abilities used but also had an impact on how well you could defend against other’s Psi abilities. He’d have to spend more points raising the base Stats that resisted Psi abilities if he wanted to actually try and negate the penalty this ability provided.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Maria, do you happen to know who the First is?” Trystan asks as he dismisses the ability box.

  Maria’s eyes go wide and her mouth starts to open when a brief layer of blue light surrounds her and then fades, leaving her eyes glowing with System blue. Then in a robotic voice, she speaks.

  “Information regarding the First is restricted. If you believe you are receiving this notice in error please contact your local Tower Administrator.”

  Maria blinks a few times as the blue light from her eyes fade and a slightly worried look appears on her face.

  Trystan looks at the quest and nods slowly before dismissing it, long term quests weren’t common, most of them were focused on a single floor, but there were a few he had heard of that spanned multiple floors. Shaking his head he focuses back on the task at hand, he didn’t have forever to stay in this room, and every minute that he was in here rather than out in the Tower, was a minute that he was losing out on changing the future. He quickly looks back to the list and filters out to Bloodline Abilities. Not that he would be purchasing any of them, but it was a good reminder of what he might be working toward later.

  Trystan filters the list after reviewing the bloodlines for a moment, nothing he could get right now, but a few he definitely wanted to keep an eye on later. With the new filter, he keeps solely to items Mana Affinity will correspond to as well as a few of the abilities he used from his first time through that may still be worth it now. He would keep the base Stat increase items for later, but still keep on the Enhancements. You could always actually work hard to increase your base stats in the beginning, it was later on, when after your stats broke through a certain point that you would need to actually start purchasing them. That was another lesson learned too late, and one that he had made sure that everyone was aware of. But the Stat Enhancements worked differently, increasing your effective stat by applying a percentile bonus to the base stat. As a long list of spells starts appearing on the screen he quickly reduces it down to the two basic spells that he knew would be immediately useful.

  Finally, Trystan filters to review the Unique Abilities List. He’d have to pay some special attention to the Unique abilities list though, they had a limited number of times that they could be purchased, sure it seemed like a lot, but when billions of people came over it ended up being a very small number of available Unique Abilities slots. He tried to ensure that the filter removed all the Psionic and Ki based Unique abilities, neither of those who serve him here.

  Trystan takes a moment, on seeing Spell Creation, to review what it actually does. It cost a lot, more points than he could spend right now, but it could be worth it later once he had saved enough points.

  Trystan is stunned for a moment, suddenly realizing what ability Merlin must have picked up on the first run through. Nodding to himself, he takes mental note to make sure to purchase Spell Creation in the future.

  Going through the list quickly Trystan purchases Enhanced Mana Regeneration, Enhanced Mana Pool, Meditation (Initiate), Mana Bolt, and Mana Shield, leaving him with 7500 points left. Enough points to start purchasing some of the cheaper equipment items, but not much else. He settles on getting a cheap five hundred point sword and armor and then banks the remaining 6,500 points for later. Not only would it help to have enough padding to purchase a smaller ability or skill later, but it could always be possible that his MRE’s run out before he starts being able to make food in the Tower, in which case at a point per day the expenses would start adding up.

  As he makes his purchase Maria goes into the back of the store and returns with a package of his wrapped equipment. Handing over the copper equipment purchased, the metal jingling lightly through the paper wrapping in her hands. The armor would only give a very small amount of damage reduction, and only against lower-powered abilities and equipment, but it would be better than nothing at all.

  Nodding to himself, he brings up his Character Sheet by thinking ‘Status’, making sure to filter out Psi and Ki stats, he just didn’t want to be discouraged this early and include the Mana traits he never pulled up in the past.

  Trystan freezes as he reads his sheet, what do you mean no Luck?