Markets and Multiverses

As people started to realize the glowing fish was dead, boats began to descend upon the beach and prod at the corpse. Hunters pulled out spears and started stabbing it, to make sure it was dead, and other abilities and weapons were occasionally launched at the corpse in case the fish was faking its death. However, as moments ticked by, more and more people began to realize the fish was really dead. 

While the villagers poked the fish corpse, I took a few moments to look over the boats who had joined the hunt and assess the damage from the fight.

In order to kill the glowing fish, about a hundred and fifty boats had joined the hunt, including several village chiefs. Perhaps thirty of those boats had been destroyed, and one village chief had also died. Another village chief had been seriously injured, although it looked like they would recover eventually. In addition, several Fishermen and hunters had died during the fight with the glowing fish - perhaps fifteen percent of the people in the fight had died or been seriously injured. The losses weren’t crippling, but they definitely weren’t light either.

I looked at the surviving members of my own boat, trying to double check whether any of us were seriously injured. All of us were charred and hurt as a result of the lightning attack we had survived, but we had gotten off relatively lightly. Most of our injuries would heal with some medical attention and a few days of healing.

Brezin and Olav both looked at the glowing fish, madly grinning as they confirmed that the creature was dead. My father gave me a bone crushing hug when he finally realized that we had survived the fight, before kissing my forehead.

I grinned as well, finally overcoming the surging adrenaline and fear of the fight. Then, since people were still processing the end of the fight, I checked my System notifications.

Immediately, a flood of notifications filled my field of vision.

Influence: Contributed to the battle against the glowing fish by a [Negligible] amount.

Achievement +??? (Achievement will not be awarded until current events are completed.)

 

Influence: Contributed to the battle against the glowing fish by a [Moderate] amount.

Achievement +??? (Achievement will not be awarded until current events are completed.)

 

Influence: Contributed to the battle against the glowing fish by a [Negligible] amount.

Achievement +??? (Achievement will not be awarded until current events are completed.)

I quickly realized most of them were duplicates of the same message. During the course of the fight, anytime I took an action, I seemed to have been awarded an unknown amount of Achievement.

When I cleared away all of the repeat messages, only a few remained.

Influence: Total contribution to the battle against the Glowing Fish was [Significant]

Slaugher: Assist the locals in killing The Glowing Fish, a semi-unique leviathan of the deeps

Achievement +1,000, Achievement +200

Overall, my other System notifications seemed to be lumped into my final Achievement total. When I looked over the amount of Achievement I had received for participating in the fight, I was more than happy with the amount of Achievement I had earned.

During my entire time in this world, I had managed to reach a total of 4,108 Achievement, including the 20 Achievement I had spent learning more about Skills and Glut Penalty. This was the result of years of hard work - I had crafted massive quantities of items, trained like a madwoman with Sallia and Felix, and killed huge amounts of Great Fish during my time here. I had earned a good amount of Achievement from each category of reward, and I had felt decent about my efforts to prepare for our return to the Market. However, the previous rewards I had gained were nothing compared to the Achievement I had earned from this one battle.

In a single battle I had gone from 4,108 Achievement to 5,308 Achievement. My earnings from taking part in the battle today had given me more Achievement than I had earned in some years during my time here.

I suddenly realized that Influence seemed to be a much more valuable category of reward than I had first thought. What I had done during the fight might not have totally changed the course of the battle, but I had heavily influenced the number of deaths and losses the villages faced during the fight. If I hadn’t been here, it wouldn’t have been surprising if we had lost another dozen boats during the fight. And the rewards were massive - I had gained huge amounts of Achievement as a result. However, I also quickly realized something even more important about Influence Achievement.

As far as I could tell, ‘Influence’ rewards were based around taking part in big events that happened in the world I was living in. Subjugating the glowing fish, interfering with the first encounter between the Islanders and the Outsiders… these were the types of events that gave me Influence Achievement. And, importantly, each of these important events was unique. Which meant that, unlike reward categories like Slaughter and Crafting, I wouldn’t face the diminishing returns from doing the same thing over and over again. What mattered the most was how able I was to interfere with big events when I participated in them. Building up my Skills and Power were also quite valuable methods of earning Achievement, but taking part in big events and altering their outcome seemed to produce far more Achievement than quietly killing landbeasts or Great Fish.

I decided to take note of this for future worlds. Right now the three of us weren’t particularly impressive as far as the average strength of the islanders was concerned. However, due to sheer dumb luck, my illusion ability had been unique and useful in this situation, allowing me to play a big role in the fight against the glowing fish. In the future, as we got more Abilities and Stats and became more experienced, we would be able to play bigger and bigger roles in the worlds we were born in. I grinned to myself, before I continued scrolling through my System notifications. I had gotten a big amount of Achievement, but that wasn’t the only thing I had gotten.

You have [Significantly] influenced a major event in your current world.

You have created the [Basic] Grade Ability ‘Lies like Realities.’ It may be purchased after your death for 500 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: Illusion (1 Keyword.)

Upon Birth, you will immediately gain [Basic] Grade Skill with Illusion-related spellcasting. (This will apply regardless of which Essence you use, so long as the spell or ability is Illusion-related.)

Upon reaching [Basic] Grade Skill in Illusions, your Intelligence will increase by 10 points. (This is attached to your current body, not your Soul.)

It will become much easier to advance to [Intermediate] Grade Skill with Illusions. 

Upon reaching [Intermediate] grade Skill in Illusions, your Intelligence will increase by 20 points, and one Essence type will be increased by 5 points (you choose which Essence.) (This is attached to your current body, not your Soul.)

Once per life, you may activate a state of enhanced Illusory ability, temporarily granting you access to [Advanced] Grade Skill in Illusion-related spellcasting. This state will last for one hour before it ends. Upon activating this State, one essence category of your choice will have a significant amount of essence restored (enough to refill you to approximately maximum capacity if you have Grade 5 in that Essence.) This places a significant amount of strain on your mind and body, and may leave you in a weakened state for a few days after the ability wears off.

Glut Penalty: 3

Note: Since you already have an option to purchase an Illusion-grade Ability after this death, you may get a skilled craftsmen to splice together components of each ability before purchasing an Ability that combines the best parts of each ability, or tailors it to your specific needs. You may also use any of the Skill Centers in the Market to do so automatically, but please bear in mind that the level of customization you can achieve with an automated center is much lower. However, it is also much cheaper.

I looked at the ability I had unlocked, thinking carefully about whether I wanted it or not.

Did I want to keep using Illusions in future worlds? And was this ability useful enough to keep around, even if I did keep using Illusions in the future?

If I did purchase this ability, I could have up to two keyword Abilities boosting my illusion abilities. However, I wondered  if I would be making a decision about my future ‘build’ too quickly. If I bought both keyword Abilities I had seen, I would have spent 18 glut, 4 keyword slots, and 3,000 Achievement on boosting my Illusions and retaining access to the rune magic system. I wasn’t sure if I was willing to invest 500 Achievement in the Ability I had just been offered, and I also wasn’t sure if I should decide on my ‘build’ this early either. ‘Lies like Realities,’ in particular, seemed decent, but not outstanding. Its effects were similar to the [Swordsmanship] Abilities I had unlocked earlier in this life, and although I was obviously getting much more for a much smaller amount of glut penalty. However, I didn’t think trading a keyword slot was worth it. 

I shrugged, and decided to think about it once I was dead. It wouldn’t be too late to make my final decision later, after all. Right now, at least, I was leaning towards ‘not buying Lies like Realities,’ but if I got some sort of third Ability that synergized really well with illusions, I might change my mind. Illusions were a strong ability - much stronger than I had initially given them credit for being. However, they were also very tricky to use. I would think about it when I had more information.

“We survived the fight, little Miria. The path to surviving that fight was full of twists and turns, but at the end of the day, we saved the villages. We… we won the fight!” Said Brezin, breaking me out of my thoughts. He sounded exhausted, and almost as if he was forcing himself to cheer, but a small, adrenaline fueled smile remained near his lips as he yelled.

As we watched the hunters continue to attack the dead body, the tense atmosphere began to relax, and finally, Olav began cackling as he looked at the dead fish.

“We won! That damned fish’s gone! Long live the Islands! Praise be ta the Ocean Mother, for givin’ us victory against this monstrosity of the deeps!” called Olav, his voice booming as he laughed giddily.

I heard another fishermen from a boat I didn’t recognize take up the cheer a moment later.

“Thank the Ocean Mother! Long live the islands!”

Another fishermen spread the same cheer, and soon the fishermen and hunters began cheering and laughing, as the corpse of the Glowing Fish lay collapsed in the nearby sand. I saw people crying and laughing everywhere, as well as a few people walking up to the dead body of the fish in order to kick it or spit on it.

During the chaos, I walked towards the corpse of the glowing fish. Now that it wasn’t fighting back anymore, I wanted to investigate something.

Deep inside of its body, I could still see the eight fish cores and eight runes inside of the glowing fish, due to the translucent nature of its skin. Like most Great Fish, it had one fish core for each rune. However, one of the fish cores looked a bit different from a regular fish core. Instead of a deep blue color, it was a solid yellow color, and it still glowed faintly in the fish’s body. When I looked at the core, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the lightning strikes I had seen during storm season each year, and I couldn’t help but think about the massive glowing orbs I had seen in the ocean during each storm. No matter how I looked at it, it strongly resembled the strange orbs from the ocean storms.

Was it possible that the glowing fish had somehow swallowed one of the glowing orbs, causing its eighth rune to change? I couldn’t think of any other reason the Glowing Fish would be able to use four abilities during the fight. Not to mention, the ability to teleport was way too unusual - I had never seen another creature in this world use teleportation, ever. However, the glowing fish was able to use an Ability nobody had ever heard of or seen before. While there was a chance the glowing fish had simply managed to conceptualize space and teleportation when nobody else on the planet had done so, I found that quite unlikely. The fish had proven multiple times that it wasn’t particularly bright, after all. In that case, perhaps the glowing light from the storm orb had influenced the Abilities of the fish more heavily than I thought?

I had always felt that the ocean of our islands was strange and unique, and for the first time, one of the mysteries of the deeps was right in front of me. I frowned and eyed the fish core, wondering if I could convince the village chiefs to let me look at it for a while. I had contributed a lot to the fight. Surely they would let me take a look, at least?

However, now wasn’t the time to decide how to divvy up the corpse of the Glowing Fish. The villages had already said they would deal with the corpse of the glowing fish as a group, after the fight. And right now, everyone was much more interested in celebrating their survival and the death of the glowing fish than worrying about the spoils of war.

I began walking back towards Olav and the other members of my boat. However, it wasn’t just members of my boat that were congratulating me and giving me hugs and nods of approval. Other, completely random sailors and hunters I had never seen before occasionally walked up to me, before congratulating me. They thanked me for participating in the fight, and a few teary men and women thanked me for saving their lives with a well-timed illusion. While I had played a much less important role in the fight than the village chiefs, who had borne the biggest burden during the fight, during the first phase of the battle I had played a huge role in minimizing the casualties of the combatants as much as possible. And several people from the villages had noticed that.

After a few moments of scanning the wounded from the fight, I absorbed another fish core before I helped out where I could. Most of the injured were either dead already or had received treatment, but there were a few cases where I could still offer some help. Half an hour passed as I checked on the injured and offered healing where I could. Then, I looked into the distance.

On the beach, I could see the village chiefs, gesturing towards each other, hugging each other, and crying and laughing as they also celebrated the end of the battle. Slowly, I smiled to myself as I drank in the revelry of our surroundings and let our victory sink in.

Nobody I knew had died today. The worst injury was Claus’s leg, from our first encounter with the glowing fish. But even though he had lost one leg, he could still fly the boat and hunt fish with us. My smile grew even wider as I walked back towards the rest of the group, and finally, I laughed.

The fight was really over.

 

 

acaswell

 

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