“Next up is me, I suppose.” Ryone said with a small smile, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask for the fifth tiers of magic knowledge or anything. The fourth tier itself is already something that most of the world is unable to use. Instead, I’d like a custom-designed system to replace the current divine tokens.”

I raised an eyebrow in interest, and Ryone continued. “Instead of tokens that generate purely from faith in a single deity, and can be used only for that deity’s ‘services’, I would prefer if we had a more universal currency. I’ve prepared a document for you to review, and I do not believe that it should be a problem in terms of cost or effect.”

After saying that, she slid a piece of paper over towards me, allowing me to read it while she spoke. “Essentially, faith itself will become a form of currency. When a being offers prayers or sacrifice to a god, one third of the faith offered will take the form of coinage for the devout to receive, while the rest goes to the god to whom they worshiped. Similarly, gods themselves could choose to convert their own divinity into currency, or consume the coins to add to their own divinity.”

“In this way, we would be able to integrate the new currency into the Boundless Caravan smoothly, merely by adjusting the prices of services offered to reflect the new coinage. A priest who worshiped myself would then be capable of taking the divine currency to the Boundless Caravan, and use it to purchase the services of Tubrock, Keliope, or even Terra.”

I gave a small nod as I read through the document, before glancing at Ashley. “If we get a currency from a system like this, what are the chances that you’ll be able to integrate it into the inventory system you created?”

Ashley’s eyes went wide briefly, and she began to think over the possibilities. “If it’s a standardized currency like that, one without variation between individual objects, I should be able to create an empty slot for it in the inventory’s layout… Ryone, are there different tiers of these coins, like gold, silver, and copper? Or is it just a single coin?”

Ryone blinked briefly, before chuckling. “In order to conserve space, I set it to have five tiers that automatically adjust based on circumstance and the will of the user. As you said, there are the three standard tiers, and then the white gold tier, and black tier. Each coin is worth a hundred of the previous, so a black coin will be worth one hundred million of the copper. When enough coins are present, they will automatically combine into the next tier, but can be separated if the holder wishes them to change.”

Ashley nodded her head in thought. “If that’s how it is set up, it should still be possible. I can confidently say that we should be able to make this compatible with the inventory system, but the time required will depend on the system itself. This is going to be another big patch, where we include proper fast travel and anything else discussed here.”

Seeing that everything had been decided, I went ahead and submitted the system to the market. I’d need to know how much the cost was before I could count it towards our budget. To my surprise, the system actually went as high as three thousand points. Was that because it allowed universal conversion of divinity?

“Is there anything else that anyone wants to submit for this meeting?” I asked, looking around. The next to raise a hand was Accalia, who had a rather grave expression on her face. “Accalia? What’s the problem?”

“We’re on our way to a food crisis.” Accalia said, catching me by surprise. “As you know, a significant portion of what hunters acquire goes towards offerings, typically to me. This means that food isn’t entering circulation. In a similar vein, farmers often pay a ‘tax’ of their crops to Tryval. It’s currently not a major issue, and they are managing it enough to keep most people fed, but… all it would take is one mistake to send the world on a downward spiral.”

“Given the introduction of this new currency, it’s possible that farmers and huntsman will be tempted to offer more of their yield to gain these coins. If that happens, people everywhere will go hungry for a time. Food storages are already running quite low due to all of the offerings.”

I gave a nod at that, resting my chin on my hands. “How would you propose we remedy the situation? I can adjust the monster spawning rates easily enough to keep things going on the huntsman side of things.”

However, Accalia shook her head. “In isolated cases, that might help, but doing it globally would cause monsters to begin overrunning towns by spawning faster than they were dealt with. Once huntsman recognize the problem being caused, they’ll be able to adjust more quickly. My concern is the farmers. Their crops take a considerable amount of time to grow, making it such that they’d need that time to recover.”

“I would prefer not to offer plant-based foods on my services, if that’s where you’re going with this.” Tryval spoke up, glancing at Accalia. “Doing so would essentially be putting those very farmers out of a business.”

“I don’t think it would.” Accalia shook her head. “The price that you’d need to be able to quickly prepare and distribute those crops would be considerably greater than the price that people would need to pay to get them from the usual stores. I’m not proposing this as a long-term solution, just a quick fix while we wait for the economy to stabilize after this shift.”

To be honest, I was also worried about our food problems, but for other reasons. With everyone evolving their dietary needs throughout their life, the same meals wouldn’t be able to feed them for long. The level of the ingredients determine whether someone can get the nutrients they need, or if they’re even able to digest the food in the first place. It’s a rather tricky system to work with.

I closed my eyes in thought at the prospect, some of the others seeming to notice and looking at me. We were getting a universal currency… was there a way to make the level of food work universally, as well? A food system…

After opening my eyes, I checked the market, narrowing results down to those related to the consumption of food. There were quite a lot of such systems, ranging anywhere from bestowing buffs on food items to being able to eat inorganic items like stones. I kept scrolling under everyone’s gaze, until I finally found something that looked like it could work.

Consumer’s Digestion

This system is designed for worlds of vast evolutionary disparity, enabling those of a lower standard to consume the same sustenance as those of a higher standard. Physical sustenance only, does not apply to energy-based entities.

900 points

That could potentially work. I thought to myself, before creating an identical screen in front of Accalia. “What do you think?”

Accalia arched an eyebrow, reading through the entry that I sent her. “I see… if this is the case, it will cause a large shift. Assuming that the higher level food provides full nutrition, people will prioritize hunting and farming higher level yields, as those will increase in demand. Given the price of the system… I would suggest buying it to use as a test.”

I nodded my head, mentally adding it to the list. “In that case, is there anyone else that has a request for a system? We still have the vast majority of our budget left to spend.”

My eyes scanned around the room, looking for anyone that seemed ready to speak up. To my surprise, nobody was forthcoming with further ideas. Eventually, Ashley shrugged her shoulders. “Why not get a higher ranked game world from Sarah?” She suggested. “It could spur creativity in the world, and being a higher rank would likely increase it’s cost considerably.”

I thought about that for a moment. It was true… if memory served, Vision Expanse was eight thousand points, but it could only qualify as a Rank One world at best. It had the potential to grow into the third, maybe even higher rank through the schematics saved on it, but at its core level it was a rather primitive world.

As such, I opened the market again, searching for game worlds that had been published by SarahLasting. I scanned through them, keeping in mind my budget, before my eyes landed on one in particular.

Fragments of Acidia

A game published by SarahLasting, using our most advanced artificial intelligence yet! Explore a world of science and sorcery intertwined, a world where you can make your dreams into reality.

Game World

88,500 points

I pondered this game for a moment, before showing it to Terra. “Just to confirm, something like this won’t immediately shoot my rank up if I buy it, will it?”

Terra glanced over at the screen, before shaking her head. “It’s unlikely. Sarah herself is only a Rank Four Keeper. Considering her personality, she wouldn’t sell worlds of her own rank. Doing so would leak too many details about her own world’s cultural advancements, whereas if she sells lower ranked worlds, she can pass almost anything off as someone of higher rank gaining understanding of that aspect.”

I gave a nod, before showing the market entry to Ashley next. “What do you think? Would people be interested in this kind of game?”

Ashley looked at the market entry, blinking briefly. “I’m surprised she can customize the market details of her products to this extent. However, this only says that it’s a science and sorcery game, without enough details to truly go off of. If it were a new development studio without any kind of trailer, I’d likely ignore it with this description.”

“After seeing the standard of her work with Vision Expanse… I think that it’s likely to be worth the purchase. Moreover, it will most likely come with an individual like Vivi to help us get the world established. If there’s anything we need to learn about the game, we can ask that being when we buy the game.”

Seeing that Ashley was in agreement, I added Fragments of Acidia to the list. Even with this, we had spent less than half our budget, so I gave another glance around to see if anyone else had any requests. This was still a greater total cost than the Skill Proficiency System that I purchased a while back, but not nearly as much as I was expecting to spend.

I went ahead and made the necessary purchases, grabbing things like the fast travel and other necessary systems for both of Ashley’s testbed worlds. Similarly, I assigned the dungeon cores with the Guided Evolution to let them gain the instanced dungeon trait, as well as the one to allow Merkin to breathe out of the water. It was hard to say how the world would handle those kinds of evolution, but we’d find out eventually…

“If anyone can think of any urgent requirements, let me know.” I said, giving one last look at everyone. “And… if possible, try to make sure that it’s before Ashley releases this patch? Every patch we release changes the worldview of our inhabitants, so I want to keep such things as scarce as possible. Otherwise, they will never know if their current lifestyle will be able to carry them through another year.”

The gathered gods and goddesses nodded their heads at that, fully understanding what I meant. This patch that we were planning would shake the foundation of the food industry, for better or worse. I had no idea what the end result would be, and could only sit by and wait for the unexpected.

That said, though, I stood up and excused myself from the room, moving to go to my own bedroom. If this was anything like Vision Expanse, there would be a message waiting for me upon my arrival. And sure enough, the moment I sat down at my computer, the screen blinked to life, a single line of text appearing.

Greetings, Keeper. I am Fifi, and I will be helping you establish the Fragments of Acidia.

“...Fifi? Sarah… your naming sense needs some work.” I said, allowing a small chuckle to escape my lips.