Chapter 110

“So, when does the price limit take effect?”

“At 10,000 Spirits.”

“That’s way too high. Anyway, 300 kilograms should be enough for now.”

Despite discovering the group of southern islands and gaining a tremendous amount of experience points, the inventory weight capacity costs were still a bit steep; hence, Merlin decided to increase his inventory volume, summoning distance, and durability instead. By upgrading each option once, Merlin ended up paying 1,500 Spirits, an amount that didn’t significantly impact his experience point total.

“Are the housing cards cheaper like the inventory?”

“Yes. Shall I bring up the housing card window?”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll just buy whatever’s cheapest.”

“That’ll be 2,000 Spirits.”

While Carlin replied, Merlin saw his experience points decrease.

“Ah, has the price for logout time reductions also been reduced?”

“No. The amount of Spirit required has remained the same.”

“Hmm. In an emergency, it’s best to log out as quickly as possible….”

Currently, it took Merlin 25 seconds to log out, as he’d reduced the default 30 seconds required by five. Since the Spirit cost rose by 100 each time he bought the upgrade, Merlin currently needed to pay 600 Spirits to reduce his logout time from 25 to 24 seconds.

“Is reducing the logout time important?” Quiet Heaven asked, having been quiet up to now.

Merlin nodded.

“Yes. If my logout time were only a second, I could escape any fight or dangerous situation by simply logging out. With this assurance, I wouldn’t be afraid of facing any difficult foe. Eh? Wait, if I log out, what happens to you?”

“You just thought of that now? Wow. Anyway, I also disappear when you log out. I guess you can say we log out together.”

“I see. Then it’s all good.”

Then, Merlin turned to Carlin. Since this Carlin was a clone made specially to serve Merlin, it waited patiently while the latter contemplated his next purchase.

“I’ll man up… I’ll purchase a ten-second reduction.”

“Reducing your logout time to 15 seconds would cost you 38,000 Spirits. Would you like to proceed?”

“Eh? Wait. Why is it 38,000 Spirits? Shouldn’t it be 15,000?”

“Starting from the 20-second mark, every further purchase costs an additional 1,000 Spirits. In other words, instead of the cost rising by 100, it would go from 1,000 to 2,000 and then 3,000….”

Surprised, Merlin turned to a wall that had a chart of the reduction costs. He saw that an upgrade from 21 to 20 seconds cost 1,000 Spirits, but the following purchase cost 2,000 Spirits. After that, another reduction would cost 3,000 Spirits, 4,000, and so forth. Moreover, once the logout time entered the ten-second range…

“Dang, the price rises by 10,000 Spirits once we get into the single digits.”

“While it isn’t written on that chart, when a player lowers their logout time to one second, further purchases decrease the time by a tenth of a second and cost 10,000 additional Spirits each upgrade.”

“Wow. If I wanted to purchase whatever I want, I’d probably need billions of Spirits.”

When Merlin defeated the fearsome Level 14 One-Horned Fire Snake, he only gained 10,000 Spirits, so the prices that Carlin spoke of seemed like something out of a fantasy. Yet, Merlin soon had a different thought.

“Wait, didn’t the Tyrannosaurus give 500 Spirit points?”

At Merlin’s current level, defeating a Tyrannosaurus wouldn’t require much internal energy, and it would net him roughly 500 Spirit points. While it was nearly impossible to take down another foe at the One-Horned Fire Snake’s level, Merlin could easily face twenty Tyrannosauruses without breaking much of a sweat.

“What are you babbling on about?”

“Nothing, just… hmm. I never would’ve thought that defeating a bunch of low-level mobs would give more experience than defeating a high-level monster. Doesn’t this mean there’s no reason to fight the latter?”

“I was wondering what you were going on about… you don’t fight high-level monsters for their experience points, right?”

“Ah, right! Items!”

High-level monsters dropped similar-leveled items. The loot from low-level monsters was also relatively low-leveled, and since there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of users for each high-level user, the availability of high-level items was minuscule, leading to strong demand for those items.

“Reducing your logout time to 15 seconds would cost 38,000 Spirits. Would you like to proceed?”

Carlin’s voice had a hint of annoyance in it. Despite being made specifically to serve Merlin, the clone didn’t seem happy to stand by idly while Merlin muttered to himself in contemplation. Merlin smirked before nodding his head. While it seemed somewhat wasteful to spend nearly 40,000 Spirits in one go, he knew that reducing his logout time would be beneficial in the end.

“Yes, proceed.”

As soon as Merlin answered, 38,000 Spirits were deducted from his experience points, but he still had a little over 150,000 Spirits remaining.

“I still have quite a few Spirits left over. You know what, just reduce the logout time all the way down to ten seconds.”

“A reduction to ten seconds would cost 40,000 Spirits.”

“Fine.”

“Then I shall proceed… it’s done.”

Merlin was now left with 110,000 Spirits, and since there were many other ways they could be used, he stopped here.

“Thanks. I’ll be heading off.”

“Take care. Please browse our other offerings at your leisure.”

With a smile, the clone disappeared. Rather than expiring due to reaching a time limit, the clone seemed to have dissipated after fulfilling its client’s requests.

“Master, are you really not going to level up?”

“It’s not a pressing matter. Does something good happen to you if I level up?”

“No, nothing like that, but… it’s a little concerning when I watch you fight.”

“Leveling up doesn’t mean that I’d necessarily become more powerful, right?”

“Strictly speaking… yeah.”

Quiet Heaven nodded, not even imagining that Merlin wasn’t utilizing the bonus points that’d been accruing with each level up. What Merlin stated was technically correct. Leveling didn’t strengthen someone; it was the other way around, as additional power made it possible to level up. Stat point increases, elevated stat caps, and the ability to use level-restricted items were just added benefits.

“Shall we continue shopping?”

Merlin continued to the upper floors and bought a variety of items. The first thing he purchased was another Gate Ring so he could move between different cities, followed by a converter, which could convert the magic power or internal energy that Merlin had into chakra, pure spiritual energy, or aura. When Merlin first visited, the Exchange Center didn’t sell too many items, but it seemed to have significantly expanded its selection since then.

“How much is this?”

“Three silver.”

“That’s cheaper than what I expected. I’ll buy it.”

“Thank you.”

The new item Merlin just purchased was popular amongst users; it was a type of PDA called a Beholder. With it, users could communicate as if they were texting or calling on a cell phone, access user forums and bulletin boards, and even bring up a map of their surroundings. The Beholder’s features let players declutter their vision from pop-up windows. Compared to the single-use Gate Ring, the Beholder was relatively more helpful.

Beep.

“Hmm?”

As he was in the middle of putting away the Beholder, it started beeping, and its front screen lit up brightly. Puzzled, Merlin looked at the message that appeared.

/For 200 Spirits, you can install a connection port to the Great Heavenly World. Would you like to install and connect?/

“Great Heavenly World?”

As Merlin mumbled in confusion, Quiet Heaven answered, “I think it’s referring to the user community forums and bulletin boards, like public forums, the DIO announcement page, or item and service exchange sites. The Great Heavenly World is a sort of intranet that isn’t connected to the wider internet.”

“How do you know this?”

Merlin looked dumbfounded after hearing such an unexpected reply. With a proud expression, Quiet Heaven replied, “Hehehe. My data and information gathering skills are top-notch. Rather than fighting directly, I specialize in reconnaissance. On top of my excellent eyesight, I can also listen to every conversation that’s occurring within a 300-meter radius around me. Furthermore, if I focus my attention in one direction, I can listen to conversations occurring up to a kilometer away-”

“So,” Merlin cut Quiet Heaven off, “you’re saying that you heard this from someone else, right? Why are you explaining in such a roundabout way?”

“…”

“Anyway, your ability should be quite useful.”

Merlin pressed accept on the Beholder and watched as a loading bar filled up to completion. As he looked through the many public forum postings, Merlin could tell that numerous users were using Beholders.

“Alright, let’s see what other goodies they’ve added to this place….”

However, when Merlin was about to ascend to the next floor, a ‘Ding-Dong!’ noise sounded, followed by a text message in his vision.

/A new announcement has been posted./

“A sudden announcement? I should use the Beholder to check what it’s about.”

Using the Beholder, Merlin navigated to the seemingly rarely-utilized announcement page. Though the game had been officially released a while ago, there were only a few public announcement posts, and the recent one read as follows:

/1. The maximum playtime before mandatory logout has changed from 24 hours to 12 hours. This change will take effect at 00:00 on January 25th. On January 25th, once a user has spent 12 hours in DIO, they will be forcefully logged off for the remainder of the day./

“What the hell is this? They’re going to reduce our playtime by half?”

Merlin couldn’t help but vent his anger, as he was someone who spent 99 percent of his day playing DIO. However, before his rage boiled over, Quiet Heaven asked, “But Master, don’t you have to log off to get back to your reality? Is it alright for you to spend so much time here?”

“Hmph!”

“Gaming too much may harm your health.”

“Huh?!”

“You don’t have any friends in reality, right?”

“Ugh!”

Due to Quiet Heaven’s consecutive, poignant attacks, Merlin couldn’t help but sustain internal damage, fall onto the ground, and foam at the mouth. It was a neat assessment of Merlin’s reality, and he had no retorts.

“Tsk tsk. To be stuck with such a Master… you should be more devoted to your reality.”

“Ugh. You’re just a pet within a game, so shut it.”

Merlin rubbed his painful, throbbing chest. At that moment, another line of text popped up in his vision.

/The Sword Sovereign, Sungmuk, has appeared at Starting’s East Gate!/

“Eh? What’s this?”

“Wasn’t Sungmuk the name of that boss during the closed beta quest?”

“Ah, right, the name rings a bell. Wasn’t he the ultra-high-level boss that specialized in plum blossom swordsmanship? By the way, what’s a sword sovereign?”

The text didn’t seem to have only appeared for Merlin, and the surroundings soon became filled with loud murmurs. With the recent string of announcements, many customers within the Exchange Center had stopped what they were doing. Instead, they talked amongst each other. The Exchange Center was always a bustling place, but it was more raucous than ever.

“Sungmuk…”

Among the cacophony of sound, Merlin quietly reflected on the extremely formidable sword-wielding boss who had taken his life once in the past.

“This is your end, human. Die amongst the falling petals.”