"Hello there! I am the Goddess of this world and though my name isn't important for the sake of convenience you can just call me Ana! As we don't have much time I'll be as brief as possible. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but you have died but before your soul was gone I brought it to my world!
'Why me?' You are probably thinking? Honestly it could have been anybody so just take it as you won the lottery. Now one other question you are probably wondering is why I brought you here in the first place right? To summarize, when gods make a new world the excess of their power will taint the land like a pollution and that land will spawn evil little things that will try and devour the world back into nothingness. Since it was our power itself that tainted the land in the first place, if we try and interfere it will only end up getting worse. Therefore we can only hope the living beings we created are able to destroy the evil and cleanse the land.
Unfortunately only very lucky beings are able to advance fast enough to surpass the growing pollution so to better their chances we gods came up with a solution and created a way to speed up the process with as little interference from us as possible and the solution we decided on was the system! The Heavenly Market System!!!
What does this system do? Well I'm glad you asked! This system is a platform which connects you to other people who also have the same system! Since all we did was give you all the platform and you guys are the one trading between yourselves then our interference is minimal! We have also made a currency to make the trading simpler and quicker called Heavenly Coins, or HC for short.
Now, I'm not going to ask you to be a hero and fight the evil yourself so you don't have to worry. You only have to live as you want since whatever you buy from the other worlds will eventually spread and be studied which will lead the the people of this world to advance forward a little faster even if it's only after you pass away.
Anyways I should've covered all of your questions by no sooooo, good luck and have fun!! =D"
After Lucca finished reading from the floating screen in front of him he couldn't help but stare at it speechlessly for a minute before he finally snapped out of it. Only after going over it one more time was his brain able to finish processing all the information of what he had just read.
The last thing Lucca remembers was running after a ball that one of his friends had kicked too far. Unfortunately in the heat of the moment the 25 year old him, had forgotten to look both ways before he ran into the middle of the road and was hit by a truck.
'Am I a kid?!!' He screamed internally while facepalming externally as he remembered how he died such an embarrassing death.
He remembered only having felt pain for a split second before his body flipped through the air like a rag doll but by the time he hit the ground he was completely fine and the floor wasn't asphalt but grass? And when Lucca got up off the ground and looked around he quickly realized that he was in a small clearing in the middle of a deep forest but before he could even question what was going on this screen had popped up in front of his face.
'For some reason that smiley face is really irritating.' Lucca thought to himself while rubbing his aching head, not from the crash since his body felt completely fine but from reading that message he had gotten a small headache.
Fortunately he had read many stories like this before so not only was he able to calm himself very quickly but he also became a little excited, after all how many people dreamt of having a chance like this?
'So first things first. How do I open my system??' He wondered while sitting on the ground with his legs crossed.
'Open!... System open!...System on?....Market open!.. Heavenly Market open!... Heavenly open?.. ...' He started saying things he believed might be the key to opening the system in his mind but since none of them worked he also tried shouting out loud followed by repeating them once again but this time doing certain poses which were pretty embarrassing to do even though he was all by himself but nothing seemed to be working. Fortunately just as Lucca was starting to give up a screen had popped up in front of him once again. He quickly stopped what he was doing while keeping in mind his last movements and the words he had shouted which might have been the reason the system opened up before taking a look at the new screen.
'PS. Oh I haven't given you the system yet. OK try it now it should work. Tehee ;p ' When he finished reading the message it instantly disappeared from his view.
"Sigh....." Rubbing his forehead with his hand he felt a small headache forming once again. Lucca decided to not say anything and just open up the system instead. As he was about to open his mouth a blue screen opened up in front of him before he was even able to say anything.
____________________________________________________________________________
HC: 1000
BUY SELL
____________________________________________________________________________
Lucca had never considered himself a smart man so fortunately it was very straightforward and easy to understand. Not only that but it already came with 1000 coins! How considered!
When he thought about buying the screen quickly changed before he even pressed or said anything.
"OOooooo, it's mind controlled how convenient!" He said to himself with a large smile on his face.
There he found countless tabs on the left which you could choose from. There were Weapons, Armors, Plants, Creatures, Ores ... ect. There were so many options that when he tried scrolling down using the scroll bar it moved so fast he he could only see a blur, and when he willed it to move slow enough so he could read he realized there were just so many categories of things he could buy that the scroll bar did not look like it was moving whatsoever! But the longer he scrolled the bigger the smile grew on his face.
"If only it was in alphabetical order though...." He thought to himself as the unorganized tabs were really inconvenient, fortunately just as he thought it the tabs rearranged themselves instantly into alphabetical order.
"Hahaha!! This is great! Everything is here!! Wait no, not just everything, there is even more than that! hahaha this is great!!" Lucca spoke out loud before he slapped his thigh in happiness making a loud noise echo through the forest though he was quickly brought back to reality by the loud screech of a bird that sounded extremely large coming from a distance away. As he heard it he fell onto the ground with his stomach down on the floor and his hand over his mouth as he felt cold sweat running down his back.
'Tsk I forgot where I was for a second, this world should be pretty dangerous especially with those evil beings that the goddess mentioned. I need to look for somewhere safe before I can start making some plans.' After waiting for a few minutes and realizing the creature that made the screech was not coming for him he got up slowly but as he was about to close the system One of the tabs caught his eye which made him stop.
{Shelters}
Lucca quickly opened it up and there he found an almost infinite amount of different looking shelters. There were even apartment buildings and mansions! Not only that but the huge mansion that rich movie stars lived in back in his world was only worth around 100 HC!
"So cheap!!" Lucca exclaimed in surprise.
He started to slowly look through them one by one and quickly understood why they were only worth so much. There were descriptions under every item and the buildings he was looking at were made with normal materials with no enchantments or any kind of defensive mechanism. Any strong earthquake could easily bring it down let alone a big creature.
'Wait.. Enchantments? So there IS magic here!!" He said excitedly.
After sorting the items by price lowest to highest Lucca then quickly scrolled down looking for the cheapest enchanted versions and saw the huge price jump. The price for Tier 1 shelters which were one tier higher than the normal tier 0 ones that were built with stronger materials and enchantments jumped to 200 HC! That's not even the worst part! The ones who were worth around 200 HC were the cheapest of the Tier 1 shelters which was only a very tiny one room house with only a bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom.
"Hmmmm .... hmmmmmmmm..." He closed his eyes and stroked his non existent beard as he thought really hard if a T1 house was really necessary.
'I mean I don't want to brag but I can run pretty fast.' He thought to himself but in the end he still decided to buy one after thinking for a bit more. He wouldn't be able to use all those coins if he was dead after all.
Looking through the market for over 20 min and reading all the descriptions he finally found the perfect one, though it was much more expensive than the others of the same tier costing a whopping 652 HC! It looked like a Jet black tiny castle surrounded by jet black walls. It was pretty small only around the size of a small mansion. The only reason he called it a castle was because of its shape and the wall surrounding it that was around 10 feet tall.
It Was called "The Little Obsidian Home" Not only was the material it was made out of very durable but there was a defense mechanism where it had an invisible defensive shield starting at the walls and surrounding the castle in a little dome. This shield wouldn't even take any damage from tier 1 creatures and could hold easily out for a long time against tier 2! The best part however was that he didn't have to keep putting batteries in or anything! The jet black material would suck in the sunlight and charge by itself over time! Think of all the coins he would save!
Lucca himself didn't have much when he was on earth. He had finished college 2 years ago but still wasn't able to find a job so he had been surviving on instant noodles with the money his parents sent once in a while. For two years he survived by only spending on bare necessities and every cent he found he would save it for later so even though the little castle was definitely an investment it still hurt a little inside to spend so much at once.
Thinking about all the money he was about to spend his body was refusing to even think of buying it so he closed his eyes and pressed the buy button with his real physical hand and just as he did the sound of a cashier sounded out.
*KaChing!*
``Thank you for your purchase!´´ When he opened his eyes he saw 5 big words on the screen but looking around he didn't find anything different other than his HC on the top right corner now saying 348 HC.
"Where's my little castle!??" Lucca quickly started to panic.
"Did I get scammed??? ... Can I get scammed?!" That's when from the corner of his eyes he noticed a blinking red light with the shape of a backpack icon on the top corner of the screen and when he opened it the screen changed once again into something that looked like a backpack in a video game with the word ``Inventory´´ written at the top.
"I have an inventory too? Great!!" He exclaimed loudly as he laughed to himself.
On the screen there was a picture of the little castle he had bought and when he selected it he found that he could choose where to place it down. The screen became a top down view of the area he was with a ghost castle that he could drag and put down. He moved it around a bit and decided to place it in the middle of the opening of the forest he was in before thinking he was finished in his mind.
As he did so the ground instantly started to shake, startling him. Lucca quickly moved back in fright as cracks started appearing all over the ground. Only when he felt he was far enough was when he turned back and watched as he saw a castle sprouting from the dirt like some kind of plant.
A minute was all it took for it to completely leave the ground and there now stood a small jet black castle surrounded by jet black walls. It looked both powerful and... kind of cute.
Lucca knew what he had to do now. There was an explanation of how to claim ownership of the small castle in the description and that requirement was for him to smear a small amount of his blood on the gate of the castle walls. Walking towards it he put his finger in his mouth and bit down hard but before he could even break the skin the pain assaulted him.
"*$%&*%!! But those ninjas make this look so easy!!!" He shouted in pain but before he could continue with his curses he once again heard the loud cry of a bird once more making him quickly shut up.
Even though he had failed on his first try, the animal's screech gave him the courage he needed to try once again. He put the Conner of his thumb in his mouth and started to gnaw on it for a few minutes with an ugly look on his face before he was finally able to draw blood which quickly formed into a drop. Then ignoring the pain he pressed his thumb on the gate of the wall and smeared the blood on the smooth and cold hard surface of the gate.
The blood was quickly absorbed and after a few seconds a deep humming sound came from both the castle and the walls. They slowly became a deeper shade of black so deep it looked like you were staring into the nothingness at the end of the galaxy. Then a light blue shield started to grow from the top of the walls up until they converged over the little castle like a dome surrounding everything which then slowly disappeared as if there was nothing there.
Lucca's eyes lit up as he saw the castle slowly come to life and when it was finished he quickly pushed open the gates and walked in.
"I finally own my own place!" He shouted proudly with a big smile looking up at the little castle but before he could even take it all in the sun suddenly disappeared as a large shadow covered not only Lucca himself but even the whole of the little castle.