[The voucher and cultivation merchants are the specialty of the upgrade system and can provide top of the line support in the middle of an engagement!]
Suddenly the system offered a bit of advice and Gordon listened. These were the two screens that he felt could be most useful to him at the moment. He just had to ignore the screens that might benefit him more in the long run. Which was hard to do, because he was very much a believer in making decisions that would provide for a better future in the long run. Right this moment, it was different, he had to prioritize survival in the short term.
'Open the voucher merchant and the cultivation merchant.'
A few fireworks went off and there was some inspiring music that played in the background of his head and then the system presented the main screen with two new tabs.
[Upgrade System Main Menu
Status
Renier
Voucher merchant
Cultivation merchant
(987 Soul Energy)]
First Gordon decided to go into the cultivation merchant and saw that there was only five items to buy.
[Chi Regen Pill - 10 soul
Increases Chi recovery for 6 hours]
[Purity Pill - 10 soul
Optimizes cultivation speed for 2 hours]
[Sun Pill (4 grams) - 5 soul
Grants a considerable boost to max mana, but 100 grams must be used or there is a certain chance of death, max mana loss, or cultivation deviation]
[Water Pill - 50 soul
Through the experience of sorrow, greatly increase your understanding of Chi. Increases Chi refinement by an average of 7%]
[Eureka Pill - 20 soul
Skill proficiency increases for 1 hour. On average proficiency gains double]
Noting that he currently had just under a thousand soul energy. Gordon could even see that the number of energy points was going up incrementally. Hypnotized for a few moments, he was fascinated as the number of soul energy points broke through to over a thousand. Passive income accumulation, doing nothing and yet still making money, was earth shaking for Gordon. As a Pit dweller this was the first time in this life where he didn't have to slave for a meager existence.
Of course in his previous life he had established two streams of passive income, so he was familiar with the concept. But seeing soul energy points come rolling in as the castle defended itself was somehow much more satisfying. Investing in the stock market or buying a property were highly intellectualized and still required time researching and careful tracking. There was a high degree of risk, but when compared to risking your life...
Well it just wasn't comparable. Especially risking his life and receiving system points when the castle defeated enemies was just to comfortable.
'With this I can buy a lot of pills!'
Was his first thought after turning his attention back to the shop. Then after reading through some of the superficial details available through from the merchant he realized that the most interesting pill, the sun pill, was actually very dangerous to take unless he could afford twenty of them all at once. Fortunately he could afford it right now. Holding his breath he committed and bought sixty of the pills all at once. Three hundred soul energy went away in less than a second. Then he bought all the rest of the available pills in triplicate for another 270 soul energy.
'Let's just set ourselves up for this whole battle.'
Having gone on a buying spree and now feeling like he had bought out the store Gordon quickly switched tabs to the Voucher merchant.
[Invulnerability Voucher - 100 soul
User is invulnerable for 30 seconds]
[Critical Hit Voucher - 50 soul
The next attack will cause triple damage]
This time Gordon had to shake his head, not just because there were only two vouchers available. True to his experience so far these vouchers were incredibly powerful. Basically they were cheats, but cheats would have a cost and the cost in this case was literally the price. These vouchers were very very pricey compared to the pills.
Not currently planning on engaging in battle himself for the time being he purchased two [Invulnerability] and four [Critical Hit] vouchers. This was the best he could do for now and would have to wait for his soul points to build up before making any other purchases.
The first thing he did was chase down Gloria and Oneko separately. It was funny, at first neither of them wanted to take his pills or vouchers but after they saw what was written on the vouchers they suddenly became a little greedy and were willing to try them out. If they did work the vouchers especially would be life saving. So they took everything he was offering. Gordon would have thought that they would at least be suspicious of a flimsy piece. A paper being able to grant invulnerability? He knew that talismans were just paper, but talisman's had a very specific look. These vouchers were smaller and had a sort of western shoddy advertising vibe.
Maybe it was the stress of the situation, they both took the items and promised to use them wisely.
When he gave Gloria the goods he had purchased for her she was about to take all the pills all at once! Stopping her, he had her take just the sun pills first. Within moments she started glowing, it wasn't blinding or anything, but it did look like she could be compared to a 30 watt light bulb.
Unfortunately she didn't stop glowing. Worried that something weird was happening he asked her.
"How are you feeling?"
"Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!"
She said, her eyes rolling back into her head.
"Looks like it will take time to work."
He said very observantly.
"No, problem, I think I like glowing like this!"
The glow didn't phase Gloria and she shrugged his concern away taking the other four pills like a pro.
Oneko didn't have to be warned about the sun pills, she downed them separately and while she glowed for a time as well it was much more subdued and didn't last for more than a minute.
'Weird, I guess the individual has a big influence on the effect of pills?'
Having a thought, Gordon decided to think about this later. He couldn't spare time to take them himself right now, and he wasn't going directly into battle, so he felt he could wait.
Much more thankful for the vouchers than Gloria, Oneko uncharacteristically at least so far gave Gordon a hug.
"Thank you, Gordon. I will see you again after the beast tide!"
And then she was off to join the marines.
[Passive detection has been able to identify the entrance into the training field of three diamond ranked beasts.]
'Thank you system!'
Alright, it sounds like the beast tide is going to start becoming a little more intense! However, while Gordon rushed to the throne room he didn't notice any particular increase in activity. It looked like the diamond ranked beasts were going to play this smart and not attack indiscriminately.
Once back in the throne room he explored a little. There were warriors here who were dressed much more extravagantly than the city guards.
One of them a man dressed as a monk who took the initiative to approach him after it became obvious that Gordon was trying to figure out how to interact with the various throne room capabilities.
"Lord, how may I help?"
The monk asked.
"Yes, who are these men? And does the throne room have specialized defenses?"
It wasn't an exaggerated guess to assume that this defense based training field would have special capabilities in the throne room.
"Sir, these are the royal guard. Each one has been hand picked by the previous Lord and then equipped with the finest armor and weapons the kingdom can afford."
Explaining the monk showed his own outfit with golden circuits running through the material when examined closely. He also let Gordon examine his staff which actually had runic writing carved into the entire length of the quarter staff. The engravings were so small that they disappeared into the texture of the weapon from a distance.
"Also, if you sit on the throne you may gain a few additional capabilities. One of which is the ability to engage a defense field, Lord."
Explaining one more detail, the monk then stepped back and once more joined his fellow guardsmen in standing nonchalantly around the throne room. There was no rhyme or reason to their placement, but Gordon felt assured that the whole room was completely locked down.
As before when the commanders had sworn their loyalty to him Gordon was a little weirded out by the necessity of sitting on the throne. However, he also wanted to stay alive, so he quickly moved towards the throne thinking that he was no where near worthy of actually being a Lord. There was so much he would have to learn and grow into in order to ever truly be worthy. One of which would be gaining the love and trust of the people. It was fun to play a game, but in reality the only way true way to rule would be if he could do so through the power of the people.
But for now, he was just grateful for any sort of help and once he sat on the throne room his system prompted him.
[Do you wish to integrate the castle's options and capabilities into the system? Y/N]
It was really good to have the system up and working. He didn't have to be high level and be a Chi master in order to use these tools. He couldn't imagine being able to access the throne functionally with out the system.
[Throne capabilities:
Personal defense field (100%)
Viewing station
Royal buff (uses: 3)
Cultivation enhancement buff
Lightning attack (uses: 3)
Avatar (uses: 3)]
It looked like the throne was well equipped with exactly what Gordon would need to live through this tide.