The egg vanishes from my hand, replaced by a glowing window that reminds me of the old video games from centuries ago.
[Determining the 'Iron Clawer Egg'…][You gained 5 copper coins.][All your copper coins have been merged into a silver coin. Do you want to activate the system?]
[Y(cost:1silvercoin)/N]
I could only smirk at myself. All these years of suffering—finally, I could throw them away!
[Systemloading…beginning.]
[Cash-Out System has been integrated into the host!]
[You can exchange resources for system coins and use them to obtain various rewards.]
[Your current bank value: 1 silver coin.]
Suddenly, a row of new windows materialized before my eyes.
System Shop Genetics Herbs/Medicines Skills Occupations Items
Your current funds only allow access to the Genetics section. Other sections are locked until you acquire more money.
I frowned. I can't even view the other sections.
Still, the fact that I could buy anything at all felt like a blessing. With that thought, I focused on the Genetics section.
Genetics Shop Gene Points Gene Potions Gene Locks Gene Ascension
The System Shop wasn't surprising. I had expected something along these lines when it mentioned a "shop." But the Genetics section intrigued me—it was different.
I recognized Gene Points, but the other options? I had no clue what they meant.
Curious, I tried to focus on the third and fourth options, but something seemed to block me.
Sigh. Giving up, I assumed I was simply too poor to even see what they were. No point in stressing about things I can't afford.
Gene Points Mortal Extraordinary Elite Champion Sovereign Overlord Legendary Mythical Catastrophic
I couldn't help but be amazed at the tier list in the Gene Points section. What little I knew about genetics already hinted at the massive power differences between each rank.
My hand hovered uncertainly over the first option, Mortal, as I pondered my next move.
I could only blankly stare in front of me. What are all these things? Why isn't it listing creatures whose flesh I can buy?
So many secrets were revealed by this system. Do the higher-ups know about this? Most likely not, otherwise, humanity wouldn't be in this dire situation. Even the Were Tribes might be in the dark about this.
What's the difference between these categories?
I could only view the Mortal up to the Elite sections, with the others still locked. Another secret!
I wished the system wouldn't tease me, but just tell me about these categories. When I looked into them, I found many familiar creatures from the Mortal realm—beasts whose flesh I could imagine would grant significant power.
But when I scrolled into the Extraordinary and Elite sections, many creatures showed up that I had only ever seen on the internet—beings so dangerous they could obliterate entire settlements with their mere presence. No weapon could harm them.
I wanted to buy gene points, but I held back this impulse. I discovered that I could easily max out my gene points directly from the system shop.
So, I checked the second section.
Gene Potions
Mortal Extraordinary Elite Champion Sovereign Overlord Legendary Mythical Catastrophic
You can take only one from each category, so choose wisely!
Soon, a surge of information flooded my mind about using these potions.
You don't need to ascend to incorporate all your collected genes. Instead, these potions can elevate your status from a mortal to an extraordinary lifeform. This is why the Were Tribes are so much stronger—they have a higher lifeform status compared to humans, who remain only mortal.
Even if you ascend, it doesn't guarantee that your lifeform status will ascend. If you collect too many Mortal genes, you'll stay in that same mortal lifeform. But your status will change if you consume many Extraordinary or Elite genes.
Even with a low gene cap of 31, if I can utilize this method, I'll soon overcome all those who humiliated me! Just thinking about this bright future fills my mind, but then I remember my current situation. How do I explain my newfound strength?
It's an unbreakable heavenly law that gene cap is everything, and if news came out otherwise, it would be immediately rebuked and suppressed. I might become a lab rat once again.
I remember all the cruel experiments I went through—each one inflicted great pain, leaving my stomach area scarred and never fully healed. They performed many tests on me, all in the name of finding out why my gene cap was so low, using methods that would have resulted in severe punishment for others. But because of me, they could conduct their crazy experiments.
One day, I'll find them and make them suffer the same fate they inflicted on me.
But then these thoughts leave my mind, and I look back at the Mortal potion section. There's only one option, with a price tag of 10 silver coins.
I only have 1 silver coin after four years of struggle. Do I need to spend another 36 years? Even though gene potions can extend lifespan once you ascend, it's not by much. Each ascension from realm to realm only extends a person's lifespan by 10 years. So even if you reach the 6th realm, you can live up to 160 years of age.
The sooner you reach a higher realm, the longer you can maintain your youthful vigor. This has resulted in many people not maxing out their genes and ascending, as the strength difference isn't as great when both are mortal lifeforms.
With power-hungry organizations and families picking up any talented person and feeding them resources of many kinds, stagnation has set in. They don't realize that consuming higher-tier genes is better than lower ones. Then comes the question How do you know the difference?
Is this based on the creature's strength or something else? With no available information and families and organizations hoarding talented individuals for themselves, everything just repeats from the beginning.
There is a way to break this endless loop, but it requires giving up all power and combining everyone's strength. But will all of humanity come together for it? That's impossible. Even if extinction looms, some people still want to profit from it.
Greed is the eternal sin of man. Every time humanity was on the verge of shaking off their shackles, infighting erupted and dragged everyone down with themselves. Aliens do exist, and xenophobia is rampant among humans—differences between people are just too vast. After all, in the past, a certain painter went to extreme lengths to prove his claims about race. Such is the nature of humans greedy for better things and willing to do anything to achieve them.
When humanity was offered the chance to become slaves, many accepted it for their benefit, and you can see the consequences today. Humanity is just a slave to other races.
Shaking my head, I got up from the ground and looked around to make sure no monsters were in sight. I headed to my secret place, which I found hidden behind a waterfall two years ago when I was being chased by monsters. You might think others have found it too, but this entrance is extremely small—too small to see from the outside. I found it when I managed to escape from the monsters and was chased behind the waterfall.
Since then, I've used that place as a hiding spot from the young master when he sent me and others out to gather monsters. He never cared about us bringing him monsters, he only cared about our miserable sights and screams as we were ripped apart by the monsters in the forest.
It didn't take long to reach the waterfall and go inside my cave. After crawling a few meters, the cave expanded to the size of a 6x7x14-meter room. There are cracks in the ceiling that lead to the outside—I've roasted food here before, so I know it's safe.
Going back to the system, I started buying food. To my surprise, the Herbs and Medicines section isn't locked. I didn't gain any more money, so why is it opened? I went inside and found only one potion I could buy.
Gene Shackle BreakerDescription: Consuming this potion can help people who have had their gene cap destroyed and restore it to its original state.Cost: 3 silver coins
Looking at it, I understood why the system showed this to me. It wanted to convey to me that my gene cap is the result of something happening to my body. What happened to my body to cause my gene cap to be so low?
So it wasn't natural, someone had done this to me while I wasn't even born. Someone had already destroyed my future, and if not for the system, I would have ended up dead somewhere in the forest. Who and why? I could only sigh and think I would find out later, once I became stronger.
I started buying food from the system to fill my gene cap. I only needed to spend around 80 copper to fully replenish my gene cap.
{The exchange rate between copper and silver is 100:1. Silver and gold is 100:1. Gold and platinum is 1000:1. Platinum and diamond is 10000:1.}
The best part? The food was already prepared—some were roasted, others made into soups, and so on. I thought I would need to spend time roasting it myself, but the system is more humane than I thought, sparing me from the boring task of preparing the food.
My next target was to get the medicine. As I was full from the great meal, I leaned against the wall and felt something behind me. I looked and saw an old vine extending from the wall to the ceiling. As I touched it, a new screen appeared in front of me:
[Old Dark Vine. Collecting its leaves can be sold to the system for 1 copper each.]
Seeing this window pop up, I started plucking its leaves and climbing up the vine to reach the higher ones. When I finished collecting all of them, I realized something: I don't need to just kill monsters, I can gather other ways to earn money for myself. Thinking about selling them at a gathering place, I realized something. No one knows what the system uses these leaves for at all! The system has a monopoly on them.
There are a few people who wander the path of herbalism, and even fewer in the first realm who study all kinds of life. The main themes for life support are forging and alchemy. Herbalism is rare, as combining many herbs hastily can result in death, and there are no safety systems to save you if you fail.
Monsters I hunt can only be sold in settlements, but people would raise suspicions about how I hunted them down, so I can only sell them to the system in bulk, with a significant loss. But I wasn't too disheartened. Something for something.
With a clearer path in mind, I crawled out from the cave and warily looked around for any monsters. Upon not seeing anything, I fully crawled out and left the cave. If anyone were to see me doing what I was doing, they might think I had gone crazy. I touched every plant I came across, and only a few times did the system flare up, telling me how much I could exchange them for.
Feeling sheepish, I went back into the cave and put together a leaf bed to sleep on.