Risen World

Joshua, Adrian, Aito, and Henry all looked at each other before shrugging and clicking on the option that allowed them to group together before being teleported into the shop. They all had to input it this way for them to be teleported together, but it was an easy process as not only were they teleported in quickly, but just about everyone else that was waiting outside was whisked away as well. Joshua closed his eyes in that moment and felt the familiar sensation of being teleported by the system. It was similar to moving through a portal, but much faster.

When Joshua opened his eyes once more he was surprised by the fantastical like setting that surrounded them. Just like with the new coins that he had gained from the tournament, the aesthetic of the inside of the store was space. Looking up towards the ceiling it looked nothing like a building, but instead it looked like they were staring at the stars on a perfect cloudless night. This would have been striking on its own, but this lay out was everywhere around them. Even the floor that they were standing on made it look like they were floating in space. The moment Joshua thought of this his body actually started floating and he realized he was no longer standing on solid ground.

Joshua wasn't the only one there to be surprised by the new situation. His friends were also floating nearby looking around them with wide eyes. Soon enough other people started popping into the space and floating around allowing Joshua to see other people's reactions. In the end there were around a thousand people inside of the store that were brought in, but that was nowhere near the amount of people that were waiting outside to come in. That gave Joshua a good idea of how the Universe shop worked.

The basic function of the place was similar to the battle arena in that there were multiple instances involved in the one building. From the outside the arena looked huge, but it didn't look like it could contain so many different fights at the same time. The only way it was able to accomplish this was to have multiple instances in the same location. A use of space that humanity as a whole had no idea how to accomplish on their own. This worked for both the contestants to allow a limitless amount of fights at the same time and the audience so that several crowds could gather and watch each specific fight.

This universe shop follows the same principle. At the moment Joshua and the other thousand or so people were in one instance of the shop. The only thing that continued to elude Joshua's reasoning was why so few people were allowed in each instance. There was so much space inside the shop that it felt like they were standing in the middle of an ocean with room as far as the eye could see.

"Well this is an interesting idea for a shop." Adrian said as he floated around. For a moment he moved around oddly as he tried to figure out a way to move forward in the space, but he looked like a kid struggling to swim and well on his way to drowning. On the other hand Henry instantly started moving around the space freely as he floated upward and above them before circling them. "How the hell are you doing that?"

"You just have to will it. I wanted to move and so I am. The normal laws of physics don't seem to apply in this shop. Well at least our understanding of those concepts anyhow, but with all the changes we've seen so far it isn't all that surprising." Henry explained. Joshua and Aito took his advice and willed themselves to glide upward and had no issues moving around and soon enough Adrian followed suit. Other groups of people followed there example as the area was now filled with several people gliding around and getting used to the feeling of moving in what they could only imagine it would feel like to be in space to some extent.

"Well now we just have to figure out how exactly this shop works in the first place." Aito said with a frown. "It probably has something to do with willing for something to happen based off of how we're able to move around." Just after Aito had brought up his point a message from the system appeared in front of everyone.

[Welcome to the Universe Shop. If you are getting this message then this is must be your first time entering this system establishment. Messages will appear to explain different parts of the shop when you interact with it, but to start things off the basics will be explained. Upon entering this shop you can use your will to move about from place to place, but keep in mind there is rarely any need to move around in the first place with how this shop works.]

When Joshua had reached this point in the message he had a bit of an idea how this shop worked. It seemed to thrive off of imagination and will. In the end it was like a universe wide online shop. The question now was how much was there to find in such a shop.

[To gain access to the different items available in this shop you simply only need to think of that type of item and a catalog of all the items related to it will appear in your system messages. Several types of that item will also appear in front of you for viewing while scrolling through the catalog. For items that are of a larger scale only one will appear at a time based on what you select in the catalog.]

"Definitely online shopping." Joshua mumbled out loud getting nods from his friends who were all thinking the same thing at this point.

[There is also an auction portion of the universe shop, but new customers should learn more about the value of different items before joining the auction shop to avoid being taken advantage of. All items that are to be put up for auction will be judged by the system beforehand and given the lowest acceptable value. Then the item will be put up to be bid on for a day/night cycle's period.]

"Alright the auction shop seems like something we should check out for now and not get too involved in." Henry said with a frown. "We don't exactly have a good idea of how high we should bid on items at this point and we don't have the universe coins to go wasting them in an auction that way."

"Still it'll be fun to go and check it out just to see how things work in a universal auction. I wonder if we'll be able to see other races and creatures from around the universe." Joshua said with a thoughtful look, but he decided to turn his attention back to the last portion of the message.

[Lastly be aware that there are certain items that you will not be able to purchase based on your world level. Newly evolved planets only have a certain level of access in the universe shop so do not be surprised when certain items cannot be purchased or viewed in full. With all that explained, enjoy your time exploring the Universe Shop!]

"That makes sense." Aito said with a shrug. "There are probably things out there that our planet isn't even ready to handle let alone us. It should be fun looking at them at least." They all nodded before they closed the message and opened up a new system window that was linked to the universe shop. Joshua immediately searched for scale blades and a catalog appeared that showed several different scale blades of all shapes and designs. Each scale blade looked unique and as he scrolled through them a real life version of one would appear in front of him for him to look at and mess with.

"Damn those things look awesome." Adrian said with a grin before he started looking up all sorts of swords through his own catalog. Joshua just nodded and started reading the information of the blades that he was bringing up. Not many of them were all that different from each other and the information that was displayed for them was similar. One thing Joshua did notice was that there was a level display for the weapons that showed what level they would be useful at. All of the blades he had been looking through were somewhere between the level seventy and ninety range. There was also the information of who made the weapons and was selling them off through the universe shop in the first place. Of course since they were aliens to Joshua he had no idea who they were, but after reading through some of the names he began to wonder about his own blade.

Joshua pulled up the information on the scale blade he had gotten from Marlow and was surprised that it was actually made by him since the name Marlow came up as the maker in the first place. Joshua noticed that the weapon was available in the shop for purchase, but it was locked away stating that he had not reached the required level to purchase such an item. Even so Joshua was able to bring up the weapon to compare it to the best level ninety weapon that he could purchase himself right now.

The best weapon Joshua could currently purchase cost one thousand universe coins which already gave Joshua a good idea of how expensive things were going to be in the shop. It was apparently made from some materials of a sort of evolved turtle that gave heightened defensive capabilities in comparison to other scale blades around the same level, however when compared to his current weapon it was far inferior. The weapon Marlow had made peaked out at level one hundred and was considered a basic starter scale blade for second tier job holders that liked that kind of weapon. Its materials were more refined and its all-around capabilities made it great offensively and defensively, but the cost is what shocked Joshua. It was currently marked at five thousand universe coins when it was considered one of the most basic of second tier weapons.

"Well there's no way I can afford to splurge here." Adrian said with a sigh. The best weapon I can buy is only a little better than my current pair, but it cost fifteen hundred universe coins. How the hell is anyone supposed to buy stuff from here if they didn't go far in the tournament?"

"Apparently they can get a mixture of five different low level potions." Aito said while looking through a different catalog. "Outside of that maybe they can buy materials by the gram." Joshua just shook his head at this realizing just how in over their heads humanity was at the moment..