Chapter 1066 - Ring

Just like he’d been told, he thought about the first option and a bunch of text popped up.

Territory #1020388435

     Prohibited

          -”Janice Veil” and known associates

     Penalized

          -Conversation Topics: “green skin”, competing butcher shops, “Janice Veil”

Super-Territory #0000389289

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Super-Territory #0000018891

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So, Grec’ca has a grudge against someone named Janice Veil? Interesting.

The super-territories seemed to be the city district and the city itself, which had prohibitions on murder, maiming, and other terrible crimes with penalties for other crimes like theft or bad mouthing city leaders. On the plus side, it seemed that for the most part, the rules and consequences for breaking them were divided into different categories. Sage was wondering if the punishments for crimes were going to be weird and unusual, but it seemed that was reserved only for what constituted a crime in the first place. So, it was important to be aware of what they could get in trouble for, while the punishments were somewhat standardized. He focused on ‘Prohibited’ and then ‘Penalized’ and learned that he could see a severity rating for each of the crimes. Prohibited crimes led to prison time, while penalized crimes would incur fines.

With a little trial and error he found that the ‘Query Target’ was whatever he was last looking at. This triggered on the building or street he was in as well as any people he looked at. Most people just had a really long string of numbers show up with no further information. The only difference was that it showed a title for Grec’ca and Reese, one being ‘Management Department’ while the latter was ‘Administrative Department’. It also showed “Territory #1020388435” under Grec’ca’s title.

His Mandatory Tasks list was empty, and the Transportation menu had only one option. Curious he turned to Reese where she answered his questions before he asked them.

“The query results are quite limited as you can see, only official titles and owned territories are listed. Make sure to always do your Mandatory Tasks and you can only use Transportation to your owned territories. That is, unless you are at a Repository. More information about a Query Target can be purchased, as well as Transportation to other Repositories you’ve visited before.”

Grec’ca was already ignoring them and Reese had given him some time to explore the basic features before she answered his questions. Given how pointed they were, she seemed very experienced at this. Most who could reach this level of cultivation had powerful minds and it made sense that she would know exactly which questions would be asked the most. Of course, just because they had lots of brain power didn’t mean they weren’t misguided or foolish, so Reese seemed ready to answer his questions, but he merely nodded to her.

The two of them walked out of the shop and she led him down the street and into the lobby of one of the larger buildings. Inside, most of the lobby was devoted to an absurdly long cork board that spanned along every wall around the perimeter of the building. In the center was a more standard lobby and elevator for the building. The cork boards were covered with pieces of paper, pinned up and being examined by the many people milling around the lobby. Sage watched as people unpinned the sheets and carried them over to the desks at the corners of the lobby where others were doing paperwork and people were slapping the backs of their hands together.

“This is a Repository. You’ll find that many different habits have sprung up around them.”

Sage was not expecting to see this sort of thing when he thought of a Repository. Was it truly all done with paper? Wouldn’t that be extraordinarily slow to process things? The Universe Ring was immense, right?

While Reese was talking, she led him on a slow tour around the walls of the room and past one of the corner desks before heading towards the center of the room. They walked around to the back of the building’s elevators and there was something that looked like a large ATM. There were three people operating the machines and Reese nodded to Sage.

“That’s the actual Repository. These people here are doing the actual work on the Repository. They’re copying down the local tasks which are then written out and posted on those boards. They will take the jobs and then pay out rewards when the tasks are completed.”

“So they’re all just middle men?”

“They are. Why don’t you take a look at the Repository.”

When he walked over towards one of the three joined terminals, the man working there ignored him. Reese lifted up her hand and pointed at the ring, and so Sage copied her holding up his hand to the worker. The man’s eyes widened and he grumbled, staring at the terminal for a bit longer before he stepped back and took a seat to wait. Sage stepped up and once he got close enough he saw the screen change.

-Welcome User #1034526474364-

Glancing over to the side, he saw one woman that was touching the screen while the other one was just facing the screen with her eyes closed. That must mean there’s two input methods, but not letting anyone else see was definitely an advantage. Then he saw why the woman might have been using her hands. At the corner of his vision a bit of silver text flashed and he read: ‘Private Access -1 UP’. Then a menu appeared in front of him, very similar to the one he had earlier, but with more options.

-Query List-

-Task List-

-Transportation-

-Point Shop-

-Inventory-

He focused on ‘Query List’ and then a glowing box with a cursor appeared. Beneath it were the numbers 0 through 9 and he recognized it as an input box. He put in his own user number that it had just shown him and was faced with just a Territory number and a list of options. Each option had a number. Aliases, Background, Accomplishments, Associates, Possessions, Rumors. Sage picked ‘Background’ and he saw ‘-9 UP’ appear at the corner of his vision in silver text again, just like before. The number following Background also happened to be nine and so he realized that was the cost to access each option. As for what it told him, it was extremely generic.

Ascended 1275:8056:3045:1230:0345

Origin Tianxia Empire(30), State(5), Province(10), County(15), City(20)

Mentor(50)

Family(100)

Abilities(10000)

The ‘Ascended’ category seemed to be a date and time, while the rest showed more point costs and even the ‘Tianxia Empire’ had a point listing which he assumed would bring up more information about that topic in specific.

Oh no, does this whole place work like Guan Zhenyan?

He went back to the main menu and found that everything cost points. The Task List showed the current territory number and the super territories it was a part of. If he wished to view their tasks he had to spend points. The Transportation menu had an extra option which was grayed out. Instead of a territory number, it had a Terminal number. The moment he thought about Terminal number, then a number appeared in the upper left of his vision and it was the same as the one listed.

The Point Shop didn’t cost anything to look at and he was astounded by the mountain of things on offer. One of the main categories being ‘Territory’ showed him where he’d have to go in order to alter or buy more territory. He also saw a Transportation option and upon opening the menu realized how he could get back home. There was something called a ‘Surface Access Pass’ that cost one hundred million Universal Points. Upon wanting to examine it he was given a description that read: “Permission to return to the planet’s surface”.

No wonder they said it was possible to come back, but didn’t elaborate on the details. It’s just so expensive.

The Point Shop was something he could spend days or weeks combing through as it seemed to have millions of techniques and what seemed like an infinite number of items on sale, but Sage didn’t want to be here all day. Lastly, the Inventory showed him his Universal Point total at the top, followed by a Territory number and a list of items. Items that seemed very familiar.

Sage stepped back from the Repository and walked back over to Reese so the waiting man could get back to work.

“If I wish to return to the planet, I have to purchase a Surface Access Pass, correct?”

“That’s right. Now that you’re here you cannot return without it. Also, if you had not come here of your own volition someone would have retrieved you sooner or later. It’s the rules.”