Author’s Corner

After finding and paying for an inn room for the night, I slept more easily than I had yet since I got the game. Except maybe after the jungle planet. But nevermind that, I was surprised to find when I woke up that Celeste had not done any studying that night, but less than excited since, as predicted my dreams were filled with giant stone spiders….

“Sorry… again… I swear I didn’t know.” Celeste was pouting next to me as we went out of the inn to head to our first destination, a tailor. Yang needed clothes, or else every time I looked at my grove there would be a naked angel running around.

I know… it’s alright, just please… don’t let it happen again. I shivered a bit as I remembered the forest of nightmares. For a moment, I wondered if the scythe mantis and goliath beetle were still trapped in those shadow prisons, or if they would ever get out. Let’s just find a tailor so we can take care of the wardrobe for Yang… you made sure to get her sizes right?

“Uhmm… well… I never really bothered looking up women’s clothing sizes… I can do that once we hit a terminal if you let me take over for just a minute!” She spoke up next to me, making me sigh as I walked up to the nearest terminal. Alright, go ahead…

I felt myself smile, and heard myself talking after relinquishing control. “Clothing information please, information on sizes for men and women, playing at two hundred frames a second.” There was a sudden flash of images that lasted no more than a few seconds, before my head nodded. “Thank you.” After that, I again had control of my body, not like I really fought with her for it for the few seconds she was in control.

After turning to again walk towards the tailor, Celeste appeared next to me. “Alright, I’ve got what we need.”

I gave a relieved sigh and nodded my head as we arrived to the store, though quickly found that our little detour would not have been needed at all. When we entered, there was a slim female elf with kind eyes and short dark hair. “Good evening, sir. How may I help you today?”

“Well.. my animal companion just evolved into a winged demi… so I need to find some clothes for her.” I was just about to have Celeste list her sizes when the woman nodded understandingly.

“Alright then, please move over to the changing room and summon her.”

I froze for a moment, but nodded and moved over to the small room, with the tailor following behind. Once we got there, I looked into my grove and found Yang sitting under a tree by herself. She seemed to be able to sense me, because she excitedly stood up just as I began summoning her. Soon, she appeared in front of me in all her censored(thank Celeste) glory. “Hello, master!” She smiled wide, jumping at me and hugging me, causing me to cough awkwardly.

“Hmm, a four winged one. Well, no matter, it shall be easy enough.” The woman nodded, and seemed to be taking down some of Yang’s measurements during the rather close hug. “Miss, would you mind stepping in here so that we can get you fitted for an outfit?” Her next words made me think that she has handled affectionate evolved companions before. “I’m sure your master would like it if you were some nice clothes for him.”

Hearing the last bit seemed to do the trick for Yang as well, because she happily looked between me and the tailor, and then all but dove into the changing room. In fact, the light thud and ensuing “Oww..” made me realize that she is still learning how to control her new body properly.

“Please wait here, sir. I’ll have her out in a minute to look at the outfit.” The tailor smiled to me and walked over to a shelf, grabbing a few different tops, then doing the same with pants and undergarments.(I really didn’t need to know what underwear Yang would be wearing)

I walked over and sat on a nearby bench as I waited for the first outfit showing. I could hear the two of them fussing over what to wear, and more importantly how to get the former bird to put the clothes on. Naturally, with her wings like they were she couldn’t just slip a shirt on like normal because they’d get in the way.

A few minutes later, Yang walked out in the first outfit, and my breath caught in my throat. I mean, she already looked like a literal angel. Put that angel in tight jeans, and a white backless top that tied at her neck and the bottom of her back while hanging loose in between… Calm thoughts.. calm thoughts… think of a nice, cold shower.

Celeste simply sat next to me, giggling at my reaction. I listed this outfit as a definite maybe for purchase, but I wanted to see what else the tailor had picked out. And each outfit seemed more devastating than the last. The pants were easy, as her lower body was the same as humans or elves, but the tops all had to be backless so that the wings didn’t get in the way. And they couldn’t be put on by being pulled over the head, so they all ended up being tied to her back or pulled up from the bottom.

In the end, I bought three outfits for her, at two silver each. Considering that ten gold was the equivalent of five hundred dollars, according to the conversion for the shrines to change races, that meant I essentially bought the outfits for a dollar each. I liked these prices! Though, most likely that price was not a true conversion, and these clothes were cheap because they served a purely cosmetic purpose, offering no protection and being made of basic materials.

Once I was done shopping, I looked over to the elf tailor. “Thank you very much. Do you know where we can get a companion bracelet for her, and sell some alchemy pills?”

She quickly nodded her head. “Two shops down and across the street is the general market. He’ll buy pretty much anything at a fair price, and has companion braces in his stock.”

I thanked her again, and went to check out the market. Since Yang was now fully dressed, there was no justifiable reason to send her back to the grove, so she walked alongside me. The difference between this general store and the one on Hascion were simply too large. I felt like I was walking into a modern convenience store, but it sold things like potions, weapon ammo, throwing knives, and various other consumables. Also, it didn’t help that there was an aisle devoted to snacks, and a slushy machine on the right wall.

I’ll admit, I got a slushy before anything else. And it was glorious. I don’t know what a frozen fallberry is supposed to be, but it was purple and tasted like soda. That was good enough for me. There was a middle aged human standing behind the counter, who seemed a bit amused with my decision. “So, what else can I get for you today?”

At his words, I remembered what I actually came here for. “Do you have a bowl? I’d like to sell some alchemy pills, but don’t have a proper container for them, and would not like to make a mess.”

“Ah, certainly, certainly.” He nodded his head and smiled to me, pulling out a small bowl to place on the counter. With his permission, I deposited the first batch of pills, the beginner health pills. He pulled out a small device and used it to scan the contents of the bowl. “Hmm, minor recipe, but still effective. I can buy them for ten coppers each, meaning two silver for the whole batch.”

I readily accepted this, and told him I had another batch of the same pills. Hearing that I could make over twice as much for the lowest grade healing pills as I could for their potion counterparts excited me. And he was able to clearly see said excitement. “Alchemy pills are more effective for people who do not take up work as an adventurer. For example, this pill can recover sixty health over twenty seconds, whereas a potion can recover forty health instantly. As long as you don’t expect to be hurt again within those twenty seconds, a pill is the better option.”

“Additionally, pills like this are far easier to store and carry. A full batch or two can easily fit in a single pill bottle that takes up as much space to carry as two potion bottles. City workers will often buy a full bottle of alchemy pills before they’d be a healing potion. Take into consideration the cost and difficulty of crafting the pills as well, and they are easily worth twice as much as their counterparts.”

I thought about that for a moment, and nodded. “Huh, alright. Guess I know what I’ll be focusing on from now on.” Hearing that made the shopkeeper smirk before I pulled out the next batch of pills. With each batch, he took the time to explain how effective an individual pill was before listing the price he would buy them at.

Once we got up to the stamina pills that required four herbs, the prices were up to at least a silver per pill. I thought that he was actually giving me a pretty good deal for this, since I actually had over a gold by the time we got to the final batch, the elixir pills. According to him, these were actually a bit more rare, since few planets grew all of the herbs needed for any of the recipes. However, the higher the level of the pill, the less a common city worker would buy it. People who never went past level twenty their entire life would naturally not need a high quality healing pill. With that in mind, he was willing to buy each pill for two and a half silver each, making the entire batch sell for half a gold.

This brought my total earnings for the pills to one gold and sixty silver, which I was very happy with. Yang also smiled next to me, enjoying a slushy of her own, only mildly complaining about the brain-freeze. Naturally, she didn’t understand most of what was going on, just that I was selling some stuff that I had made. Remembering the other reason that I had come here, I looked from Yang to the shopkeeper. “Alright.. now I need to get a companion for my friend here. She is an evolved animal companion, so it would be best if I could get an upgrade for it to allow my AI to control both my own and her device.”

“Hmm, I see. Well, that does explain a few things.” He nodded towards the birdbrained angel. “Alright. Well, those upgrades are fairly common for people with animal companions, so we keep a few in stock. I’ll assume that you want the same upgrade for your own bracelet as well?”

When I answered that I did, he had me remove my companion bracelet so that he could apply the hardware upgrade. Though, Celeste was inside my head, so there wasn’t a worry of her getting damaged. Still, she seemed especially quiet, as if feeling uncomfortable without the bracelet nearby. “I haven’t been gone from it since… ever. Even in your head, I still have a connection with it thanks to the programs you wrote.” She explained when she noticed I had sensed her anxiety.

The upgrade took only a couple minutes, as he only had to take the back off of the bracelet and put in a tiny chip, which then seemed to melt into the device. “Alright, all done.” He smiled and returned the upgraded bracelet to me, before giving Yang an identical one while accepting the one gold and twenty silver payment. “In order to synchronize them for your AI, simply hold the two screens together for ten seconds and they should connect. Are there any other upgrades that you’d be interested in? I noticed that this seemed to be your first modification.”

I smirked slightly at that, thinking of all the modifications I had made to myself, rather than the bracelet. “How much would an internet access upgrade cost?”

He thought about it for a moment, before checking his terminal. “Those are a bit more rare, because the companion hardware upgrade has restrictions that prevent you from visiting a lot of sites without paying an additional fee to unlock them. Otherwise, anyone could buy it and have their companion learn all of the information there was to be had. So… the upgrade costs eighty silver in total. If you want to buy a portable terminal, it might be more useful to you, but a portable terminal with its own power source costs twenty gold. If you power it yourself with mana, the cost is half of that.”

I couldn’t afford the internet upgrade, let alone my own personal computer. Though the idea was appealing, and if I felt like staying her for a few weeks I could easily afford one just by selling pills. Still, after examining one of the portable terminals in the enchanting store at Hascion, I knew they were heavily enchanted, so I wouldn’t be able to put it in my grove anyways at my level. “Alright… uh.. one more thing, though it’s not really about me buying something.”

“A question? Go ahead, ask away.”

“I’m a druid, trying to become a Xeno-Shifter. According to the information I’ve learned, I should meet the necessary skill requirements to change into a sentient race. Do you know anyone that might be willing to let me scan them to practice?” It was a bit awkward asking to scan someone, but it was something that needed to be done.

“Take it you can’t do it with the little missy there, because you already have her wings, and her aura isn’t different enough? Well, it’s understandable. Head on over to the hospital, and tell them that you’re a Xeno-Shifter in training. Xeno-Shifters often take up jobs as cosmetic surgeons, since they can train to alter a patient’s body as well. It’s cheaper to pay a fee to a Xeno-Shifter to change your race than to pay the gods to have you reborn, even if you don’t get all of their innate traits.”

I nodded my head, considering that. It was basically the same thing I had wanted to do to Tessa to fix her. I wasn’t surprised at all that other druids had made a business out of it. In fact, once I trained enough, I could even make a decent living doing it in the real world. I’m sure there are a bunch of people that would regret their race choices, or choose to change ‘certain aspects’ of their bodies...