"Isha, now that I can access my magic, how do I cultivate? Do I need to buy a cultivation method and what about fire spells will I need to be purchased those as well?"

Jayde could feel a headache coming on, her fifteen points might just be enough to purchase a suitable cultivation method, but after buying a cultivation method, she would only have a couple of points left, which according to the prices she had seen, would just give her one low-level fire spell.

I have to find a way to earn more points, she thought.

Jayde was finding it difficult to adjust to being so 'poor', in the Federation she never lacked credits, so this was the first time in her life that she was having to 'budget,' and she was finding this new experience unpleasant.

"Ah damn, I forgot," Isha said slapping his own forehead, then producing two scrolls out of thin air, he gave them to Jayde.

"This one is a cultivation method that is perfect for your constitution," he said tapping one of the scrolls with his finger, then pointing to the other scroll, "and this one contains basic fire spells."

Giving Jayde a severe look, he cautioned: "These are the only scrolls that I can give you, you will have to unlock the library through the exchange system to obtain more basic skills."

Jayde took the two scrolls from Isha. “Thank you,” she said politely.

Isha smiled at Jayde, but he was unhappy with how formal she was acting with him. Sighing he again cursed White silently.

Satisfied that she didn't have to waste her precious points on fire skills or a cultivation method, Jayde turned back to the exchange system screen, and tapped on dimension upgrades, she was curious just many points she would need to unlock the library.

Scrolling through the list of available upgrades, Jayde again was astonished at the items available.

"Herb garden 500 points, Courtyard 1000 points, Alchemy Room 1000 points, Forge 1000 points, Iron mine 1000 points, Aura stone mine 5000 points, Kitchen 100 points, Farm 1500 points, Library 1000 points, Treasury room 250 points, Storage room 150 points."

The list went on and on, everything was listed from adding trees from 1 point to basic furniture which ranged from a single point to luxurious décor with needed thousands of points to redeem, even items like beasts, birds, insects, fish, seeds, and farm animals were available.

Each of the additional rooms would increase the size of Jayde dimension space, but there were also other options for her to increase the size of her area. From the look of everything available, it really looked as through Jayde had the opportunity to create her own little world — that is, if she had enough points available to exchange for these products.

Seeing the library was out of her league at the moment, Jayde returned to the main menu and tapped on the market tab.

Different from all the other screens, the market was split into two sections — buying — selling, really curious about this Jayde clicked on the first option — buying.

A list of options came up, Herbs, Spirit Stones, Aura Stones, Weapons, Skills, Materials, Pills, Potions, Poisons, plus many more categories were listed. Tapping on the herb button, the screen changed, and then a list of herbs was displayed on the screen.

Scrolling through the list, Jayde recognized many of them from the books that she had read from the old man library. Seeing one of the herbs that she knew as she had seen in growing in the Dark Forest, and curious about why it was listed on the exchange system, Jayde tapped it.

The screen went blank for a second, then six small cards were displayed on the screen, Jayde selected the first card.

[Looking for 10 Red Blossom Lotus — will exchange for 5 Qi Gathering pills. Mimix, Dimension 211]

Jayde stared at the card being displayed on the screen. Confused she reread the card, she really hadn’t made a mistake. The card was from someone in a whole different dimension.

Rubbing her eyes, Jayde mind buzzed trying to sort her thoughts out. Turning to Isha, she pointed to the screen.

“Isha this post is asking for Red Blossom Lotuses, but the person says they are in dimension 211, how it is possible for someone to sell them goods?”

Chuckling at Jayde’s slightly dazed look, at least she is showing some sort expression, Isha thought.

“This is one of the powers of the Proteus system,” Isha said proudly. “All the different Proteus artifacts seeded through all the different dimensions can communicate in a limited way. This market exchange is set up for contractors to exchange items with each other.”

Jayde blinked owlishly at Isha, before blurting out: “But how is that possible?”

Scratching his head, Isha shrugged as he said helplessly: “From a technology point of view, I have no idea how it works, only that it does.”

Pointing to a slot next to the exchange screen, Isha went on to say: “Once you accept an exchange, you put the item in there. The Proteus system will then transfer the item to the buyer if it's an exchange, the buyer has to store his items in the system when he or she registers the exchange, once they accept your goods, the system will automatically transfer the items to you. Some buyers just pay points for their goods.”

Jyade was blown away by what Isha had just said, just trying to think of what sort of technology was involved in exchanging items between different dimensions, the energy requirements alone must be astronomical, she thought.

Fascinated by the whole thing, Jayde spent a couple of hours investigating the inter-dimensional market exchange.

After a while, Jayde was pleased to discover that there was another for her to earn points. There were numerous people exchanging points for items, and by doing multiple trades, Jayde could trade herbs and spirit stones with contractors for products and then using these products that she earned trading herbs and spirit stones, she could then trade the items received for points.

There seemed to be quite a demand for essential herbs that was readily available on Doha, and most of the people looking to buy these herbs were willing to exchange pills and potions for these herbs.

And from what Jayde had observed, besides the alchemists who were looking for herbs and plants, there was a high demand for pills and potions, it seemed as though alchemists were rare on numerous worlds. With the pills and potions that she could exchange for herbs, Jayde would then be able to trade them for points.

Calculating in her head, Jayde quickly figured out that she could make at least a hundred points quite easily using the inter-dimensional exchange system.

This would have to do until the inter-dimensional mercenary board became available, she thought, as she was still barred from accessing it as her current level was too low.

Feeling more secure about spending her points — now that she had a way to make additional points, Jayde went back to the body modification section and purchased the level one speed upgrade for ten points.

After confirming that she wanted to make the exchange, the system then asked her if she wanted to install the upgrade. Although nervous about how this upgrade was going to be installed, Jayde confirmed that she wanted to install it immediately.

As soon as she tapped yes on the screen, Jayde heard a slight swoosh sound, looking around she noticed that a new partition in the wall opened up a couple of feet to the right of her.

Jayde asked Isha if she must enter the room for her upgrade after Isha confirmed that she correct, she strolled over to the room.

Walking into the new room, Jayde was pleasantly surprised at the familiar looking medical bay. Seeing the tube-like medical healing pod, Jayde figured that she was supposed to climb into the medical pod, while slightly apprehensive about the whole thing, Jayde comforted herself with the thought that up until now this Proteus systems had done nothing to harm her physically.

Even during White’s sadistic assessment, while she had felt pain every time she had been injured, those injuries had miraculously disappeared each time she had awoken in that small room, nothing she had experienced had left any permanent damage to her.

Thinking about that experience, Jayde climbed into the medical bay tube. After lying down the glass top closed, encasing Jayde in the medical pod. A faint mist was released by the medical bed, smelling the familiar scent of the anesthetic, Jayde felt her heart rate increase as the palms of her hand started to sweat, but before she could panic, her mind blanked out as she lost consciousness.

It was just as well that Jayde had passed out, and didn't see all the strange medical tools that activated when she was knocked out, as she would definitely have freaked out seeing these highly advanced pieces of machinery.

After a strange substance was injected into Jayde's body, one of the tools began to scan her body from top to body. A blue glow emitted from the scanning device as it moved over her body.

"Initiating DNA sequence modification," a disembodied female voice echoed through the room.

"DNA modification activated."

"25% completed."

"50% completed."

"75% completed."

"100% completed."

"DNA sequence modification completed."

"Integration of modification 100% successful."

After the machine had finished, a pinkish mist was released, which woke Jayde up. Once the glass cover retracted, Jayde sat up feeling refreshed. She quickly jumped off the bed, and inspected her body, she couldn’t feel anything strange or different about herself. Deciding to test out if the upgrade had actually work, she did some shadow boxing, to check out her new speed.

Jayde could feel a definite improvement in her speed. With her new speed coupled with the experience she had gained during White's 'test' Jayde was confident that she could now enter the perimeter of the Dark Forest.

From what she had read in the old man's notes, the Dark Forest was broken up into sections. The sections were ring-like, and according to the records left behind there were five known sections, although the old man did mention that he suspected that there were more sections, but he had only managed to make his way through to the fifth section, where he almost lost his life, so he didn't dare investigate further.

The outer ring, known as the perimeter contained only rank one and two spirit beasts. The next section housed spirit beasts up to rank five, whereas the third section had creatures up to level eight. The fourth ring contained Knight class spirit beasts and the fifth ring held Bishop class spirit beasts.

The old man also noted that some sort of ward kept the beast in their correct sections, but this ward did not affect humans. He seemed really interested in who could have set up such a complicated ward, he theorized that it had to have been someone from the Upper Realm as no one in the Lower or Mid Realm had that sort of power. The old man also speculated that The Dark Forest could have some sort of training ground from ancient times before the cataclysm that had split Doha into the different realms.

Returning to the main room, Jayde asked Isha how to return to her cave, she was impatient to start cultivating.

"All you need to do is just visualize your cave, and you will return, the same goes if you want to return to the Proteus Pavilion," Isha asked.

“Oh, so I can return here whenever I want?” Jayde asked.

“Of course, this is your space.”

Bidding Isha farewell, Jayde pictured her cave in her mind. As the mental image of her cave appeared in her mind, Jayde disappeared from the Proteus Pavilion and reappeared in her cave.

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© 2019 DJ Rogue. All rights reserved.