The face of the clown standing behind the counter in the gift shop turned from a bored frown into a gaze of absolute terror. And a moment later, it began to laugh extremely loudly. Its voice was screeching and animalistic. Almost improvised, as if this was never part of the plan. Then, it began to sob maniacally, like someone whose lover had just died. Next was a furious, spiteful glare and growl. All of this happened as the clown casually held onto Modak's hand.

  The clown seemed to randomly switch between a number of different emotions without end. The only thing that seemed to change was that the emotions became more extreme, and the time that it took for it to switch also seemed to get less and less. The moment he realized that something out of his control was happening, Ryan pulled his friend away from the clown, hoping that it would stop whatever was happening right now.

  However, the clown simply continued on going. Rather, it felt like it was freaking out even worse and faster than before. It got to the point where it looked as though the clown was having a stroke.

  "What's happening?" Silvia asked nervously, stepping behind Ryan together with Modak, who slowly shook his head.

  "... I don't know. This hasn't happened before," he replied, staring at the clown nervously. Worst-case, he would have to bite the bullet and take the clown down. It was a shame to lose out on the items and especially the core fragments, but he could get all of those things without the dungeon as well. Silvia and Modak's safety was way, way more important than this shortcut.

  But Modak slowly had an idea of what was going on right now, "It's a... a bug."

  "A bug? Like, in a game?" the elf looked at the orc next to her, doubtful.

  "Yes, exactly like a game. Listen, the way that software works and the way we developed it follows a lot of the rules of the actual System. To a degree it's because we designed it that way, but it's also just because things kind of just work that way... It's the natural default for software development, basically," Modak explained, and though Ryan and Silvia weren't sure where he was going, they kept listening to him while watching the clown freak out, "And software has bugs... so some System Scholars have considered the possibility that there could be bugs in the... well, System. Considering that dungeons started appearing together with the system, it's assumed that they're basically a physical location that's undergoing some sort of 'Awakening' process, meaning that it's building a link to the system. That's why there's system messages whenever you kill dungeon monsters."

  Finally, Ryan was understanding where Modak was going. He had heard of all of these theories before, they came up in forums related to Awakened every once in a while, but he never really considered it much because this was just an unproven hypothesis that was mostly used as a joke. People would bring it up whenever some kind of Awakened did some ridiculous feat. Hitting a new growth record? System's bugging out. Casting too many weird or unique spells? Gotta be a bug in the system. But for the first time, Ryan was considering the possibility that it was possible.

  The system existed using mana as its conduit, that in itself was basically proven centuries ago. Anything else would be a massive upheaval of how the system as a whole.

  But Modak didn't have any mana. Rather, his whole existence seemed to reject mana in its entirety. The system basically couldn't touch him in any way, so if that handshake acted as something of an appraisal skill, it was possible that it just wouldn't work, but it was just as possible that it would freak out. This dungeon never encountered someone like Modak before; it wasn't prepared for him.

  It was more than possible that the dungeon's system was somehow bugging out. And that sparked some kind of idea in Ryan's head.

  "Modak... do you remember when we first started hanging out? When we'd play that old game in your room, Karlax Adventures?"

  "Huh? Yeah, what about it?"

  "And do you remember what we tried in the volcano level? Right at the edge of the bottomless pit?"

  Modak snapped his head toward Ryan, "No- No, we are not going to do that, that's way to fucking risky."

  "Yeah, but we could make some really cool shit happen if it works."

  Silvia looked back and forth between her friends. She was there when they were playing that game a ton of the time, but she didn't really pay too much attention to the details. Of course, Silvia liked games, but the two of them were basically scanning through every single part of every single level together, trying to find-

  "Holy shit, are you trying to use this to find an exploit in the dungeon?" she put it together, and Ryan nodded his head with a massive grin on his face.

  "If there's anything to try and exploit in this dungeon, it's the gift shop," he said, stepping up to the clown again. He wasn't quite sure about this, but if you wanted to try and exploit a bug, you had to actually face it and deal with it. Quickly, Ryan stretched his hand out toward the clown. It was trying to raise its own hand, but wasn't able to due to its rapid flailing. So, Ryan quickly leaned over the counter and grabbed the clown's hand, forcing it into a handshake.

  Immediately, the clown stopped, with a massive, broad smile on its face. The lights that were flickering, revealing absolutely nothing behind them, completely shut off. And slowly, four of them turned back on. The small description underneath each item was scrambled, just as the writing on Modak's card was. The price for each of them also seemed random. One of them cost 16 points, another of them cost 1462. But the only thing that was somewhat consistent were the items actually being sold. They were vouchers, one for each of the spirits. The vouchers were colour-coded as well, so it was easy to tell which one was for which spirit. The cheapest one, and the only one that Ryan could actually afford, was Gaia's. Ryan bought it.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Looking more closely at the voucher, the text that would usually describe what it was for was scrambled just like everything else here right now.

  "Hold on!" Modak quickly placed his healthy hand onto Ryan's arm, "Are you sure about this? What if something dangerous pops up from it? It's totally scrambled, so-"

  "Calm down, calm down," Ryan reassured him with a smile, "As I've said before, I'm pretty sure the dungeon tries to access some dormant abilities in the user. So, if anything, it's probably just going to pick something totally random, but it's most definitely going to be a good thing. Or... nothing at all happens. Which is also fine. But in the best case scenario, we've been able to expand the shop because of you, which is pretty sick if you ask me."

  "... Are you sure?"

  "Uh..."

  Modak stared at his friend, who hesitantly held onto the voucher, "Didn't you just tell me that I hold back too much just earlier?"

  "Dude, that's very-"

  Ryan ripped the voucher, watching as it fell apart into magic. For a few moments, it seemed like it didn't quite know what it was supposed to do, until the green threads flowed over toward the golem standing nearby. The voucher was probably made from Gaia's magic in the first place, so it was just returning to her as it normally did whenever Ryan ripped these types of vouchers. And then, a moment later, a grass green message popped up, correlating to Gaia.

  [One Blank Voucher has been redeemed - Please select 16 points worth of items]

  His eyes widened as he looked at the message in front of him, watching as a larger screen opened together with it. It had a massive list of all sorts of different seeds and saplings in it, each with a separate point value connected to them. There really weren't many that were below 16 points, but a couple were amongst them. Right when he was glancing over the screen, trying to see all the possible options, Silvia tapped his shoulder.

  "Uh... guys? It's there again," she said, pointing at the shelves behind the counter. Ryan looked over, and saw that the same voucher was back. Except, instead of costing 16 points, it now cost 382 points. And with that, it all came together in Ryan's mind.

  "Dude. Holy fucking shit," Ryan looked over at Modak. He basically wanted to kiss him, "You just made it that we can just buy whatever items we want."

  "Wait, what?" Modak asked confused, and Silvia seemed equally taken aback.

  Ryan quickly looked through the item list, trying to confirm a few things as he took out his phone to write down all the options, "Okay, so... This was a 'Blank Voucher' for Gaia. After I ripped it, I got a list of a ton of different items we could get from the regular vouchers. I'm not sure if it's really all of them, but that doesn't matter right now. I can basically 'buy' these items, and they each have a cost... since I have 16 points to use, I'm guessing that the random cost of the voucher correlates to how much you can spend after that. But at the same time..." Ryan scrolled through the screen, looking at some of the other seeds that came out of the vouchers in the past, "They're way more expensive. I think I might have gotten pretty lucky so far by only getting magic seeds. They're all at least 100 points, and the saplings are at least 300. The only seeds that I can buy with 16 points are for regular, completely non-magical, and extremely common plants."

  "Still, this is... amazing!" Silvia exclaimed excitedly, and though Modak was clearly a little sad that he didn't get any items for himself, it still made sense since he didn't have a class to begin with.

  "So what, are you just going to try and get every sort of item?"

  Ryan thought about it for a moment, tapping his foot on the ground, "The ones that seem useful, at least. There's a ton here that you can just get in regular gardening stores, and others you can find in specialty stores. So at least for the seeds, I'll stick to the extremely rare ones. It might be more important to focus on items for the others, since I can't get them any other way."

  "Awesome... anyway, let's go with me next! I want to see what my 'blank' items are!" quickly, the elf looked at Modak, who hesitantly walked back over to the clown. With another shake of its hand, it began to freak out, and then Silvia quickly forced a handshake just as Ryan had. The flickering light in front of the shelves once more turned off and then on again. But instead of vouchers like there were with Ryan, there was a small gift box. With ribbon and all. The text was still scrambled, but the price was set to 243.

  Ryan smiled lightly, "Hm, the items that I get are themed in a way that relates to me because of the nature of my class, but in your case, you can probably select whatever item you want once you pick the gift. From what's the case for the spirits and what Runar told me, plus what was in your regular shop... your two categories are probably 'Art Tools' and 'Pigments'."

  "... What am I gonna do with pigments?" Silvia sighed, a little disappointed, "Are you sure? What am I supposed to do with a bunch of pigment jars?"

  "Oh, they're probably not normal pigments though, right? I got to see some magic items in the tower, and there's this really old set of magic items. Their magic almost ran out, but it used to be paint jars that can produce a never-ending amount of a particular colour. It could be something like that," the orc suggested.

  "Hm..." Ryan thought for a moment as he looked at the shelf, "You know what? Silvia, give me your card for a second."

  The elf seemed a bit confused and gave Ryan the small point card. He quickly placed it into the chest together with another coin. As he opened the chest, the card had the coin's points deposited onto it. And most importantly, it was still 'registered' to Silvia. With a quick nod, he slightly held it up, "I'm going to keep this for now. We don't have enough coins to do anything else here right now, anyway, and I'm not planning on going to kill more monsters for more right now. Instead, when I'm here on my own time, I'll put coins onto your card whenever I can, and then you can splurge the next time you're here. Sound good?"

  Silvia agreed without an issue, so Ryan put the card into his wallet with his own. And then, just to check one last thing, he went up to the clown and shook its hand again. The items changed once more, but it wasn't the 'bugged' items. Instead, it was the regular selection of eight vouchers that was still left on the shelves. The prices hadn't changed either. And so, the trio continued on to the next zone to continue investigating.

  On the way, as they were in the 'safe zones' between each of the dungeon's areas, Ryan continued on typing all the available items and their prices into his phone. And once he had done so, he selected a quite simple seed after briefly getting Gaia's input. Rather, he just asked her if it was okay, and she was ecstatic. It was just a packet of grass seeds; that was the only thing that Ryan could afford with those 16 points, and he wasn't sure if the points were still available next time he tried to buy one of these.

  The seeds were stashed away beside the domains like normal, and the trio continued on to the next area.

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