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158 - Voucher Spree

  "This is great!" Silvia exclaimed excitedly, smiling broadly as she looked at the pots filled with the powdery pigment.

  Modak leaned over and took a glance, "If you have those three, does that mean you can just make any paint you want now?"

  She thought for a moment, "I mean... sort of? It definitely gives me a lot more options when I do want to mix. But I do think that, whenever possible, using pure pigment is better. It just makes it feel a bit more special. Though I wonder what other pigments I could get from the exploit now..."

  "Whatever it is, just buy your other things for now," Ryan suggested. Silvia quickly did exactly that. She still had enough money for two of the items right now, and the ones that she decided on were exactly the ones that Ryan expected. The apron and the paintbrush.

  Without a moment's hesitation, and a broad smile on her face, Silvia put on the apron. It fit perfectly in every way. Of course, aprons were usually 'one size fits all' in the first place, but somehow, this one was just 'Silvia's size'. It made sense, of course. It was made for her, after all.

  The apron had tons of small pockets all over it, and tight loops that looked like they could hold different tools perfectly. Actually, one of them seemed to be made specifically for the brush that Silvia got just now as well. And as she wore it and looked down at herself, one thing was clear.

  "Did you design your outfit around this apron?" Ryan was a bit taken aback. Though somehow, that leather apron should clash with that tech-wear outfit that Silvia was wearing right now, at least style-wise, somehow it all fit together as if the apron was the last piece that was needed.

  "Hehe, and what if I did?" She laughed.

  Modak raised his brow confused, "How did you even know that it would look like that? It was completely folded up until now."

  "I know what an apron looks like," Silvia pointed out, as if that just automatically meant that you knew how this specific one looks like. It wasn't as though this was a normal apron. It was covered almost completely in different magical patterns that were infusing it with special effects. Even so, everything just fit together. The older, more traditional magical style of the apron, juxtaposing the modern techy-style of the rest of Silvia's outfit just somehow worked the way she did it.

  That being the case, there was one more open question, which Ryan quickly asked, "What does it actually do, though? I'm guessing the brush just boosts the effect of your skill when you use it, but the apron?"

  "That's a, uh... that's a good question," Silvia looked down at herself, "The one thing I could imagine it helping with is my gallery skill, but I don't think it changed anything for that..."

  Both Ryan and Silvia were thinking about it deeply together, though neither was able to come up with an idea until Modak spoke up.

  "Ryan, you said that the dungeon accesses certain dormant abilities connected to someone's class, right? Basically triggering them early? I'm not sure that's totally the case," he suggested. Ryan glanced back at him, confused.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Okay, so... Clearly, the dungeon accesses the system and class info. But not every class just has some kind of 'shop' thing or a way to procure items related to their class. But for you, your class is very... merchandise-themed, somehow? Everything new you unlock is in these cardboard boxes, so it's possible that the Spirit Keeper class does have that kind of ability, but others don't," Modak explained, looking over at the clown, "Instead, I think maybe in the past, there used to be some kind of 'custom item black market'. I had to read up on magic item laws because that affects what I can and can't make at the tower, and there are limitations on what kind of effects you can add to an item."

  "Wait, seriously? How so?" Silvia wondered.

  "Generally, it's to reduce lethality of weapons or danger to the user, that kind of thing. These laws are fairly relaxed now, but they used to be pretty rough a couple decades ago, right around when this park was up and running. Like, there was a percentage limit on skill-boosting effects, that kind of thing. That's not around anymore, though."

  Ryan crossed his arms in thought. With that added info, under the assumption that there was a market for this, then this function of the dungeon made a lot more sense. Runar mentioned that it wasn't a thing initially, but that they 'raised' the dungeon into this direction coincidentally, but it would still need to be related to the dungeon's history.

  "So... because I already have a potential skill where I can buy things, the dungeon just accessed that, which is why I get those vouchers. I'm basically just buying early skill activations. Which is crazy in itself... But for Silvia, since she doesn't have that ability, she gets custom items like that."

  Modak agreed, "Right, and if the dungeon can access dormant skills, then who can say if the dungeon only makes items for skills that someone already has? It could make items for skills that someone could have."

  Following along with the conversation between the two, Silvia slowly asked, "Meaning that this apron is for a skill I don't have yet?"

  "Maybe. It seems likely, with everything we know so far," Modak responded, "Though we can only wait and see. Maybe we could get an appraiser to figure out the exact item effects. The Aglecards have appraisers, right?"

  "They do, but we'll have to make sure to limit what we get appraised. If we show up with 20 different items from this dungeon, they're going to ask questions. I want to keep the exploit a secret," Ryan pointed out, "Do you think you can make an... audio appraiser? There's some appraisal spells, right?"

  "I don't-" though he was about to deny that idea, Modak stopped himself, "Actually, it could be possible... I'll have to ask around when I get back to work at the tower in a couple days. If I can find even anything remotely similar, I could give it a shot. Appraisal spells aren't 'system' appraisals though, to be very clear. We could figure out the general magical effect, but not super specific things or references to actual skill names or anything."

  "That's fine. Anyway, Silvia, are you done? I'm gonna go on a splurge with the spirits."

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  After being given the go-ahead, Ryan went up to the clown and shook its hand. There was one of each voucher left, plus an extra 'special' voucher. In total, everything would cost 1850 points, leaving Ryan with 1091 afterward, which should be enough to buy another item through the exploits.

  However, there was something else that had to be figured out first. Would buying up one of these items remove them from the exploit? Just in case, Ryan wanted to test that first before buying everything. Gregor's shop was around 300 points, and due to his skills, Gregor could develop blueprints on his own, so this was the best thing to try this with. After all, if the exploit stopped working properly, Ryan wasn't going to buy up the rest of these shop items. So, Ryan quickly bought the last of Gregor's blueprint vouchers and put it away for now.

  Then, Modak and him activated the exploit, and Ryan bought Gregor's blank voucher. A long list of items showed up, and Ryan let out a relieved sigh when he saw that there were, indeed, still blueprints listed. That meant that the regular blank vouchers would probably still stick around even after everything was bought up.

  With that relief, Ryan quickly went through the list and discussed with Gregor what to get. There were a ton of items here that were too expensive to buy, but there were a couple of pretty useful-looking items in the list. For one, there weren't just machines here, but also support items. Ryan hoped that they didn't count as 'machines', but it was worth it still giving it a shot. These support items were a bit cheaper than the regular machines.

  One big restriction of Gregor's construction skill was that once he built three machines, his slots were full. When he built a fourth machine, the first of the bunch that he constructed would immediately rust. That could be avoided if Gregor took the time to disassemble the machine first, luckily, but that was still a large time-sink. Losing one of those slots would be tough, but if they could get the benefits from some of them, that would be a great addition.

  Especially one of these. If Ryan was right, then this could be a game-changer. He picked the 'Wall-Mounted Connector'. Right now, the machines were restricted to be placed on the solid ground, but if they were lucky, this could expand their options quite a bit. If the machines could be placed out-of-range of monsters, that would be a total game-changer.

  Either way, now that they knew, Silvia was quickly used to reset the shop again, so that Ryan could finally buy up the items from the regular shop. And so, it was time to get started. First and foremost, he ripped the 'Special Voucher'.

  [Special Reward Voucher has been redeemed]

  [You have found a Fragment of Violette (4/5)]

  The small stone fell into his palm, and Ryan smiled broadly. He quickly pulled in the fragment and inwardly watched as it settled into place. The spirit core was shaking; shivering in excitement. Ryan could feel that Violette was already in there, she just didn't have the strength to really 'join' them yet. It hopefully wouldn't take long anymore.

  "Alright, fuck yeah," Ryan quickly moved on. First, he decided to rip Jester's vouchers.

  [Random Mask Voucher has been redeemed - a random mask has been awarded]

  -[Romance Mask]

  [Random Suit Voucher has been redeemed - Three Random Suit Pieces have been awarded]

  -[Joy Model - Left Leg]

  -[Madness Model - Hood]

  -[Love Model - Torso]

  The only new things here were the romance and love themes. Jester's magic was based heavily on the emotion, and they could actually be categorised based on the themes of the suits as well. 'Sadness' was related to debuff spells, 'Joy' was related to magic that appeared in physical form, such as attacks or restraints, and 'Madness' spells seemed to relate to changing the target's behaviour into a rampage-like state, basically to turn enemies against each other. If Ryan had to guess... 'Love' could be related to charm-based magic.

  Next was Gregor's turn.

  [Random Arm Voucher has been Redeemed - a random Arm has been awarded]

  -[High-Strength Arm]

  [Random Blueprint Voucher has been Redeemed - a random Blueprint has been awarded]

  -[Improvised Rocket Launcher]

  "Ah..." Ryan sighed lightly. He wrote down all the items he saw on Gregor's blank voucher. The 'Improvised Rocket Launcher' was one of the cheaper items, so he figured that it was probably of a lower quality. They should test it out later and see how well it worked. At least the new arm seemed useful.

  [Random Seed Voucher has been redeemed - Three Random Seeds have been awarded]

  -[Dill Seeds]

  -[Soapy Cilantro Seeds]

  -[Specter's Pepper Seeds]

  [Random Sapling Voucher has been redeemed - One Random Sapling has been awarded]

  -[Sparklemon Tree Sapling]

  Ryan's disappointment was just written on his face, something that his friends noticed pretty quickly.

  "What's wrong? What did you get?" Silvia asked, and Ryan just let out a long groan.

  "Regular old dill, Specter's Pepper, and Soapy Cilantro."

  Modak raised his brows, "... Specter's Pepper? My grandma used to cook with that all the time, that's actually awesome!"

  "Well, glad you're happy at least. I mean, we'll plant it either way, I was just hoping for something more special with how cheap it is," Ryan grumbled.

  "Yeah, and getting two regular things you can just buy is a bit disappointing... sorry Gaia," Silvia patted the golem on the back, but she shook her head. She was as excited about dill as she was about blood roses. But Ryan was a bit confused by Silvia' statement.

  "Uh, Soapy Cilantro isn't regular cilantro, by the way. Do you have that soap gene thing?"

  Silvia sighed, "Yeah... I do, sadly. But what is Soapy Cilantro then? Does it just taste soapy for everyone?"

  "Technically, I think? People don't really eat it, though. When you rub it between your hands with some water, it foams up and can be used as soap on the go. It's in tons of dungeoneering or camping kits."

  "... Huh."

  And so, Ryan ripped the last two vouchers, finishing out the big splurge.

  [Random Armour Voucher has been redeemed - Three Random Armour Pieces have been awarded]

  -[Dullahan Model - Right Leg]

  -[Paladin model - Helmet]

  -[Samurai Model - Helmet]

  [Random Weapon Voucher has been redeemed - One Random Weapon has been awarded]

  -[Mountain-Shaping Warhammer Cailleach]

  "Yes! Another piece of the paladin set! But... there's a new set too. Samurai," Ryan raised a brow, "Neat. I can't wait to see what kind of sets there are for Maximus."

  He was so relieved that he got another paladin model piece that he didn't even look at the weapon for a while. A war-hammer, that was actually perfect. He had been using the horn of shapeless water to make a hammer a lot recently, so getting a hammer that Tiar could copy was actually amazing.

  "So, what, just three more parts for the paladin set?" Modak asked.

  "Yup. By the way, we haven't gotten a helmet until now. I can't even imagine Maximus with a different helmet right now... It's just kind of his face, you know?" Ryan looked at the knight who was curiously standing atop one of the nearby tables, "Don't worry, we'll try everything out at home later. For now..."

  He looked at the watch on his wrist. It was still fairly early, so they could get a lot of things done, still. Plus, this gift shop was basically right next to the entrance, so they could come by on the way back and buy new things if they needed to. It wasn't like they could actually do all that much even if they bought anything more. Maybe getting a few more coins until then was probably the better idea.

  "Do you guys want to check out the Funhouse? I really want to figure out the puzzles in there."

  "Yes! Let's go!" Silvia nodded excitedly, "I actually have a surprise for you when we get there! I'm sure you'll like it."

  Ryan glanced over at Modak, who was also smiling, though it was a different sort of excitement. It was less of that smile he had when someone was about to get a great gift, and more like that smile he had when someone was about to be pranked.

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