Chapter 44: First to Enter the Age of Digital Payment
A strange energy, something like an electrical current, ran from the roots of Ross's hair all the way to the tips, then traveled rapidly down through his neck and spine and spread outward from there, with a significant concentration gathering in both legs and feet.
Whether it was real or just his imagination, the four Chaos Emeralds temporarily housed in his body -- each one sitting inert with no active bonus -- seemed to produce a faint resonance with the peculiar energy now running through him.
Four was, as it turned out, the maximum Chaos Emerald yield for Angel Island Zone at full efficiency. He had collected every single one without missing any.
The problem was that this was Sonic the Hedgehog 3, not Sonic Superstars, and the protagonist he was mapped to wasn't Shadow. Which meant the individual emeralds sitting in his body weren't granting him any bonus power in the meantime.
But when the current faded, Ross found that his Sonic Speed Movement had registered a data change and picked up a new entry in its description.
[Sonic Speed Movement: Grade D, Lv1 (13/250), passive ability. Preceding description unchanged.
The player may charge by crouching into a launch stance. After holding the charge for more than 2 seconds, launching off immediately enters full speed, and a Nen aura circular-saw forms around the body, enabling one "Sonic Impact" judgment against obstacles and enemy targets for 3 seconds. Charging consumes additional aura. (Controller: crouch + hold A or B, then release)]
Sonic Speed Movement had gone up a grade. E to D. And for the first time, Ross had an offensive application that didn't require jumping into an elbow strike first.
In practical terms, this was the Sonic charge-in-place mechanic from the original game -- the spin-into-a-sawblade-and-charge -- adapted for use in a humanoid body. Since Ross inside the Secret Realm was functionally Sonic but was still an upright primate with normal proportions, the physically awkward full-body curl was replaced with a Nen aura circular-saw forming around him instead.
A reasonable adaptation. High marks across the board.
All good news. And yet the actual data values were giving him more to think about rather than less.
He remembered clearly: before the upgrade, Sonic Speed Movement's experience counter had been sitting at 13/100. The required total for the next level had now jumped to 250.
Which raised an interesting question. If he spent time grinding experience to raise an ability's level before unlocking a new grade through a zone clear, then when the grade unlock arrived it would be applied on top of an already-leveled ability. Wouldn't that effectively save a significant amount of future time and experience?
Looking at the numbers directly in front of him, Ross felt like he had just grasped, in a concrete and immediate way, why Nen practitioners spent so much time building a proper foundation before pushing forward. It was enough to make him revise the action plan he had drawn up for after the zone clear.
Then there was the Intermediate Access and the E-Wallet.
[Your current Secret Realm access is: Sonic 3 (Angel Island Zone, Intermediate Access)]
[Once per calendar day, you may fully reset the Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Angel Island Zone Secret Realm Stage. All fixed resources, enemies, hidden items, bosses, and save points will be completely reset and refreshed, and you may re-challenge the Completion Vows.
Under certain conditions, you may carry items from the Secret Realm directly to the outside world for use, including items that appear after a reset. Items with special tag suffixes carry additional conditions.
You may bring outside items into the Secret Realm for use or temporary storage, up to your personal carry limit. If the reset function is used, any stored outside items will be erased by Secret Realm rules.
You may exit the Secret Realm Stage at any time without requiring a save point or zone clear. Progress is automatically recorded on exit.
You may use Real Mode to apply a protagonist mapping from any other game cartridge while inside the current Secret Realm Stage.
When you have obtained Intermediate or higher access to another Secret Realm Stage, you may complete a non-native protagonist mapping without holding the physical controller.
Completing a zone clear using a non-native protagonist mapping will not count toward Completion Vow judgment.]
[Little Tyrant E-Wallet: companion ability of the Little Tyrant console. When the player receives rewards from game cartridges or standard-issue currency from within Secret Realm Stages, it may be stored directly in the E-Wallet. Different currency denominations are tracked separately and can be exchanged at specific conversion ratios.
Because the first currency obtained by the player was the Gold Ring from the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 universe, the Little Tyrant E-Wallet designates the Gold Ring as its anchor currency.
Player's current Real Deposits: Gold Ring 7, Silver Ring 4, Bronze Ring 8
Player's current Temporary Deposits: Gold Ring 99 (Golden Ring Lifeline maximum; cap is 99 rings)
When the player chooses to store standard currency in the E-Wallet, it may only be used in contexts related to game cartridges or Secret Realm Stages, and this state cannot be reversed.
Some standard currencies may be brought into the real world in physical form. In that state, they must be physically carried.]
Not bad at all.
A satisfied smile crossed Ross's face.
Only Intermediate Access, and yet already more fully-featured than he had pictured.
The daily reset function spoke for itself: base resources effectively doubled. If a run failed and a Completion Vow was violated, he could reset and start fresh the same day.
Beyond that, Intermediate Access had opened up the possibility he privately called "Mixed Sonic" -- the cyber crossover mashup of abilities that had no business being in the same game. Mapping Kunio and running his 400-meter combat hurdles all over Angel Island. Using Sonic Speed Movement to put the TÅdÅ Zaibatsu's arena events through their paces. Both were things Ross had genuinely wanted to try.
More importantly, what he now had was an effective safe training ground. He could work on Sonic's Sonic Speed Movement here, and he could work on Kunio's all-around athletic event skills.
Angel Island had its quirks -- the food situation was a bit uncertain -- but it had no real disadvantages to speak of otherwise.
Ross decided to stay in for a while. His plan: raise the protagonist mapping ability levels before going back outside to deal with Phase 4 and the badge hunt.
He had also noticed during the zone run that Sonic Speed Movement gained experience at a considerably faster rate inside the Secret Realm than outside.
Back in Phase 1, the rough estimate had been one experience point per hour of sustained Sonic Speed Movement use. In the Secret Realm, the combined activity of roughly one hour in Angel Island had produced seven points.
Seven times the training efficiency. More than enough motivation to settle in for a serious grinding session -- though his stomach was suggesting, possibly correctly, that it was getting a bit hungry. Whether that was a real sensation carrying over into the Secret Realm was something to test.
As for whether the efficiency boost applied only to Sonic's mapping or to all abilities in general, he would test that directly in a moment.
Last: the E-Wallet.
Ross checked the condition for converting the Temporary Deposits into Real Deposits.
[Complete a no-damage zone boss defeat while carrying 99 or more Gold Rings. (Condition met.)]
He moved one finger.
The Real Deposits numbers began climbing. They kept climbing until all three currencies -- Gold, Silver, and Bronze -- had each reached 99.
"This Golden Ring Lifeline experience gain... don't tell me it's actually asking me to hurt myself on purpose."
Ross had just worked out that the Golden Ring Lifeline was effectively capping his E-Wallet's maximum deposit limit. Since the Lifeline set the Gold Ring ceiling at 99, that 99 was also the ceiling on his Real Deposits. To raise it further, he would need to level up the Lifeline itself.
And to gain experience toward leveling the Lifeline, by the looks of it, he was going to need to take hits.
Congratulations to Ross: before he had even formally taken Genkai as his master, he was going to have to personally unlock the achievement called "sleep on a bed of needles."
***
30+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces