"Upgrade System Shop."
[Ding!]
[System Shop Upgrade Successful!]
[-100 Points]
[System Shop Level 2 Unlocked!]
Points remaining: 8
My point balance plummeted instantly.
Urgh…
Seeing that number hurt more than being struck by lightning. Back to being broke again, I guess!
It reminded me of my old gacha addiction days. Imagine saving ten thousand primogems for my waifu character in Fantasy Impact, feeling like the richest guy in the world—then BAM! A new banner drops and wipes my wallet clean!
Anyway, new menus unfolded in my mind.
New basic materials unlocked: Iron!
That sent a new wave of excitement coursing through my stone. Because iron, this precious metal, was literally the one I had been waiting for!
Why?
It's simple! If I had iron, that meant I would be able to buy or make real swords and spears, not those cheap-ass stone age weapons in my shop right now!
However…
The moment I checked the price in the point shop, all my dreams came crashing down and shattering into pieces.
Iron ×1 — Cost: 20 points
…
I closed and opened the screen again, thinking there's must be an error or something.
But no.
It's true.
Iron ×1 — Cost: 20 points
What… the fuck is this shit, System-san?
Twenty.
Freaking.
Points.
For what? One iron?
ONE?!
ARRRRGHHH!!
If I had a heart, I would've had a heart attack, died on the spot, and gotten isekai'd for the second freaking time right now!
TWENTY POINTS!?
That wasn't just expensive, that was outright highway robbery!
To put it into perspective, I could buy 5 stone or 5 wood for just 1 point. That meant, a stone only costed 0.2 points, literally 100 times less than Iron!
COME ON!
I protested.
Iron is supposed to be basic! BASIC!
Yet here it was, priced like some premium endgame material! At this rate, upgrading anything iron-related would drain my entire savings in minutes!
And sure, I could see some bulk-buy option, but it wasn't that much better. The bulk discount was only five percent. Worse, I had to buy 100 iron at once to get it!
That's 2,000 freaking points! There's no way I could afford that!
I did a mental sigh.
Thinking about it, this was the system who did the pricing. This greedy, scamming system. What the hell had I even expected?
Haha… I laughed to myself.
After all, it was clearly designed to squeeze every last point out of me.
In the end, my protest did nothing. I clicked my tongue internally and moved on.
The next thing that unlocked was Material Exchange.
Surely… this would be nice, right?
…
Wrong.
2 Stone → 1 Wood2 Wood → 1 Stone
1 Food → 3 Wood10 Wood → 1 Food
1 Iron → 60 Wood150 Wood → 1 Iron
I stared at the exchange rates in disbelief.
What… the fuck?!
Why the hell do everything have to be so expensive?!
Who in their right mind would ever use this?
If I converted stone to wood, I would literally be losing 50% of my point value right there. And considering that 1 iron was originally equivalent to 100 wood in terms of point value, using this exchange would mean taking a 40–50% loss!
In the end, it turned out to be yet another disappointment.
Honestly, what is even the point of this feature?
But then…
Later on…
As my frustration faded and I was finally able to think more carefully, I realized my oversight.
Of course the material exchange would be more expensive than buying resources directly with points!
At first glance, it felt like the system was outright ripping me off. But in certain situations, this feature could actually be useful.
For instance, if I ever found myself in urgent need of a single iron to buy something, an iron wall for example, then the Material Exchange would allow me to overpay and get the job done immediately, instead of waiting for resources to slowly accumulate.
And beyond that, a high point cost didn't necessarily mean a resource was bad value.
In fact, it could be a good thing.
If the area around me ever turned out to be rich in iron—say, with nearby iron veins or mines that I could exploit cheaply—then iron would become abundant for me. In that case, I could exchange it for other, scarcer materials at a favorable rate.
(Not that I had any idea how I could mine things right now, as I could not even move, but I was just thinking about the future).
The reverse was also true.
If iron could only be obtained through the system and nowhere else, then its intrinsic value would be far higher than I initially assumed. In that light, the steep price actually made sense.
After all, pricing was always about supply and demand.
And more importantly, wasn't the ability to turn one material into something completely different already absurd?
And so, with these points in mind, suddenly, the Material Exchange thing that I had just unlocked no longer felt completely useless. But still, it wasn't something I had any practical use for at the moment.
Oh, right! I almost forgot!
I suddenly remembered. There was one more thing unlocked when I upgraded the System Shop!
The Sovereign Shop!
I couldn't help but wonder… what exactly was that supposed to be?