Successfully Extracted. Round ended.

  Final Round Score: S-Tier

  Enemies defeated: 17

  Quests completed: 7

  Difficulty Modifiers applied.

  Four storefront coins rewarded. (4/4 possible)

  Challenge mode completed! 5 storefront coins gained.

  Invasion prize pool generated.

  Traveling to storefront…

  Wade opened his eyes, and the first thing he felt was completely lucid, no longer in pain, and very much alive.

  The timer had been going down to the minutes. By the time the demons had brought him into the habitat, the world was blurry, spinning, and the only thing pounding him into any kind of thinking shape had been the desperate need to trigger the extraction in order to advance his trade empire goals.

  Was it a silly idea? Maybe in hindsight, now that he was lucid again, but just a moment ago it had been the only signal still holding his hand, pushing him forward to keep going.

  That and the floating images of Ann and Jason, now muddled up with Eri, Illy, Leon, Selena, Medy and Bael flickering into his mind like burning film reel.

  Play was a very distant ninth appearance, although annoyingly still in the picture frame.

  And speaking of her, he'd probably need to deal with the NEETess face to face now.

  Wade got up, watching Earth below.

  Play's Storefront - Divine Realm

  Sanctuary Zone

  Once more he was a disembodied soul, floating within the void. The graves of hundreds twinkling around him, ever present.

  But his attention was down on this final scoresheet.

  Fifteen Storefront coins. Goddamn fifteen. He was rich. RICH!

  Four for killing enemies way way higher than he had any reason to be in the same zone with.

  Two more from quests that gave coins.

  Five entire coins for surviving to the end of the round with challenge mode.

  And four for the S-tier score.

  And as he checked his notification logs, he saw right there a few messages.

  Quest failed: Get the hell out.

  Quest failed: Rescue Operation.

  Quest failed: Reunite.

  Oh well, no great loss. One was all about making it above the mithril sea before the end of the round, and the second one was to free five Blackrotten demons. He's gotten two and then all hell broke loose. The last one was just about getting back to Zakka with Leon, Illy and Selena. But that one hadn't even offered a coin or experience as rewards, so Wade didn't care.

  All were wiped out from his quest log, gone like all other fleeting quests.

  But under that were two others. Two that he had hoped above all would have shown.

  Wade started laughing, a maniacal laugh of an evil scheme pulled off.

  Here was the actual start of his glorious trade empire.

  His first real employees. Besides Eri, but Eri was basically co-founder as far as Wade was concerned.

  The three quests that had been completed in this disaster shitshow of a round:

  Extraction Loot Tutorial complete! Storefront Progression Selection (2 options) gained.

  The Forgemaster complete! One storefront coin gained.

  The Alchemist complete! One storefront coin gained.

  They made it to Earth. He'd goddamn pulled it off.

  He kept laughing up until he read the next pair of notifications and stopped laughing straightaway.

  Quest Failed: The Search for more Money.

  "GOD DAMNIT!"

  The search for more money had been a whopping seven coins as a reward. Seven!

  Sure the difficulty was probably all about finding a way into the arcane realm from hell, and getting to mine one of those crystals, which the System clearly knew was deep inside a mana lake of some kind that would insta-kill anyone cannonballing into it. And it had been under the fleeting tab, so all that had to be done in one round, while surviving to the end.

  He'd almost gotten that one completed.

  He was outright scaling his way over small mountains of mana crystals. All he'd needed to do was remember to snap one of those off, stuff it in his pant pockets, and he'd be still on track completing it.

  Hell, he could probably sell it to Zin for one goddamn penny and get that quest complete.

  How had he missed this one?!

  He opened up his stats screen, scrolled straight down to the debuffs and stared at the Mania one.

  "You had one job." He hissed at it. "ONE. JOB."

  Even Play had reminded him about exactly this. "Don't forget to loot a mana crystal down here, she said." His finger jabbed at the text description of Mania in his status sheet. "Quite literally, word for word, you stupid debuff!"

  This had been its moment to shine. To search for any extra loot and potential penny even while he was halfway dying with a sword impaled through his gut. That was the entire point of that thing.

  It should have been asking questions like: 'What if we don't cough out all the liquid mana in our lungs when we get out of the lake, could we bring it back home with us? How much could we get on the market for liquid mana even.'

  Instead it had only given him that extra push to hold onto consciousness and keep scaling that cliff.

  What a waste. He should sell this debuff to Medy again, at least it'll be worth something.

  Ah, but you forget. It whispered back, leaning into his ear, whispering dark secrets. Where did we end up this round?

  "The arcane diving bell thing."

  No, no, no. It purred, a metaphorical claw tapping lovingly on his cheek. Not just any arcane diving bell. Our arcane diving bell. Our base of operations. Our headquarters. Ours for the taking.

  "… right outside a lake filled with arcane crystals. Ripe for the farming." Wade followed, eyes widening at the sheer wisdom.

  The humble start of Wade Heavy Mining Industries.

  "But how do we get those crystals?"

  Diving into that lake was just asking to cut his round short. Even walking outside that habitat was going to be difficult.

  My friend, we already know how. Think it through.

  Wade's head flashed through multiple ideas back to back like an over caffeinated rabbit, mania fully whispering the answers to life and the universe itself. Images and memories flickered through, all adding together.

  Medy telling him skeletons were often seen down here by the local wildlife. Enough so they were already well used to them.

  Bael mentioning the crystals regrowing were close enough to command a skeleton from the shorelines.

  And then Play herself:

  Don't forget to loot a mana crystal down here, you need to get Eri to mine it!!

  That skeleton had outright leaped into the lake and sank all the way down to Wade, then dragged his sorry ass back to safety.

  Because he was immune to mana necrosis. The waters couldn't hurt him.

  Couldn't hurt any skeletal minion.

  "The undead." Wade suddenly realized. "They're used as miners."

  That's right, my friend. Mania whispered, letting go of his shoulders, easing back into the darkness. It's not simply Wade Heavy Mining Industries…

  "It'll be Wade and Eri Heavy Mining Industries! I'm going to be so fucking rich."

  Best use of a golden lootbox ever.

  He spent about half a minute laughing to himself, slowly returning back to his sanity… ish.

  He could work with this. Hell, all of that Arcane Realm region could be worked around.

  He looked over to the final notification in his list of quest problems.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Purchased Questline Failed: Locate the Alchemy Lab.

  "Well, fuck."

  Play and himself had been debating that one. When it was offered, it went into its own category. Neither fleeting, nor persistent. So the rules were going to be something that didn't behave like either.

  And Wade immediately saw why:

  Retry for 1 coin?

  "Oh… So they're like fleeting quests, but messing up doesn't lose them forever."

  A bit of both fleeting and persistent then. Or rather, pay-to-persist?

  It remained blinking on his window, which meant he could still decide to or not. Would it last past the storefront phase or vanish forever the moment he was back on Earth and the round was properly over?

  And would it be a good idea to do so this coming round however?

  He wasn't in Hell anymore, which was a problem. In fact, once he stepped into the next round, he'd spawn right back inside the arcane diving bell. Which meant he'd need to come up with a gameplan on Earth on how he could step outside the habitat alive, and then travel back into hell properly. All without Medy and Bael there to help, since they sure as hell wouldn't travel back into Azdrial now to help out.

  If there was a way to get back to Hell safely, then it was worth buying this quest again. But he'd need to know more about how people crossed realms in the first place. They clearly could, since the Arcane Realm was where mining operations happened to bring back mana crystals clearly.

  He needed a tour guide for traveling reasons, and he needed a gamer to debate the questline priorities too.

  His gaze turned to check through the sea of stars, to the very centerpoint everything led to.

  Play's gamer cave. Where she hid from the world.

  He had coin, and he was going to spend it. Plus she might have some more advice about what to do next.

  Once more as he approached he got to see into the small liminal space, through the walls.

  Play was at her usual spot: Center of the couch, upside down, feet up, watching an anime series of some kind, while dropping popcorn into her mouth like an emperor eating grapes.

  Same pajamas as before too. Wade wasn't certain if they'd been washed at all or if she hadn't gone to sleep in the past two days now. Both could be true.

  There was one thing odd about all this: He'd have expected Zin to be there, forced to drop the popcorn in her mouth given she'd be too lazy to do it herself when someone else could do it for her.

  But he was nowhere in the room. Off on an errand maybe?

  Time to find out what happened on Earth while he was gone.

  He walked through the walls, and had a human body again. Right ahead, held off in a small wooden serving tray hooked onto the back of the couch, were folded up pajamas.

  So that he could dress properly when he came in the nude as had happened the last two times.

  Except this time Wade found himself wearing his full clothing. The shirt was fully buttoned up, and even had a tear by his gut, where the entire spot was stained blood red.

  No wounds at all under it. Where the sword had been. He patted around it, checking how his body felt.

  "Mmpf?" Play asked, halfway through swallowing, before she weaseled in place on the couch, feet sinking back out of sight before her head popped up, eyes narrowing down on the intruder. "Oh! Michael. Nice, nice nice, congrats on a second S-Tier score, and making it back home alive this time. Abusing even Market's blessing to mess with the enemy was the best thing I've seen on TV in a looooong while. Two thumbs, way up! Exactly why I picked you as my champion." She jumped back up on the couch pillow, standing tall, "Truly, I have the best game-senses when it came to picking you for all this. I'll allow you to praise me, mortal."

  She looked real smug. Head tilted up, arms crossed, and still somehow shorter than Wade despite standing on the couch seat.

  Wade flicked her forehead.

  She squirmed in place and retreated straight down into the couch, like he'd exposed her to sunlight. Along with general protest sounds that Wade didn't care to think about since it was Play being Play.

  Wade looked over to his hands, checking for the black veins that had been there, then touched his head and found all his hair still there. Everything looked hale and healthy. No nausea, no chronic pain everywhere, and he felt completely firm on his feet.

  His limp was still there, but Wade had a feeling he'd be healing that sucker today. They had the healing ring back home, and Eri could use just about as much mana as he could. Which should finally fix everything.

  He turned his attention back to Play.

  "-seriously should remember how to properly treat a goddess, I used to be given bottles of ambrosia! Ambrosia Michael, you know how expensive that is?! People sung my name in wide cities, I had an entire statue made in my shape! No mortal would dare show me such disrespect, such unhinged behav-"

  "How's the other two, did they make it back home?" Wade asked, interrupting her ranting. "I mean Bael and Medy, not Illy and Leon. I'm sure those two are doing fine knowing them."

  They'd survived the shelter-city for a good while before he'd even run into them, they were competent.

  "You saw the storefront coins come in from that scoresheet like I did, right?" Play hissed, still rubbing her forehead as if it still stung.

  "Yeah, I did."

  "Then why are you asking me for? The System never lies, if it says they'll be on earth, they'll be on earth." She turned back to her TV, letting herself plop back onto the couch pillow the correct orientation, unpausing the show. "You forgot the mana crystals by the way."

  "I knew you'd get on me about that."

  "All you had to do was just bring one back here and fence it to Zinny! Free seven entire coins. Think about all the extra junk you coulda gotten with that fat paycheck!"

  "I was a little preoccupied trying to hold my guts in while scaling a cliff. With a sword in my gut trying to cut said organs. And, quite literally, dying from magical super-radiation. Forgive me for not being absolutely optimal with every little detail, oh wise goddess of the couch."

  Play laughed, "You're not fooling me, I can tell you're kicking yourself in the ass about it. But it's fine, long term we're doing good. We got plenty of coins for upgrades we can just dig into. So, let's do some retail therapy!"

  Wade walked around the couch and sat down in his old spot, "Stats. Storefront."

  The full list of his collected unlocks showed up. Quite a lot of it was still greyed out. Options discovered and offered as potential quest rewards, but he'd picked the other option.

  And speaking of, he opened the notification for his last completed quest:

  Extraction Loot Tutorial Complete!

  This quest had popped up when Bael had told him how Hell had supply crates made and tossed down through the mithril sea for poor demons trying to make it back up the cliffs.

  Luck had triggered, and the two potential options he could unlock on the storefront were revealed early on in a sneak peak kind of preview. Of which Play had a stroke reading it.

  Spotting that crate out in the field as he ran from that fused colony had been the single most electric thing he'd seen that entire round.

  He'd managed to get to the demonic supply crate. And once he looted anything off of it, all he had to do was bring it back home. Simple quest.

  He looked down at his bloody shirt. And more importantly, what was on top: The basic demonic armor. The one he'd looted off the supply crate.

  The beautiful piece of well used equipment, likely used and passed down from demon to demon, which had helped him survive getting eaten by that armored chameleon monster long enough for him to detonate a grenade in its mouth.

  Good times.

  And he had them here, on Earth. Which meant he'd won the quest.

  He opened the options, and was rewarded with what his luck had given him an early warning on.

  Negligible Leveling Experience earned.

  Storefront Progression Selection earned.

  Select one to unlock:

  Potion Crafting: Allows you to brew System potions. 3 Storefront Coins.

  And just under that option was the one Play and Wade had gone insane over:

  Extraction Loot Spawns: Adds extraction loot spawns to all containers found within all rounds. 1 Coin to unlock the base version of this modifier.

  "You know, this is the first time I can see it from your point of view." Wade said, looking between the two storefront unlock options he had from his quest reward, and then over to the official storefront list.

  Both options had become visible on the storefront list. And both were greyed out, since he had to pick one over the other. But the descriptions were there in full.

  Normally, he would have locked in the extraction loot spawns as planned, however… "We have a problem. I failed the alchemy questline."

  He looked over to the description.

  Locate the Alchemy Lab - Among the demons of the floating city of Dalrithi, locate the abandoned lab ruins of the notorious Alchemist, Xan'Phane. Rewards: Unlock Potion Crafting. System Alchemy Recipe (Rare). Further quests offered in this line.

  Play shrugged, unbothered. "Happens. We were playing it a little greedy hoping to get potion crafting for free off that one quest. Still technically cheaper to retry next round, right?"

  It was.

  If they were to get potion crafting the honest way, it would require getting another quest completed first. One that had a storefront progression option with potion crafting as the reward. And after they got it for the storefront, Wade would then need to pony up three storefront coins for the base version.

  The questline would skip all of that for the price of one coin that they'd spent to buy it.

  Two coins in total now, if he paid one coin to reset the quest for next round.

  "Potion crafting, or extraction loot?" Wade muttered. "We could get potion crafting right now. We've got the coins for it right after."

  "We've also got Medy." Play said, "I'd bet my pink cat hoodie that she'd find a way to make your mana potions with stuff out here on Earth."

  "You think she could? In a world without mana?"

  "Not that far, don't be silly. You still need to supply her with mana crystals. I mean everything else that goes in a mana potion to make them so stable, she could probably wing it here on earth."

  That made some sense.

  Besides, this was the second time they'd seen potion crafting as a potential option, which means the System might give him a chance at potion crafting again at some point in the future. Quests came pretty often.

  He pressed his finger down on the System message.

  Extraction Loot Spawns Unlocked on the storefront!

  Then glanced over to his storefront.

  Potion crafting remained grey and unavailable, but extraction loot spawns was now white.

  He stared at the text.

  Now for the next part: Paying for it.

  "One coin to trigger it. Cheap enough."

  "You do have a few more items to look into before you start buying anything." Play said, waggling the tv remote at him. "Best to do the shopping once you've got all the information at hand."

  Wade nodded, then looked down at the notification she was pointing at.

  The Early-Access Boon. It had been unlocked.

  Common Boon gained: Arsonist.

  Arsonist (Common). On killing an enemy, their body will explode.

  Wade looked over the boon. "The hell does it mean the body will explode? Are we talking a video game explosion that deals damage, or the actual body goes under a corpse explosion like a beached whale?"

  It might need some sprucing up. Or it might be a wash and would shine later when there was a better combination to put it with. For now, he'd need to rely on good gear from earth and run with one of his prior tried and tested boon. Like his Skyviper Archer paired with a few really fast guns.

  Play grinned at him. "I'm sure you'll do some testing to figure that out. Now, open up that shop and let's get that therapy going. And I mean the retail one, not actual therapy. Ew."

  Wade dutifully did. His storefront had been slowly building up, and now it looked a lot more full of options. Expensive options, but options.

  Purchase Water Mastery (Common): Permanently add this boon to your boon roster - 5 coins

  Upgrade boon: Permanently adds a next-rank modifier to any boon you own. - 7 coins.

  Challenge Questline: Gain a System Purchased Quest. - 1 coin.

  Retry 'Locate the Alchemy Lab' - 1 coin.

  Single-round upgrade of selected boon: Temporarily adds an Uncommon modifier to any boon you own. - 3 coins.

  Single-round additional random boon: Spawns a Mythic Lootbox on round start containing a random boon that will remain for the rest of the round - 5 coin.

  Reroll stat points: Allows you to redistributed stat points gained from level ups - 1 coin per 3 points.

  Extra Retry: Allows you to remain in THE GAME instead of being eliminated, consumed on use - 5 coins.

  Extra Respawn: Allows you to return to life at full health within the round, consumed on use - 7 coins.

  Random Challenge Mode: Increase difficulty of the next round for increased rewards - 1 Coin.

  Alchemy Sanctum: Adds an additional room to your sponsor's storefront containing equipment to brew rare-level or lower potions. 10 Coins to unlock base version.

  Unlock Minimap: Adds a basic system minimap to your interface. - 1 Coin.

  Augmented Hunter: For the next five challenge gauntlets, gain +1 random stat increase on full completion of each gauntlet. - 5 Coins.

  Starter shop adventuring kit - 1 Coin. (Warrior, Mage, Archer, Rogue, Healer)

  Unlock Extraction Loot Spawns: Adds extraction loot spawns to all containers found within all rounds. 1 Coin to unlock the base version of this modifier.

  And blinking at the bottom of all this, was one last notification Wade hadn't noticed.

  You have successfully defeated your invader. A prize pool has been generated. Open notifications now?

  Some kind of free goodies for going above and beyond just escaping his hunter but turning the tables on him?

  Wade tapped the open button. Who was he to pass on free rewards for kicking not-Leon's ass?

  Three notifications lined up as soon as he opened up the bundle.

  Your deliberate actions have eliminated Urik Gazandal Prime from THE GAME.

  Gold lootbox will be spawned next round.

  3 Storefront coins gained from Urik Gazandal Prime's Ante.

  Greater Challenge Mode (Type: Invasion) Unlocked on the storefront!

  Well, if he wasn't already swimming in storefront coins before, he was now. "Eighteen storefront coins. Heh. I'm buying everything."

  Play didn't answer. Her eyes were glued to the storefront screen. "You should read this Michael."

  On the options, at the very bottom, was a new one that had appeared.

  Greater Challenge Mode (Type: Invasion): Invade the enemy System's players and assassinate a target from the enemy team - 1 Coin to activate, variable number to ante. Eliminate your target to return home for triple the ante spent if successful.

  His eyes narrowed down again at one last part to all this. The part that worried him the most.

  "Play, why is there an enemy system?"