Doomsday Pillars

Chapter 201 - The Store

100 days after the plague had started, the whole world witnessed an even more unbelievable sight. Alien structures descended from the sky and one of them rooted itself on Hong Kong Island. This structure revealed itself in the form of a pillar that stood erect hundreds of meters into the sky from the ground. Anyone who saw it felt fear and wonder. 

Everything about this building was not of this Earth. Its black walls traced veins of light running across, and what seemingly an animate object, transmitted messages directly into the minds of a human. 

After Christina and the others had completed the almost impossible mission, the Pillar hosted a new surprise. 

The two newly erected platforms with cubes were flashing lights with writing.

[Store] and [Training Hall]

"Waaaaa!!! Brother, are you seeing this? It says shop and training hall right?" said Chicken as he inspected the cube from top to bottom.

"It's like a game!" Chicken touched the cube and shouted 'Store!' but no reaction occurred. "Is this thing broken? It's not doing anything!"

Suddenly a voice spoke in his mind to approach the cube and suddenly above the cube appeared a bracelet .. identical with the one that Christina was using right now ..

Seeing what happened, Inspector Tang says "Chicken, put it on and try touch the cube once more," similar incident happened to the inspector 7 days ago when he first entered the pillars and touched the cube"

Chicken tapped the cube once more and a light covered his body and disappeared.

It seems that everyone can get the same bracelet from this cube. It appears that this bracelet is the key to unlocking Doomsday's pillar secrets. Inspector Tang thinks that if everyone obtained these bracelets before the mission began, it could really help them with the mission.

"Christina, you try now," said Inspector Tang.

Christina approached the platform with the word [Store] and once she touched it, a message entered her mind.

[Enter?]

"Yes..." She believed the Pillar was somewhat trustworthy, after all, they had gone through, bringing back her comrades as well as what Alex had mentioned, she wasn't afraid of the Pillar anymore.

As soon as Christina agreed, a light beamed from the ceiling blinding her and when she opened her eyes, she had already moved to another location. 

The hall she arrived at was filled with rows of panels with light carvings..

Chicken was standing at the far side of the corner when he saw Christina appear from the beam of light. "Christina! Look at this!"

He touched one of the carvings and the wall panel pushed itself. It then assembled and revealed a machete with a Damascus pattern. "This is a beauty! Look, look!"

Chicken looked like a kid at a store and not long after, one by one Maxine, Corrie, Nam and the fighters began to appear in this room, all wearing the same bracelets on their wrists. She didn't hesitate any more and began to stand in front of the wall panels. 

[Melee weapon]

A number of images and descriptions flashed in her mind. She swiped through the gallery and selected a category. Dozens of different swords with different models appeared. A particular one caught her eyes and pulled it up.

[0131 - Sword - Tier 1]

[Length 90 centimeters, width 13 centimeters, weight 12.5 kilograms]

This is the most beautiful sword she had ever seen. Its shape, weight, and stability was a perfect fit for her. Christina ran her fingers through the blade and could feel its sharpness. She gave it a few swings before the sword lit up and disappeared. 

"!!!"

Christina re-read the description of the sword, and then she noticed a number emblazoned at the bottom.

[200 spirit stones]

"..."

Chicken screamed out of nowhere, startling Christina. "WHAT!!! 300 spirit stones! We have to pay for this stuff?!!"

Nam patted his face, he was used to Chicken since they had been together for years, but he would still get embarrassed.

Inspector Tang laughed and answered, "Hahaha. Why are you surprised? We're in a 'Store'."

Chicken clicked his tongue and put on the best pity face he could muster at Nam. "Big brother! Can I have the spirit stones? Please?"

Nam feigned indifference and answered, "No."

Christina understood that nothing was free in this world, a sword as good as this couldn't be without cost.

She strolled around the panel area and noticed it only held melee weapons. Spears, knives, axes, clubs, even melee weapons with shapes she had never seen before. There may be hundreds or even thousands of types stored in this room.

She then reached another area and the panel area held a different category.

[Protection]

[0577 - Shield - Tier 1]

[One-handed shield, weight 11 kilograms]

[400 spirit stone]

[0029 - Cuirass Set - Heavy armor - Tier 1]

[A set of body armor, weight: 33.5 kilograms]

[Set item - extra damage resistance]

[1500 spirit stone]

Christina noticed that the average for protection required more spirit stones than weapons. Especially for a set of body armor.

"Sis, Christina!"

Corrie and Maxine walked over to Christina and then immediately pulled her away.

"Come here, sis!"

"What is wrong?" Christina asked seriously.

"Look at this, sis!"

[2114 - Jacket - Tier 1]

[Leather jacket, light armor - weight 1.1 kilograms]

[Extra heat protection]

[200 spirit stones]

"Look, look! This looks perfect on you!" Corrie said as she showed Christina a long-sleeved jacket with black and dark red accent and immediately put it on Christina. "It suits you, sis!"

At the same time, Corrie and Maxine also wore the same jacket as well as other several members of the Firebirds too.

"Wow, matching attires are really fun," exclaimed Maxine. "We look more like a group with uniforms."

Christina smiled, she knew how her two sisters loved to try on clothes. Well, it wasn't surprising since they were women and liked to wear something pretty. Christina continued smiling as she noticed her sisters seemed to have forgotten the terrible incident before this and like they were back in the past. She wanted this feeling to last.

"Ehem!"

Jennie's sudden cough made Christina wake up from her daydream. She did this because Jennie was the one responsible for storing all the spirit stones their group had managed to get. 

As soon as Christina saw Jennie's serious face, she had no other choice but to reel in the others as well as her feeling of joy in order not to do any impulse buying. After all, while they were in Singapore, all the spirit stones they had obtained were given to the Singapore government and while in Hong Kong, the Firebird hadn't been assigned to the front lines where the heaviest fighting took place, so they didn't have too many spirit stones.

Now that she thought about it, providing this jacket for 30 Firebirds members, which cost 200 spirit stones each, would mean a total of 6000 spirit stones. The spirit stones they had were less than half of that but even if they had that amount, would it be appropriate to use them all on the jacket protectors? What about guns, ammo, swords, etc.? What about the 50 members of the Singapore police force who came with them?

Christina had no choice but to not indulge her sisters. Hopefully, next time, once they had more.

She then took the time to walk around the area. The average weapon and armor value ranged from 100 to 1000 spirit stones. Finally, she arrived at another panel area with a different category. One of them particularly caught her attention. 

[Consumables]

[Spirit fruit]

[Consuming this can meet the nutritional needs of the body]

[100 spirit stones]

"..."

"Crazy…" 100 spirit stones for a fruit that was as small as a cherry... She wondered what other kinds of functions or help would it actually do to the human body. As she finally had enough of walking, she listed three things specifically.

[Energy gun - Tier 1]

[Length 110 centimeters, weight 22 kilograms]

[Long range shotgun, requires spirit stones as ammunition]

[3000 spirit stones]

[Stone golem - Tier 1]

[290 centimeters high, 310 kilograms weight]

[The stone golem can be commanded via telepathy, requires spirit stone as energy]

[2000 spirit stones]

[Storage ring - Tier 1]

[3 cubic meter storage space]

[300 spirit stones]

Christina had gone through many items within the 15 minutes and noticed all that they had seen had a Tier 1 category. She assumed this was the lowest category and not everything was shown to them. This Pillar still had a lot more secrets waiting to be unraveled. She said to herself, "Even the lowest category requires thousands of spirit stones, so what about the higher tier items?"

"Yesss!!!" Chicken screamed so loud, startling everyone. He was raising hands like a child who had won approval from his parents. It looked like he managed to persuade Nam to take the machete after ceaseless pleading.

Christina ignored him and then proceeded to discuss with Jennie on how they would not buy anything before knowing more about this extraterrestrial building called Doomsday Pillars. At least, they had to check the other room first.

Christina then led the way along with the members of the Firebirds toward the other cube. They went to where they had appeared and got transported back to the main hall before checking out what was the other room.

[Training Hall]

She walked in front and touched the cube in the middle of the room and several options appeared in her mind. 

[Solo] [Team]

"Team!"

There were two options on whether to go solo or team. But Christina led all the Firebirds here, it was only right to select the team option.

They were once transported to another hall roughly the size of a basketball court. Another cube was placed in the middle of the room. Christina went ahead and touched it. 

[Check status]

[Skill Library]

[Practice]

[Realm Enhancement]

"Realm Enhancement?"