Dual Realm Exchange System

[Evaluating Item Effect Success...]

Damian leaned forward, his breathing hitched until the next screen appeared.

And then, his eyes widened in shock!

[Synergistic Item Interaction Successful!]

[Marrow Cleansing Pill is capable of purging accumulated Qi Nourishing Pill residue, medicinal resistance and low-grade pill toxins.]

[Successful cleansing will reset the Host’s Qi Nourishing Pill Adaptation Count to zero.]

[WARNING!]

[Valorian adaptation produces a permanent secondary effect.]

[Each successful use of a Marrow Cleansing Pill permanently increases all future Experience requirements by 10% of their original value.]

[Maximum Effective Uses Per Lifetime: 10.]

[Current Uses: 0/10.]

Damian’s initial excitement immediately crashed into suspicion.

"Of course there’s a catch."

Indeed, how could it be free? Wouldn’t he be riding on the head of the Valorian Overworld System a little bit too much?

He stared at the panel, then pulled his Spellbook closer and began calculating.

At present, he was Level 2 with 17/20 EXP and had already consumed ten Qi Nourishing Pills.

Without cleansing himself, the next ten pills would only produce 0.9 EXP each before the Qi Acceleration Pill doubled that to 1.8.

The next ten after that dropped to 1.6, then 1.4, and then 1.2.

Eventually, everything reached the miserable permanent conversion rate of 0.2 EXP per pill while Qi Acceleration remained active.

From his current position, he needed another three EXP to reach Level 3, thirty to reach Level 4, forty for Level 5 and fifty for Level 6.

One hundred and twenty-three Experience Points in total.

Damian worked down the diminishing-return table.

The next ninety pills, from pill eleven through pill one hundred, would produce ninety Experience Points while the Qi Acceleration Pill doubled their effects.

After that, he would still need thirty-three EXP.

At 0.2 each, that meant another one hundred and sixty-five pills.

"Two hundred and fifty-five pills from where I’m sitting..." Damian muttered.

That was.... actually not terrible.

After all, he did own around ten thousand five hundred of the damned things.

But the Marrow Cleansing Pill offered another route.

If he cleansed himself now, the permanent penalty would increase his current Level 3 requirement from twenty to twenty-two.

Level 4 would require thirty-three rather than thirty.

Level 5 would require forty-four rather than forty, and Level 6 would require fifty-five instead of fifty.

His remaining total requirement therefore increased from one hundred and twenty-three EXP to one hundred and thirty-seven.

Fourteen additional Experience Points.

Yet his Qi Nourishing Pill count would reset to zero.

Damian quickly ran the same calculation.

Even if he used no second Marrow Cleansing Pill afterward, he would need roughly two hundred and thirty-five Qi Nourishing Pills from this point instead of two hundred and fifty-five.

Which was only twenty pills saved.

On paper, that sounded awful.

He would permanently increase every future level requirement just to save twenty cheap beginner pills.

Except that calculation assumed something stupid.

It assumed he would cleanse once and then never exploit the mechanic strategically again.

Damian tapped his pen against the page.

If he instead waited until his conversion efficiency became truly terrible before cleansing a second time, he could restore the profitable early tiers exactly when they mattered most.

The cost grew permanently, but the benefit could be timed.

And there was another important issue.

He needed to know how the interaction actually felt and whether there were hidden consequences beyond the System warning.

This was experimentation, and someone had to perform it.

Unfortunately, that someone was also the laboratory rat.

"Ten maximum uses means the worst-case penalty is another hundred percent of the original EXP requirement," Damian murmured thoughtfully.

"So if I idiotically swallow these things every ten pills, I eventually double the cost of every future level for no reason."

Definitely not something to spam, but neither was it something to fear.

Used properly, each cleanse could function like resetting a production line once declining efficiency became more expensive than maintenance.

Damian smiled.

Now that was a language he understood.

"Alright, first one down the hatch!"

He confirmed the effect himself as the Marrow Cleansing Pill fully dissolved.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then, Damian’s entire body shuddered as a cold sensation suddenly rushed through his veins, not along his skin or through his stomach but seemingly inside the blood vessels themselves.

It felt as though someone had replaced part of his blood with clear mountain water and fired it through his circulatory system under pressure.

Damian gripped the armrest.

"Weird... very weird."

Strangely enough, it was pleasant.

The cool current moved through his arms, chest, abdomen and legs before passing repeatedly through his liver and kidneys.

Faint warmth left behind by the Qi Nourishing Pills disappeared wherever it passed.

His pores opened slightly, releasing a thin film of unpleasant-smelling sweat and dark residue that Damian firmly decided not to examine too closely.

Then the sensation vanished.

[Marrow Cleansing Complete!]

[Qi Nourishing Pill Adaptation Count: 10 → 0.]

[Accumulated relevant medicinal resistance removed.]

[Relevant low-grade pill toxins removed.]

[Marrow Cleansing Uses: 1/10.]

[Permanent EXP Requirement Modifier: +10% of Base.]

[Current Level Advancement Requirement Updated: 17/22 EXP.]

Damian looked at the final line.

"Well, no going back now."

Fortunately, <One Proof, Eternal Proof> had already taught him not to fear permanent changes merely because they were permanent.

The question was whether they were worth making.

Damian swallowed another Qi Nourishing Pill.

[+2 EXP.]

Then another.

[+2 EXP.]

A third followed immediately.

[+2 EXP.]

[Experience threshold reached!]

[Main Class: Mage has advanced from Level 2 → Level 3!]

[Overall Level increased to 3!]

[Overflow Experience retained: 1/33.]

[Level Advancement Reward: +1 Free Attribute Point.]

Damian smiled.

This only took three pills, so his Qi Nourishing Pill count after cleansing was only three out of ten.

Beautiful!

His Character Sheet appeared, and Damian barely needed to deliberate this time.

"Intelligence."

[INT: 8 → 9.]

The familiar sharpening washed through his thoughts once again.

It was slightly less startling because Damian knew what to expect, but familiarity did nothing to make the effect less extraordinary.

His memory became cleaner, mental calculations easier and simultaneous thoughts less troublesome to manage.

Another notice appeared almost immediately.

[Cultivation Prodigy Updated.]

[Current INT: 9.]

[Base Cultivation Speed Bonus: +90%.]

"One more point," Damian murmured with satisfaction.

His short-term Attribute goal had become simple.

INT, WIS and SPI at ten each.

Spirit was already there.

If he placed his Level 4 point into INT, then Levels 5 and 6 could raise Wisdom from eight to ten, leading to a perfectly balanced magical foundation by the Journeyman stage.

Then his additional Feat selection appeared, and Damian already knew where his curiosity was pointing.

<Ritual Caster>.

He had passed it over earlier because he lacked both resources and enough knowledge to exploit it properly.

Neither problem existed anymore.

Damian selected the Feat.

[Ritual Caster — Special Feat

Effect 1: Grants knowledge of two Ritual Spells selected from the available Ritual Spell Pool.

Effect 2: Ritual Spells may be prepared within compatible Spell Slots and cast using ordinary prepared-spell rules.

Effect 3: Ritual Spells may alternatively be performed manually without occupying or consuming a Spell Slot.

Effect 4: Manual Ritual Casting requires extended preparation, complete ritual materials, uninterrupted spell construction and significant Mental Energy expenditure.]

[Select Two Ritual Spells.]

Six names appeared.

<Disguise Self> <Enhance Leap> <Find Familiar> <Longstrider> <Speak With Animals> <Speak With Dead>

Damian rubbed his chin.

"Now this is interesting."

<Disguise Self> was excellent for infiltration and anonymity, but Damian had just acquired <Truesight>, which had also taught him that magical disguises were hardly perfect against sufficiently capable observers.

Useful, but not urgent.

<Enhance Leap> dramatically improved jumping ability.

Normally great for exploration.

Unfortunately, Damian had Light Body Talismans, cultivation and an AGI score currently best described as a developing tragedy.

Improving his ability to jump very far before his body became competent enough to land safely sounded like a future medical expense.

<Longstrider> provided an enduring mobility enhancement and was probably one of the most universally useful choices for adventurers.

Again, however, Shengyuan already gave Damian several methods of improving movement.

<Find Familiar> was harder to dismiss.

A magical companion could scout, carry messages, observe dangerous areas and perform countless small tasks.

For an adventurer, that was fantastic.

For Damian specifically?

...also fantastic!

But there were two options that caused a strangely old memory to surface.

One of his father.

Years ago, before sickness hollowed the man out, Damian remembered sitting nearby while his father argued with two of his uncles over some fantasy movie they had watched.

Naturally, three grown men had somehow turned the conversation into a passionate debate over what kind of magic would actually be most useful to an adventurer.

One uncle chose fireballs, the other insisted upon invisibility, but Damian’s father disagreed with both.

His reasoning had been simple, all living beings lied naturally.

A suspected murderer could lie to avoid punishment, a witness could lie to protect themselves or due to benefits, and of course, a merchant could lie to protect his wealth or his reputation.

But a random horse stabled outside the building had no reason to protect the killer, and the dead victim had considerably fewer reasons to maintain office politics.

Damian smiled faintly at the memory.

"You’d probably be unbearably smug about this, Dad."

He selected his choices.

[Speak With Animals acquired.]

[Speak With Dead acquired.]

Knowledge entered his mind.

<Speak With Animals> temporarily aligned his language comprehension with ordinary beasts, allowing communication according to the animal’s actual intelligence.

A dog did not suddenly become a philosopher nor would a horse explain advanced political intrigue.

But animals noticed smells, sounds, people, violence, routes and danger.

They were witnesses almost everywhere.

<Speak With Dead> was darker.

The ritual temporarily awakened residual memory and identity within an intact enough corpse, allowing Damian to ask up to five direct questions before the connection collapsed.

The corpse could only reveal what it actually knew.

And while hostility or stubbornness could remain, dead men possessed considerably fewer practical incentives for deception than living ones.

For adventuring work involving investigations, murders, missing persons, ruins, and battlefields?

Both spells were ridiculous.

"Dad wins the argument twenty years late," Damian murmured with a sigh.

Then he returned to the pills.

He had entered Level 3 with 1/33 EXP and consumed three Qi Nourishing Pills since cleansing.

Seven remained before diminishing returns returned, so Damian swallowed all seven for fourteen EXP.

[Experience: 15/33.]

[Qi Nourishing Pill Adaptation Count: 10.]

The next pill had dropped to 0.9 base EXP, but with Qi Acceleration doubling it, that became 1.8.

Damian swallowed ten more.

[+1.8 EXP.]

[+1.8 EXP.]

[+1.8 EXP.]

The notifications continued until the final pill disappeared for exactly eighteen Experience Points.

[Experience threshold reached!]

[Main Class: Mage has advanced from Level 3 → Level 4!]

[Overall Level increased to 4!]

[Experience: 0/44.]

[Level Advancement Reward: +1 Free Attribute Point.]

[Ordinary Feat Milestone Reached: General Feat Selection Available.]

[Special Power: One Feat Per Level activated.]

Damian grinned.

So it really did stack, huh?

At Level 4, an ordinary Valorian gained their scheduled General Feat.

Damian gained that and another unrestricted Feat from the Dual-Realm Exchange System!

Utterly disgusting and completely immoral!

But hehe, he liked it!

First came the Attribute Point.

"Intelligence."

[INT: 9 → 10.]

His thoughts sharpened for the third time.

[Cultivation Prodigy Updated.]

[Current INT: 10.]

[Base Cultivation Speed Bonus: +100%.]

Damian nearly laughed.

His cultivation speed had officially doubled from the Feat alone.

Now came the General Feat, and the familiar options appeared.

<Alert>.

<Athlete>.

<Durable>.

<Lucky>.

<Mobile>.

<Tough>.

Damian eliminated four almost immediately.

Athlete, Durable, Mobile and Tough all improved areas his cultivation system already addressed directly or indirectly.

They were excellent Feats for sure, just not excellent for him.

Alert was different, as it gave better reactions and resistance to surprise could save his life, especially when combined with Truesight.

But that was exactly the problem.

It overlapped with an area Damian was already strengthening.

Truesight improved supernatural perception whereas War Caster protected his ability to respond under sudden pressure.

Not to mention, future cultivation could produce Spirit Sense.

Then, there was <Lucky>.

Luck was a Hidden Attribute with no Attribute Points increase, no way to train it, and no promise that Shengyuan’s many luck Feats would ever improve Valoria’s concept of probability.

<Lucky> allowed him to twist a limited number of unfavorable outcomes toward something better.

It was not invincibility like Lucky Girl nor was it guaranteed success, but it was reliable insurance.

Damian had spent five years in logistics, and he could tell you this now, the disasters that destroyed operations were rarely the predictable ones because those had procedures.

The truly dangerous problems were the one-percent events that happened at exactly the wrong time.

A wheel breaks while carrying the critical shipment, a worker calls in sick during inspection, or a supposedly safe opponent lands the one lucky strike capable of killing you.

Damian crossed worlds for a living now, so he did not need another way to run slightly faster.

He needed protection against the universe deciding to be funny and put him up on Godtube for "Top Ten Transmigrators Dying Stupidly".

"Lucky."

[General Feat Acquired: Lucky.]

Damian nodded in satisfaction before opening his unrestricted selection.

This choice was considerably easier.

<Drow High Magic>.

He selected it.

[Drow High Magic — Racial Feat

Ordinary Requirement: Drow Bloodline — Waived.

Effect: Three innate magical Skills successfully adapted to Host.]

[Skill Acquired: Detect Magic

Rank: Cantrip

Type: Divination

Effect: Allows the caster to perceive the presence, direction and broad structure of active magical phenomena within sensory range. Continued observation may reveal additional characteristics. Concealment significantly exceeding the caster’s magical perception may resist detection.

Cost: Mental Energy while actively sustained.]

The second appeared beneath it.

[Skill Acquired: Dispel Magic

Rank: Cantrip

Type: Abjuration

Effect: Attempts to destabilize and unravel an active magical structure. Effectiveness depends upon the caster’s magical power, comprehension and the complexity and strength of the targeted effect.

Limitation: Permanent enchantments, superior curses and magical structures exceeding the caster’s ability may resist or entirely reject dispelling.

Cost: Mental Energy proportional to resistance and complexity.]

Damian’s eyebrows rose.

That one sure was dangerous, but not to him, but also to every Mage who assumed a spell remained safe once successfully cast.

Then came the final Skill.

[Skill Acquired: Levitate

Rank: Cantrip

Type: Transmutation

Effect: Applies controlled magical lift to the caster, a willing creature or an unsecured object, allowing vertical ascent, descent and suspended positioning.

Limitation: Horizontal mobility is limited without another source of movement. Maximum effective weight and resistance depend upon caster capability. Unwilling living targets may resist the effect.

Cost: Mental Energy while sustained.]

Damian stared at the three additions of detection, anti-magic, and mobility, all for no Spell Slots required.

These were three cantrips from a racial Feat he possessed absolutely no biological right to obtain.

He slowly opened his Character Sheet again.

Overall Level 4.

INT 10. WIS 8. SPI 10.

One Marrow Cleansing use.

Twenty Qi Nourishing Pills consumed since his reset, meaning his next batch would begin at the 0.8 conversion tier.

His next requirement was forty-four EXP.

After that, he would reach level 5, then fifty-five EXP stood between him and Level 6.

Damian looked at his remaining mountain of pills.

Then another Marrow Cleansing Pill appeared between his fingers.

His smile slowly widened.

"Alright."

Time to become a Journeyman!

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