After trying but failing to come up with any meaningful sales pitch for the space pouch thing, I gave up on trying to convince them of it. At least for now. There will be other opportunities in the future to point them in the right direction I think.

  In the meantime, there are a few other things that could be very important to us as well. Maybe not initially, but definitely when we had more funds to our name. For example, there was the Vault Expansion Token, something that added 500 slots permanently to our vault storage.

  I don’t even know how big our storage was or how it even worked as of yet, but the idea of giving it 500 more slots sounded like a good one to me. But that isn’t what I found important about it. Instead, it was the concept of slots.

  The thing about the pouch and storing things inside of it has already been mentioned, and it clearly introduces the concept of manipulating space in a way that makes a small area appear far larger on the inside.

  This isn’t something to take lightly by any means, but it’s not quite the same thing as what I’m thinking slots are.

  The former is about taking something that’s large and restricting it to a small item, but the space inside is still really large. While the latter…the latter didn’t make much logical sense at all, and it was far more game-like to me than anything else we’ve experienced thus far.

  Of course, I say that knowing there are giant chains hanging over the planet, Dungeons with mystical creatures within them, red aliens, things like skills, and Traits, not to mention the fact that we actually LEVEL up.

  And finally, there is a floating screen in front of my face right now.

  All of these things should’ve already made me immune to any further surprises, and perhaps I’m overreacting over something like slots, but I couldn’t take my mind off of it. Anyone who’s ever played a little bit of craft, or any game that had any sort of inventory, knew what these slots were.

  Unless there was something like a weight restriction, then no matter what it is you had, it could fit in one of these slots in your inventory all the same.

  Again, I probably shouldn’t be too weirded out about this considering everything else that was going on, but it just felt different…anyway, we have a lot of money hunting to do which means going into the Dungeon again very soon and not just me but quite a few members of the family, so we needed to talk about this and plan it out. I’m sure in the near future a family meeting will be held. Either way, I’m excited about potentially evolving to the E Grade soon, how could I not be?

  …

  Time passed and through some very hard work from the members of my family, and the fact that we were taking lower rewards for doing one floor at a time just to gather coins, we managed to gather a whopping 300 Gold Coins.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  That isn’t enough to get all three books, but it brought us to a decision.

  Which book will we be buying first? Would it be the Foundations of Flesh and Mana, a book that spoke about how to properly integrate our F Grade Traits, or would it be the Gene Codex, a book that talked about fusing our Traits into Genes, whatever that meant, or would it be On The Breaking Point, a book that spoke about the changes that happened during the leap to the next Grade?

  It was hard to say.

  Now unlike what he would typically do, Grandpa did not make a unilateral decision for the entire family. It was a big decision, one that would impact all of us, and it took a lot of work for the entire family to pool enough coins to reach the 300 Gold that we did, and it is only fair that the entire family decided on which book we would be buying.

  Of course, I really don’t think that anyone in the family would’ve complained if Grandpa just chose one, or at least not complained too much. Maybe Uncle Mack would’ve had some grumbles, but for the most part, we would’ve been fine.

  Anyway, it came down to not only a discussion but a family vote. Me personally, I gave it some serious thought. I immediately disregarded Foundations of Flesh and Mana because, well, I do think it is important to properly integrate our Traits if they aren’t naturally integrated by the system, but there’s also a chance it might not be actually talking about Traits given to us by the system.

  It could very well be about buying Traits. This is all just guessing and I have no clue, but just that possibility alone is enough for me to dismiss it in favor of the other two, at least for now.

  I would like to read all three of them at some point, but for now I’d focus on the other two…which is where I have a bit more of a decision to make.

  On the Breaking Point quite literally mentions the E Grade, but the Gene Codex is more money despite that. Now more money doesn’t always mean better, but in this scenario, I think it just might, and even if it didn’t, what if the hints the former could potentially give us aren’t anything close enough to show us the path forward to the E Grade? What if we need more than that? Who knows if it’s just a book of conjectures and little poems, or maybe not poems but you know, the thoughts of people that reached the E Grade.

  A book on just notes…yes that could help, but without context, it could also be useless. Again, I really do want to read all three, but for this situation, based on my thoughts on all three of these books, only one of them seems to be a way to immediate power or better yet, a concrete way to immediate power.

  Fusing my Traits into Genes. Not only does it sound sick as hell, but it also sounds like a way to gain a lot more power. Even though I didn’t know exactly what a Gene was, one plus one is two and two is bigger than one, so if I take one Trait and fuse it into another, surely that would give me something far better.

  Of course, my reasoning was a little elementary, but it made sense to me, and that was enough.

  Which then made me think about the different ways this fusion could work.

  Was it me taking two Traits and then combining them into a Gene, thus now leaving me with one Trait and a Gene in my body? Or perhaps it’s fusing all three into one Gene, but does that then open up room to have three new Traits alongside my Gene?

  Because if that was how it worked, then could I have a powerful Gene and then go back in the Gauntlet Dungeon and get three more Traits? Maybe even Unbound ones? That was too big of a leap of power to pass up in my most humble of opinions, so with that being said, I voted for the Gene Codex.

  In fact, I actually stood up in front of my family in our meeting and gave this exact same thought process. It took some convincing, but my mom and dad were on my side so that helped, Grandpa seemed to like it which helped even more, and Uncle Mack thought it was right up his alley, which was the final nail in the coffin since he was going to be the only one who would argue about it.

  Long story short, the decision was made and the Gene Codex was coming home.

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