Chapter 840 Stagnation
Two weeks later.
Aron, now fully reinvigorated after his semi-forced break, finally logged back into the universal simulation.
{Welcome back, sir,} Nova greeted him the moment his body materialized inside his lab.
“Can’t say I didn’t miss this,” Aron replied as he moved to sit down—despite there being no chair beneath him. Before he could reach the ground, a chair materialized under him, seamlessly supporting his weight.
“Any good news on cracking the Trinarian encryption?” he asked as he settled in.
{We’ve made some advancements, but honestly, I’d say we’re still only a few steps away from the starting line,} Nova admitted. Without a clear progress indicator, it was impossible to gauge exactly how close they were to breaking through—the process was more guesswork than science at this point.
“There’s no other choice, then,” Aron muttered as he called up the system interface and began searching for decryption algorithms.
After filtering out options that were either useless for his needs or too expensive to justify, Aron was left with just two choices:
[Adaptive Decryption Algorithm, Tier 1
Spite is one of the best fuels for innovation.
“No point in overthinking it,” Aron muttered, pressing the purchase button. “Still better than spending more than ten times this much SP on spatial tech, which at this rate will take years.”
In an instant, his SP balance plummeted—nearly seventy percent wiped out in a flash, leaving him with a measly 150 billion SP.
He exhaled, eyes fixed on the numbers. “The empire’s SP generation has plateaued,” he noted. Over the past few years, he had noticed a steady decline in how fast he was accumulating System Points. It wasn’t due to a lack of new product releases—it felt like an intentional cap was being reached.
“If there’s a limit to how much SP I can earn per person, then I must be approaching it.” He tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “Looks like this is the System’s way of preventing stagnation... forcing me into expansion in search of more SP.”
A small smirk crept onto his face.
“Luckily, our goals are aligned.”
{The same goes for the technology— the price increase seems irrational too,} Nova replied, her voice echoing in his thoughts. She had been accessing his brain data, seeing exactly what he saw, after receiving his permission, of course, or else the system would have blocked her.
{The system is most likely aligning its pricing with the maximum amount of SP you can earn at that specific point in time, or something similar. Otherwise, there’s no explanation for how you bought something as balance-breaking as the knowledge to create an atomic printer and a Universal simulation for a billion SP each, while having to buy a decryption algorithm—whose usefulness is comparatively low—at more than a hundred times their price. But there isn’t enough data yet to pinpoint exactly what criteria the system uses for pricing.}
Upon hearing her analysis, Aron recalled all the tech he had bought from AI, which ultimately led to the creation of Nova, and reflected on how the pricing had never been consistent. It had never made sense, something that had crossed his mind before but never in depth. As he thought about it, he realized that the system allowed him to get things when he needed them, at a price he could afford at the time. At the same time, it made sure not to let him become complacent—forcing him to expand and seek more individuals to increase the SP he could earn. Everything pointed to the system’s awakening, and like Nova, he too was curious to see what would happen as a result.
“Using our imagination with the current information is just fertilizer for unfounded speculations,” Aron muttered, more to himself than anyone else. He knew Nova was immune to such missteps. “Let’s steer clear of that and focus on gathering more data.”
“Let’s wrap up the assimilation,” he added, finally giving the system his approval to assimilate the knowledge. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for the flood of information about to be forced into his mind.