Jack was still fantasizing about the possibilities opened up with snapshots when he received his 100 second achievements.
[Achievement: Longest single Soul Space visit exceeded 100 seconds]
[Reward: 100 Genesis Points]
[Achievement: Total time spent in Soul Space exceeds 100 seconds]
[Reward: 100 Genesis Points]
With three consecutive achievements at 1, 10, and now 100 seconds, he felt confident that the geometric progression would continue. The next achievements would almost certainly arrive in a 889 seconds when he had been in his soul space for an additional fifteen minutes. And the achievements after that would take about two and a half hours.
A minute and a half did not seem like enough time to rest and recover energy for his climb, but fifteen minutes probably was, so he figured he might as well stay in his white room until he'd earned his 1000 second achievements.
He checked his status.
Energy Points (EP): 1/1000 :-: (0/sec [1/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 222
Soul Space Cost: 1/sec
He had enough GP to unlock Template Catalog and Time Acceleration. Once he unlocked those two features, he'd explore them while waiting for his 1000 second achievements to arrive, then he'd exit his soul space and continue his climb.
[Template Catalog Unlocked]
[Time Acceleration Unlocked]
He checked his GP balance.
Genesis Points (GP): 112
With each unlock, he felt an addition to his interface. The first thing he looked at was the new Time Acceleration section.
Time Ratio: 1:1 (max 10:1)
Elapsed Time (Soul Space): 102 seconds
Elapsed Time (Outside): 102 seconds
Nice! The maximum ratio was 10 to one. It wasn't mind blowing, but it was still useful. Gaining ten times more seconds per question on a test was huge. And even ten seconds to pause and think before responding to someone could be very helpful. He was also pleased to see the elapsed times. It would make it much easier for him to keep track of how much time had passed in the outside world.
When he tried to increase the time ratio, he found he could not. He only had one EP available, and no spare generation rate. His EP generation rate was in outside seconds, but his Soul Space Cost was in soul space seconds. So, if he increased his time ratio to 2:1, then his soul space would consume 2 EP per outside second. If he wanted to increase his time ratio, he would either need to leave his soul space and wait for EP to accumulate, or he would need to increase his EP/sec rate.
He was planning to stay in his soul space until he earned his 1000 second achievements and that would earn him enough GP to unlock snapshots and still have plenty left over. So he figured he could spare some GP now to increase his EP generation rate and capacity. Then he'd be able to play with time acceleration while he waited.
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 1/sec -> 2/sec]
After spending one GP to increase his EP rate, he was pleased to see in his store catalog that the item updated.
Increase Energy Points Generation Rate: 3/sec
-Cost: 2 GP
-Description: Increase your Energy Points generation rate to 3/sec.
However, he noticed that the cost had increased from 1 GP to 2 GP. Wondering if the cost to increase his EP rate was the same number of GP as his current rate; he increased his rate again.
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 2/sec -> 3/sec]
Increase Energy Points Generation Rate: 4/sec
-Cost: 3 GP
-Description: Increase your Energy Points generation rate to 4/sec.
So, each EP rate increase would cost 1 GP more than the previous increase. That meant he would have to spend an additional 51 GP to get his EP rate up to 10/sec. He found it mildly annoying that he could not maintain nice round numbers in both EP and GP. Still, of the two he preferred round numbers in EP, so he spent the 51 GP to increase his EP rate to 10/sec.
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 3/sec -> 4/sec]
+++
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 9/sec -> 10/sec]
When he looked at the item again, it showed that the next increase would cost 10 GP. He checked his GP total.
Genesis Points (GP): 58
He had enough to also increase his EP capacity, so he did that once.
[Energy Point Capacity Increased: 1000 -> 2000]
When he checked the item, however, he was pleasantly surprised.
Increase Energy Points storage capacity: 3000
-Cost: 1 GP
-Description: Increase your Energy Points storage capacity to 3000.
The cost to increase his EP capacity had remained one point. So, unlike EP rate, the GP cost to increase his EP capacity remained constant. Pleased, he increased his EP capacity to 10,000.
[Energy Point Capacity Increased: 2000 -> 3000]
+++
[Energy Point Capacity Increased: 9000 -> 10000]
He checked his status.
Energy Points (EP): 18/10000 :-: (9/sec [1/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 49
Soul Space Cost: 1/sec
With 9/sec EP gen to spare, he checked the Time Acceleration section of his interface and found he could increase the acceleration rate, so he pushed all the way to 10:1. It didn't feel any different.
Energy Points (EP): 18/10000 :-: (0/sec [10/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 49
Soul Space Cost: 10/sec
His status showed that his EP/sec soul space cost had increased to 10/sec, but there was no other indicator.
Time Ratio: 10:1 (max 10:1)
Elapsed Time (Soul Space): 104 seconds
Elapsed Time (Outside): 103 seconds
However, when he checked the Time Acceleration section of his interface, he could see that his Soul Space elapsed time was ticking faster than his outside elapsed time.
He wasn't certain if the soul space time achievements counted outside world time, or soul space time. But, he figured it would be ok to wait fifteen soul time minutes first. If nothing happened, he'd drop the acceleration back to 1:1 and wait another fifteen minutes.
He had GP to spare, but he only had enough GP to increase his EP rate to 13. That wasn't a nice round number, so he left his EP rate at 10/sec. Done with EP increases for now, he turned his attention to the Template Catalog. He scanned the list and saw there was nothing that could help him. It was all restricted to his soul space, anyway.
Each item in the catalog had a name, a cost, a mental image, and sometimes a description.
Wood Chair
-Instantiation Cost: free
-Operation Cost: negligible
Wood Table
-Instantiation Cost: free
-Operation Cost: negligible
The first two items were a wood chair and wood table. Each had two costs listed. One was the cost to instantiate an instance of the template, and the other was how much EP/sec the instance would add to his soul space cost. Both the chair and table were free to instantiate, so he selected the wood chair. As soon as he did, he felt a mental prompt that allowed him to place the chair anywhere in the white room. He set the mental projection in front of himself, then confirmed his selection. The chair appeared in front of him instantly and silently. One moment it wasn't there, the next it was.
When the chair appeared in front of him, it also appeared inside the box in his mind that represented his white room. He focused on it, realized he could sense himself and the chair inside. It wasn't like seeing, but more like a really clear mental visualization.
He picked up the chair and examined it. At first, it looked like a simple wood chair, but then he noticed there was no sign of assembly. No seams, no joints, no nails, no screws, or bolts. As far as he could tell, it was made, or carved, out of a single piece of wood. The wood was a rich, dark reddish brown color and had a satin finish. Fran had dragged him through several furniture stores, including some with high-quality furniture, and this chair made all the other chairs he'd seen look like nothing but scrap. It was a plain wood chair, no decorations, no carvings, just plain flat wood, and yet it somehow felt like it was the best damn wood chair in the world. When he sat in it, he found it was also very comfortable, for a wood chair.