While sitting in his unusually comfortable soul space wood chair, Jack continued perusing the template catalog.
Room (Rectangular)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Length, width, and height are adjustable.
Room (Cylindrical)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Height and Radius are adjustable.
Room (Domed)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Radius is adjustable.
Room (Spherical)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Radius is adjustable.
Hallway Segment (Rectangular)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Length, width, and height are adjustable.
Hallway Segment (Cylindrical)
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/100 square meters of surface area
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters of surface area
-Description: Length and Radius are adjustable.
He was excited to see that the next six items were rooms and hallways. Not because he was excited about adding rooms to his soul space, but because the presence of these items implied he might need more rooms in the future. Rectangular rooms and hallways made sense, being what most houses and building used. But why would he need a domed room or a spherical room? As far as he could tell, there was no size limit, so if he could afford the cost, he could theoretically create a room big enough to host an entire planet. Maybe that was the purpose of the spherical room? Though it seemed crazy just thinking about it. The cost would be astronomical, at least trillions of EP per second. He shook his head; the idea was just too far out there, so he discarded it as fanciful and looked at the next set of items on the list.
Room Door
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/10 square meters
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters
-Description: Width, height, and locking modes are adjustable.
Security Door
-Instantiation Cost: 1 GP/10 square meters
-Operation Cost: 1 EP/sec/100 square meters
-Description: Width, height, and locking modes are adjustable.
If there were rooms, then it made sense to have doors. But he had no idea why there was both a "room door" and a "security door". Both had the exact same description, so the only way to learn what distinguished a security door from a room door would probably be to instantiate one of each. He turned his attention to the last three items.
Environmental Controls (Normal)
-Instantiation Cost: 10 GP
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: When installed in a room, allows control of lighting, temperature, and interior room surfaces. Light and temperature ranges are limited to levels that would not cause injury to room occupant.
Environmental Controls (Weather)
-Instantiation Cost: 100 GP
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: When installed in a room, allows control of lighting, temperature, interior room surfaces, and weather. Light and temperature ranges are limited to levels that would not cause injury to room occupant. Weather is limited to non-disaster levels.
Environmental Controls (Extreme)
-Instantiation Cost: 1000 GP
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: When installed in a room, allows control of lighting, temperature, interior room surfaces, atmospheric pressure and composition, and gravity. Levels are limited to what can be sustained with available Energy Points.
The next three items were environmental controls. The first was fairly normal. It allowed environmental control of a room, not just light and temperature, but also room surface. He wondered if this was just color, or if he could also alter the room's surface texture. Could he give the walls an eggshell texture, and the floor a carpet texture? He'd find out when he created one.
The second was interesting because it also allowed control of the weather within a room. He wanted to know what the Genesis Heart considered disaster level weather. In Puget State, snow was infrequent, so a meter of snow might be considered a disaster, but in Ouisconsin a meter of snow was just another winter day. Some places saw golf ball sized hail at least once a year, so that might not qualify as a disaster. Though hurricanes and tornados were probably considered disaster level, no matter where you were.
The last environmental control, however, was surprising. It too could control lighting, room surface, and temperature, but it could also control air pressure, atmospheric composition, and gravity. And all of them could be adjusted without limit, other than EP costs. That meant with sufficient EP/sec, he could raise the temperature of a room to levels sufficient to sustain fusion! What would happen to him if he was in the room when that happened? Or to his soul space as a whole? Would he die? Could he die in his soul space? He certainly wasn't planning to test it out to see what happened. As far as he knew, death was permanent, and the last thing he wanted was for his soul to die, leaving his body an empty shell.
With that happy thought, he continued looking through the template catalog.
Wall
-Instantiation Cost: variable
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: Width, height, and thickness, and material composition are adjustable.
The item title said, "wall", but it felt like it meant wall in the abstract sense, as an obstacle. This item could be used to form any shape of any size he wanted. And he could also select the material properties. He wasn't certain but he thought he could make it as soft as gelatin or harder than a diamond. He could also make it opaque, or transparent, or anything in between.
Target
-Instantiation Cost: variable
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: Size, shape, and material composition are adjustable.
The target item appeared to be the same as the wall item. Same size, shape, and composition options. It was only when he focused on the item, like he wanted to actual instantiate one, that more information became available. He learned that unlike the Wall item, the Target item was destructible. So, if he shot a arrow at a gelatin wall, it would bounce back, but if he shot a gelatin target, it would punch through.
Training Dummy
-Instantiation Cost: variable
-Operation Cost: variable
-Description: Size, shape, and material composition are adjustable. Movement can be programmed.
The last item, the training dummy, went well beyond size, shape, and composition, it could be programed! There was no indication of the degree and complexity of programing possible, so he didn't know if it was limited to something simple like walking in a circle, or if it could be programed to do something as complex as mimic a wild animal, or martial artist.
[Achievement: Longest single Soul Space visit exceeded 1000 seconds]
[Reward: 1000 Genesis Points]
[Achievement: Total time spent in Soul Space exceeds 1000 seconds]
[Reward: 1000 Genesis Points]
He was just about to focus on the target dummy, like he had with the target item, when he received new messages.
Time Ratio: 10:1 (max 10:1)
Elapsed Time (Soul Space): 1001 seconds
Elapsed Time (Outside): 194 seconds
When he checked the Time Acceleration section of his interface, he found that while 1000 seconds had passed inside his soul space, only 194 seconds had passed in the outside world. This was good news. It meant he could earn time-in-soul space achievements more quickly.
It was also sort of bad news because it also meant his body had only rested for three minutes. He was seriously tempted to remain in his white room, with his pain, hunger, and thirst free body. But the more time he spent in his white room, the harder it would be to go back to his physical suffering. He didn't want to die, or be stuck in his white room forever, so he forced himself to leave and return to his aching body.