His status the next morning read:
[Name: Kali
Age: 18
Talent: God's Playground (Mythical)
Level: 1
SE: 249,500 2SE
Techniques:
• Blood Vein Circulation Technique (Uncommon) Level: 3]
An official, system-certified Level 1 Awakener. It had taken other people years of training. It had taken him 500 2SE and a couch-shaped dent in his spine.
World Level 2 costs 1,000 2SE. He looked at his remaining quarter million, did the math, and shrugged.
"Well. Let the future me worry about where to get all the SE."
One thousand 2SE and 10 hours later:
[World Level Up! World Level: 2. Item Slot unlocked: 2.]
Level 2 Awakener, baby. It had taken 1,500 2SE and a spine that now made a sound like a rusty gate, but it counted.
Kali excitedly ran out of his house and straight to his secret beach hideout. Unlike the previous day, the water had already recovered to its normal levels. So to make finding the Water Stones easier, he once again drained the water near the beach. The difference this time was that, with his Level up, the absorption was a bit faster, and he was bolder in taking a lot more than last time, knowing that Water Stones existed and that the little bits of water he took were easily recovered.
After 2 hours, the Water Stones were finally visible on the surface. They looked just like normal stones, except for barely noticeable pulses of blue from time to time, which distinguished them from the ordinary kind.
Kali excitedly collected them while multitasking, collecting water as well.
[Use Item Slot 2 to take in 'Water Stone'?]
"Yes!"
He positioned the first Water Stone at the North Pole of the Planet. What Kali planned on doing was making a huge mountain made up of nothing but Water Stones, capable of generating tons of water for the whole planet. It would also let him control and centralize the Water Stones, instead of letting them multiply all over the place.
By the end of the day, he had drained about 10 times more water than last time and collected about 150 Water Stones, which he fashioned into an anthill. And unlike his first subject, the ordinary seawater, which had all the growth potential of a wet sock, these Water Stones were actual items, Trash tier with real room to grow. His world finally had residents with ambition. Even if the residents were rocks.
Doing this really was a lucrative job for him. It not only brought him closer to his goal of a water-flooded planet, it also netted him a ton of fish, about 3 times the amount he caught before. Except for a few he intended to eat, he sold all the fish at the Wet Market, earning 30 Silver Coins. Not bad for a whole day of picking up rocks and suffocated fish.
(Encantadia Currency: 100 Bronze = 1 Silver, 100 Silver = 1 Gold, 100 Gold = 1 Diamond)
The money was kept by him, for use when he wanted to buy something. That night, back home, Kali sat on his couch and reread his talent description, because there was a line in it he had been waiting to cash in like a coupon.
[Every 5 levels, the user will be given 3 choices of upgrades to add to the world.]
Every 5 levels. World Level 5. And between him and the choices of the Gods stood exactly three rungs of ladder.
The world, it turned out, was a picky customer. Each level demanded payment in its own grade, and only that grade or denser. World Level 3 wanted 1,000 3SE. World Level 4 wanted 1,000 4SE. World Level 5 wanted 1,000 5SE. And Kali's entire fortune sat at home in level 2.
Which meant there was only one way up the ladder, and it involved his nemesis.
Day one: he condensed 2,000 2SE into 1,000 3SE, and fed it to the world.
[World Level Up! World Level: 3. Item Slot unlocked: 3.]
Day two: he needed 1,000 4SE, which was 2,000 3SE, which was 4,000 2SE. He condensed his way up the ladder rung by rung, and fed it to the world.
[World Level Up! World Level: 4. Item Slot unlocked: 4.]
Day three was the big one: 1,000 5SE, which was 2,000 4SE, which was 4,000 3SE, which was 8,000 2SE. Seeing the same energy get folded in half over and over again, Kali felt like crying, not only from the sadness of watching his fortune shrink with every fold, but also from the bitter realization that a bigger fortune did NOT mean less time on the cushion. It just meant more folding. The universe was not merciful like that.
But this time, at the end of the butt torture, there was a prize waiting. The 3 choices. The upgrades of the Gods. He had read the description a dozen times, and every 5 levels, the system would offer him three ways to change his world forever.
His status now read: Level 4, SE: 234,500 2SE, plus 1,000 5SE condensing in his Blood Heart, one session away from payment. A Level 4 Awakener with the treasury of a small nation, the sitting tolerance of a saint, and one final butt torture standing between him and divine privileges.
"If I knew awakeners would have to torture their butt just to get stronger, I would have wished to never awaken and remain talentless," sighed Kali, lamenting his inevitable fate, before remembering that he was, in fact, already a God, and that Gods, apparently, also had to torture their butts.
He adjusted his cushion, clenched everything that needed clenching, and settled in for the last fold.
"Come on. Daddy wants superpowers."