The First Store System

The system set the time flow rate of the store at one million to one to solve the time problem.

When only one hour would pass in the Primal dimension, more than a century would have already passed inside the store.

Aakesh hadn’t set the difficulty of cultivating inside the competition to be similar to the Primal dimension or Panagea. Many talented people would be able to reach the peak in less than fifty years, while the average participant would be able to achieve that level in a few centuries at most.

Even Aakesh had no idea what would happen inside the worlds in the competition, so Aakesh requested the system to set time at such a level.

Since Aakesh had explained the format of the competition, Aakesh announced the start of the contest by snapping his fingers.

The next moment, the silent tower made its move as the entire first floor lightened up. In no time, the first level turned into a starry sky.

If someone were to count the number of stars in the starry sky, they would find that to be matching the number of participants.

The next moment, where the entrance of the tower was before its sudden change, a portal emerged.

“Enter one by one,” Aakesh expressionlessly ordered the participants, nervously exchanging glances with each other.

No one dared to make Aakesh repeat the words, so as soon as the sentence left Aakesh’s mouth, they began entering the portal in sequence without creating any chaos.

The participants entering the portal had myriads of expressions. But one thing was constant, there was no fear on any face, despite there being more than two hundred million participants.

Only entering the portal took hours, as the contest’s entrance wasn’t like the store’s door, and only one person could enter at once.

When the last participant entered the portal, it vanished. At the same time, the shining stars in the starry sky also turned grey.

The next moment, all the screens, laying dormant in the store, lightened up simultaneously.

There were more than a hundred million screens in the store since there were more than eight billion people seated on the chair. To make the experience better for the attendees, Aakesh had set the rate of one screen per hundred people.

At the same time, there was an earpiece in each attendee’s ears. It was done so that they would listen to the sound without any noise and loss of any sound.

Since there were more than two hundred million participants, each screen partitioned itself to match the number of participants.

In the end, every partition referred to a different participant, but at the same time, it was also very small.

The crowd didn’t have to worry about not being able to see the events as they only had to focus on the partition, and they would find that partition expanding in their eyes. The phenomenon was unique for every person in the crowd to not affect other people’s immersion.

The next moment, all the more than two hundred million partitions lightened up with a familiar background.

At that time, no matter who it was, the crowd heard the same sound, the sound of a baby crying.

Aakesh also sat down on his chair since the contest was going to run for hundreds of years. There was no point in him standing there for so long.

Aakesh and Lily didn’t need the screen to look at the contest since everything would get projected in their minds. They would only have to think of the participant they wanted to see, and that scenery would emerge in their minds.

Since there were many participants participating in the competition, Aakesh and Lily decided to check on Maria first. She was the first customer the store had, so her name came first in both their minds.

The next moment, a scene of a baby endlessly crying emerged in the minds of both Aakesh and Lily.

***

“What is it?” A female voice filled with exhaustion rang in the area.

“A girl,” In response, a voice filled with excitement answered.

The mother couldn’t help but have her face turn even paler after hearing the midwife’s answer.

A drop of tear streamed through the woman’s cheeks as she released a defeated smile.

Her husband had died a month earlier in an accident, so only she was there to raise the newborn.

Raising a daughter in the place she lived wasn’t easy. The village head was known for his lecherous tendencies, and he liked underaged girls the most.

The mother was only a mortal, while the village head was a Level 1 person, so there was no way for the woman to save her daughter from the man if he found out.

The woman then looked at the midwife, who was looking at the newborn girl as if she was a treasure.

The midwife worked for the village head. She was excited because she would get rewarded when she told the head about the girl’s birth. Imagining the reward, her face turned red.

The village head wasn’t an old man, but a man in his twenties. The midwife, who was in her fifties and looked ugly, was attracted to the head. She had never slept with a man due to her face, so it was the only way to make someone like the village head look at her and talk to her.

The midwife was in her fantasy of talking with the village head when she suddenly felt a wave of unimaginable pain attacking her.

She looked down, only to find a knife had penetrated the area below her chest. She couldn’t help but cough blood. She wanted to speak when she found the increment in pain as the woman was twisting the knife.

A few seconds later, all the pain vanished, and with it, she also left the world. Only the cry of the baby remained in the area, while a look of cruelty was on the mother’s face.

As Aakesh had set the same level of start for every participant. For the male child, the village head was female with the same lecherous character, and the midwife was the male with similar feelings toward the head.

As for the parent, every participant had a widowed mother, who had lost her husband a month earlier in an accident.