NOVPUBNivalis exclaimed in surprise, "There really is a prize!"
When Rita stepped off the space pirate ship, her back weighed down with a massive hump of Blocks, the little gingerbread vendor handed her a pink Block card barely half the size of her hand.
[Free Game Ticket] (1/1): Grants one free play on any attraction in the 1~16 month zones of the amusement park.
Perfect for expensive rides — way better than paying directly with Blocks.
Ignoring the curious stares from nearby players, Rita led Nivalis to a quiet corner to sort through their haul.
Through a combination of [I'm Getting Serious] and [Target Locked] attacks on treasure chests, Rita had earned 37 Blocks. While acting as a treasure chest herself, she'd picked up 31 more using [Family Bucket].
Nivalis had earned 24 Blocks — through her self-sacrificing dives onto the ship and the ambush on the immobilized treasure chest in Round 18.
First, Rita filtered out all item-type Blocks — there were 7.
Among them were:
Four pieces from three-piece sets,
One four-piece set fragment,
One five-piece set fragment,
One seven-piece set fragment.
The five-piece set fragment was a tiny shield Block stuck to the back of her head. Rita decided to leave it there for now as a makeshift rear shield — she'd sell it later if she ran low on Blocks.
That left 85 Blocks suitable for reconstructing their bodies.
They had entered the amusement park at 00:45. After 15 minutes of exploration and info gathering, plus 20 minutes in line and 10 minutes in the game, they had less than 15 minutes left to pay the next hourly gameplay fee.
Rita grabbed Nivalis. "Let's not rebuild just yet — we're going to sell a few Blocks first."
At the vending machines, she skimmed the listings and put all four of her three-piece set fragments up for sale, each priced at 20g — the market rate.
The four-piece set fragment looked like part of a boot, so she listed it for 40g.
Once done, she stepped aside with Nivalis.
No talk of who gets to choose first. The weirder the Blocks get in future games, the more they'd have to adapt. Better start now.
Rita told her, "24 of these are yours. Point to whichever one you want and I'll pull it off." 𝓃ℴ𝓋𝓹𝓊𝓫.𝒸𝓸𝓂
Nivalis technically had permission to take Blocks directly from Rita, but there were rules in play:
Aside from "no odd-colored Blocks," there were guidelines B8017913 had translated, like:
"Above the median height line, the number of Blocks can't be fewer than below,"
"No more than 7 limbs,"
"White Blocks can't connect to three different colored Blocks at once."
So both Rita and Nivalis began reconstructing themselves. Rita only spoke up when Nivalis was about to break a rule.
Square and rectangular Blocks were easy enough — stack them onto limbs and the torso for a more balanced look.
Rita built her upper body into a hollow rectangular box.
Inside, she tucked [Soul Catcher], [Plush Collar], and [Lonely Antenna Baby] — connecting them to the internal Block network. That way, she could activate them any time, but avoid having them exposed where repeated hits could strip them off.
Her legs regained their original length — though now bulkier.
Rita could feel her stats had risen by at least 20%.
But she knew it wasn't permanent.
At the moment, each Block gave stats calculated as:
Player's total attributes × (initial Block base value)%
But if a Block's original owner was forced to restart the game from the lobby due to having too few Blocks, all the stats those Blocks once granted would change into:
Player's total attributes × 5% × (lost Block's base value)%
However, these downgraded stat Blocks could be taken out of the game, according to the tooltip.
Once both of them had reassembled themselves to their optimal form, only 13 general-purpose Blocks remained.
Eleven of those were tiny, oddly shaped pieces — square, round, or curved. The largest was about the size of Rita's eye; the smallest, barely bigger than her fingertip.
These were notoriously annoying to deal with — Rita had just mashed them together on her shoulder during the ship game.
The last two:
One was a hook-shaped piece, looked like a claw.
The other resembled a boot — a foot Block.
She did some quick math — claw Block worth 18g, boot Block 15g. Together, she'd lose 3g if used for the gameplay fee…
Everything now hinged on whether her consignment sales would go through.
Nivalis kept running back and forth to stare at the vending machine.
Meanwhile, Rita was fiddling with the seven-piece set fragment she'd kept — a Block she recognized well: the base of a potion bottle.
The name gave it away too — [Don't Ask Me What a Potion Is] (1/7).
Nivalis dashed back. "No sales yet."
Rita hummed in acknowledgment, flipping the potion base Block between her fingers. It looked like a mini bowl — or maybe a tiny crucible.
After a moment, she said, "Block me for a bit — casually."
Nivalis flared one wing and slammed it against the wall beside Rita. "What are you doing?"
Rita turned her back to the street, whispering, "Building."
If players could freely modify their bodies with Blocks, why not items too?
She started picking through her pile of tiny Blocks, carefully assembling them.
Eight mini Blocks later, she had rebuilt about one-fourth of the potion bottle.
Now it was just a waiting game — waiting for her listings to sell…
With six minutes to go before the gameplay fee was due, she heard a soft "click" in her mind — a Block had connected.
[Your consigned Block "Bubble Blaster" (1/3) has been sold.]
[You can collect your Block currency at any time from the Exchange.]
Rita ran to the vending machine at once.
Moments later, she came back clutching a mess of oddly shaped mini Blocks.
Normally, she would've groaned and thrown them into the fee bin just to be done with them. But now, she needed exactly these weird, awkward shapes.
[Your consigned Block "Vance's Hex Tag" (1/3) has been sold.]
[Your consigned Block "A Bottle of Ash" (1/3) has been sold.]
Her inventory of tiny, malformed Blocks kept growing.
Without a clear purpose, these bizarre Blocks were usually the first to go — especially for paying entry fees. At most, she'd save a few for weight balancing.
Just as she was halfway through rebuilding the potion bottle, a new alert popped up:
[Time to pay your gameplay fee.]
Rita grabbed the 15g boot Block and some boxy mini Blocks to round out the 30g, and tossed them into the fee slot.
