"Hello, Master," was the first word Ilya heard after the pain subsided. Next to the panel, there was a floating woman's avatar. Before he could even try to formulate a question, the avatar spoke again.
"You can ask me anything, although I can't answer every question."
"What are you?" was the first blurted-out sentence that came out of Ilya's mouth.
"I am like the AI agent you had, but thousands of magnitudes more advanced," the AI answered.
"Do you have a name?"
"No, I don't, but you can name me."
Ilya started to think, and in a second, he said, "I think it would be better for me to know your capabilities before naming you. It will help me think of a name that really suits you."
"Yes, Master. As I said earlier, I am an advanced AI assistant with diverse functions beyond the normal AI's capabilities. I also have functions to give you abilities that would enhance your capabilities and more, but they require Destiny points."
"Wait, what do you mean by Destiny points?"
"I will get to that. First off, here is the system."
In the panel, everything cleared up, and he saw his avatar on the screen. There was his health, full name, and age, which was currently 21, but the strange thing was that next to that number, there was an infinity symbol. Ilya wanted to about it when the AI spoke again.
"As you know, every ability user has a different increased lifespan."
Ilya remembered something about it, and the first person who came to his mind was Marken, humanity's only Civilization Scale ability user who was still alive and kicking.
"You think correctly, Master. Every human's base life expectancy is around 150 years with your technology, but when humanity left their solar system abilities started to manifest, each large category gives ten times more life expectancy, starting with 100 for local scale and ending with ten million for civilization scale. But you are different. SLR tier abilities are not in the scope of regular paradigm, and their life expectancy is basically infinite, with only minor exceptions, which you don't currently have permission to know."
If Ilya wasn't sitting on his bed, he would have probably fallen down. Immortal. This was the only word floating in his mind. It was really hard to comprehend how long that was for a regular mortal, but he wasn't mortal anymore. For some reason, Ilya started thinking about his bank account back in his old life. There was just over 100 dollars in it, and then compound interest flashed in his mind. He was still zoned out thinking about the percent symbol when the AI continued.
"Master, sadly, you are not in your universe anymore."
This woke Ilya from his dream of percents and brought him back to the current reality. He quickly calmed down and remembered the most important question he asked himself the first time he transmigrated into Ilya's body.
"Oh, can you tell me why the hell I got transmigrated?"
"Sorry, Master, the only things I know are things from your memories and that your soul being different from the original one for this body. What constituted this happening is beyond even my capabilities."
"Okay, let's return to the main topic you were talking about, Destiny points or something."
"Yes, Master, in the first tab I showed you, you can see your status, but there is another tab."
Suddenly, the screen changed, and it looked like some basic online store. There were a few pages. There was a gacha tab, a technology tab, an abilities tab, and a tab that had no name on it except for a large lock icon.
"Master, as you can see, there are currently three tabs open for you. Others unlock when you reach milestones."
"What are those milestones?" asked Ilya.
"I can't tell you."
Ilya didn't know what to say and almost cursed.
"Okay, tell me about the opened ones."
"Master, in the first one, you can roll Destiny gacha where everything can come out. The second is the technology tab where you can buy technology, and the third is the ability tab where you can buy abilities ranging from local scale to even civilization scale."
"There should be a 'but'," asked Ilya.
"Yes, Master, everything requires Destiny points."
Then he looked at the large zero in the right corner, which probably meant that he was broke, and asked, "How can I make these Destiny points?"
"Generally, there is no single way of making points, but as the word indicates, every action you take will affect it. Even having loyal followers and a large sentient population that enjoys the benefit of being under you will give you a stable stream of points. But I will advise the host to explore it on the way."
After hearing it, he went through the tabs to see what was available there. For example, one cost 500 Destiny points, but on the other tabs, it was harsher. On the Tech tab he couldn't understand anything, but when he looked at the only thing he knew, the med pod tech's cost of 20,000 Destiny points, he didn't know what to say. It wasn't better on the ability front; even a basic planetary scale E-tier ability cost 100,000, and it wasn't even predetermined; it was random. It was angering, but he quickly understood that there is no free lunch in the world, and Ilya asked, "There should be at least something that you can give me as a starter pack, right?" almost doing a dog eyes maneuver.
"Yes, of course. First of all, I can connect to the ship's network and mark every tech you have as owned so you don't have to buy them to unlock the next tiers, and they will be put out from the gacha pool as well. There are also 10 free gacha rolls as a starter pack."
"Why didn't you tell me about the free rolls?" Ilya was almost angry.
"You have to finish the system setup to unlock it."
"What are the remaining steps then?"
"You have to name me," said AI, which made Ilya facepalm his head.
"Ah, I forgot that. Okay, let me think. Oh, I thought of one. You will be Fortuna. You are like a lucky charm for me in the current situation, so I think it fits."
[Fortuna is the Roman goddess of luck and chance, usually associated with destiny and success.]
"Thank you, Master. Now, Fortuna is waiting for orders."
"Okay, connect to the computer and list what I currently own."
"On it, Ilya."
"And please, just call me Ilya; Master sounds strange."
"Okay, Ilya."
A few seconds went by when Fortuna spoke again.
"As you know, you have three ships under your name and 200 people between them. You also have a basic package of technologies, which, by my research of the local tech market, are average. The good news is that those tech eliminated many primitive tech by your civilization's standard from the general technology shop and gacha system, but the bad news is that now you require even more points to buy anything in the technology tab."
"Well, at least I won't be spending points on stuff that I already have."
"Also, there are ten million credits in your Swelling Spiral Bank account transferred by your mother."
[Swelling Spiral is the name for the Messier 61 galaxy.]
"Okay, I don't know how much is that, but it's better than nothing, I guess. Okay, if that's all, let's move to these free gacha rolls you told me about."
The tab was quickly switched to gacha by Fortuna, and without hesitation, Ilya clicked on the ROLL button.
"Congratulations, you won a Normal Banana."
He was dumbfounded and glanced at Fortuna, who avoided his look. But he didn't stop and clicked again.
"Congratulations, you won a Normal Banana," and again.
"Congratulations, you won a Normal Banana."
He was now looking at Fortuna as if he was going to erupt but still clicked on ROLL.
"Congratulations, you won a Medium-Sized Atomic Printer."
"Aagh, at least something useful came out. The question is how useful it would be," said Ilya and looked at the machine's description.
15th generation fast atomic printer. It has a universal input module and the capability to print segment by segment for larger structures. Printing area 15X15X15 meters. Ilya was delighted; it would be great if he decided to make some sort of settlement or even for space-type construction. After thinking about some possible uses, he didn't dwell much and continued drawing.
"Congratulations, you won a Standard Invasion Technology Pack of the Greymore family."
Before Ilya could ask, "Ilya, the technology that you have doesn't include anything other than civilian technology; that's why it was possible to get it in the gacha draw."
"Okay, but why my family? There are thousands of families in just the M61 galaxy, not to mention at home or even millions of species in the universe."
Fortuna's only answer was "Destiny." Ilya, after hearing it, just shook his head and continued clicking ROLL.
"Congratulations, you won a Normal Banana." Ilya was already used to it and clicked again.
"Congratulations, you won a General Purpose Robot Blueprint of the Fostov family."
It was the first time Ilya heard this family's last name but still looked at the prize's description.
Multipurpose robot that can be used in any situation, even as military, but the tradeoff is it can never equal a normal sapient worker. After reading it, he didn't stop.
"Congratulations, you won a Normal Banana."
"Congratulations, you won Enslavement Nano Robots."
Ilya quickly looked into what this technology entailed because he knew that humans used slavery on a huge scale, but he had no time to dive into how they actually did that. As the description said, it was an ultra-high-tech solution for the slavery problem, maybe even costly for production. But then he remembered that he got the perfect partner, namely the medium-sized atomic printer. But because of this drop, he started to get interested in how humanity dealt with slavery. He didn't have to wait for long because while he was thinking, Fortuna was already searching for an answer.
"Ilya, humans' tech around slavery varies very much; some use implants, some use neck accessories, but the tech you got isn't on any publicly available source. Probably because humanity doesn't have it, or they don't have such advanced capabilities to produce them cheaply by billions or even trillions."
This made Ilya feel even better because it meant that he got something good in this roll.
Now, when he looked at ROLL, he knew that this was his last chance to get something, so he made a small pause, asked every deity he knew to help him, and clicked ROLL.
"Congratulations, you won..."