Jack was stunned. He'd been fantasizing before about being able to examine a cell at the atomic level, but this... this meant he could actually do as he fantasized. His interface told him he could examine a snapshot down to the level of detail available. That implied he could examine every single atom in a cell, and every single quark in an atom! He was certain there were many scientists who would happily sacrifice important body parts to gain access to this capability.
Even the Approximation level of detail was over powered. If he was reading the description correctly, all he needed to do was get within 100 kilometers of any secure military or government agency building and he could read everything they had. Nations would go to war to gain access to this capability, or to destroy it. For a moment, he felt like a multitude of unseen eyes were staring at him like hungry wolves. He shook off the sensation as nothing but paranoia. No one knew about the Genesis Heart, and it would stay that way as long as he didn't do anything stupid.
As for the nominal level of detail, it wasn't particularly noteworthy, and he wasn't certain how useful it would be unless he could extend the range to cover the entire planet. When he thought about extending the snapshot range, his focus shifted to the store catalog, and he discovered that four new items had appeared.
Unlock Template Creation
Description: Create a template for your template catalog based on an object found in a snapshot.
Description: Link your body to your soul space manifestation. Once linked, physical changes to your soul space manifestation can be exported back into your physical body. If two changes are non-interdependent, then each change can be independently selected for export.
Description: Create and run simulations. Simulations can be designed, starting with a blank space, or created using a snapshot as a starting point.
Extend Snapshot Range
-Description: Increase snapshot range to be 100 times greater than the previous range.
These four items had appeared when he unlocked Snapshots. So that meant store catalog items were gated behind other items. And, the only way to learn about more items was to purchase the ones that were visible.
The first three items were amazing, and all were within reach. He only needed to spend a total of about three hours in his soul space and he would earn the 100,000 GP needed to unlock Simulations. He wondered if the Simulations ran at the same level of detail as the snapshots. If true, it would be amazing.
He was also itching to unlock Linked Self. With that feature, he could, theoretically, combine it with Time Acceleration and be able to get a full night's sleep in less than an hour of outside world time. And Template Creation meant he could probably bring a copy of his laptop into his soul space.
He had enough GP to unlock the Template Creation feature and extend his Snapshot range, but would have to wait for more achievements before he could afford the other two options.
The snapshot range extension was super cheap at only 10 GP, so he purchased it without further thought. He hoped it was like his EP increase items and would allow him to continue increasing his snapshot range. He wanted to cover the entire planet in one snapshot!
[Snapshot Range Extended]
He checked his snapshot ranges and found that they had indeed all been increased 100 times.
-Approximate: 10^4 kilometers
-Nominal: 100 kilometers
-Subatomic: 100 meters
And, when he checked the item in his store, it had updated.
Extend Snapshot Range
Prerequisites: Snapshots unlocked
Description: Increase snapshot range to be 100 times greater than the previous range.
So, it looked like each successive increase would cost ten times more than the previous. He held off on increasing the range any further because there was something else he wanted to unlock first.
He knew he could earn 120,000 GP if he stayed in his soul space for just under three hours. And, he suspected he would probably spend at least that much time examining his first snapshot, but he also wanted to create some templates to instantiate inside his soul space. So, since he was certain he would be able to earn more GP soon, he also unlocked Template Creation.
[Template Creation Unlocked]
Then he got up, went into his bedroom, and lay down on his bed. If his body was going to be perfectly still for three hours, he didn't want to be sore and stiff when he came back out. So laying down on his bed seemed wiser than sitting in one position for three hours on his couch.
Before he entered his soul space, he triggered an Atomic level snapshot at maximum range. He wanted to cover his entire house, but he also wanted to know how it worked to examine a snapshot at max detail. And since the maximum range of a Subatomic snapshot was only 10 meters, he chose the Atomic level snapshot which had a range of 1 kilometer. His mind still boggled at the possibility of being able to capture the position and state of every single atom in a 1 kilometer radius area. The human mind was not built to properly grasp the true nature of such large numbers.
As soon as he triggered the snapshot he felt some of his EP disappear. Then he felt something appear in his soul space. But before he could go inside his soul space to check, he received three new achievements.
[Achievement: Captured 1 Sapient in a Snapshot]
[Achievement: Captured 10 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Achievement: Captured 100 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
Oh, wow! He had just discovered a figurative GP gold mine! There were approximately 8 billion people on the planet. That meant he could earn achievements for 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000, 100,000,000, and 1,000,000,000 sapiens in a snapshot! That was more than 10 billion GP! Assuming the reward progression continued. He only needed 111,000 GP to unlock the items in his store, but if he wanted to extend the range of snapshots very far, he'd need more. And since unlocking snapshots had revealed new store items, he expected that unlocking the three features he had available would reveal even more items. So earning GP now, for later use, made sense.
He immediately tried creating a max range snapshot at minimum detail, but nothing happened. No new achievements. So, detail level does matter. Then he tried again at Nominal detail, and still no new achievements. It looked like the achievement could only be earned if the snapshot detail was at least Atomic level. This sort of made sense. The Atomic level detail description had stated that, "nearly everything will behave identically to that of its real-world original", so maybe that included sapiens. If he wanted to earn ridiculous amounts of GP, he just needed to keep increasing his Snapshot range.