Essence ofYou Get What You Pay For

Looks like a strawberry flavored something, smells like a strawberry flavored something, and tastes like a strawberry flavored something in a strawberry shaped vial. This Essence gives you one thing:

• You will always get what you paid for. Specifically things you went out to acquire and not in the sense of consequences. Basically, no more false advertising.

• It doesn't matter if the product is offered for free, because your time and whether or not it's wasted still matters. You will still get what was advertised.

• It doesn't matter how you pay, whether with money, a tradeable good such as food, blood, sweat, labor, sex, organs? Any means of payment that you are capable of, and may choose before buying, is acceptable. Yes, this means you could pay for a videogame using mana, if you have mana.

• By getting what you expected from your product this means the clothes and shoes you ordered online will be the correct size, you don't have to account for how a medium size suit/dress in Europe is different from a medium size in America or Asia. The glasses you ordered will have the correct lenses and frames, the product won't be broken, non functional, damaged, or missing hardware. The food you asked for will still be fresh, unspoiled, looking pristine instead of thrown together or with melted cheese sticking to the box top, no one will have tampered with it, it'll be the right temperature if it was cooked, and it'll look just like it was presented in advertising or menu pictures. That mobile game that features your character gathering resources won't turn out to be a community, resource-gathering, Tiberium Wars clone and you actually will be saving the king in Royal Match rather than town building most of the time.

• Even outright scam artists and thieves are affected. Say you meet a shady goblin promising you a +3 vorpal blade, at the end of your little encounter you'll find one even if he didn't have one. Maybe you found it in his loot when you killed him or chased him to his hideout, maybe you were awarded it for catching a notorious thief, or maybe you found it under some trash in the alley after he hoofs it. Something will bend reality in your favor so you'll always get your dues.

• If you are unaware of how a product was advertised or never saw a photo, you'll still get a reasonable minimum of what you expected. Things will fit and function, nothing will have been tampered with, but maybe not look or taste exactly as you thought, like a lack of sesame seeds on your bun or your pizza not having enough toppings. That's as close to the normal product that everyone else receives as you get.

• Anything you order by mail or send someone to fetch is also guaranteed to reach you and not be "lost" somewhere on the way or delayed at the border whether by authorities confiscating it or by a nationwide ban on trade or some such. The person or system delivering it can get lost normally but at most you'll get your product a week late, it can never be lost itself during delivery.

• You'll find you're able to buy products from other universes so long as there's an example of that product showcased in entertainment somewhere, and they will also be what was advertised whether the protagonist/antagonist used them or it was shown in an in-universe commercial/advertisement.

• How much you pay for a product will be how much the product normally costs unless there's a discount being offered. You automatically qualify for the discount without having to call in or enter a code, so any time an infomercial, Youtuber, or advert wants you to "Call Now!" or "Enter the promo code with our sponsor" you can proceed to purchase that product with the discount available.

• How much a product costs can also be determined by what you're attempting to buy. Your first instinct might be to buy yourself a mana core so you can fling spells from your fingers. A mana core is going to cost more to buy directly than a vessel that has raw mana in it, such as a stone, just as a rule of thumb due to a core producing mana and not having a finite amount in it.

• Costs for products from other universes are the same as what a character paid for. That Harry Potter wand will cost 7 Galleons. Don't have 7 Galleons? You will always know how much 7 Galleons is in any other currency or tradeable good you can pay with. You'll know how much labor, or blood, or Chinese Yen, gold, food, furs, etc. it would cost to get you your wand.

• Products from other worlds often don't have blatant price tags as the example above. Tony Stark didn't expound on the material costs of his Ironman suit, but we all know it was expensive. To buy things like that you'll have to use your best judgment on what at least the reasonable price tag would be.

• Any products you buy from other worlds, so long as they don't need a prerequisite to function (i.e. HP wands requiring that you already be magical), they will always work as they should when you get them. This goes for anything you purchase.

• You are specifically protected from any harm the product could cause you, such as genemods mutating, killing, or poisoning you. Neither the world nor anyone has this protection. This is specifically for products that would have detrimental effects normally like Nuka-Cola having radiation in it. It won't hurt you to drink it.

• Products that have beneficial effects, like healing potions, work the same for anyone or at least won't make them sick if there's a magical requirement they don't have. This goes for all things you buy.

• This Essence uses a fairly broad definition of advertising, how the product is being presented. Even when you visit a store the products you purchase will alter in subtle ways to meet your expectations, like clothing and accessories fitting to be more comfortable instead of hugging your legs, sitting too low on your waist, or rings getting stuck on fingers.

• Things you buy for others will adjust in subtle ways for them such as food not having harmful ingredients or chemicals, flowers being more fragrant, medicine working better and more effectively than for others. Nothing game breaking, if they don't like the pattern, color, material, or are allergic to peanuts this adjustment won't tailor the item to their exact tastes but who's going to know if that chocolate bar has glucose in it or not when you hand it to them?

• One limitation with this Essence: you can't buy people. That includes A.I. and other artificial creatures that are fully sophont. If you buy an animal or a program that becomes sophont later that is fine but you cannot purchase people who are already people, or their infants either. I see you rules-lawyers trying to argue infants don't count.