Quick answer
If you have reached the endgame and Shop Owner V, Home Sweet Home VI or late Dry Cleaning levels refuse to finish, you may not be missing anything. The current Inspiration data asks for 12 shops, 16 restored homes and 80/100 dry bushes, while players who have cleared the available map report fewer qualifying objects.
Commonly reported ceilings are roughly 11 qualifying shop builds, 15 homes and about 71 dry bushes. There is no verified normal gameplay action in PC 1.009 that creates the missing unique objects. Do not spend hours hunting a secret extra market plot in an already cleared Town. Check patch notes and separate completionist counters from quests that actually block the story.
Why this problem is appearing now
During launch week, players mostly struggled with Iron, Zombies and Town Orders. A few weeks later, completion-focused players had reached the final districts and tried to maximize every Inspiration.
This revealed counters that demand more unique actions than the world appears to provide. An early October Reddit discussion drew hundreds of votes from players reaching the same limits independently.
This is not a 
Faith or Mastery shortage. If an Inspiration counts a one-time environmental action and all such objects are already gone, there is no ordinary repeatable farm.
Inspirations are not the same as Steam achievements
Inspirations feed progress into specific talent branches. They are not identical to the platform's achievement list, and maxing every Inspiration is not a requirement to finish the main story.
An unfinished counter is frustrating for completionists, but it does not automatically mean your save is broken or The Last Battle is impossible to start.
If the story quest itself is stuck, troubleshoot the Story Tree and the ending route separately instead of assuming an optional Inspiration is the cause.
Shop Owner V: twelve shops required
The final Shop Owner level asks for 12 completed qualifying shop actions.
Its tracked actions include market stalls and workshops. But the available construction plots do not appear to provide twelve independent qualifying completions through normal progression.
Players reach roughly 11 and then start searching for a nonexistent twelfth market location.
What to check first
- 1
Are all unlocked Town districts explored?
- 2
Have you used every available merchant/workshop plot?
- 3
Is there a remaining story-locked district you have not liberated?
- 4
Does the counter actually advance after a qualifying restoration?
If you have built on all available plots and remain short, upgrading an existing trader from Tier II to III should not be treated as a confirmed way to add another Shop Owner completion. The Inspiration tracks specific restoration actions, not ordinary purchases and sales.
Should I demolish and rebuild a shop?
That is not a verified fix. Construction plots are tied to progression and merchants, and attempts to recreate them may cost resources without adding a new count.
Home Sweet Home VI: sixteen homes required
The sixth level lists 16 restored residential buildings.
Players who have finished every available housing plot report a ceiling of 15. The missing sixteenth house does not appear on the accessible map.
Why Green Scrolls do not solve it
Green Scrolls are used with 
Linda to raise Town Quality. That is valuable, but handing over a scroll is not the same as restoring another house.
Recruiting residents raises the Town's capacity, not the count of buildings you physically completed.
For that distinction, see Town Gratitude, Happiness and Town Quality.
Dry Cleaning V/VI: not enough bushes
Dry Cleaning counts digging out dry bushes in the world. These are finite environmental objects; you cannot replant and harvest them indefinitely for repeated Inspiration progress.
The later requirements are:
Dry Cleaning V — 80 bushes;
Dry Cleaning VI — 100 bushes.
Players who fully cleared known locations commonly report totals around 71. Treat this as a community observation supported by the available environment, not a guarantee that every save must stop at precisely 71.
If you are at 69 or 70, there may genuinely be a bush you missed. If you are at 71 and have cleared the whole accessible map, repeatedly running the same route without fresh evidence is unlikely to help.
Oops Surgeon: an Inspiration you can outlevel
Oops Surgeon differs from the previous three. The action is repeatable in theory, but your Keeper can become too competent to fail often enough.
The Inspiration counts botched operations at the Autopsy Table, not successful surgery. Its sixth level requires 25 mistakes.
As Anatomy Mastery and permanent perks improve, the chance of a bad operation falls. Late-game characters may no longer have a convenient target for additional failures.
Should you deliberately ruin corpses?
For normal progression, no. If you are committed to completionist Inspiration tracking, consider it earlier while you have low Anatomy Mastery and low-value test corpses.
Destroying a rare organ or creating a 
Surgeon’s Error on a valuable body merely to fill an optional progress bar is a poor trade.
For the actual surgery risk, see Organ Improver and Perfect Corpses.
What about Holy Routine?
This one needs extra caution because platforms and data snapshots disagree.
Some extracted tables still mark Holy Routine as missing the event that advances its counter. However, the official console patch archive explicitly lists a fix for Holy Routine I after sermons.
We therefore do not categorically label the whole Holy Routine chain impossible on PC 1.009. This is a case where an older database snapshot and actual behavior in a newer build may differ.
If Holy Routine does not advance, record your platform and version, hold an ordinary sermon and compare the counter before submitting a fresh bug report.
Which Inspirations can you keep farming?
The distinction is between repeatable actions and finite map objects.
Often repeatable: crafting, fishing, ordinary production and using certain resources. Research is also repeatable across new objects, but an individual item type generally counts once.
Finite: unique house restorations, shop plots, dry bushes and certain story events.
The second group cannot be fixed simply by working harder if all qualifying targets are gone.
Can you still earn useful talents?
An impossible optional level does not automatically block every talent on its branch. Progress comes from multiple Inspirations, and many practical Mastery requirements can be met through equipment or food instead.
If you only need a specific Mastery value for a recipe, check tools and kits before trying to perfect every progress counter.
See Mastery Explained.
Are mods a solution?
Some community PC patches change specific broken Inspirations and save-state behavior. They are not official updates and are not necessarily compatible with every game version or platform.
Before modifying a save:
- 1
Back up the related .dat and .info files.
- 2
Record the current game build.
- 3
Confirm that the mod addresses your exact Inspiration.
- 4
Do not pile untested mods onto your only working save.
These steps are generally not available to console players.
What should you check after the next patch?
Look for a concrete change in one of three places:
new qualifying buildings or map objects;
lower Inspiration requirements;
fixes that credit previously completed actions in existing saves.
A generic “progression improvements” line does not prove Shop Owner V is fixed. Look for a specific changelog entry or verified new completion route.
FAQ
Where is the twelfth Shop Owner building?
Current map data and endgame player reports do not establish an ordinary qualifying twelfth build.
Is there a sixteenth house?
Players report reaching fifteen completed homes, below the Inspiration's sixteen-house requirement.
Do dry bushes respawn for Dry Cleaning?
Not as a normal renewable resource for that counter.
Does an unfinished Inspiration mean my story is softlocked?
No. Optional Inspiration progress and the main quest have different conditions.
Is Holy Routine definitely broken?
Do not assume so without checking the platform and version; official console patch notes already document a related fix.
