Having figuratively squeezed water from a rock, or perhaps literally, by way of transmuting limestone, Franklin now moves on to the final step of his plan- to turn the water in his clay potato into a weapon that will defeat the slimes. “I will have my revenge, mwhaha, er, my EXP, I mean, so that I can level up and unlock Shape… yes, of course... that’s the real reason I’m doing all this… definitely not for some petty thing like pride.” He pauses, staring blankly at the limestone wall for a moment before continuing, “Man, I think I’ve been alone in this cave for too long… I’m starting to talk to myself… Anyways….”

Having read the manual, Franklin believes that what he is about to try should work in theory, but the ambiguity in the language has left him with no guarantees, and should it not work, he really did not have an alternative path, a fallback, for this step as he had with the previous ones. This is all to say, it all comes down to this.

He begins by calling up a new submenu, one that he has not yet accessed. “[Craft].” A message appears, displaying the following choices:

1. Create

2. Imbue

He goes into Create first to explore a bit. “So, according to the manual, this allows a dungeon to spawn an item out of nothing... Seems pretty unbalanced and overpowered, if you ask me…”

He scrolls through the list, noting that indeed, each item only requires a certain amount of AP. A few that jump out to him are as follows:

Item

AP Cost

Monster Token

Varied

Common Rock

100

Ceramic Bowl

2,500

Iron Sword

10,000

Gold Coin

50,000

Armor Set (Iron)

100,000

Notably, a pickaxe of any kind is absent from the choices, and he decides to give the command a spin, picking the cheapest item on the list. “[Common Rock].”

Please provide a quantity of Common Rock to Create.

“[1].”

Create 1 Common Rock. This action will consume 100 AP. Proceed?

“[Yes].”

Similar to Materialize, an item spontaneously appears in mid-air, dropping down into his hand with a soft plop! sound. Franklin raises it to eye level, giving the item a thorough inspection. As far as he can tell, however, it really is just a common rock, like one that might be found on the side of the road. Whatsmore, it is absolutely tiny. “More like a pebble than a rock, if I’m being honest...” he grumbles to himself, “What a waste of AP. I probably could have made the same thing with Transmute for a fraction of the cost… Wait… Ohhhhhh!” He laughs to himself, his crystal blue eyes lighting up with mirth as the sudden realization hits him, and he says, “Interesting. I wonder if this design is by intention. Well, whatever the case, this for sure can be exploited...”

Making a mental note to come back to this point, he then swaps over to the other option, “[Imbue]”. A message appears in response:

Error 177. Please try again.

“Error 177. ‘No target detected.’ Right... I guess I need to be touching the item to Imbue, kind of like Decompose. Let’s see...” He picks up the water-filled clay potato before trying again. This time, a different message appears, indicating he is on the right track; it says,

Multiple targets detected. Please select the desired target to proceed.

He finds that he can pick either the container or the liquid within as the target, an interesting delineation and one that might come in handy in the future. For now, he selects the liquid as the target. This time, an entire interface appears, displaying:

Please select attributes to continue.

Target

Water (500 mL)

Attribute 1

-

Attribute 2

-

Attribute 3

-

“So, three attributes. Phew, just enough. Now, let’s see what my options are. Hopefully it’s there…” he says as he begins to scroll through the possible properties to Imbue his water with, skipping a few but reading them aloud as he goes. The partial list appears as follows:

Imbuement

AP Factor (?)

Element Fire (L1)

50,000

Elemental Fire (L2)

250,000

...

...

Elemental Water (L1)

50,000

Elemental Wood (L1)

50,000

...

...

Hardness (L1)

25,000

...

...

Sharpness (L1)

25,000

Siphoning (L1)

1,250,000

...

...

“Elemental fire, elemental wood... hardness, sharpness, siphoning… C’mon, c’mon, please be there…” he says as he makes his way down the list, and as he does so, he can feel his heart begin to beat a bit quicker, for he does not see what he is hoping to see. For a moment, he wonders if the manual’s description of Imbue, to “bond an item with additional properties”, has misled him. But then he spots what he has been searching for, and he lets out a shout of relief, “Yes!” For at the very bottom of the list are the elements of his reservoir: calcium, carbon, hydrogen and so forth.

Imbuement

AP Factor (?)

Calcium

10

Carbon

10

Hydrogen

10

...

...

“Okay so, last step now. I should just be able to pick the correct ones and-”

He fills in the interface with the desired attributes, using alphabetical order, for he is unsure if the order matters. Whether it does or not, almost immediately afterwards, the system responds regardless, providing a confirmation prompt at the bottom, the entire display as such:

Please select attributes to continue.

Target

Water (500 mL)

Attribute 1

Carbon (C)

Attribute 2

Hydrogen (H)

Attribute 3

Hydrogen (H)

Valid Imbue detected. This action will consume 650 AP. Proceed?

It’s a steep cost, and between the previous Transmute and Create, it will consume all his remaining AP for the day, but he confirms, letting the system proceed. Again, there is no fanfare, no glowing lights, but a moment later, and another message appears, causing him to grin wide. It reads:

Imbue successful. Yield is Methanol.

He sets the clay potato down on the ground, leaning it carefully against a wall so it doesn’t tip and spill, before standing back up and saying in a slow, deep voice, “Oh, yeah. It’s all coming together.” A moment later, and he’s throwing his arms up into the air, doing a little jiggle dance around his cavern. “It worked!!! It worked!!!! Woohoo!!!! I can’t believe it actually worked!!!! ‘Bind’! I guess the manual intended for it to be like enchantments, to bond magical properties to items, but elements bond to each other too! Exploit! Wait, no, chemistry, baby! Science! C plus H plus H plus H two O! What does that spell? Methanol! Methanol from water! Amazing! Ama-!”

AP depleted. System now entering hibernation mode.

“-zing… science… woo…”