"What was that all about?" Cel asked as they headed back to the alchemy round.

Don told Cel about his various encounters with the local bully. He guessed it had something to do with the Social Animal quest and summoned the screen to check on the details of his mandatory quest.

Mandatory Quest: Social Animal

Type: Reputation

Details: You have lost control of your demonic nature and entered a feeding frenzy.

Your prodigious appetite and strength have impressed the ColoColo +50 reputation Your actions have caused several ColoColo to go hungry -25 reputation / day

Objectives: Replace the resources you have consumed

Food (0/31) units

Hidden Objectives: Salve (22/7) doses

There wasn't any really useful info there so he checked his Reputation screen next.

Ascendant Empire (Neutral) -10,000 Reviled ColoColo Refuge (Evil) 25 Stranger

For all the hostility Gaz was showing, Don was still classified as a stranger according to the screens. With Cel reading over his shoulder, Don finally got some context as to what that meant.

"So your reputation affects how NPC's belonging to certain factions will react to you. Anyone in the Ascendant Empire who recognizes you will try and kill you on sight. That's what it means to be reviled. Strangers, on the other hand, no one really cares about them. NPC's aren't likely to trust Strangers but they won't go out of their way to make their lives difficult without some reason either."

What are NPC's? Don asked

"Sorry, I keep forgetting that you don't know much about games. NPC's are non-player-characters. Everyone you remember meeting besides me is an NPC. To put it in terms you would understand, NPC's are the natives and Player Characters are immigrants."

What happens when my reputation drops below 0?

"You'll go from being a stranger to being mistrusted. It's not a huge difference but it makes it harder to get quests and trades will be less favorable. What we want to avoid is having your rep drop below -100. Then you would become an adversary and most of the ColoColo would turn against you."

Alright, that should give us 5 days of leeway. Considering how much food I found in one night on my own I shouldn't have any problems finishing the quest before then... if Grey lets me back outside that is. Don reasoned

"Don't be in such a rush." Cel advised "This is a great chance to grind your skills and attributes. We're relatively safe here for the moment so let's take full advantage of this opportunity to get stronger. You're going to want your attributes to be as high as you can get them before you hit level 1."

The pair got back to the Alchemy round and Cel began laying out a training menu for Don to follow as he munched on Kaeru nuts. It was a good thing he didn't hand them over earlier. He would just have had to borrow them back from Grey in order to eat.

Don thought he had lots of food collected. He was dismayed to find that his daily food requirements were determined by the formula (CON / END x 10). That meant he required a full 13.6 units of food to alleviate each rank of his hunger debuff.

Don was suddenly glad he hadn't used any healing salve on himself the night before. Even with only a single hunger rank to deal with, he didn't have nearly enough food. He would run out before two days passed at that rate.

Out of the 43 Kaeru nuts he collected the previous night, he was only able to fit 36 in his inventory. He dropped 12 of those to make room for the fruit and the seven that he packed up were lost somewhere during don's headlong sprint through the jungle. He only had 24 remaining. That was almost worth 10 units of food including his herbalist bonus, not even a full day's worth of calories.

When Don finished his nuts, he reluctantly pulled out a fruit. He was inundated by guilt and regret. Picking these had brought the giants down on the ColoColo, and he was going to benefit from them. Cel picked up on the feeling and tried to comfort Don.

"Don't make that face, Yeah, we messed up, but that's no reason to make another mistake. The fruit has already been harvested. If you don't eat it then it was all for nothing. Eat up, then you will be able to train harder and save the ColoColo from those apes sooner."

Don hesitated for a few seconds before biting into the soft spheroid. He did his best not to enjoy the sugary juices as he ate 3 of them. He just needed a little more and when he pulled out the last one of the day, he noticed Sik had stopped grinding. When he looked up, he saw the ColoColo and the puddle of drool beneath him.

Don split the fruit in two with his hands. juice sprayed everywhere. Don held out half of the fruit to Sik.

"Thank you for teaching me alchemy, and for chasing off Gaz, and for sending Kat to fetch me." It wasn't until Don put it into words that he realized how much he owed Sik. It was gratifying to see how much the ColoColo savored the sweet treat but there was no time to waste.

After washing off his sticky hands, Cel began teaching Don mathematical principles he'd never heard of before and drilling him with problems. It was difficult to the point where it actually drained his mana. This lasted until Sik finished the potion he was preparing. Then he learned how to make a basic healing potion out of Blood Moss. Don was able to make two before his Stamina fell too low to continue. It wasn't much more involved than making salves but the result was much more potent. Don rested and let Sik use the Mortar and Pestle again. Cel drilled Don on increasingly difficult math problems until he was recovered and they repeated the process. After making another healing potion he was rewarded with a welcome notification.

Concoction: Initiate 1 --> 2

+2 potency of concocted potions Alchemist: Initiate 1 --> 2

+4% effect of alchemical products

+2% chance of success

Encouraged by the gain, Don tried sprinkling some [fairy dust] in the next healing potion he crafted. Cel had to perch on the edge of the mortar and shake the golden dust off of her wings but there were no extra steps required to make the potion. The results were way more than he expected.

You have crafted: Potion Type: Healing

Rank: Magical

Potency: 7.44 (measurable)

Duration: 1 hour

Side Effects: N/A +231% Concoction EXP

The first potions Don made only had about 2 potency. His skill up and the doubling effect of Cel's [fairy dust] had more than tripled the effect of his first potions! Even better than that, the magical rank meant that there would be no side effects attached to the potion. Best of all though, was the effect that producing a magical potion had on his skill level.

Concoction: Initiate 2 --> 4

+4 potency of concocted potions Alchemist: Initiate 2 --> 4

+8% effect of alchemical products

+4% chance of success

Don was a little worried at the low potency of the potions when compared to his health pool but Cel informed him that healing potions worked on 10 minute 'ticks'. That meant that he would heal for the advertised potency every 10 minutes. The 1 hour duration meant the simple potion could actually heal don for over 44 HP.

Don eagerly guzzled the potion. It didn't taste any better than before but the potion would bring him all the way back to 76 HP over the next hour. His natural regeneration would increase that to 90 by tomorrow. Cel helped Don alter his crafting notifications, making them more immediately useful.

Don went back to trading off using the mortar with Sik and drilling with Cel. Each time Don learned a new preparation from Sik, Don translated what the monster was saying. Cel had decided to make an attempt at learning their language and was making impressive progress. She never forgot a word and was quick to make intuitive leaps. When Don was preparing a potion, Cel would go just outside the dome and practiced controlling her glow. When he had to rest, Cel kept up the barrage of difficult equations. By the end of the first night, Don had made some real progress.

Concoction: Initiate 4 --> 6

+6 potency of concocted potions Alchemist: Initiate 4 --> 6

+12% effect of alchemical products

+6% chance of success END: 14 -->15 DEX: 10 --> 13 INT: 11 --> 13 WIS: 11 --> 12

Don was now able to make healing potions with even greater potency than when he used the [fairy dust]. He had also learned to make Stamina potions from Maca roots. Those were very difficult to grind up and required 3 clockwise grinds between each normal one. He learned to make potions that work against disease from Myrtle's Wort, and potions to restore mana from moon grass as well.

These ingredients all had a potency of 1. There were other, stronger ingredients but Sik wanted to start Don out on the easier recipes before risking his more valuable ingredients. All told, Don was very happy with his progress. Especially because none of it required a life-or-death chase through briars. He even made some progress on his Social Animal quest, revealing the hidden objective's for the Healing potion Grey gave him when they first met and the stamina potion Kat gave him the night before.

After Sik called it a night, Don moved on to the strength training portion of Cel's menu. There wasn't much room in the refuge but there was enough to do pushups. So don did pushups until it felt like his arms were going to fall off, then he did some more. After countless cycles of exhausting himself, then getting barraged by mental puzzles, he forgot why he was training. Don's world shrank to the next pushup, and the next problem. Cel was a rigid taskmaster but again, the results spoke for themselves.

STR: 13 --> 16 END: 15 --> 16 INT: 13 --> 14

Don opened up his Attributes for the first time in a while to bask in the tangible progress he was making.

STR: 13 --> 16 CON: 19 INT: 11 --> 14 DEX: 10 --> 13 AGI: 12 END: 14 --> 16 WIS: 11 --> 12

His Status had changed considerably too with higher maximums for his stamina and mana pools.

HP: 78/95 SP: 13/80 MP: 34/70

Don soldiered on through the first rank of fatigue but after he reached the second rank Cel ordered him to rest. He wouldn't make much progress with his strength limited and his time would be better-spent training tomorrow, even if he had to train while hungry.

He woke up feeling much better than he had the last night. He didn't have enough fruit to alleviate his hunger so he skipped breakfast and went straight to training with Sik again. His high constitution was more than enough to offset the 20% penalty to his Stamina regeneration. Gaz came by to insult Don again but scampered away when Sik slashed a gourd in his direction.

A stream of liquid flew out of the gourd and some splashed on the bully. The round filled with that acrid scent again and Gaz scampered off. A couple of lavender stalks masked the scent and the two alchemists continued working in peace. Another fruitful night passed and Don used Cel's [Fairy Dust] again. Despite how great the healing potion worked, it was also very slow. It's not the kind of thing that would be helpful if he was faced with one of the giants again so he used it in a stamina potion.

You have crafted: Feeble Energizing Potion (magical) Sp restoration / second: 1.8

Duration: 5 minutes

Total Effect: +547.2 SP

Side Effects: N/A +147% Concoction skill EXP

It took most of the night this time but Don waited until he ranked up his [concoction] skill again before making the potion so he had the base 1 potency of the plant, plus seven for his concoction skill, another 14 percent boost from his Alchemist profession, and the doubled potency of the [fairy dust]. The combined effect produced an incredibly potent potion.

According to Cel, Stamina potions work on 10-second ticks. This potion would restore nearly two stamina every second for an entire 5 minutes for a total of well over a five hundred stamina points! Don had no idea how he could burn that much energy but he was happy to have an ace up his sleeve and he stored the potion in his now spacious inventory with pride.

The strength training was even more grueling than the night before. His enhanced strength just meant that Cel could demand more from him and she started drilling him on math constantly, not just while he was resting. Don still made progress but it was getting harder and harder to increase his Attributes.

Don ended the morning training session in a drooling stupor but once again, it was well worth it.

STR: 16 --> 17 CON: 19 INT: 14 --> 15 DEX: 13 --> 15 AGI: 12 END: 16 --> 17 WIS: 12

Another 5 points added to his stamina and Mana pools were always welcome. His strength had nearly caught up with his CON too and he was finding it much easier to move around. His soaring DEX contributed to this too and potions that used to take him 15 minutes to craft now only took around 10 minutes. His increased hunger rank the next morning barely slowed him down because he was making so much progress in other areas. Still, a 40% decrease was pretty rough.

His increased endurance brought his daily food needs down to 11 units but that was still more than his 8 remaining fruits could provide. He wasn't willing to waste them with the daily visits from the giants continuing. Now that they were expected however, they were dealt with fairly easily. Sik always had a gourd at hand and sprayed the dome at the first sign of snuffling.

Don learned the recipe for the smelly potion and he put a couple in his inventory along with a few lavender stalks despite the fact that he was expanding the list of hidden objectives on his mandatory quest. Its utility against the giants and Gaz was just too valuable to pass up. It required a 3 potency ingredient called RotFern and was relatively complicated to make, but Don's unwavering focus and commitment to not waste ingredients led to his success yet again.

Cel reported that Gaz was hiding out in the tunnel watching them on the third night. That wasn't entirely unexpected considering Don was now 'mistrusted'. They ignored the spy and continued working. He used his daily ration of [fairy dust] to make a healing potion this time, bringing his increasingly stubborn [concoction] skill up to level 9.

You have crafted: Feeble Healing Potion (magical) HP restoration / minute: 2.1

Duration: 1 hour

Total Effect: +125.28 HP

Side Effects: N/A +61% Concoction skill EXP

At this point, even the least potent healing ingredients could be made into potions that could heal Don for over 125 points of health! Sure, it would take an hour but that was fine considering Don only had 95 health points in total.

With Don's strength gains plateauing, Cel decided it was time to work on his agility. Don spent the morning crawling as fast as he could through the tunnels. It was much easier with his improved strength but he was still battered after a couple of hours. As uncomfortable as it was, the memory of the enraged giant was more than sufficient to keep him motivated. He had to use one of the stink bombs on himself to keep from getting accosted by Gaz's growing gang of cronies. Don went to sleep bruised but happy with his gains again.

STR: 17 CON: 19 INT: 15 --> 16 DEX: 15 --> 16 AGI: 12 --> 14 END: 17 --> 18 WIS: 12 --> 13

When Don woke on the evening of the fourth night, his rank 3 hunger was too much to bear, not when he had delicious fruit at his fingertips. With only a little reluctance he popped one out of his inventory.

"Proof! Do you see? Do you see?" someone squeaked triumphantly.

Don stopped, his hand halfway to his mouth, and looked over to see Gaz at the entrance to the round, pointing at the fruit and shouting over his shoulder to his companions.

Your involvement in revealing the ColoColo refuge has been discovered!

-200 reputation with the ColoColo Refuge. New Reputation Rank: Adversary